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Reason 1: You Risk Fraud and Theft
If you are surprised to see this on the top of our list, you are about to be surprised further: everything you throw out can legally be searched through. In a Supreme Court case years ago (California vs. Greenwood) they made the legality of trash-diving real (prior to this it was rather fuzzy). However, the Supreme Court’s case only made their opinion in regards to trash that is left outside or on a curb, without a designated spot, so to speak. Thus, dumpsters and donation boxes were meant to be protected during this ruling, and they were for a time.
However, in 2001 a book called Evasion was published by CrimethInc., a decentralized collective of autonomous chapters (free agents), publishing widely read articles, books, and other publications. This book would end up hitting the reading world by storm, sparking intense debates about human and civil rights to resources, and the things that some people will do to survive while living under the radar in the United States. Evasion today is known as the book that popularized dumpster diving—which, despite the Supreme Court’s protective opinion on it, is difficult to police (and has questionable moral and societal obligations attached to it).
If you choose to utilize a free junk removal offer, it is important to keep in mind that they could be taking your trash and junk off your hands—but you don’t necessarily know where that stuff is going. In the best-case scenario, the free service is honest and recycles as much of your junk as possible (like Junk King), but in the worst-case scenario, they could go through your trash and find your information—they could even be unaware of dumpster divers in the area, and then your information can be taken that way too, making you a target for fraud and theft.
Choosing to use a free junk removal service is the best of a bad situation; before you commit to the risks that can come as a result of this service, make sure to do your research on all of your options. It is always safer (and easier) to choose city-made services over free offers—especially because you have a right to use them as a city of Atlanta resident.
Reason 2: No Guarantee of Quality Services or Materials
When you think of a junk hauling and removal service, you likely don’t immediately think of high-quality customer service, let alone high-quality materials that professionals would tout as being necessary. No matter who your free junk removal service comes from, it is important to do your research into the company and its culture before you commit to them. They may be given a 5-star rating on a review site for simply having a free junk hauling service, but if the rest of the reviews are filled with 3-stars and 2-stars, consider if they are really the ones you want to use. Additionally, because they are providing a service for you, at no cost—there is no protection for the homeowner or business owner. This puts the client in line for potential abuse, whether that is guilt-based, intimidation-based, or a haphazard removal process that ends up costing you more in repairs than it would have to have professionals do it.
Additionally, because the junk removal service would be free, there is only really a societal expectation to have protective materials on hand for the removal process. This is why it is considered acceptable for companies to drop off roll-away dumpsters on the street or on a driveway, heedless of a property manager’s or homeowner’s repairs that may be needed afterward. For example, a commercial-sized dumpster is usually huge, dirty, smelly, and an eye-sore—then, when it comes time to pick it up, if the company driver didn’t protect the driveway, the dumpster could come up and leave behind deep scratch marks, stripes of black soiled substances that have to be cleaned, or it could even end up raking large chunks of concrete up at weak points.
It is for these (and other) reasons that free junk removal services don’t really exist. When you pay for a junk hauling and trash disposal service, you are paying partially for the guaranteed quality of the customer service; and when you pay you are also ensuring that you are entitled to protective measures—whether that be full gear PPE or just some 2×4(s) on your driveway to protect it.
Reason 3: It’s Not Worth the Time or Effort to Haul it Yourself
If you are still thinking about accepting a free junk removal offer, you should at the very least make sure that you know what the service is actually providing to you. Is the service only providing you with a dumpster for a set amount of time or is it providing you with a truck and crew to assist you in the removal? Most of the time, the former is the ‘free’ version of the removal whereas a fee comes attached to the latter. If your service is offering to use their dumpster, you should consider if the extra time and effort to haul everything is worth it to you. It is particularly important to make sure that regardless of the service you are using, you give the crews (and yourself) clearance to work in the space. Rubbish clearance can be difficult in hoarder or old homes, but making sure that we and you can get through the property safely is a big deal.
How do you clear up rubbish in a house if you need removal assistance? As far as rubbish clearance is concerned, the bare minimum we ask is that there is a four-foot path through which our crews can maneuver. If for some reason you do not think (or know that) there is not enough space to achieve this clearance, you should be calling on professionals for assistance to help you maneuver through the process of the removal safely. It won’t be worth it to call on a junk removal service, even a free one unless you are able to complete your goals for the removal.
Alternatively, if you are not in dire straits, and you are looking to just get more knowledge about the best ways to clean up your home, consider searching the internet for phrases like ‘how to clear up rubbish in home’, or ‘affordable rubbish removal near me’. For even better results add-in ‘+North Atlanta’ to the end of your search and you’ll receive a smaller pool, local to North Atlanta and the surrounding Metro area.
Reason 4: There is no Such Thing as Free Stuff
You might have heard this phrase before—maybe it was muttered by your skeptical mother, pulling you along a store-front street as she avoided the eyes of predatory salespeople. Or maybe it came from your father, exhausted after working a shift and only half watching the television, probably in response to a commercial that claimed: “get everything free for a limited time!”
No matter where you first heard this adage, the truth in it has never lost its strength. In the case of free junk removal services, there is no such thing as the removal being truly free; in some way or form, there are consequences for the removal. Sometimes those consequences relate directly to tax breaks offered as a government incentive to meet a policy requirement, sometimes those consequences are your identity being put up for sale on the Black Market’s Silk Road.
Even in terms of what happens to the trash and junk after it’s taken away is not free. If the junk is able to be recycled, the removal company will necessarily pay for the recycling of those materials—but many companies may claim that nothing is ‘salvageable’ and chose to ignore this environmental obligation. Meanwhile, for those companies that don’t recycle, most of their hauls end up in the local landfills, costing the environment more.
If you are wanting to look at your options locally for an affordable but professional removal company, don’t try something like ‘free garbage pick up near me’, instead try ‘budget-friendly trash pick up +North Atlanta’.
Reason 5: The Service Might Stop Working
One of the hitherto unmentioned issues with relying on free removal services is that they will inevitably stop working or promoting this offer. There are many reasons why a free removal promotion would stop; it could be that the promotion was a sort of ‘sample’ service, and so now that the promotion is done the company banks that you will choose them again regardless of their prices because they are considered familiar. It could be that the company was caught without the proper protections and preventative measures that they should be taking for their clients. This would result in the shut down of the business, however, not just the ending of their promotion.
All in all, humans are interesting creatures, as we are driven to repetitive service providers based on their familiarity, despite there being possibly better options out in the world. Junk King would only suggest that you do all of the research possible to pick the best service options for your needs.
Contact Junk King North Atlanta today to get a Big Red Truck or MINI dumpster tomorrow; when you choose to move with Junk King, junk hauling is as simple as 1, 2, 3—just point and the junk is gone! There are three ways to contact us and four ways to get a quote:
- Call us at (706) 247-7513 to speak with a real customer representative, from here either choose to get your quote in a few minutes over the phone, or ask to schedule an in-person no-obligation assessment of your property or junk.
- Alternatively, text us pictures of your junk at (737) 888-5865 and get a response with your estimate within 24 hours. You can also use this method to make multiple ball-park estimates.
- Or choose to stay online and utilize the Junk King pricing calculator to explore all of your options.
