Family homes, units and rentals across Cheltenham all hit the same point sooner or later: a yard full of green waste and a bin that is already full.
Not a franchisee or a truck driver from a booking system. The bloke who quotes it is the bloke who loads it.
No bags to fill, no skip to load. Leave it in a pile and he loads it, sweeps up and takes it away.
Not a bin size. A heap beside the driveway and one at the bottom of a steep yard are different jobs and get different prices.
Standing tree, asbestos, or more rubbish than garden — he tells you before he starts, not after.
A pruning pile hauled away and a few bags of leaf litter collected is the usual combination on a Cheltenham block.
Piles of prunings, branches, hedge trimmings, leaves and weeds that won't fit in the green bin. Ross backs the trailer in, loads it himself and takes it away to be recycled — you don't lift a thing.
Hedge, shrub and lawn-edge offcuts.
Doing a big garden clean-up — overgrown beds, a back corner nobody has touched in years, a rental between tenants or a property being tidied for sale? Pile it all up and Ross collects the lot in one visit.
Clean-up waste from rental yards, collected.
Fallen limbs, shed bark, leaf litter and dry prunings gathered up from around the house — the fine fuel that matters most in a grassfire or ember attack. Collected and taken away before the Fire Danger Period starts.
Dry growth and leaf piles gone before summer.
A gum has dropped a limb across the driveway, or a windy night has left the yard covered. Ross collects what's come down and hauls it away. Standing trees and hung-up limbs are an arborist's job — once they've dropped it, Ross can take it away.
Branches over fences and across driveways.
Cheltenham is a practical, mixed suburb. Post-war brick and weatherboard homes on decent-sized blocks, plenty of units and townhouses where older houses were subdivided, and busy strips around the Frankston line and Southland. Gardens range from well-kept front yards to back yards that have been left to do their own thing.
Because so much of Cheltenham is family housing and rentals, a lot of green waste builds up in bursts: a big weekend in the garden, a move-out, or a landlord getting a property ready to lease again. Ross handles that kind of green waste removal in Cheltenham, loading it by hand and taking it for disposal.
A fair share of Cheltenham homes are leased, and gardens often slide during a tenancy. By the time the property is empty, the hedges are shaggy, the beds are full of weeds and there is a pile of prunings the last tenant never got rid of.
Ross can do a garden clean-up that clears the green waste in one go so the property manager can get the place photographed and relisted. He is happy to deal directly with agents and owners who are not local.
Subdivided blocks mean narrow driveways, shared common areas and small courtyards with no gate wide enough for a wheelbarrow. Green waste from these places has to be carried out, sometimes through the house or garage.
That is fine. Mention it when you ask for a quote and send a photo of the access. For owners corporations with shared gardens, he can do regular pickups after the gardener has been.
It usually starts as trimming one hedge and ends with half the back yard cut down. The result is a heap in the corner of the yard that would take a year of fortnightly bins to get through.
Leave it in one place, and Ross will load it and take it away. No bagging or bundling needed.
Late spring is when Cheltenham gardens grow the fastest and when a lot of leases turn over. Getting the green waste removed early saves a rush in December, when every property manager in the area wants the same thing.
Suburb, roughly how much there is, and what the access is like. A photo saves a lot of back and forth.
Ross comes back with a number. On big or awkward jobs he has a look first rather than guessing.
Loaded by hand, driveway swept, and off for proper green waste disposal.
Ross runs this on his own. He quotes the job, he turns up, he loads the trailer and he takes it away — the same bloke every visit. There is no office in between, no skip company, and no franchise cut coming out of what you pay.
It also means he will tell you when something isn't his job — a standing tree that needs an arborist, or a pile that is more rubbish than garden — rather than taking the money and leaving you with half a problem.
The suburb, roughly how much there is, and how easy it is to get a trailer to it is enough to work with. A photo of the pile gets you a price fastest.
Prefer to talk? Call or text Ross on 0416 030 925. Monday to Saturday, daylight hours — weather permitting.
Get a price on your pile. Takes a minute — Ross reads them himself.
Thanks — that's gone through to Ross. Spring is his busiest time, so if it's close to fire season he may take a day or two.
