N.J. Teen Earns $7K Monthly by Buying Abandoned Storage Units

Michael Haskell, a 17-year-old high school senior from New Jersey, generates more than $7,000 each month by purchasing abandoned storage units and selling the valuable items he finds on eBay.

His most notable find was a $450 storage unit in Brooklyn that once belonged to Andrew Crispo, a prominent art dealer from the 1980s. This unit contained artwork by Man Ray and Walt Kuhn, which later fetched nearly $50,000 at auction through Bonhams.

Haskell reinvests his earnings into S&P 500 stocks and has organized a warehouse of his inventory within his mother’s garage.

To evaluate the worth of items, he employs Google Lens AI and has created a ChatGPT-based program that cross-checks the names of storage unit owners with news articles. This helps him identify potentially valuable memorabilia linked to famous former owners.