According to the city of Charlotte, a bulk item (as it applies to trash) is described as “household furnishings, appliances, mattresses, box springs, lawn equipment and similar items too large to be placed in the garbage rollout cart and not eligible for recycling or yard waste collection are considered bulky items.” That’s easy enough to determine. The big question is what do you do with those kinds of items when you want to get rid of them? You could try to get through the municipal services and arrange for a pickup but there are some rules to follow. The biggest of which is you’ve got to get that item out to the curb. Here’s what else you have to do:
“Place bulky items at the curb by 6:30 am on your scheduled collection day. Place bulky items within 2 feet of the curb and at least 3 feet away from other collection items and obstacles such as mailboxes, phone poles, vehicles, etc. Do not block the sidewalk. Please do not put items curbside until the day before the scheduled collection. Items at the curb more than 24 hours before the scheduled collection could result in a fine of at least $50. All items must be free of food, clothing, trash, and flammable materials such as gasoline. Please remove doors from refrigerators and rims from tires.”
That’s a lot of rules to follow. You also have to consider that something you might consider as a bulky item won’t make the cut as far as the city is concerned with picking it up. Included on their long list of things that won’t be collected are:
“Any materials resulting from work performed by a commercial contractor. Automobile parts including motors, tires on rims, doors, fenders, car seats, batteries, bumpers. Bricks. Cardboard boxes. Please cut down to 3 feet by 3 feet (or smaller) pieces and place in the recycling cart for collection. Central air conditioning or heating units. Ceramic tile. Chain link fencing. Cinderblocks. Concrete. Dirt. Duct or sheet metal materials. Fence posts with concrete attached. Fire-damaged items. Grocery carts. Floor coverings (except carpet/padding installed or removed by homeowner). Marble or simulated marble countertops. Nails or boards with protruding nails. Pallets. Plaster. Railroad ties. Rocks. Roofing materials, shingles. Sand. Sheetrock. Yard waste.”
So what happens if you’ve got piles of that specific stuff? Are you stuck with it? Not when you call Junk King Charlotte. They are the professional junk haulers who don’t mind picking up any bulky item. In fact, that list of items that won’t be collected by the city is exactly the kind of stuff that Junk King picks up every day. You can put them to work for you with a single call to the Junk King office. They’ll schedule an appointment for a supervisor to come out to your property to make a free estimate of how much it will cost to haul off your junk based on how much space it will take up in their truck. You schedule an appointment and say good-bye to your junk once and for all.
It’s really creepy how an illegal dumpsite can grow. One dumped mattress is followed by a couple of tires. Before you know it people think this is the place to throw any of their garbage. These are the most dangerous types of dump sites because there is no control or anyone checking to make sure hazardous materials stay out of the area.
One of the newest trends in gym is the so-called “anytime” gym. Much like 7-11, these gyms are open around the clock. It might seem odd to get in a workout at 3:00 a.m. but surprisingly enough there are plenty of folks who are working odd shifts and their three in the morning is like high noon for the rest of us. The 24 hour gym concept developed out of a need to provide flexibility for members.
According to the folks who watch the weather, this past summer was one of the hottest on record. When was the previous record set? That would be last summer! Fall has arrived and the air conditioners are being switched off all around Charlotte but you might want to think about keeping those ACs off permanently. While it is true that you get a kind of instant rush from the heat outdoors by stepping into an AC cooled room, long time exposure to the kind of closed environments created by an AC controlled room could be bad for your health.
Recently a local Charlotte business has found a novel way to deal with their landscaping clean-up: hire a goat. The Charlotte Cemetery Commission is now using sheep and goats to keep the lawns trim. Actually, this is not a new concept. Out in California, a trendy Malibu community rents goats to clear fields about their homes of brush. This actually helps prevent dangerous fires from creeping down to their properties. Renting goats and sheep is a truly eco-friendly way of mowing the lawn.
Traditionally when states enact new laws they either go into effect on January 1
How great is it to be talking about “pre-recession” numbers? That’s what appears to be going on in the Charlotte real estate market according to the Charlotte Regional Realtors Association. Based on their number crunching, they are happy to report that closings across the 10-county area shot up whooping 22.2 percent during the month of July from the same time a year ago. That follows 2,657 closings in the Charlotte area in June which was a nice bump from the 2,330 of closings that happened in June 2011.