Boring Millionaires

The database Entry no. 017

The locker gambler

Michael Haskell paid about $10 for his first abandoned storage locker in early 2024, at a New Jersey facility his mother drove him to. In 2025 Mike's Unique Treasures brought in $135,000, $97,434 through eBay and $37,500 through an auction house, returning roughly $82,000 in operating earnings, per documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. He runs it from his mother's garage.

By Kevin Glover. Figures as reported in the sources below. Updated August 2026. A 6 minute read.

Elsewhere in this ledger, Nick Huber collects rent on 1.9 million square feet of storage. Michael Haskell works the other end of that machine: when a unit's owner stops paying and the contents go to auction, he is the teenager bidding on the door. Through Mike's Unique Treasures, run from his mother's garage and basement in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, he buys abandoned lockers across the New York metro area and resells what is inside. CNBC Make It, reviewing his documents, reported $135,000 of 2025 revenue, $97,434 of it on eBay and $37,500 through an auction house, returning roughly $82,000 in operating earnings.

The business is professionally unglamorous in a way television has misrepresented for a decade. The reality is inventory work: photograph everything, list relentlessly, know the resale price of a used table saw to the dollar, and treat the occasional find as variance rather than strategy. The units are bought nearly blind, from the doorway, which makes the skill judgment under uncertainty, priced in minutes. His first locker cost about $10, and the most valuable thing in it was a CO2 canister he sold for $40. His best cost $450 and held artwork that went for nearly $50,000 at auction. Both numbers are the same business.

Every locker is a sealed bet on the ordinary possessions of a stranger who stopped paying. The trade, summarized

Why this counts as boring

The Boring Index panel scored this entry 82, the database's floor, and debated it hardest, because auctions carry a gambling glamour the category otherwise lacks. What kept it in: the demand is a structural byproduct of self-storage itself. Every facility in Huber's portfolio, and every one like it, produces delinquent units on schedule, and someone must clear them. Haskell is downstream sanitation for the storage industry, with a resale margin attached.

The age is the point

At 18, with documented six-figure earnings and no employees, Haskell is this ledger's clearest evidence that the entry ramp to unglamorous money is short. No license, no degree, no fleet: an auction account, a vehicle, and the patience to list a stranger's furniture at fair prices. He also runs Storage Angels, which clears unwanted lockers and donates usable goods, reportedly around $20,000 of items and 700 pounds of clothing.

He started at Emory University in Atlanta this year and is candid that the business may not survive the move, since Atlanta is less densely populated than the tri-state area and auction supply thins with it. He is weighing building storage facilities in rural markets instead, which would put him on the other side of the same industry as Nick Huber. The next update will test whether the model compounds, plateaus, or ends, and we intend to make it.

Common questions

How much can you make flipping storage units?

The documented case: $135,000 of revenue in 2025 at 18, about $82,000 of it operating earnings, verified by CNBC's document review and split $97,434 on eBay against $37,500 through an auction house. The honest mechanics are resale at volume; the $450 locker holding $50,000 of art is variance, not the model.

How do storage unit auctions work?

When a renter goes delinquent, the facility lien-sells the contents, typically viewed from the doorway for a few minutes, no entry allowed. The winner pays for everything sight-mostly-unseen and must clear the unit fast, which is why facilities like the arrangement.

Is storage unit flipping a real business or a TV fantasy?

Real, and duller than television: the work is photographing, listing, and pricing used goods with discipline. Haskell's verified $135,000, on roughly $82,000 of operating earnings, is a volume-and-margins result. The jackpot-locker genre is entertainment; the spreadsheet is the business.

Sources

Built by @gloverbuilds
Kevin Glover@gloverbuilds on X ↗

Fifteen years building companies quietly. Now I ship them in public, with the real numbers.

SideRoadA new business every week, built in public with real revenue. ShipWolfThe solo-founder launch kit behind the weekly builds. TextScrubrStrip hidden formatting and AI tells out of any text. Boring MillionairesDocumented owners of profitable, unglamorous businesses. All links open in a new tab.