Jul
11
Got Junked
July 11, 2007 | 1 Comment
I have been delaying a good basement/garage cleaning. Some things are just difficult to dump on the regular weekly trash pick-ups: tires, appliances, de-humidifiers and A/Cs, exercise machines, etc. That was the kind of stuff I had accumulated over the years and had neglected to dump. I am putting some things in order in my life and this was the time to do it. Besides, you never know when you may want to sell a house (which sells better if there is no clutter).I have used trash cleanup services before, to clean up rental units from the garbage left by previous tenants. Have paid less than $100 for an appliance and similar stuff. And I have usually used guys advertised on local papers. Never before had called people to trash things out of my home (I guess I don’t buy too much stuff that could be trashed). Today I decided to try a different service: 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
The experience was very professional, more so than the typical refuse removal service. Today, at 7am I went to their website ( www.1800gotjunk.com ) and scheduled an appointment for the time window of 8:30am to 10:30am on the same day! I was surprised about this. No need to call, and confirmation was almost instantly. Apparently the franchise organizes their schedule for them.
Sure enough, at around 9:00am the guys called telling me that they where coming to my house, and shortly before 10:00am they showed up with a blue truck. Both guys where clean, uniformed, and explained the pricing before the job. Picked up everything, and gave me a bill to pay with credit card (another thing that not every service offers).
The bill was a bit steep. $208 for a grill, a de-humidifier, 4 tires, an exercise machine, a cabinet, and some other miscellaneous garbage. I think that if I had called a local team I would have saved 25%, but I may not have had fast service, easy scheduling, or the professional treatment.
What I learned (or confirmed)?
- Service franchises put an overhead cost in the services offered.
- Service franchises usually treat customers in a more professional, rehearsed way.
- Service franchises have a bigger name to keep – when more is at stake, they take better care of it.
- For cheaper service, I should have gone with a local team.
- Disposing of stuff is a large percentage of the actual cost of the items. Maybe between 10 and 20% in some cases. I do not want to imagine how much some shop-a-holics may spend on disposal fees every year.
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There are free dump days in california where you can dump your junk in a dumpster for free.. although I guess you would have had to dissassemble everything.
I would never spend that kind of money on throwing stuff out. I would have placed a Craigslist ad and said “free execrise machine deliver not included”