That is a good question. If you have scheduled a pull of your container and it wasn’t removed, there may be one of several reasons why. First, was your container accessible? Was there a vehicle parked in front of it? If yes, our drivers would knock on the door before leaving. But if no one was home, your driver may have left due to lack of access.
Second, and this is the culprit more often than not, is your roll off container properly loaded? Is it overloaded, or does it have debris hanging out over the sides? During the snow season, the driveway in front of the container must be cleaned of any snow before we can access the container. If your car can’t drive on it, we probably can’t either. If you were able to answer yes to any of these questions, you may have figured out what the problem is on your own!
So what do we do to avoid these problems? First, we collect a contact number for every customer for just this reason. Often times, a simple phone call by either one of our drivers or our office can resolve a blocked container issue. During the winter months, we carry shovels on every truck to help “resolve” any snow issues that may keep us from pulling a container. Will we shovel your whole driveway? No, but it was worth a shot right? If our drivers can gain access by shoveling out a little snow, we will happily do that for our customers.
If the container is overloaded, we will typically call the office and have the office relay the reasons for leaving the container. It is at this time the customer will have the option of removing debris, getting another container, re-loading the container so as not to spill on the roadway or having us dump the excess on site.
Now, as the customer, what can you do to avoid these problems? That is simple. First and foremost DO NOT OVERLOAD A CONTAINER! There is nothing worse than loading your trash into a roll off dumpster and then having to take it out and re-load it. It’s garbage, we want to keep the handling of it to a minimum! Second, make sure that everyone in the house who can block the container with a vehicle knows that the dumpster is being pulled on the scheduled day.
I can tell you that we have made many phone calls for blocked containers only to hear, “that’s my son/daughter’s car. He/she has the keys and is in school”! When it snows, clean the area in front of the container as well. Trucks don’t drive any better in snow than your vehicles (we just have more tires to spin in the snow!). Finally, if you have ANY questions, pick up the phone and call us. We are here to help!
Be safe, be well and most of all BE HAPPY!