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Garage report: Cars lose ground to clutter

Research conducted by Continental Tyres has found that junk has taken over our garages while our cars have to sleep out on the street.

According to the study amongst 2000 drivers, less than every third vehicle owner is actually using the garage for its original purpose: to park the car. Instead, over a third of the garage space is taken up by other collectibles from our daily live and the garage has become something of an additional room of the house, rather than being the house dedicated to the car.

The report however alerts that abandonning the garage can lead to problems as routine maintenance checks on tha car may be neglected and a car parked out on the street is exposed to more riscs, be it environmental, theft or vandalism.

Further, the study points out, that the values stored inside the garage are in no proportion to the value of the average car: £2,808 for the junk versus £11,157 for the car.

To find out, which are the most common items to swamp our garages, browse the gallery below:

10. Gym/fitness equipment

If the car has to give way for the private gym, it is at least for a good cause. Keeping fit is the way to go. What do we need a car for anyways? We walk or ride a bike!

9. Sports equipment

The active family always has to keep up with the latest trends and consequently the sports equipment has the tendency to exponential growth. Just take the winter sports: alpine, cross-country, snowboard, bigfoots, the ordinary slide (of course the classic wooden version and the most recent high-tech material variant)....

8. Unwanted boxes from last house move

A less pleasing topic, probably a sensitive issue to touch upon at the dinner table, if not to say a skeleton in the closet...ehrm garage.

7. Fridge/freezer

There are two options: either this is the families holiest treasure chest, the eternal source of ice cream and frozen pizzas ... OR ... this is just another skeleton in the closet: the defunct, discarded antique electronic device that is waiting to be taken to the special waste disposal - already since before you moved in here!

6. Garden furniture

Reasonable. They otherwise catch wind and rain, go bad and foul away.

5. Bicycles

Obviously bikes have as much a natural right to the garage as a car, if not even more than a car. The argument? They are smaller and weaker and don't have an alarm as self-defense. But even more importantly they don't have their own roof to shelter themselves from rain, wind, snow and ice. They deserve a warm shelter!

4. Lawnmower/strimmer

Essential tool to keep the fragile peace in the neighborhood. If the lawn turns into a jungle because the mower is on strike, the neighbours will be on strike in no time too. So better keep that one save.

3. DIY paraphernalia

Well, sensitive issue. Everyone is an artist and we don't want to hurt each other's feelings by judging the value of a high school papier mâché project versus the family van.