Carter Stevens earned roughly $140,000 in total sales between September 2025 and September 2026 by salvaging trashed items from dumpsters around Nashville, cleaning them and reselling them on eBay and Facebook Marketplace, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, CNBC reported. The 31-year-old diver, who began the practice in March 2024, has pulled hand-crafted Persian rugs, high-end office chairs and samurai swords from office parks and luxury condominiums.
The figure stands out against a backdrop of roughly 10,000 junk removal businesses operating across the U.S., according to the Better Business Bureau. Those range from independent side hustles to national franchises like 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which touts more than 150 locations. Stevens differentiates his operation by taking only items he can resell and by sourcing cardboard boxes and packing tape from dumpsters, eliminating shipping supply costs approximately 90% of the time.
Stevens Dropped Out of College in 2018
Stevens is the son of a five-time Grammy Award-winning producer of country and gospel music who has worked with Blake Shelton and Carrie Underwood. While at college, his addiction to prescription Adderall led him to withdraw partway through his senior year in 2018. Without a degree, he struggled to land full-time work and instead combed thrift shops for vintage apparel to resell, inspired by YouTube influencers such as Rick Senko, whose Fort Lauderdale-based clothing resale business Technsports brought in $6.5 million in annual revenue as recently as 2024.
Rehab in 2021 Preceded a Slide into Homelessness
His parents paid for a rehab stint in 2021 that Stevens credits with helping him quit hard drugs, but he kept spending on luxury items such as a $1,200 pair of Christian Dior Birkenstock sandals, an 85-inch flat-screen television and a $30,000 down payment on a Mercedes-AMG sedan he later lost. By June 2023, he could no longer afford rent, living in a storage unit until security evicted him and then sleeping in his Nissan Sentra for three weeks. A cousin lent him money to rent an apartment in October 2023.
A $35 Shoe Sale in March 2024 Launched the Diving
Five months after obtaining housing, Stevens came across a discarded pair of black Nike Air Force Ones in good condition beside a gas station pump. He sanitized them and sold them online for $35, his first profit from trash. That find prompted him to start dumpster diving regularly. His largest haul came from an overflowing office park dumpster containing 190 discarded Steelcase office chairs, each worth more than $1,000 when new. He transported them with a used pickup truck and self-built trailer, selling most in bulk on Facebook Marketplace for $17,000 and the remainder individually for $10,600. He has also found 120 standing desks during a company downsizing, along with West Elm furniture, iPads and power tools near high-end apartment buildings.
Real Estate Wholesaling Offers a More Stable Path
Stevens says the income is not sustainable, noting that the majority of his earnings came from large hauls during five peak months. He saves as much as possible and is studying real estate wholesaling—securing contracts for distressed properties and flipping them to investors for a fee—as a more secure livelihood. He still plans to check promising dumpsters, he says, but the diving remains a hit-or-miss supplement rather than a guaranteed salary.