What Does a Morning of Junk Removal Actually Look Like?
Written By: DaShawn Williams
When I hear the words “junk removal,” I have always pictured something pretty extreme. A garage packed from floor to ceiling. An entire house that needs to be cleaned out. Maybe a basement full of things someone has collected over the years.
So, when I recently got the chance to spend a morning with our TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK crew in Madison, I realized pretty quickly that my idea of what a normal junk removal job looks like was a little off.
The morning started at our office around 7:30 with the team’s morning huddle. The guys went over safety, expectations, things that had gone well, things that could improve and took some time to recognize employees. There was also breakfast, which made the early start a little easier for me. But what I was really there for was the chance to get out with our JUNK crew.
I had been around some bigger junk removal jobs before, but I had never really followed the guys through several regular stops in one morning. They had eight jobs scheduled throughout the day, four in the morning and four in the afternoon, and I tagged along for the first half.
A morning with our Madison JUNK crew showed me pretty quickly just how different every stop can look. What surprised me most was how different the jobs were from what I had pictured.
One customer needed a couch removed. Another needed one large area rug gone. And that was it. Sometimes junk removal really is as simple as getting one bulky item out of the way. Those stops didn't involve a packed garage or an entire house. Someone simply had one large item they no longer wanted and needed a way to get rid of it.
That sounds obvious now, but I honestly had never thought about junk removal that way. There are probably a lot of people with an old couch, mattress, rug or some other bulky item sitting around because they don't have a truck, don't know where to take it or simply don't want to deal with moving it themselves.
Then there are jobs on the completely opposite end of the spectrum. Later that morning, the crew worked on a backyard that had a mixture of outdoor items, gardening materials, cages and a large piece of pool equipment filled with sand.
Other stops can be a little more involved, like clearing out a mix of old outdoor and backyard items. That was probably the best example of something else I noticed throughout the morning: every stop requires the guys to figure out a slightly different problem.
There isn't always an obvious way to get something out. At one point, the guys spent a few minutes debating the best way to move the heavy pool equipment down an area covered in rocks. One of them was convinced his idea would work. The other was equally convinced it wouldn't.
After giving the first idea a shot, it became pretty clear who had been right. That was followed almost immediately by a very sarcastic, drawn-out: “I told youuuu. Listennnnn.”
I couldn't help but laugh.
There was a lot of that throughout the morning. They'd give each other a hard time, joke around and argue over the best way to do something, but underneath all of it you could tell they knew how to work together. It gave me a chance to see the people behind the service instead of only seeing the finished job.
Another thing I got a better understanding of was what happens after everything is loaded onto the truck. We talk about trying to recycle and reuse items whenever possible, but hearing that and actually seeing the process are two different things. One of the most interesting parts for me was getting to see what happens after everything is loaded onto the truck.
During the morning, I was able to follow the crew to a recycling facility where the appropriate materials were separated before the remaining items were taken for disposal. That was probably one of the more interesting parts of the experience for me because it showed that junk removal isn't necessarily as simple as loading everything into a truck and dumping it somewhere.
Even one of our stops at the VA hospital in Madison looked completely different from everything else we had done that morning. The crew regularly helps remove Styrofoam there, adding yet another thing to the list of items I never would have immediately associated with a normal day of junk removal.
And I think that was ultimately my biggest takeaway. There really isn't one definition of a “normal” junk removal job. It could be one couch. It could be an area rug. It could be a backyard with a little bit of everything. It could be recurring materials from a local organization. Or it could be a much larger cleanout.
Spending the morning with our JUNK crew changed the way I look at the service because I realized you don't need to wait until you have an overwhelming amount of stuff before asking for help. Sometimes there is simply one thing sitting around that you are ready to finally get rid of.
And after seeing the variety of stops our crew handled in just a few hours, I learned pretty quickly that whatever that item happens to be, there's a good chance they have seen something just as random before.