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If disaster recovery is not something you want to struggle with after the next big storm, be proactive. Take steps now to remove extra junk that will slow things down in the future. Reach out to us here at Junk King North Houston today and save $20 while you’re at it! It you want some extra tips on how you can maximize your spring cleaning efforts, then read our blog below!
Business owners, especially small business owners, need to be prepared to deal with disasters. Whether it’s a flood, a hurricane, or a data breach, disasters cost you money and damage your reputation. The longer it takes to get back up and running, the more profits you’re going to lose.
There are a lot of ways to prepare for disasters. Many companies create disaster recovery plans that outline how to react to different disasters, including who is in charge of what aspect of recovery. However, having one of these plans in place isn’t the only thing you can do. In fact, some regular tasks that seem to have nothing to do with disaster recovery can help you be ready. One such task is spring cleaning. Annual spring cleaning can help you prepare for disasters and disaster recovery in a few different ways.
You Have Less Junk to Deal With
When a natural disaster hits your office, warehouse, or other physical location, you’re going to have a giant mess to deal with. The more stuff you have, the more you’ll have to sort through. Storm damage cleanup is going to take days or even weeks, and that time will only be extended if you have a large amount of stuff to go through. If you regularly sort out the stuff you don’t need and have it picked up by a junk hauling service like Junk King, you’ll have less to deal with. We deal with furniture removal and much more at any time of the year.
Some businesses end up with a basement, back room, or other space that becomes a catch-all for old furniture, product, and other items that you aren’t using. You may put away a few of these items with the intention of using them later or saving them for a time of need. However, if you’ve had desks, chairs, and other items in this space for over a year, chances are you don’t really need them any longer. Why keep them? They’re just taking up space that you could actually make use of. During disaster clean up, you’ll likely just toss these things anyway, even if they did survive.
Getting rid of them now means that they don’t necessarily end up in the garbage. Instead, if you have furniture that’s in good shape, it can be donated. You can send these old items to a new home where someone will get some use out of them.
Spring Cleaning Improves Disaster Recovery Efforts
Going through your office, store, or other space once a year and getting rid of old things you don’t need can actually help you avoid some disasters. For example, while you’re pulling out boxes full of stuff you don’t need, you might notice some of them have water damage. If you know the boxes didn’t have signs of this before, it likely means you have a leak somewhere. You can get a professional in to do some investigating and find out what needs to be repaired or replaced. While you won’t be able to avoid all disasters this way, you can save yourself from dealing with a flooded basement.
Finding sources of moisture in your workspace can also lead to discovering black mold. This is a completely different type of disaster that can do more than just damage your office and your inventory. It can cause severe health problems for your employees and your customers. If you’ve found black mold, you’ll have to shut down while the entire space is remediated. In addition to losing that time, you may also get a reputation as having a dirty office. Customers may no longer want to visit your office or shop in your store. If you’re in the restaurant business, this can be especially crippling since you may also incur health department fines. This is one of those spring cleaning tips that can actually save you a lot of money.
In fact, by doing some in-depth spring cleaning, you may be able to improve the working conditions for your employees. You may not have any mold to deal with, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t dust all around your office or workspace. Moving furniture to vacuum or sweep under it once a year is going to reveal a lot of this dust. You may also find a good amount of dust in storage rooms as you take inventory of what’s in there. Getting this all out at once will help improve air quality.
You Can Get Organized
As part of your spring cleaning checklist, you should include organizing as well as sorting through old items. This can save you a great amount of time during a disaster because you’ll have an idea where everything was. While some things may shift if you’re dealing with a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake, you’ll have at least a general idea of where things should be. You’ll know your products were in one space, your files in another, and so on. You’ll be able to focus on recovering the most important things first.
This is also a good time to sort out your vital documents and create backups of them. Scan these documents and save them to a cloud so you have a digital version you can access from anywhere. You may want to invest in a fire-proof safe for the originals. During your spring cleaning, you can go through those documents to ensure that you still need them and to update them as necessary. You can also look at what new paperwork you have from the past year to determine if any of it should be added to the safe. Keep a list of what documents you have in the safe in your disaster recovery plan, which should be available in the cloud so it’s available outside of your physical office.
Put Items in a Safe Location
While you’re spring cleaning, you may find some junk to get rid of, but you may also find things that you do need to keep but aren’t in a good location. As you’re organizing, look for things that shouldn’t be on the floor or shouldn’t be on a high shelf. For example, if you have boxes of important papers but need to store them in the basement, you may want to put them on a shelf so they remain dry if the basement were to flood.
On the other hand, if you have fragile products, those likely need to go on lower shelves. This way, they may survive an earthquake since they won’t have as far to fall to the floor. Heavy items also need to be stored down low so they won’t fall off and hit someone. You may typically try to store items in a safe manner, but sometimes, you just don’t have the time to organize your shelves correctly. Spring cleaning is a great time to move things around so that the heavy and fragile items are on lower shelves. It will help keep them safe during a disaster while also protecting your employees.
How Should You Get Rid of Old Stuff?
Once you’ve completed your spring cleaning list, you may have a stack of stuff that you don’t want to keep. You could search for junk removal near me, but you may not necessarily find a quality junk hauling service that way. Instead, reach out to Junk King. We handle junk removal in North Houston and the surrounding areas plus so much more. We will haul off just about anything as long as it doesn’t contain hazardous materials.
Why Junk King of North Houston?
There are several reasons why you should choose junk king for your garbage, old furniture, and appliance removal. In addition to taking just about anything, including old hot tubs, yard waste, and DIY construction waste, we also make the process as simple as possible. You can call us to request an estimate, but we also offer online booking and even estimates via text. We can also come do estimates in person, which is often useful for our commercial clients who may have rooms full of old stuff to get rid of. Whenever possible, we will bring one of our large hauler trucks with us so we can get to work right away if you agree to the estimate.
All of our quotes are done for free, and there are no hidden costs or extra fees charged at the end. You’ll know exactly what you’re paying for. There is no obligation to accept the quote.
We Donate and Recycle
If you have old office furniture or other items that are still in good shape, we will sort them out at our warehouse and donate them to one of our local charities or other organizations that help those in need. This is one of the best reasons to do spring cleaning instead of waiting for a disaster. You’re not likely to find much intact during hurricane debris cleanup. By cleaning out these old items now, you give them a second life. If we can’t donate it, we will recycle it. In the end, only a small amount of what we collect actually ends up in the dump.
Want to know more about what Junk King of North Houston can do for you? Give us a call at 1-888-888-JUNK or text us at 1-737-888-5865.
