Everyone’s home has an attic, basement, or storage room that seems to become the catching place for old stuff. Maybe it’s broken appliances, maybe it’s outgrown clothes, maybe it’s furniture that no longer fits your aesthetic. In some cases, you may even have old construction debris, old carpeting, or some DIY project leftovers.
What happens when that space gets filled up? Sure, you could haul it all away to the dump, but few people have the time or the vehicle to tackle this job. So then you’re left with comparing whether to hire a junk removal service or to rent a dumpster. Both will effectively empty your storage space, but these hauling services work in very different ways.
What Is Junk Removal?
Junk removal means hiring a hauling service to come to your home and carry away your old junk. The companies that do this frequently bill themselves as the solution to all your problems, but there are a few things you need to know about this service before you start.
First, they don’t take everything.
Did you have a flood and now you have some moldy carpet to dispose of? They won’t take it.
Oversized items? They may take it, but they’ll charge you more.
Have some old furnishings that have splintered or that have nails sticking out? They may not take those either, or they may require you to clean things up before they do.
They do take dirty carpet rolls, old furniture, some types of construction debris. They just won’t handle anything hazardous, and you need to know up front how much you’re disposing of. If you think it’s just going to be some old carpeting and a few shelves, but when they arrive you decide to also pitch some old appliances or lumber, you may need to schedule a second pick up, which means extra fees.
They also often won’t touch environmental hazards, so if you have any E-waste, they often won’t take that either.
The plus side is that they will often haul the junk for you, so if they do take it, you won’t necessarily have to carry it out of the house. This can be a bonus for some elderly or disabled individuals who want debris removal, but can’t do it themselves. Unfortunately, those same people may be left with things that the removal service just won’t take.
What Is a Dumpster Rental?
Dumpster rentals work differently. In this case, a company will bring a dumpster to your home and set it on your property for a specified amount of time. You fill the dumpster, and then either call for a pick up, or at the prearranged time the company will return and take it away for you. Like junk hauling services, they do the actual removal of the waste from your property. The difference is that you are in control of what’s going into the dumpster.
Dumpsters are filled by you, so if you’re comfortable picking up E-waste, moldy carpets, or some splintered wood, you can simply toss it in. And because dumpster rental pricing constitutes you have the bin on your driveway for a set period, you can take your time in the clean out. You don’t need to have things ready to go the minute it arrives; you can do things on your time table. And if you uncover some things that need to go that you didn’t catch the first time around, you can always toss them into the dumpster as long as there’s room.
This gives you a greater flexibility in how you get the junk removed from your home than a removal service. You can go slow, take breaks, clean things out over the course of several days, or get friends and family to come help on their schedule, rather than the schedule of the removal driver.
You also don’t have to worry about strangers coming into your home and looking through your stuff or potentially damaging things as they remove something else. The downside is that you do have to get the junk and debris out of your house and into the dumpster yourself, but with the added time, many people find that it’s an easier process, particularly if you have a significant amount of debris to remove.
Get Junk Removal That Works for You
Removal services are designed to help get unwanted trash and debris out of your home. Whether you’ve just finished a remodel or you’ve just got an attic that’s been collecting junk for years, when you’ve decided to make a clean slate, you need a way to transport this debris.
Both debris removal service types will get your home cleared out, your decision will come down to your preferences, schedule and capabilities. At the end of the day, either option won’t chew up your weekend like running back and forth to the landfill would.