It is the question we get more than any other, usually right after somebody opens their lid on a hot afternoon and immediately regrets it. How often should you actually have your garbage cans cleaned?
Most companies dodge that one. We are not going to. After cleaning cans around Greater Cincinnati since 2018, more than 110,000 of them, it comes down to two questions about your house.
Do you have dogs? Do you have babies?
That is the whole thing. If the dog poop bags go in the garbage can and the diapers go in the garbage can, you have the two worst inputs there are, and they show up every single day. Here is how it shakes out.
Dogs and babies: every 4 weeks
Both of them, in the same can, all week long. There is no version of this where you stretch it. Every four weeks keeps the can from ever getting a real bottom layer going. If you are in this group and you are reading this in August, you already know it.
One or the other: every 8 weeks
Dog but no baby, or baby but no dog. One heavy input instead of two. Every eight weeks holds it just fine. This is where a lot of Cincinnati households land, and most of them stay there for years.
Neither one, just normal garbage smell: every 12 weeks
No dog, no diapers, just the regular kitchen situation that starts to turn by day five in July. Every twelve weeks is enough. Four visits a year, and the can never gets to where you dread rolling it up the driveway.
Neither one, but you like things neat: every 4 weeks
This one surprises people, so we will say it plainly. Plenty of our best customers have no dog and no baby. They just like a clean, tidy, good-smelling garage and driveway, and they are not interested in wondering about it. Those folks go every four weeks, same as the dogs-and-babies crowd, for a completely different reason. Both are right.
The five second test
If you are still not sure, do this the next time you roll the can back up the driveway. Open the lid, lean over it, and count to five.
If you stepped back before you got to three, you are overdue. If flies came out to greet you, you were overdue a while ago. And here is the part people miss: that smell is not the garbage, because the garbage left with the truck. It is what stayed behind on the walls and the bottom.
Two things that move you up a level
Heat and location. A July can in Ohio is a slow cooker with wheels, and a can that lives in an attached garage is sharing its air with your house every time you open the door. If either of those is you, take the next shortest interval and do not think twice about it.
What about a one-time cleaning?
Some people do not want a schedule at all. They want the can that has been quietly getting worse since spring handled once, right now. That is what the one-time cleaning is for. Plenty of customers start there, see the before and after, and then pick an interval.
Just know what a single cleaning is. Our truck hits the inside and outside with water at about 200 degrees, no harsh chemicals, and the can comes back sanitized and scented. But the day after, garbage goes back in and the clock starts over. The households that never think about this again are the ones on a schedule.
So which one are you?
Run the two questions. Dogs and babies is four weeks. One or the other is eight. Neither is twelve, unless you are the neat-and-tidy type, and then you are back at four. Add the heat and the garage if they apply.
On the plan page those are the Monthly, Bi-Monthly, and Quarterly plans, in that order.
Then stop thinking about it. We come the day after your pickup, clean the can at the curb, and put it back. We serve 284 neighborhoods across 59 ZIP codes, from Maineville out across the east side, and our customers have left us over 500 five star reviews for a service most of them forget they have. That is exactly the goal.
Want to see what a cleaning involves first? Read our promise, or see the difference between doing it yourself and having us do it in this breakdown.
Know your number? Pick the matching plan on our service plan page, or sign up in about two minutes at order.ohiocleancans.com. Your can will be so much happier. So will you.