Evecting tenants and junk removal

20141031_083613Junk removal services and evicting tenants, may not seem as two topics, which can be covered together naturally, but I felt compelled, to right on the issue. My desire came from the fact, that I am noticing, that I am getting more business from such scenarios, than I used to get. The spike is not insignificant. It has gotten to the point, where I get few clean-up and junk removal jobs from Realtor and house owners, every week. I used to get only one or two, every few months. This trend is real.

The good news is that if you are dealing with an irresponsible tenant, you most likely have a security deposit to work with. It is rare, for a junk removal job, of this type, to cost more than what the security deposit amounts to. I’ve noticed that it is proportional. If memory, doesn’t fail me, most of these jobs were in the range of $150-$400. It is rare, for a bad tenant to leave behind everything they own. They will take what is valuable, and leave some items that they don’t’ care about.

When can you call a junk removal company

Don’t quote me on this, but you have to wait a minimum of a month before you can do anything about abandoner items, from your tenant. Check with the Tenancy board for Vancouver, and you will get more solid information. Some of my clients, haver told me that the period, might even extend to 2 months. Make sure, you have some sort of a written prove that, you have given the tenant the chance to come and get his things. As you can see, it is a good idea, to check these things with the official agencies, before you commit to any action. Hence, my reluctance to focus on details, that are beyond the scope of this article.

What is the cost of junk removal services in Vancouver?

The total cost, is a function of few variables. Labour, weight or/and volume, and type of junk. I am aware, this might sound a little bit confusing, but bare with me, and I will explain in details.

Labour cost of junk removal

As a general rule, all the junk should be piled up at the curb, the garage, or any other place, where our truck can park next to it, and load it fairly quickly. About an hour is allowed for labour, and after that, an extra labour cost is added to the total cost.

Weight and/or volume of the rubbish

Why is weight important for determining the total cost of junk removal services? The short answer is, because when we go to the city landfill, we pay for dumping what we pick from your house, by the weight. Then what is this volume about, you might say. The volume is a visual tool for us, to determine the estimated weight of your garbage. For example, after so many years, of being on the scale at the city landfill, we have noticed, that to make a profit, when our truck is half-full, we need to charge you around $200. However, we also, have noticed that, when we fill up the truck half-way with heavy construction material, if we charge you $200, we pretty much worked for free.

So, we have figured out , that 95% of the clients, will have items, that are of an average weight, and therefore we offer them an easy visual pricing reference. They can look at the pile of junk they have, and then look at our truck on the website, and figure out, for example, that it will take about half of the truck box, and therefore, their estimation of $200, will be correct.

Type of garbage

Just when you thought, you understood our pricing system, now this obscure detail about types of garbage! I assure you, this is also very simple. There are very few items,that carry extra fees. There are actually, only two. Mattress/Boxspring, and drywall. These two items, carry extra recycling fees, because, like their name suggests, have to be recycled and we have to pay on top of the dumping fees. For the purpose, of clarifying teh topic, I will just jump into a specific example. You have half a load of junk, but in that load, there is also one mattress. The total cost will be determined in a very simple arithmetical exercise. For the total garbage it will be $200, plus $20 for the mattress. The total cost is $220.

How about drywall? When we unload drywall, at the city dump, we pay double the dumping fees. Therefore, we have to almost charge you double for , lets say, half a load of drywall. Since, dumping fees is not everything, we won’t really double the total cost. Here is a specific example of a drywall disposal job. If a client has half-load of drywall, we charge around $300-$350, depending on how easy it is to load the drywall.

I hope that, this article has provided you with enough information, to ease your worries on what to do, with the belongings of an irresponsible tenant. Do your homework on the legal matters, and once ready, give us a call, and we will honour what we have conveyed in this article.