Meet Michael Haskell: The 18-year-old who turned $10 storage units into $135,000 business from other people’s abandoned belongings | World News

At 18, Michael Haskell has been turning other people’s abandoned belongings into a business that brought in about $135,000 in 2025. He buys storage units across the New York tri-state area without knowing exactly what is inside, then sorts through the contents looking for objects that can be resold. The idea grew from a habit he picked up as a child, when he sold books on eBay and held onto discontinued Lego sets in the hope that they would become more valuable.By high school, Haskell was also thinking about college and how he might distinguish himself from applicants with stronger academic records. Then he watched an episode of Storage Wars. According to CNBC, in early 2024, he spent just $10 on his first unit. A carbon dioxide canister from it sold for $40, giving him an early glimpse of what the business could become.

A young reseller Haskell’s journey from eBay to abandoned storage units

Haskell had been buying and selling things long before he started bidding on storage units. As a child, he sold books on eBay for small profits and occasionally bought Lego sets that he thought might become more valuable once they were discontinued. He did not have a fixed career plan in mind. Running something of his own, though, was an idea that had stayed with him.By high school, college applications gave that idea a more immediate purpose. Haskell says he felt uneasy seeing classmates with near-perfect grades and began thinking about what might distinguish him from a large pool of applicants. The answer was not another academic credential. He started looking for something unusual he could build himself.“I never knew what I was going to be doing” career-wise, Haskell says. But “I always thought I was going to be doing something on my own.”A repeat airing of Storage Wars happened to catch his attention. The programme introduced him to the idea of buying units whose owners had stopped paying for them, with the contents then offered for sale. In early 2024, he bought his first unit for just $10.Inside was a carbon dioxide canister, which he later sold for $40. That modest transaction was enough to keep him interested.

AI Generated

One $450 storage unit changed the game for the young reseller

Storage-unit auctions do not come with an inventory list. Buyers may see photographs or limited information, but much of what they are paying for remains hidden. Haskell began treating that uncertainty as a research problem.The most important purchase came relatively early. Reportedly, he paid $450 for a unit that he discovered had belonged to Andrew Crispo, a Manhattan art dealer whose name later became associated with a criminal case.Among the contents were works connected to artists Man Ray and Walt Kuhn. Haskell says the paintings and drawings eventually sold for a combined $36,000.The find gave the young business owner something he had not expected so soon: evidence that a relatively inexpensive unit could contain items worth many times the purchase price. It also changed the way he approached future auctions. He began wondering whether the next unit might contain another discovery of similar value.

How small details help him judge a storage unit

Haskell says he tries to work out who previously owned a unit and what their background might have been. A university sweatshirt or college memorabilia, for example, may have little resale value by itself. Yet it can tell him something about the person whose possessions he is buying. That information may lead him to examine the rest of the unit differently.A collection of books can provide another clue. So can the type of furniture, artwork, clothing or personal memorabilia left behind.The individual objects do not necessarily make money. Sometimes they help explain the rest of the collection. That approach has become one of the more unusual parts of Haskell’s operation. Instead of judging an auction entirely from the obvious objects visible in photographs, he tries to assemble a picture from details that might otherwise be ignored.According to the documents reviewed by CNBC, he and several friends have also developed an AI-based tool that searches for names associated with storage units, giving him another way to identify potentially interesting lots before bidding.

How he turns storage-unit finds into sellable inventory

Haskell typically pays $500 or less for a storage unit, although there is no guarantee that a purchase will prove profitable. Once he wins one, the less glamorous part begins.The contents have to be removed, transported, sorted, photographed and listed for sale. Some objects require further research before he can decide what to charge. He has used Google Lens and ChatGPT to identify unfamiliar items and compares prices with existing eBay listings.He estimates that he now spends between 20 and 25 hours each week on the business. The physical inventory has also become difficult to ignore. Much of it is stored at his mother’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where the garage has shelves packed with labelled containers. Boxes and crates extend through parts of the house, holding everything from trainers and records to furniture, books and older objects.As reported, Haskell estimates that there are somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 books in the house alone.Some purchases sell within a couple of weeks. Others remain there for months, and occasionally years. Not everything is listed for sale, either. If he comes across an item he particularly likes, he may keep it.

Haskell learned to balance school with weekend storage-unit sales

The business also grew around Haskell’s school schedule. While he was still a minor, his mother helped him sign for storage units. She sometimes dealt with buyers when he was in class, while Haskell used weekends to clear units and prepare the next week’s schoolwork.His interest in second-hand goods had already been influenced by watching his mother negotiate at estate sales. That gave him an early sense of how prices could vary between what something appeared to be worth and what a buyer would actually pay.The arrangement was practical as much as entrepreneurial. School remained his main weekday responsibility, while the storage business had to fit around it.There were weekends spent clearing lockers, followed by the familiar rush to get everything ready before Monday.

The business became part of his college story

Haskell graduated from high school in June and is now preparing to begin at Emory University in Atlanta.He believes the storage-unit business helped him stand apart during the admissions process. His college essay focused on something found inside one of the units: a Purple Heart.Rather than putting the medal up for sale, Haskell tried to return it to its original owner. He found an address on a package in the same storage unit and went there, but received no response. He also left a letter.The medal remains with him. That episode became a different kind of lesson from the financial discoveries that had made the business successful. Not everything that comes out of a storage unit can be reduced to a resale price.

The storage business gave Haskell a new eye for value

Two years of buying other people’s abandoned belongings have also altered Haskell’s own shopping habits.He says he buys fewer new things and has become more interested in older furniture and clothing, partly because he sees them as better made. Spending time surrounded by thousands of objects has given him a different view of how much people accumulate.The experience has also made the television version of storage-unit auctions less appealing to him. What looks like a quick hunt for hidden treasure on screen leaves out much of the work that follows: identifying an object, checking its history, finding comparable prices, photographing it, storing it and waiting for someone to buy it.