a dumpster to the rescue

​A Dumpster to the Rescue
 
The following is a case study featuring a client of ours, Julie. Julie gave us permission to share her story, as it highlights the utility and value of renting a roll off dumpster.
 
Like many, Julie had never considered renting a dumpster. She’d used a junk removal company once, but never really generated that much refuse, and could always make the sporadic trip or two to the dump herself.
 
Then, the “incident” occurred. Julie’s child was upstairs, and Julie was downstairs. The day was unfolding like any other Saturday, until Julie heard dripping water. A lot of it. She walked into the adjacent room towards the sound, to find water pouring from her light fixtures above down through the ceiling. It took Julie a minute to figure out what was happening – but a quick trip upstairs quickly put things into perspective. A large utility sink in the upstairs laundry room was overflowing, spewing gallons and gallons of water onto the ground. The water made its way down through the ceiling, and had already started to collect in her basement, two floors below.
 
Turns out Julie’s kid had placed something clothing in the sink, and it had blocked the drain. And because the sink wasn’t equipped with a secondary drain, the water had nowhere to go but up and out. And it did. Lots of it!
 
After quickly turning the water off, Julie threw down whatever towels she could get her hands on, then raced to get more. She grabbed anything she could – blankets, old ratty dog towels, even leftover furniture pads from her move; anything to absorb water. Anything to try and protect her hardwood floors. She managed to soak up a fair amount of water, but had created a mess in the process.
 
Upon surveying the damage in the basement, she realized that water had poured into a few storage boxes, and had likely ruined their contents. Mainly holiday decorations and a box of old files and papers she told us. Julie spent the rest of the weekend pulling drenched material from the basement and second floor – below where the leak had occurred. It was snowing, so she couldn’t get a water damage remediation company to come out. Instead, she set up a dehumidifier, and every fan she could get her hands on. As the house dried out, she worked to determine what to do with mountains of wet, heavy, absorbent material. She opted to toss the majority of the material, versus trying to dry it out in the middle of winter.
 
Cleanup efforts had produced too much water-logged material to place in her small residential trash cans, and she wasn’t about to load hundreds of pounds of wet, dirty blankets into the car. She considered junk removal, but the two or three calls she made yielded either no answers, or long wait times given the weather. Then, Julie found us! We were able to arrange a dumpster rental for her (for the next day) which made all the difference. Our team brought our smallest size unit to Julie’s house, left it in her driveway, and simplified the whole process. It was a quick walk from the house to the dumpster, where Julie threw all of her towels, blankets, ruined boxes, and other junk. She told us the dumpster dramatically simplified cleanup, and that she walked through her house for an impromptu winter cleaning – throwing away other junk, cardboard, old clothes, and other junk she’d procrastinated on going through. She even walked through her hard and collected rotting wood from her garden, and a handful of broken buckets and tools. She managed to fill the dumpster all the way, and our team came back to transport it to the dump a few days later.
 
Julie was grateful to have found us, and we were grateful for the opportunity to help her with a dumpster rental. Renting a dumpster turned out to be the exact solution she needed, and she was incredibly grateful for our help. She told us she’d consider a dumpster again, given the ease and convenience of the whole experience.
 
So, next time you find yourself confronted by an emergency cleanup task like Julie’s – or you have a big project to tackle at home – consider renting a dumpster. It could be exactly what you need, and could be the easiest part of your project!