Jennifer Trudel takes her work seriously.
If that means crawling inside a trash bin to scrape off that last bit of grunge, she’s there.
In fact, on first-time service calls, that extra scrubbing is a take-it-to-the-bank guarantee.
“I just want to get it clean,” she said. “I’m an A-type personality.”
She also is an entrepreneur in a cleaning service that’s so new that many people have never heard of it.
Her business, Scrub A Dub Bin Cleaning, got rolling about four months ago. She has more than 120 clients who signed up to get their trash and recycling bins cleaned with an eco-friendly technique.
She rides up to the curbside in her blue truck, pops the bins onto rotating nozzles that jet sprays 190 degrees of very, hot water, and deposits the bins back onto the curb.
“That more than kills everything,” she said, except on first-time cleanings when bins can be a tougher challenge. Gum is the worst, Trudel said. But, she has a spray that freezes the sticky wads and that gets it off every time.
Her truck carries more than 500 gallons of water. It also has a storage container for the dirty water that is later recycled to the county’s sewer system for processing at a wastewater treatment facility.
As a final step, Trudel sprays a biodegradable disinfectant and deodorizer, and leaves a fresh, clean bin.
It’s a much more efficient, sure-fire method that uses less water than a garden hose, and doesn’t wash dirty water into storm drains, she added.
Word of mouth is helping her build a customer base in Wesley Chapel, New Tampa and Land O’ Lakes.
Trudel also sets up displays at community events, and is available to meet with neighborhood or homeowners’ associations to explain her service.
“A lot of people sign up because they see the truck driving by or when a neighbor sees me cleaning someone else’s bin,” Trudel said.
She also has a Facebook page and a website.
Scrub A Dub Bin Cleaning came as a surprise to Trudel and her family.
She moved to Pasco County when her husband got a job promotion and transfer in 1996. The couple has four children. The youngest is heading to college.
Trudel had been a pharmacist for nearly three decades, but decided as empty-nest time approached that it was time to find something else.
“I didn’t enjoy it anymore,” she said. “I wanted to own my own business.”
Bin cleaning didn’t spring to mind.
Then, a Facebook friend bragged about her clean bins from a service in South Florida and posted a photo.
“It was this crazy-looking truck,” Trudel said. “We were all intrigued.”
Trudel dived into the research.
She found out that the city of London, some 20 years ago, mandated that residents keep their bins clean. Rodents were overrunning the city — feasting on a steady diet of smelly, household garbage.
Companies emerged in London to clean the bins, and developed the self-contained system of water storage and disposal.
Trudel said similar services are provided in South Florida and south Tampa, but she appears to be the first in Pasco County.
She ordered her truck from a company in Miami. After a four- month wait, she drove it up to Pasco.
“It’s a great thing to drive,” Trudel said.
She offers various pricing plans from one-time-only cleaning to special offers for quarterly, bi-monthly or monthly cleanings.
Trudel is having the time of her life.
“This to me is not a job,” she said. “This is my life. I’m so engrossed in it.”
For information, visit ScrubADubBins.com or Facebook.com/scrubadubbins/, or call (844) 727-8229.
Published May 23, 2018
