From CityLab, July 3:
A startup called Neighbor bills itself as an “Airbnb for storage,” allowing hosts to rent out their empty sheds, closets and basements for other people’s stuff.
Kaleb’s self-storage side hustle started small.And more power to him. As George Carlin pointed out, people have a lot of stuff:
Ten months ago, he started renting out a few nooks and crannies inside the apartment he leased while a student at Brigham Young University, along with an extra parking space that came with the rent. To do this, Kaleb used an app called Neighbor, which connects people who have extra space to spare with people that need to stash their things.
Now, thanks to Neighbor, he has completed a professional journey from college kid to part-time landlord-for-stuff. His properties include the trunk of a busted Cadillac (“Not just any trunk, but a Cadillac’s trunk,” his online ad emphasizes), a storage shed behind the home he now owns, and the side of a chain-link fence, where his tenants can lock bikes on a patch of unmowed grass for $4 a month.
“I had no money, so I was like, if I can make any money whatsoever, at all, I’m game,” said Kaleb, who lives in Provo, Utah, and asked that I not use his last name to keep his financial information private. So far, the app has helped him enter rental relationships with 21 tenants, who store RVs, automobiles, bikes, sweaters, and other random items on a month-to-month basis in his eight listings....MORE
