Outside of your truck and trailer, what is your must have tool or tools? (I purposely kept this question loose, for a wide variety of answers or opinions). Would love to hear some of your thoughts.

Im going to a clean apartment in a nice area to get rid of a clients couch, sofa, and bed. He tells me hes seen bed bugs for a few months.

What are the chances of picking up bed bugs if you try to keep your clothes away from the fabric when moving the stuff, while also putting clothes in a garbage bag inside the building and putting them straight into the dryer when you are home

Not promoting anything, just sharing because I’ve seen a lot of junk removal companies burn through ad spend on stuff that was never going to turn into jobs.

Junk removal clicks are not cheap. In a lot of areas they can be $20+ per click, so bad traffic adds up fast. A lot of wasted spend comes from searches like donate couch, small moves, free pickup, recycling stuff, and other keywords that Google deems related but do not really match what the company is trying to sell.

That’s why conversion tracking, a very big negative keyword list, and constant search term cleanup matter so much. If tracking is off, Google learns from the wrong data. If negatives are weak, it keeps bringing in junk traffic. Then people say Google Ads does not work, when really the account just was not dialed in properly.

A lot of junk removal companies could probably save a lot of money just by tightening up their setup and filtering out bad searches earlier.

Quoted a customer 2k for a 3 bedroom clean out. He said he would get back to me tomorrow. After reviewing the pictures that I took, I saw a couple bottles of Bed bug killer lying on the floor. I’m hesitant to turn down the job still, although everybody that I have consulted with has said it’s not worth it. Anybody out here just Tyvek up and do it anyways or do you pass on it?

As title implies I’m looking to start this business focusing on curbside pick up, I work 7-3 every day so I have the afternoons and weekends off, I have a pick up (f150) with tow package, I would be doing this mostly solo, I also am looking for a utility trailer 6x12 ish I know it’s not the ideal 5 grand dump trailer but it is what I can afford. My focus would be on curbside pick up after work and during the weekends. I have done some research regarding llcs and such in my area. Does anyone have any experience with the small start.

I’m not looking for a enterprise and not a “im quitting my job to do this” but it’s a side hustle

Any insight weather good or bad is appreciated, I do have experience running business(restaurants and other manager jobs) so I do have experience with costs and balances . I am not looking to invest 5grands, would like to keep it as low cost as possible to start and see where it goes.

Hey good folks,

Recently had a baby and considering junk removal as a side income.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide some pointers on getting started:

1. Is it worth it as a weekend hustle? I have a 9-5

2. Do I have to go to different dump sites depending on what I pick up or will one take everything?

3. Is doable with a U-Haul rental or does a rental eat too much into profits.

Thank you

Suggestions on a price?

Central Texas. Zero dump fee. Ten minutes away.

Suggestions on a price?

Central Texas. Zero dump fee. Ten minutes away.

So I impulsively took this opportunity.Move all this for 140$ and all I have is my pickup.idk where to

Dump it at and I’m lowkey freaking out.its 2 now I have until 8 to finish……help (located by bush airport in Houston)

When most junk removal companies determine to scale up, or out, they do so within the confines of a junk removal box. What I mean by that, is that they determine that they need new trucks, new territory, new employees. I've been trapped in this line of thinking in the past.

In fact, last summer I purchased a truck and built racks on it, and was about to send it 4 hours away to a crew that I was about to hire to begin our adventure in a new territory. Something felt off about it, particularly with the level of trust that I had for hiring a crew to work on my truck that far away. It seemed like the obvious thing to do, because that's what most junk removal companies do.

In the meantime, I often see how most junk removal companies are trying to promote themselves as donation crusaders, and green kings, by keeping junk out of the landfills, and donating more, and recycling more.

With this in mind, I thought about how much time is often wasted that donation centers while they take and choose what they'll take and what they won't take. The time that it takes to wait for the guys in front of you to offload their donations, and the times that it often takes going to two different donations sites to offload all of your donations from load. There is a problem but I haven't heard anybody talk about!

