More Than a Garbage Man . . .
I wanted to be annoyed, but I was too blessed to be that.
There was a time when I first started my business that I had to service an entire property alone because of worker callouts.
Now with almost two hundred employees throughout the Rock Hill, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina, areas, it was far and between if I had to work on a property.
Even in those times, I didn’t have to, because I had access to contract workers through a temp agency that I worked with.
Sometimes, it was just easier for me to cover a shift myself than pay for a head.
Yeah, I was the founder and chief executive officer of St. Claire Property Solutions, but that didn’t mean I was scared to get into the trenches.
Hell, I started in the trenches with this property solutions thing at the age of sixteen years old.
I was hired part-time as a grounds and maintenance assistant at a local apartment community in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
At sixteen, that job busted my ass. I picked up trash, emptied outdoor trash cans, pressure washed sidewalks, replaced lightbulbs, assisted with apartment clean outs, delivered notices and packages, moved discarded furniture, and a host of other things.
While my homeboys worked at grocery stores, the mall, and fast-food restaurants, I worked in all kinds of weather conditions.
The weather conditions in the Carolinas were nothing to play with, especially the heat.
My father, Franklin Joseph St. Claire, taught me at a very young age about work ethic and how important it was.
He worked hard at a manufacturing plant that he’d worked at for as long as I could remember.
Before I started my job at the apartment community, I learned my work ethic around my house.
I took out the trash, carried in groceries for my mother, Lauren Coral St. Claire, when she went to the store, did the yard work, and helped my father with small repairs or did them myself.
That initial job grew my love for the industry.
I loved the reaction when the property manager saw how well I did the job I was responsible for.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I was promoted to the groundskeeper and turnover assistant.
That position taught me how the units were prepared between move-out and move-in.
I assisted with carpet removals, appliance cleaning, painting preparation, move-out inspections, and final walk-throughs.
One of the most useful and eye-opening things that I had access to in that role was the vendors.
Something that caught my complete interest was the coordination that it took to turn over an apartment quickly.
It was a fact that vacant apartments generated no income, so every minute cost. My mother taught me if I had a question, to ask it, and that was what I did.
From those questions, I was taught practical skills from the maintenance supervisor and the business side from the property manager.
By the time I was a freshman in college at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), I knew I wanted to start a company that tied into dealing with properties.
I didn’t want to necessarily be involved with property management, but property solutions was more the avenue.
I chose my college strategically for that reason so that I could gain access to the growing real-estate market in Charlotte.
I also wanted to stay close to my mother who lived with lupus.
“Aye, Falcon, that lady we told you about in apartment 520 is up there acting stupid.” Jeremy walked up to my pickup truck where I stood. Frustration had his light skin reddened. She must have been a lot if she had him frustrated, because he was not one to be easily moved.
Tonight I was in the field on the environmental services division of my business.
Under this division, we handled valet trash, bulk-item removal, compactor monitoring, recycling collection, waste-area sanitation, and sustainability reporting.
There were twenty properties between Rock Hill, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina, that were contracted with my company for various services.
Valet trash was one of our biggest services as a lot of properties started to offer the service years ago as a part of their luxury upgrade.
We charged twenty-five dollars a door a month for valet trash services and an additional ten dollars for recycling services.
It was a pass-through fee that the residential community added into the rent, and it came directly to us.
The communities that offered the service did not make it an optional amenity.
It made it easier for them to manage as well as us.
The community that we were in tonight had a total of eight hundred units of which 682 were occupied.
That was a cool $17,050 a month from that one community for just the valet trash service.
They opted not to add on the recycling services.
For a property this size, it took five to six workers to work it.
My valet attendant position started at eighteen dollars an hour.
I shook my head. It was ironic that this was the property that needed the extra hand tonight. She was probably the reason that we needed it. “What she talking about?”
“Man, we’ve left notice after notice about why we don’t take her trash. She acts like she can’t damn read. Tonight, it was like she was waiting for our ass. I’m not going back up there with that fuckin’ lady, man,” he ranted.
The resident in the unit that he spoke about had just moved in a few weeks ago. When new residents moved in, they were given a pamphlet on what we required in order to pick their trash up. They also signed an addendum that said that they would follow those rules.
Each apartment had a trash can that was provided.
That was the only trash can that we took trash out of.
We only took up to three bags at a time, provided they were in the trash can and each tied closed.
If it was sitting beside it, we wouldn’t take it.
Since the apartment did not add on the recycling service, we still took up to three flattened boxes, which was also in the pamphlet and addendum.
I huffed because I was not in the mood to be tempted off my square. Patience was a virtue that I had a lot of when it came to certain people and situations. A bitch that just chose to not listen was not one of the situations that I wanted to waste my patience on.
“Alright, I got it. Did you finish the rest of the floor?” I asked. Once he told me that he did, I made sure I had everything I needed before I headed to the fifth floor.
I was dressed in the normal attire for the valet attendants.
They were required to wear our logo T-shirt, safety vest, and gloves.
I didn’t care what bottoms were worn. From what I saw, most wore sweatpants or basketball shorts.
Trash pickup didn’t start until eight p.m. from Monday through Thursday.
This community was a nine-story indoor complex.
Apartments were on the first through the eighth floor.
On the ninth floor was a pool, game room, and a rooftop bar.
On the first floor was a gym, laundry room, mail room, coffee shop, community room, and the leasing office.
Every floor had what they called working rooms where residents could use to work virtually.
To use them, they had to reserve them through their online reservation system.
Once the room was reserved, they received a code to enter the space.
The community and the building were massive with a parking garage attached. With all the amenities, the rent was well worth it. Plus, they took care of the property exceptionally well.
When I got off the elevator on the fifth floor, I intentionally walked slower than normal. The building was a square, so I had to go around a corner from the elevator to get to her door. There was no rush in my mind to get to apartment 520.
Before I walked up to her door, I gawked at the trash set in front of it.
There was a trash can filled with trash in an untied bag outside of the door.
There were two issues with that: It was not the correct trash can, and the bag was untied.
There were also three additional bags next to the trash can.
Any time we didn’t take a resident’s trash, we left a professional graphic, logo sticky note on their door with the reasons.
My hand hadn’t lifted to press the doorbell when the door flung open. I wanted to snicker at her obvious discontent. This was guaranteed to be entertaining.
Her eyes rolled. She stood there in a pair of booty shorts and a tank top. I could tell from the front that she didn’t have any booty to fill the shorts. Her pasty skin reddened. “Another one of you.”
I didn’t plan to address her another one of you comments. I made sure I stood in the middle of the hallway outside of her personal space. “Good evening. I was told that you had an issue with your trash pickup.”
Her eyelids stretched to accommodate her enlarged eyeballs before her head snapped toward the trash on the side of her door, then her hands stretched toward it.
“Um, duh! Yes, there’s a problem. Everyone else’s trash is gone, but mine is still here. You fuckas haven’t taken my trash for like two damn weeks. This shit doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.” Her tone was hard and volume was high.
I calmly glanced at the trash that I already took inventory of, then glanced up at the sticky note that was still on her door.
I pointed at the note on her door. “Ma’am, the note on your door tells you exactly why we didn’t take the trash.
Per our contract, when we don’t take a resident’s trash, we leave a note as to why. ”