JunkBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Five Units at One Complex: Running a Multi-Unit Trash-Out Day

End of the month at a big complex can mean five or six move-outs at once. The manager sends you a list and asks if you can do them all Tuesday. That is a great day for a junk company: one drive, one set of keys, a full truck or two. It is also a day where a little planning separates a smooth run from a crew wandering between buildings.

Bigger Than a Rush Job

Fitting one urgent unit into a full day is covered in Rush Trash-Outs Before the Next Tenant Moves In: Fitting Them Into Tomorrow's Route. A multi-unit day is the opposite problem. You have plenty of work in one place, and the job is to organize it so nothing gets mixed up.

One Job per Unit

The most important rule: make each unit its own job on its own address. It is tempting to create one big job called “Oakridge — 5 units,” but that causes trouble later:

• The monthly statement shows one line instead of five, and the manager cannot split the cost between buildings or owners.
• Photos for five units end up in one pile, and nobody can tell which closet belongs to which unit.
• If one unit gets skipped because the key is missing, the whole job looks unfinished.
• The job history at each address stays empty, so next time you have nothing to go on.

Five jobs, five addresses, five loads. Each gets its own truck load, item count and notes.

Plan the Order Around Keys and the Dump

On the dispatch board, put all five on the same truck and day, or split them between two trucks if the loads add up to more than one truck can carry before a dump run. Then set the order by hand. Things that decide the order:

• Key pickup. If the leasing office opens at 9, the first unit is at 9.
• Building layout. Do the units in the same building back to back.
• Load size. Fill the truck with two half loads, then dump, then do the rest, rather than overfilling on the third unit.
• Deadlines. If one unit has cleaners coming at 2pm, it goes first.

Add the dump run between units in the plan. The Go button on each job takes the crew to the haul-to destination when it is time.

Two Trucks, One Complex

On a big day you might send two trucks. Split the units so each truck has its own building and its own key handoff, so the crews are not waiting on each other. The office sees both trucks on the map with crew GPS, and each crew sees only its own units on the phone, in its own order.

If you only have two trucks and one usually runs single items, think about whether the single-item route can be pushed a day. A five-unit trash-out day for a manager who sends work every month is usually worth it.

Photos Per Unit

Each crew takes before-and-after photos on each unit's own job. Because they are separate jobs, the photos land in the right place automatically. Remind the crew to tap Start on the next unit before taking its before photos, so a Unit 108 closet does not end up on the Unit 214 job.

Photo habits are covered in Before-and-After Photos for the Property Manager: Proof Every Trash-Out Was Finished.

Keys and Check-Out

With five sets of keys, things get lost. Habits that help:

• Pick up keys for the first two units, not all five, if the office allows it.
• Return each key when the unit is done, before getting the next.
• If keys come on one ring, label each one.
• Note in each job when the key was returned.

Put the key routine in the access notes on the complex, so every crew follows it.

The Statement and the Next Month

At the end of the month the manager's statement lists all five units, each line labeled with its address and its own load. If one ran heavy, the dump fee overage sits under that unit. The manager can match every line to her own move-out list.

Then use what you learned. After the first multi-unit day, add notes to the complex's address: which building is closest to the loading zone, how long the key pickup takes, whether the freight elevator needs booking. The next end-of-month day gets easier.

Text the manager at the end of the day with a short summary: “All five units done, photos on file. Unit 302 had a broken window, noted on the job.” That one message tells her everything she needs before the cleaners arrive.

For the rest of the tools JunkBossPro gives you for property managers, visit the commercial junk removal software page.