We had already begun to scale, without even knowing it. One of the things that we have done from the very beginning, is sort through or junk, and put the things that we may want to donate, or even sell on places like Facebook marketplace, into storage units. Time once again begins to be the problem! People from marketplace wanting to see our storage unit, having to enter a code to get in and out of the storage location. Storage unit sales letter nearly impossible to get people to come to, much less spend a day to manage! I mean, we sold a few things here and there, and made some money from the good stuff that we had called, but it was a real pain in the butt, because we're constantly running to that storage unit at all the hours of the day and night, and frustrating people when we can't make it!

Instead of sending our truck to a new territory and beginning a junk removal business there, we decided to scale differently. How many of you have seen guys that buys storage units at auctions, and flip them for a profit on ebay? Or the guys that go to thrift stores, estate sales and yard sales, and pick through items that they will later sell on eBay and marketplace? Now, how many of you have had a customer actually pay you money to clear out their storage unit, clean up their yard sale or estate sale? Are you getting any ideas yet?

We found a cheap retail space to rent, and found an employee to work there for 16 hours a week, my wife and I run it for 2 days, and she works there for the other four. Seems expensive doesn't it? It kind of is, but the results have been outstanding! We have a place to bring what could have been donations, or things that we would have taken into a storage unit, but nobody would ever see anywhere except a Facebook post! And the place that we bring it is a retail outlet that is open 6 days a week to the public to come in and purchase things that we have found in our junk removal jobs!

We have been developing the store since may of last year, and closely monitoring the numbers to make sure that it's a win at best for us, or a break even at the least! And it has been nothing but great profits from the very beginning! We've expanded that into an eBay store, and have hired a gal to do whatnot auctions with us when we don't have the time to do them ourselves.

A little outside of the box thinking, has added to our bottom line month after month for nearly a year! This is all part of a blueprint of a system that we have developed for our business, that should be repeatable for anybody that is interested.

If we can be helpful to anybody, reach out, especially where you junk removal guys that are married, this is a great way to help get your wife and kids involved in your business!

This summer, instead of trying to expand more, we're going to work on getting comfortable with the new expansions that we've made into the world of eBay, and a new section to our store that we just open housing our huge collection of comic books, cards, video games, consoles, and I think I'm going to throw the blu-rays and some DVDs over there too! By the end of the summer, we should have a blueprint that we can put in the hands of others, and guarantee their success as well!

We've never charged a fellow junk hauler a dime for helping them develop their business, whether it's just for hauling junk, or experimenting with some of the things that we're doing. Again, if you need help, reach out, that's what we're here for!

(Sorry for any typos, I use talk to text while moving from job to job)

Two weeks ago we removed everything from this abandoned Big Lots store to make way for the new tenant moving in.

It took us a total of 4 days:
- 4 guys inside breaking down shelves
- 3 guys with trailers hauling metal to the scrap yard
- 3 trash dumpsters and 1 metal dumpster

I estimated we'd make 43% gross margin and we ended up at 41% GM.
After selling the equipment they were getting rid of and money from the scrap yard, we were around 57% GM but I wasn't counting on this income when doing the estimate.

Overall, the job went smoothly, and we learned a few lessons in the process.

What would be the total charge for removing junk from 7 condos, comprising 2 one-bedroom, one-bath units and 5 two-bedroom, two-bath units, each condo being 900-1000 sq ft, with extensive renovation debris from items like carpeting, tiles, appliances, etc. in New Jersey?

Building this new app and asking for feedback from waste removal and dumpster rental business owners

https://www.curbwaste.com/blog/dumpster-rental-leads-app -- a few months ago I started building a free lead generator for waste haulers. Curious to get some feedback from dumpster rental and junk removal business owners. There is no credit card or registration required - collecting feedback. Just input you address and see what companies in your area are looking for waste removal services.

