“Wherever the junk is, we clean it, rake it,” Jim says. “Wherever it was, you’ll never know what was there.”
At Tobey’s Junk Hauling in Reno, loading the truck is only part of the job. The company describes its routine in plain terms: the crew loads everything, then sweeps up and leaves the space clean. The garage floor or patch of yard where the pile sat is supposed to look as if nothing had been there.
Jim runs the business without partners. Many customers know him as Tobey, the name on the business. He says it’s a nickname. By the company’s own account it has worked Reno and Sparks since 2008, and it calls itself local and family-owned. Its service area reaches into the valleys around the two cities, from Verdi to Spanish Springs.
He knows the arrangement from the inside. “I grew up in a family business,” he says.
That upbringing shows up in how he talks about showing up. “It’s a service business,” he says. “It’s all about service.” He holds the crew to the clock. “We never miss a job or miss a time,” he says. “We’re on time every time.” The company says crews call ahead before they arrive. As for how the people working with him pick up the habit, he keeps it short. “It’s just what we do,” he says.
The work comes in three kinds. “We do commercial, residential, and we do hoarding,” he says. Commercial jobs mean offices and warehouses. Residential jobs run from a single garage or basement to a whole house.
The hoarding cleanouts ask the most of a crew. The company describes a process that begins with an assessment of the property, sorts items by category and watches for valuables and important documents. A deep cleaning comes after the removal.
One customer who had to empty a family house described what that looked like on the ground. She gave the crew a list of things she hoped to recover. They kept an eye out for each one and told her when a room was clear enough for her to go in. When they came across something they thought she might want, they carried it out for her to look at. By her account, they turned up collectibles hidden in the kitchen cupboards.
His goal for the business is modest. “I’m an old man,” he says, “so just to stay busy.”