echnology has brought many changes to the self-storage industry in the last half century. I would like to look at some of the technological changes through a legislative prism.

When the storage industry first organized in 1975, newspapers were king for businesses that wanted to communicate with the public. It was just a few years later that Rupert Holmes sang about taking out a personal ad in hopes of finding a paramour, only to find himself back with his own lovely lady. Songs posted on Instagram about finding a new love interest on Tinder were still decades away; Al Gore had not yet invented the internet.

If you wanted to use a more targeted approach for reaching someone with an important message, you opted for the U.S. Postal Service’s then 20-year-old certified mail service. The first commercially available email was still more than a decade away.

So, when states began to adopt lien laws in the 70s, 80s, and even into the 90s, it was logical for legislators to think of certified mail as the gold standard for reaching non-paying tenants and of newspapers as the ideal way to attract potential bidders to the sale.

Starting in the early 2000s, however, the notion of taking out a personal ad in a newspaper started to sound as quaint as dropping a dime in the pay phone or using the Yellow Pages. And the public increasingly saw green cards attached to certified mail as a sure sign of bad news that should be avoided.

These changes in public opinion have only intensified in the two decades since the SSA started its legislative program. In that time, the SSA and state associations have worked to remove outdated legislative mandates and convince states to recognize important changes in technology and consumer preferences.

By now, nearly every state has eliminated certified mail requirements and allows for default notices to be delivered by verified mail or email. Although newspapers stubbornly hang on in a shrinking minority of states, most legislatures have recognized the power of the internet to reach a much broader audience of potential bidders.

The question then is whether you are still processing liens as if it were 1980, 1990, or 2000, or are you making the most of these and other legislative changes to reach customers more effectively, streamline your operations, and save money?

You can find the status of your state’s legislative updates on the SSA’s Legal Resource Center. If you would like to see our government affairs team address any legislative issues in your state, you can always reach me at jdoherty@selfstorage.org.