Until 2026, Cameron Bevil worked as a service advisor at Land Rover of Chattanooga. He had never hauled junk for a living. Then he bought Junk It, a junk removal company based in Hixson, and brought a former coworker from the dealership along to help run the truck.
Junk It works across the Chattanooga area. The crew is two people: Cameron, who is 22, and his full-time employee, who is 20. Cameron says what sets them apart is not complicated. They show up when they say they will, and they answer the phone.
“Pretty much answer the phone at any given point, and if I can’t get to the phone, I send a text or I call back as soon as I’m next available,” he says. “We take a lot of pride in our name and what we stand for.”
The business was not his first try at ownership. He and his wife wanted to run something of their own and started with a vending machine franchise that did not work out. He kept working for a few more months while they saved, and they changed course. Instead of starting a business from scratch, they would buy one that was already running, so he could leave his salaried job and “implement new processes and procedures.”
The opening came through his wife’s freshman-year college roommate. Her husband owned Junk It, which had been operating for more than two years. He first asked Cameron to come work for him and run it. Cameron turned that down because he wanted to own, not manage. A few weeks later the same man asked whether he wanted to buy it.
Once he owned it, Cameron needed help on the truck. He hired a coworker from his Land Rover days to work for him full time, with the goal of making him a partner down the road.
The work runs from the very small to the very large. Residential jobs include whole-house cleanouts, basements, garages, attics and single couches. On the commercial side, Junk It works for property managers. One regular customer manages property and flips houses, and he calls the crew for his construction debris. According to the company’s website, usable items are set aside for donation or recycling when possible.
If Cameron could choose what Junk It is known for, it would be the commercial work. “It takes the emotion out of the job a little bit more,” he says. A commercial client who likes the work tends to keep calling. “If you can get in good with several commercial clients, you pretty much have it made.”
Some jobs come down to carrying things. One customer wrote in a Google review about a fence removal where the truck could not reach the backyard, so the crew hauled everything out by hand and on a tarp. Another wrote that Cameron took away a couch the same day and that the job was done in under 10 minutes.
He traces his habits to his stepfather. “He was really hard on the small things,” Cameron says. Being on time was one of them. “Being early is being on time. Being on time is being late.” So was saying yes sir and no ma’am, no matter who was on the other end.
Cameron does not claim a perfect record. He says there have been two or three times when he forgot to put a customer on the schedule or the crew ran late. Each time, he says, he made it up to the customer and showed up on time for the second visit.
He sees two paths for the business. One is to grow: add trucks, move into dumpster rentals and expand to cities around Chattanooga. He names Knoxville, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Atlanta, and talks about building “a dynasty of Junk It in the Southeast area.” The other is to build the company to the point where it runs on its own, sell it and put the money toward another venture.
For now, he and his employee spend about eight hours a week, in the middle of the workday, coaching a soccer team for St. Jude, an elementary school. “We like to be involved in our community,” Cameron says.