apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Absolutely. During the winter (and into spring), boots, shoes, shovel, etc are stored on the front porch. And I can often use it as an extra fridge. The back porch is currently holding gardening tools, compost for our raised bed & the numerous yard shoes.

In my area, anything you leave outside is considered fair game. Everything, even the most mundane object, has a chance of walking away.

Nope, it's a "room" and usually only contains what that room is supposed to have in it. Although, to be totally honest, since it's a new house with no landscaping yet, my bronze heron yard birds (Japanese) are there until I find a safe place to display them (they are the type of thing that people have been known to steal.) Also, the replacement mail box for the cheap temporary one is there until we have weather suitable for installing it. But that is an exception to normal behavior!

nooooo... with the exception of things like a snow shovel or if there are proper containers so it's not just a pile of junk, I generally find it tacky and lazy. our lease actually states that we can't use our balcony for storage.

I keep two of our three bicycles on the balcony year-round because I have nowhere else to store them. Other than that, just some firewood and our patio furniture.

My apartment complex has a rule against using the patio/balcony for storage and clothesdrying.

i don't have a porch; all we've got is a fire escape. but i've found that, because the view from our kitchen and living room windows includes several back porches on the neighboring street, i've developed quite an opinion {and, er, streak of bitterness} on the subject.

if your porch is completely out-of-sight with respect to your neighbors, do whatever you want with it.

but if other view your porch from their homes, ahem:

i am all for using the space to line-dry your laundry or to "store" outdoorsy items like bicycles, terra cotta pots, shovels, firewood, bags of soil, and other things that don't look completely out of place on a porch.

but please please please keep it organized.

my neighbors' back porches look like trash heaps. there are rags and old clothes in piles on the ground. one house has an old wooden door out there, precariously balanced atop a mound of kids toys, cardboard boxes, broken chairs, and various other crap. the thing is not only an eyesore, but to make matters worse they lock their dog out there for hours on end. it's so bad that i've actually thought about calling to report animal abuse.

gross.

In the winter all my summer supplies (gardening, camping, beach) go in the trunk of my car. Its shameful, but effective!

Apartments can have porches?

Unless you are a hillbilly ( I do not mean this in a derogatory sense - they are the only people I can think of that could pull this off), I can't imagine this being ok anywhere. Your porch is on your property but outside of your home in full view of neighbors. Why for the love of all that is righteous would you use it as a storage shed? Its tasteless, tacky and downright ugly, not to mention a potential fire hazard. Why, why, why would anyone do this.

I have no problem with storing some things on the front porch, a bike, some gardening supplies, store lawn chairs, but my downstairs neighbors pile theirs full of broken tools and ugly lawn ornaments, and I have to admit it is obnoxious to have to walk past it everyday to get the mail. I have my fingers crossed that it will clean up once the weather gets a little warmer, but I don't have much hope.