Talk:Public Storage

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Recent Edits

Hi. My name is Geoffrey and I work for Public Storage. Recently @Pats322: made some big changes to the page. I think a lot of these changes (see below) made the page worse-off, such as by adding uncited content and removing cited content. I was hoping an impartial editor could assess. All of the citation numbers below refer to the citation numbers in the prior version of the page:

1 Operations/Financials: The entire "Operations" and "Financials" sections were replaced with a "Controversies and legal issues" section that removes all of the routine information and focuses exclusively on the criticisms from the prior sections.

Comments: Removes cited content and does not conform to WP:CRIT. Suggest restoring the original section(s).

2 Adding Controversy: The following was added: "In 2019, the company was fined $140,000 for price gouging after it raised prices by over 10% after the October 2017 Northern California wildfires." and "In 2007, a customer's belongings were auctioned for non-payment while he was serving the US military in Iraq. After receiving negative publicity, Public Storage apologized and gave him $8,000 as compensation for his sold belongings."

Comments: This seems WP:UNDUE, as these are regarding things like a $140,000 fine reported in a short blurb in a local publication. Public Storage is a large multinational corporation. The fine is less than 1% of its annual revenues and is not a historical milestone that belongs in a summary of the company's history.

3 Removing Citations Citation 7 and Citation 8 were removed from the page, leaving a lot of content uncited.

Comments: These are good citations: 7: Rudnitsky, Howard (October 23, 1995). "The king of self-storage". Forbes. Retrieved April 22, 2015; 8: Wrubel, Robert (November 28, 1989). "California Cold Storage". Financial World. I suggest they be restored.

4 Uncited Addition The following was added: "In 1984, PS Reinsurance was formed to sell insurance for a storage unit's contents" with citation 10 as the citation, but I cannot find that in citation 10, nor in any other citations.

Comments: This seems to be uncited original research, as I cannot find this in a citation anywhere.

5 Removal of cited content The following cited content was all removed from the History/Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) section:

Removed cited content

Between 1992 and 1995, Storage Equities paid Public Storage $31 million in management and consulting fees. In 1995, Public Storage and its subsidiaries were merged with its self-storage REIT, Storage Equities Inc., and re-structured as a single REIT called Public Storage Inc. One analyst said the acquisition capitalized on conflict of interest concerns, while Hughes said the merger was set up to alleviate them. In 1995, the company spun-off its box, locks, and packing and moving supplies business into the PS Orangeco subsidiary; Public Storage said this was done to avoid the risk of losing the company's tax-free REIT status if too large a portion of the company's business is no longer related to real estate. This frustrated institutional investors that can only invest in real estate companies and could no longer invest in the new non-real estate subsidiaries. By 1998, Public Storage had $141 million in quarterly revenues, $2 billion in assets and 1,200 facilities in 38 states. Later that year, Public Storage acquired a competing storage company called Storage Trust Realty in a $600 million transaction.

References

Comments: Suggest restoring cited content. I'm not sure why so much history would be deleted.

Overall, I don't think these changes improved the page and the article would be better off just reverting to the prior version. Please let me know how I can be of any further assistance. Geoffreyvee (talk) 21:18, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Partly done:  Done

1. You are clear to restore the citations you mentioned
2. You are clear to remove completely uncited content. Except for the parts where the citations you mentioned should be restored.
3. You are clear to restore the previous cited content
4. Agreed readying citation 10.

 Not done You may not remove the price gouging information. Notability and weight is not determined by percentage of revenue. The sources establish notability here. Czarking0 (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Czarking0:. I restored the prior version of the page in order to restore the deleted citations and content as you approved, then made sure to re-incorporate the new price-gouging sub-section that you said should remain. Hopefully, I didn't mess anything up, but let me know if I did. Geoffreyvee (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Article review

It has been a while since this article was reviewed, so I took a look and noticed that the last two sections of the "History section" are written as one-sentence paragraphs. I think this section needs to be reformatted to adhere to the GA criteria's 1b requirement. There are also some uncited statements. Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 02:26, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Let's let the current discussion / round of editing play out, but I think you raise a good point. Czarking0 (talk) 00:24, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Recent Edits

Hi. My name is Geoffrey and I work for Public Storage. On January 16th, I implemented a series of edits approved by @Czarking0: on the Talk page to remove uncited content, while restoring good citations and cited content that was deleted. A few weeks later @Pats322: made a lot of large cuts again that effectively reverted the page to the prior version. Pinging @Z1720: as well, since they showed a recent interest in the page in regards to its former GA status.

For example "In 1984, PS Reinsurance was formed to sell insurance for a storage unit's contents" was restored again, even though the citation doesn't support it. The Operations section was cut to only the controversies. A lot of cited corporate history on M&A activity was cut from the history section. The editor Pats322's Talk page has many warnings for similar issues of blanking cited content.

Since one editor approved the changes and another effectively reverted them, my hope was that maybe this post would prompt more discussion here. Geoffreyvee (talk) 17:20, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I made some changes. Hopefully we can build towards a consensus version Czarking0 (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

@Pats322: I think the CEO pay should be included. Obviously you do not. To me it is due because sources such as this one publish it. The fact that it is not current is irrelevant because this is a page about the company not only about the current instance of the company. Additionally, I think this is a longstanding inclusion in the article which leaves the onus on you to show it should be removed rather than on myself to indicate why it should be kept.Czarking0 (talk) 00:27, 27 July 2026 (UTC)