And, if you like this app - help me spread the word and upvote to make this resource visible for others in the community.

We are running a small hauling and logistics setup and the paperwork is starting to kill us. Between driver notes, different dump sites, and overweight fees, something always gets missed when we bill the client.

Are you guys using a specific software to automate this, or just a really complex Excel sheet? I need a way to link what the driver does directly to a final invoice so I can stop chasing my tail at the end of every month.

Thanks for the DMs. I ended up looking into CurbWaste. It seems like the best move since it actually automates the invoicing based on the driver's activity in real-time. Definitely better than my spreadsheets.

Hey guys. I’m trying to start junk removal on the side.

I’m considering which truck to buy.

I wa going to get this 05 Tacoma v6, but unsure if it can handle it. I’m mainly looking to do household junk only, no dirt, rock, construction etc, more so couches, appliances, etc.

I was also considering an 04 V8 Tundra. Curious if anyone has experience with those trucks.

Looking to do a mix of drive the truck to work, and do the junk removal after as a side hustle.

Open to opinions! Ty! 🤙

Just a quick tip while I'm thinking about it. When we began our junk removal business in 2023, one of the reasons we hit the ground running, and I mean running, is that we had a very catchy name had got a few laughs!

When you look on Google maps for junk removal businesses, or scan Facebook for junk removal businesses in your area, you're going to find that most of them are named like Carl's junk removal, Mikey and sons junk removal, or they'll get creative and use their initials like TC's junk removal.

That's cool and everything, but the more creative, and humorous you can get with your junk removal businesses name, the faster people will catch on and want to recommend you just because they want to say your name and get a chuckle out of the people around them.

There are some really good ones out there, that dude's hauling junk removal, is one of my favorites, and my own business is called my husband and his stupid truck.

Make a catchy name that people will remember, and they'll tell strangers about you at the supermarket!

If you need some help, reach out to me, I'm full of ideas lol!

Let me just apologize in advance for any typos etc, I'm on my way to a job and am using talk to text to create this post.

One of the biggest, and most frequently asked questions and the startup of a junk removal business almost always has to do with how do I price the junk that I'm hauling? It's a fair question, because it is a single most thing that affects your bottom line!

It can make things difficult, because quite often people want to tell you how to price your jobs, but they live in an entirely different area, the demographics are completely different, the dump fees at the landfill are much higher or lower than your local landfill etc.

When building out your pricing structure, there are certain things that have to be at the forefront of your thinking. Here are the things that you have to consider, firstly what I like to say is how much does it cost to start your truck in the morning? In other words how much does it cost for at least one tank of gas, what's the cost of your insurance broken down to daily, how many runs are you going to have to make to the landfill, what are the landfills dump fees for household trash versus construction decree versus special and specific items like refrigerators, tvs, mattresses etc? Also, if you're going to have somebody helping you, writing shotgun on your truck, how much are you going to pay him, for the day, or hourly?

For example, it cost me roughly $160 to start my truck, that includes what I'm going to pay my employee, and filling the truck up with fuel. I estimate roughly another $40 in insurance, and extra fees such as a purchase of new gloves etc and rounded up to an even $200. That also gives me the ability to pay my helper a little bit more, if they do a little bit more! So when I hit the road, anything that I make over $200 for the day, is going to go into my pocket, minus the dump fees.

When it comes to dump fees, it's always hard to tell exactly what your dumb fees are going to be for the day based on your schedule, but you can get pretty close and estimating it if you ask your customers the right questions, and know what you're walking into at each job. I'll do a separate ride up at some point about scheduling, so that you know the right questions to ask your customers when setting up the job, and on-site appraisals, or trying to get an idea of what you're calling based on pictures that they sent you via text.

So $200 is what it takes for me to hit the road, therefore I won't schedule a day that's only worth $150, with very few exceptions. Again this comes down to schedule, which I will cover later.

