1. I made a plan and stuck to it

Eventually. Like everyone else I procrastinated cleaning out my garage for about six months. I didn’t want to think about it. I avoided doing anything about it. Until I needed to find my set of golf clubs for a business trip to Las Vegas. After four hours I found my golf clubs, lost my mind, and said I’ve got to clean out my garage. So a couple of weeks later I took my two week summer vacation and said, “On Saturday I am doing a garage clean out…” and did it.

2. I rented a dumpster

I knew I had a lot of trash — particular old, empty moving boxes — stacked up in the garage. Instead of hauling them to a landfill (which is problematic in Los Angeles because most landfills are in places like Calabasas) I rented a dumpster and had it dropped in my driveway. So when I started my garage clean out I could just toss trash straight into the dumpster. When I was finished I just called the dumpster company and had it hauled away.

3. I sorted my chemicals and took them to a disposal facility

I couldn’t put the paint I had stored in my garage in the dumpster or the regular trash. So I collected all my paint, boxed it up, and took it to a collection facility in the San Fernando Valley. The city of Los Angeles runs these collection centers and generally has them open every Saturday.

4. I donated a lot of stuff and did it immediately

As I got deeper into the garage clean out I started to really pile up a lot of stuff I wanted to donate to Goodwill. So instead of waiting I made periodic runs to the local Goodwill collection point in my neighborhood in Los Angeles. This minimized the risk of the stuff going back into the garage.

5. I bought shelves to organize my remaining stuff

I bought shelves and pegboards for my tools to organize my garage and keep boxes off the ground. 

Ultimately my garage clean took a weekend but it was totally worth it. Now I have more space and I can put my car in my garage. Yeehaw!

Junk removal is a booming business in Los Angeles. Grab a pick up truck and some help down at the Home Depot, and BOOM! you’ve got yourself a junk removal company. But unfortunately not all junk removal companies are on the up and up. A popular tactic among some junk removal companies in Los Angeles is to bait and switch. You’ll be quoted one price and then they will find some reason to increase the price.

Junk removal companies do this with the full expectation that you will pay it and do nothing. Avoid the junk removal bait and switch with some of these helpful tips.

Tip #1: Avoid companies that do phone estimates.

A popular tactic among junk removal companies in Los Angeles is to offer a phone estimate. Of course, this estimate will be lower than the actual cost of the junk removal. Avoid phone estimates. If you need an estimate for a junk removal, get one in person.

Tip #2: Don’t Fall for High Pressure Threats

Another common tactic among junk removal companies in Los Angeles is the tired old threat of “Pay us … or ELSE!” This scam goes something like this… A junk removal company in Los Angeles will come, load up your junk, and then demand more money than the quoted price. And if you refuse to pay that price they will unload your junk and drive away. Amazingly enough people frequently cave when faced with this threat.

Don’t fall for it and don’t be flustered by their bluster. If a junk removal service threatens to unload your junk and leave empty handed, let them. That junk removal company is the one choosing to lose time and money by running a silly scam. So call their bluff and let them spend another unpaid hour unloading the truck. Most of the time they’ll back down and take away your junk for the price quoted.

Tip #3: Remember You Have a Voice

If you’ve fallen prey to a bait and switch don’t just shrug and move on. Speak out. The world has gotten much smaller thanks to the internet. We’re all connected. If you’ve been bait and switched by a junk removal company in Los Angeles use review sites like Yelp and Angie’s List to let everyone between Pasadena and Provence France know about it. Also call the Better Business Bureau of Los Angeles to complain. BBB complaints are taken seriously by businesses and the court system. The worst thing you can do is to remain silent.

The key to not getting hustled by a junk removal company is to know your rights and stand firm. Remember the customer is mostly always right.

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.

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.