Step 1. Make a Plan of Attack 

Figure out how much junk you have and how much stuff you need to get rid of … You can accomplish this by just doing a simple walkthrough of a house and assessing where you need to clean. Also plan how and where your going to get rid of your junk. A lot of landfills aren’t open to the public (you need to be a licensed waste management company to dump in a landfill) so you may need to dispose of some of your trash in the normal curbside trash pick up, rent a dumpster to dispose of the large trash, and donate the unwanted stuff that still works to a charity or thrift shop of your choice.

Step 2. Rent a Truck

If you need to get rid of an old appliance or piece of furniture you will want to rent a truck and a heavy dolly so you can haul away your bulky item. You can either find a charity that accepts appliances or furniture, or take them to a scrap recycler.

Step 3. Pick a Weekend and Take the Time to Do It Right

Pick a weekend to clean up and stick to it. Remember you may need the entire weekend to clean up. Junk wasn’t accumulated in a day and may not be cleaned up in a day. 

If you use these tips you’ll be hauling away junk like the pros. 

First forget about call a Pacific Palisades’ junk removal company. Junk removal companies make most of their money off of junk removal. So forget about calling a junk removal company. There are easier solutions.

Charitable organizations … If your junk is still useful and/or working you can donate it to one of many charitable organizations that take in used items. Goodwill is a popular destination. As is Salvation Army and Out of the Closet. You can also find other charitable organizations that cater more towards your interest, for instance second hand stores who’s proceeds go to a specific type of cancer treatment.

Craig’s List … Craig’s List has a “Free” section where people frequently list items they don’t want or need anymore. Most of the time you won’t even have to deliver your item. You can advertise an item for free, just needs to be hauled away.

Bulky Item Pick Up … the City of Los Angeles has its own bulky item pick up for large appliances and large items. This service can take a bit of time but its either free or low cost in most cases.

These are a few of the free junk removal alternatives available to the residents of Pacific Palisades. If you get creative there are numerous ways for you to reuse or recycle old junk without having to pay to have it hauled away.

1. Separate your recyclables from your trash. Most apartment buildings and all homes in Los Angeles offer access to recycling. Mostly in the form of a blue bin. You don’t have to sort your recyclables. All you have to do is sort your recyclables from trash (like food waste). Put recyclables in the blue bin and trash in the black bin.

2. Put yard waste and debris in the green bins. Yard waste, like branches and dirt, should be kept out of the normal trash. In fact, normal trash pick up in Los Angeles won’t accept yard debris (like branches and yard clippings). So keep any yard debris in the green bin. if you don’t have a green bin, call your trash removal company and ask for one. 

3. Don’t litter. Littering drives down the quality of life in Los Angeles and ruins the natural beauty we all love. So don’t litter. Throw away any trash you have in the appropriate trash bin.

4. Don’t throw electronics in the trash. Electronics are actually hazardous to workers at landfills and to the environment. Many electronics contain heavy metals and flame retardants that are poisonous when ingested by wildlife.

5. Never pour paint or household cleaners down the drain. Hazardous materials like paints can contaminate ground water. They can also corrode your own pipes. Take your hazardous materials to an appropriate drop off and collection center in L.A. County.

10. Junk removal is too expensive … Junk removal is more costly than dumpster rental, but not by much. If you have a small amount of junk to remove, the price difference between dumpster rental and junk removal is somewhere between $10 to $30. If you have a lot of junk, the price of  junk removal is almost on par with the price of a large roll-off dumpster. Plus, you do not need a permit for junk removal, like you would for a roll off dumpster. 

9. Junk removal is a rip-off … Admittedly there are a lot of bad apples in the junk removal basket. Junk removal is a “young business” and therefore under regulated. It is pretty easy for anyone with a truck to hang out a magnetic sign and call themselves a junk removal company. But on the other hand there are plenty of reputable junk removal companies in the junk removal business. If you use a junk removal company with a good reputation you won’t get ripped off.

8. Only hoarders need junk removal … Junk removal companies came to prominence with the rise of “Hoarders” the reality show.  But not everyone who uses a junk removal company is a hoarder. A lot of every day people who need to get rid of clutter use junk removal services to help them cleaner. Businesses and contractors also use junk removal companies to help maintain their businesses and get rid of stuff they can’t store on site.

7. I don’t need a junk removal company … Maybe you don’t, but look around your house. Look down in the basement or up in the attic. Then peak in your garage. The chances are you have a lot of built up junk and clutter. You may not need a junk removal service to get rid of that stuff, but a junk removal company can certainly help.

6. Junk removal services don’t charge … Junk removal is a business, and to make money junk removal services charge fees. If you have items that you need to get rid but can’t afford a junk removal service, you may want to find a charitable organization that collects items for donation. 

