Trash Bandits stand ready to jettison your junk

By Jeff Morrow for Senior Times

Israel Moore was always interested in owning his own construction company, and that dream came true in 2014.

But something interesting happened a year later: he found a second business in hauling people’s junk away.

Moore launched Trash Bandits, a professional junk removal service, eight years ago.

“My construction company (MyPROcontractor) had bins for tossing away junk,” he said. “Other companies started asking for the bins. I had a dumpster that I rented out to a company.”

Suddenly, Moore found that junk removal was big business.

“And then Jennifer got involved, and she has taken it to another level,” said Moore.

Jennifer is Jennifer Freund, Moore’s friend and business partner. She also has a personal organization business, and she’s helped streamline Trash Bandits. Services provided

So just what does Trash Bandits do?

For a fee – depending on what needs to be removed – the company will take away the following items: furniture, yard waste, electronics, appliances, some hazardous waste (such as paint), wood debris, metal, old lawn mowers, cardboard, newspaper, concrete and brick, dirt and gravel, mattresses and hot water tanks.

The company serves the following areas: Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, Prosser, Finley, Burbank, Walla Walla, Moses Lake and Pendleton.

They’ll do their best to recycle products to places such as Habitat for Humanity or Goodwill.

“We treat people’s stuff like we’d want our stuff to be treated,” Freund said.

That also means following the latest ecological guidelines with dumping.

“And concerning your sensitive identification, with us it’s secure when we drop it off. No one is go- ing to go through your stuff,” Freund said.

Trash Bandits helps a lot of elderly people, many of whom can’t move their own stuff.

“We go through a lot of these people’s personal items,” Freund said. “We take care to go through their personal stuff for them. We’re making community connections. When you let people into your own home, that’s trust.”

Freund talks about the time while moving an older person’s belongings, they came across an old recipe box that was marked in the toss out pile.

They got the box back to the owner.

A growing business

Moore said that Trash Bandits’ services have been on the rise over the last year.

“We’ve been advertising on Facebook and Google,” he said. “And a lot of word of mouth.”

The company has four trailers, two roll-off dumpsters and eight junk bins to carry off that unwanted excess on your property.

“We’ve doubled in trailers in a year’s time,” said Moore, who is quick to credit Freund for much of the company’s growth. “This has been Jennifer’s baby. Over the next year, she expects to hire more people.”

Trash Bandits currently has two full-timers (Freund and Moore) and two part-timers.

“My five-year plan is to have at least five full-time junkers, and at least one office person,” Freund said. “I want to do marketing.”

With success comes imitation.

Freund says there are a number of people in the Tri-Cities who have a truck and trailer. Those people advertise that they’ll remove your junk for a lot less money.

Freund says that’s OK.

“But the majority of them are not licensed, bonded or insured,” she said. “If they break something of yours in the house while removing the junk, you have no recourse.”

In a community of more than uTRASH BANDITS, Page 16