Had it with trash dumpers. Getting rid of trash cans.

[Mel(NC)]

I have been so mad in the past I have gone through bags of garbage for an address and gone to the offenders house and confronted them. But once I installed tee pees and lids with small diameter holes on all my trash cans, most of the problem went away.

 

[cap732000]

I removed all my cans from my washes except for the ones at vacuum areas! I have the same problem just to a lesser amount. I have had to start locking dumpster as people would
Fill them full but they still just throw it on ground at times!!!

 

[Jeff_L]

I have been so mad in the past I have gone through bags of garbage for an address and gone to the offenders house and confronted them. But once I installed tee pees and lids with small diameter holes on all my trash cans, most of the problem went away.

Ha! I did the same, but I don't confront them, I just leave it at the bottom of their driveway. Usually at 4 in the morning, so they'll have to move it to get to work.

 

[robert roman]

“…..I have had enough with dealing with trash dumpers who are not customers and minivans clear full of trash who fill the entire can and buy an air freshener and leave.”

So, your solution is to remove all of the trash cans so nobody can throw away any trash including your loyal customers.

Isn’t that like trying to attract a fly with a swatter instead of a piece of sugar?

The problem isn’t the trash cans its people.

Good luck controlling people but you can control business operation.

For example, you could put up a barrier around the property and charge entrance fee to ensure you get paid for picking up trash.

Otherwise, you can hope people obey instruction signs or their conscious isn’t as strong as the lens of a surveillance camera or pay a babysitter to watch site.

I have several clients that automated self-serve. Not only are they doing more business, they don’t have dumping and other nuisance issues as compared to traditional self-serve.

 

[Randy]

Roman your living in LA LA Land! If you had any current real life experience in the car wash world you’d know that people are BA$TARDS. In the last 35 years we’ve seen a change in the attitude of the S/S car wash customer and it’s not for the good.

 

[robert roman]

Roman your living in LA LA Land! If you had any current real life experience in the car wash world you’d know that people are BA$TARDS. In the last 35 years we’ve seen a change in the attitude of the S/S car wash customer and it’s not for the good.

There is an old saying, you are what you eat.

Hess was a c-store outfit here in Florida. Hess didn’t pay well, it didn’t treat employees well, it sold drive-in theater quality food, and stores were notoriously understaffed and dirty looking.

Guess what? Employees quit doing the little things like cleaning bathrooms, dusting off shelf merchandise, stocking gas bar with squeegee and bug juice, being polite and groomed, etc.

What happened next?

Customers and non-customers break locks off bathroom doors, pee and poop on floor, write profanity on walls, steal toilet paper, soap, and towels, throw trash and spit on floors, and worse.

Next, Wawa enters market. Wawa checks bathrooms every 20 minutes, has twice as many associates on shift as most other c-stores, serves fresh/high quality food, etc., etc.

Shortly thereafter, Hess sells out to the Speedway chain because it can’t compete.

Guess what? Wawa charges higher prices than Hess ever did and has more customers than Hess ever did.

Where did customers come from?

They came from Hess as well as 7-11 and Circle K because these firms weren’t much better than Hess.

Wawa has stores in Pasco County. Pasco is a regular feature on “Live PD.”

In other words, it’s really a high crime area and a lot goes down.

If Wawa can keep the bathrooms of a c-store clean in an area where meth and crack heads pass out on sidewalks or roadway in front of the store at 2 AM, why can’t a couple of garbage cans be managed?

If you have “bad” customers, get rid of them.

Self-serve operators that charge $5.00 or so and/or have site attendant do not have issues with dumpsters or other bad customer problems because they go some place else.

 

[chaz]

Having trash cans for customers is essential. I’d love not to have to empty a can and pay for collection....but then again I love for my customers to spend money at my wash. Yes...I do have the folks that fill my cans and spend little or no money....just part of doing business. Since I increased my vac from $1 to $2 and my time from 4 to 6 minutes...I’ve had less trash...partly I believe cause the bigger trash mess comes from the smaller spenders. So I’ve likely lost some vac customers......but my revenue is up and my trash is down,

 

[Randy]

Here are a couple of pretty entertaining videos from Youtube with illegal dumpers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDds1vogXCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ORlEZ9xJo
I wouldn't want this guy coming over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOgJSBQ6sgY

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

just part of doing business.

Can somebody, anybody, please explain this to me. Exactly how is letting someone steal from you "part of doing business"? I mean, its called theft of service for a reason, right? And please dont say "they are cleaning their car"... because no, they are not.

Seriously, am I really the only one who has ever looked up the laws on trash dumping???

I'm not picking on you chaz, I've heard this countless times from quite a few people. I just dont get it.

 

[MEP001]

I have to agree with chaz, I'd say 95% of the people I see pull in and throw something away without spending don't think it's a problem. If they just throw out a drink cup or a fast food bag I don't care. That's technically theft, but at least they know where a car wash is. Just part of doing business.

The guy that comes in once a month to clean out his truck cab full of empty pizza boxes and 2-liter Pepsi bottles who doesn't wash or vacuum is stealing, but only technically. He's ignorant because he doesn't know the difference between a privately owned business and a "public place." He actually thought that because it's open for him to drive in and use, he had the right to do so.

One night I watched a guy with a truck bed piled high with big garbage bags park between two vac islands and started filling the cans. That's downright theft, and he didn't think he was doing anything wrong either.

 

[Earl Weiss]

If you have “bad” customers, get rid of them.

.

Just make sure you get rid of some members of the only non protected class first, (white males) and have a video record.

 

[chaz]

Can somebody, anybody, please explain this to me. Exactly how is letting someone steal from you "part of doing business"? I mean, its called theft of service for a reason, right? And please dont say "they are cleaning their car"... because no, they are not.

Seriously, am I really the only one who has ever looked up the laws on trash dumping???

I'm not picking on you chaz, I've heard this countless times from quite a few people. I just dont get it.

It’s like this.... I’d rather not pay c/c fees and the expense of the c/c equipment and maintenance etc....but it’s not only a convenience to my customers...it’s quite frankly (in my opinion) these days a necessity.

Similarly....I’d like to have a “NO Trash” facility. But then again, I’ve got to earn my customer’s business. I want someone to come to my facility clean their car and .....then drive off with the litter and trash.....now that’s a clean car.....not!

I agree, there are folks that just come and fill the cans...I do my best to control this when on sight or track down via video....but I don’t loose a ton of sleep.... most people that leave trash in my cans are spending money.

 

[CheetahExpress]

Can definitely relate to the pizza boxes and 2-litre soda bottles (many still filled and heavy), but it's the dirty diapers that really gross me out. They're a common item in a vac trash cart. Unbelievable.

 

[Waxman]

Trash comes with the self-serve business. Get sick of it? Sell the car wash and get a different business.

 

[CheetahExpress]

It's not just the self-service business that has trash problems. Ours is a single bay IBA with vac island with just 2 vacs. But we just must have alot of trashy people in our area because besides the vac trash cart in the middle of the island, we have three 45-gal. trash cans (bolted to the concrete so no one steals them), 2 next to the vacs and 1 at the entry to the wash. They're always full. We love to complain about it, but it really is part of this business. I'm enjoying this thread because I see we're not the only one with this problem.