5. I can just go to the landfill myself … More and more landfills are closed to the public. And even charities like Goodwill and Salvation Army have become choosier about what items they’ll take. 

4. I can just fit all my junk and trash in my curbside garbage … Curbside garbage collection won’t take certain items and has strict weight limits on curbside trash bins.

3. Junk removal services don’t recycle … Most junk removal services recycle. In fact, typically, a junk removal service will recycle 90% of the junk they intake. 

2. Junk removal companies don’t handle construction debris. Most junk removal companies can help you get rid of construction debris as well as household junk.

1. Junk removal services are a waste of money — Living a simpler, cleaner life with less clutter is never a waste of money.

Before 1961 trash removal in the Los Angeles area consisted of three separate services: wet trash removal (food waste, etc), bottles and cans, and dry garbage and trash. Until 1957 dry trash was burned in backyard Los Angeles incinerators. This contributed greatly to Los Angeles’ notorious pollution problems. In 1957 backyard incinerators and trash burning was banned, but trash still had to be separated and picked up separately. 

In 1961 Sam Yorty ran for Mayor of Los Angeles. A key portion of his platform of reforms was stopping the three separate trash pick ups and combining them into one single trash pick up. Yorty went as far as dumping bags of trash on the steps of City Hall to illustrate how difficult it was for a “normal housewife” to separate trash.

The 1960 / 1961 Los Angeles’ Mayoral race was one of the ugliest and most brutal elections in history (probably rivaled by Yorty’s reelection race against Tom Bradley in 1969). And trash removal defined that race. 

It’s up for debate whether Sam Yorty’s race against separate trash removal was good or bad for the city. But it is largely irrelevant now since modern day Los Angeles has expanded trash removal to include recycling bins at every home and most apartments.

Most film production companies only rent office space for a set period of time. A couple months to perhaps a year for larger productions. But sooner of later all production office rentals come to an end. When they do you can either wrap up your own office space or leave it to your landlord. Leaving office wrap out to your landlord is never a great idea. You’ll most likely have a lot of stuff you’ll want to keep and a lot of documents that need to be properly disposed of. Also letting your landlord wrap out your office means you’ll lose your security deposit.

The easiest and fastest way to close out a production office in Los Angeles is to hire a junk removal service that is familiar with office clean out procedures. A good junk removal service in Los Angeles can turn over a production office in a couple of hours. This will save you time and money. Also you won’t have to rely on production assistants to wrap out your office space.

How do you get rid of all the trash once the party is over? The easiest way to dispose of a lot of trash in a hurry is to call a junk removal service in the Malibu area that specializes in event trash pick up. Event trash pick up is a fairly simple service where a junk removal service comes to your event and hauls away your trash. 

Most junk removal services in Malibu provide event trash pick up for large events.

Ask your junk removal service if they offer an overnight trash removal or junk removal service for businesses and commercial clients. Most junk removal services have an overnight junk removal service for business. If not many junk removal services will work to accommodate your needs.

But a junk removal service in Los Angeles will most likely charge extra for an overnight junk removal / slash removal service. However, paying extra may be worth it if it spares your customers and employees a major inconvenience.

According to Gerald Nestadt, M.D., M.P.H, Director of the Johns Hopkins Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Jack Samuels, Ph.D., an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Department of Mental Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins there are several strategies hoarder can deploy to cope with hoarding.

These strategies include:

1. Make immediate decisions about mail and newspapers. Go through mail and newspapers on the day you receive them and throw away unwanted materials immediately. Don’t leave anything to be decided on later.
2. Think twice about what you allow into your home. Wait a couple of days after seeing a new item before you buy it. And when you do purchase something new, discard another item you own to make room for it.
3. Set aside 15 minutes a day to declutter. Start small–with a table, perhaps, or a chair–rather than tackling the entire, overwhelming house at once. If you start to feel anxious, take a break and do some deep-breathing or relaxation exercises.
4. Dispose of anything you have not used in a year. That means old clothes, broken items, and craft projects you’ll never finish. Remind yourself that many items are easily replaceable if you need them later.
5. Follow the OHIO rule [which apparently doesn't work in Ohio, because I'm from there]: Only Handle It Once. If you pick something up, make a decision then and there about it, and either put it where it belongs or discard it. Don’t fall into the trap of moving things from one pile to another, again and again.
6. Ask for help if you can’t do it on your own. If you feel these strategies are impossible to carry out and you cannot cope with the problem on your own, seek out a mental health professional.

– Household paints (like latex paints)

– Spray paints

– Varnishes and stains (used in wood)

– Household cleaners

– Batteries

– Many electronics (particularly monitors and televisions)

– Motor oils

– Other fluids used for cars (i.e. power steering fluid, transmission fluid etc)

– Glues

– Most spray cans

Do not put these items out for regular trash pick up. If you put them out for regular trash pick up you may face large fines from your city.