There is a little known trash service if you own a property in Minneapolis. It is called a special pickup. Recently I had a tenant that was evicted. She left 4 couches, 2 beds, multiple dressers, 10 bags of clothes, 20 bags of garbage, tires, baby toys, bikes, appliances, and numerous tubs of other stuff. Normally I would have had my trash out guy come and pick this stuff up. My estimate is that it would have been $800-1000 to have his guys haul it all away.
I decided to see if I could do it myself and use the Minneapolis special pick up to haul it away and what it would cost. I was fortunate that a large portion of this was already in the garage so I just needed to move most of it out the garage door.
First requirement is that your name is on the trash bill at the city. If you just took over a property, put the bill in your name, wait a couple days and then call. Worst case, if the tenant is still working with you, have them contact the city. You do need to submit a copy of your drivers license, so you can’t pretend to be your tenant!
Go to this website: https://www.minneapolismn.gov/resident-services/garbage-recycling-cleanup/garbage/special-cleanups/. (I was not able to search on the city website for this-someone gave me this link). Download and complete the form. Send it in.
Typically, they will write you back in about 2 business days. They will often have a pickup date that corresponds to your normal trash day and will want to inspect the pile at 6am the day before the pickup to confirm they can handle it and there is nothing prohibited in it.
I spent about 4 hours of my time and emptied the entire garage and then some onto the alley line. Below is just a small portion of the items before it was all moved to the alley.
The city came the day after my normal trash day and made it all go away. Best part, they charged me $100! Less than 20% of what I would have paid my vendor. Now, I understand that many people can’t take the time to move stuff out like I did, but for a $600-1000 savings, I can sure take my Saturday and do this again.
Leave a Reply