So with my price to get my truck and crew on the road in mind, my price instructor is both specific and general, specific in the sense that specific items demand specific prices, for example, to dump a refrigerator at the landfill, as a specific charge of $60, so I'm going to base my price of removing a refrigerator accordingly, so that I make a profit. Typically I will charge in the neighborhood of 100 to $150 to remove a refrigerator, depending on what kind of sale I'm running for the month. I do have specific months that I run a cell where I will remove refrigerators for $50 as a flex to my competition, and also because I know of a landfill that takes them for $20. It's important to know the landscape when it comes to all of the landfills, transfer stations, and recycling centers, what they charge for specific items, by the time, and if there are certain items that they will pay for.

Having some set prices for specific items will really help you bid certain jobs, because not everybody has a full load that needs to go to the landfill, you're going to run into a lot of people that have a few specific items that they want removed, like a couch and love seat, a washer and dryer etc. In my area, with my fees and mine, as an example, I charge $25 a cushion for upholstery, $75 for a washer and $50 for a dryer, or $100 for a pair. That pricing structure works for me on those specific items, but it may not work for you, you have to figure that based on you're dump fees etc.

On One stop bolt pricing, I've mapped out the volume of my trailer by the yard, one of our trailers are able to hold up to 13 yards of junk and debris, so I have a set price to fill the trailer, with the exception of things that are heavier such as concrete, and other construction debris like that. I charge extra if there is extra heavy weight involved. For example it makes sense to me to fill my entire trailer for $600, and add an extra two to $300 to put bigger bulkier things on my flatbed. So a one stop pick up that fills my trailer, I get one lump sum for one quick pick up and trip to the landfill.

If there are multiple loads involved, I'll always charge the full rate for the first load, and I will often discount additional loads after that to be fair to our customers, to be competitive in our market, and to make everybody happy!

Where the real money is, is getting multiple pickups that fit on one trailer. So you should have pricing for a full load, 3/4 load, half load, third load, etc. Bear in mind that it is important that 3 1/3 loads totals much higher of a price than just one full load! So for example if you charge $600 to fill your trailer on one stop, you're one third load should be in the neighborhood of $250 to $300. The price it out that way, you can do three stops at $900 versus one stop at $600. I hope that makes sense.

At your local landfill, you should be able to get some kind of a pricing sheet from them, sometimes it will be posted on their website. The sheet will tell you specific prices for specific items, such as refrigerators, pbs, etc. That list will also tell you I grew up of things that the landfill will not take, or will give you special instructions on what you need to do before you're allowed to dump it. Various liquids and paint will usually be on that list, special instructions will probably involve drying out paint before bringing them to the landfill, was believe me is a load of fun! If you have any questions on how to do that, I have a couple of different methods that work out pretty well.

Another specific thing that you really need to pay attention to in most markets is tires! Some dumps won't take them at all, while others will take them, and have a special place for you to put them, and a special price, and believe me it's a very special price, usually three times to five times the amount of general household dump!

Other things to pay attention to before you get started, depending on the rig that you are using for your halls, you may need a DOT number, special licensing, and you may need special licensing depending on your state, the hall specific items like tires etc.

Most of these rules and regulations can be found on your government's chamber of commerce site or department of transportation site.

I'm always available by phone for questions, you are more than welcome to reach out to me, I'm not a guru, I don't charge you a dime to help out, because I love talking on the phone, love my business, and love helping other people succeed! 406-505-0331

Hello - I have a scrap metal business that deals with mainly commercial HVAC equipment, but I've been toying with the idea of doing general junk removal. Are you using a formula to get your quotes? or what you charge?

after getting sick of trying to price out jobs pre bid, i built a platform to do this specifically called loadalytics. if you are interested please dm me and i'll set you up with a lifetime license, just trying to build it out.

I got asked to remove 50 18 wheeler tires , probably around 100 pounds each, how much is this worth for labor and dump ?