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News San Diego junk masters haul porn, syringes, and shotgun shells By Larry Knowles June 12, 2006 San Diego--Are you tired of looking at that stack of porn in the closet? Is your apartment littered with used syringes? Are your breast enlargement supplements simply taking over your home? If you answered “yes” to all of these questions,…you’ve got serious problems. If you’ve answered yes to one of the above, on the other hand, you may not need a family intervention…yet. However, you probably need professional help, not from a shrink, but from a domestic sanitation engineer who can help you get rid of that junk in your home.
The term “domestic sanitation engineer” doesn’t exist, by the way. That’s just this writer’s attempt to be vocationally sensitive to all the trash haulers out there. That’s what you need: a trash hauler, a junk man, a detritus removal consultant. Ben Hoskins, owner of a local junk hauling franchise 1-800-Got-Junk, has been advising San Diego residents how to get rid of their junk for the past three years. You may recognize the Got Junk name. With their mini green and blue trucks with the company name-slash-number on the side, his company is one of the most visible hauling outfits in the area. Hoskins and his staff of junk removers make a living going into the one place that gives you the heebie-jeebies: your neighbor’s closet. Think of the closet of the quiet guy who lives across the street, or the willowy couple next door who argue every night at 2:00 a.m. The Got Junk guys have seen some pretty weird stuff. For Hoskins, the weirdest day came on his first day on the job, when he removed half a truckload of herbal supplements from a San Diego home. “There were boxes and boxes of weight loss and breast enlargement pills. I don’t know if it was a home business or whether the owners purchased the stuff and they just didn’t work.” Hoskins, 28, male, didn’t need the breast enlargement pills (author’s assumption) or the weight loss product (similar assumption) and considered selling the stash online. He ended up, however, throwing it all away. “At the time, I was scared. I didn’t know what liability there would be,” he says. (Imagine the lawsuits…‘Honey, you’re thinner and your breasts look huge. Who did this to you!...Tell me!...That Got Junk guy? That’s it—I’m calling the Pacific Law Center.’) The Got Junk guys also haul a lot of porn. In fact, smut removal is just another part of the job, nothing to get embarrassed or self-conscious about. The only time erotica eradication becomes uncomfortable for the junk crew, however, is when family members bring them in to clean out the space of a deceased relative. Let’s just say, Uncle Edgar might have a sweet tooth for Japanese schoolgirls that nobody knows about. Many of Hoskins’ employees are young men and fraternity guys from UCSD, and porn also acts as currency in the junk removal world. “Some people give stacks of porn as tips,” Hoskins says. The Junk folks also aren’t afraid to clean up the seedier sides of San Diego, and have removed syringes, UV lights, and other drug paraphernalia from dedicated drug dens in America’s Finest City. There’s one job in San Diego, however, that even Hoskins wouldn’t tackle: City Hall. “I think that may even be out of our league,” he admits. Christopher Geis, another Got Junk franchise owner in San Diego, though, is keen to clean out city hall. “We’re still waiting on that. We’re ready and willing.” For Geis, the oddest job he’s been on is the one where he and his workers cut up an entire RV. In two days, they took blow torches to a standing motor home and made it disappear. And you thought your home was losing value. There are some items that the Junk guys won’t, or can’t, haul away. For example, they won’t remove irritants such as chemicals, solvents, and oils. And they can’t haul away what for some is the greatest irritant of all—a husband or wife. “It’s one of our most commonly requested jobs,” says Hoskins. With their clean-cut, professional appearance, the detritus removal consultants at Got Junk may be more welcome in a household than a spouse. Judy Wilson, a single mother of two, has called in Got Junk a couple of times and recommends the company to all her friends. “They’re clean, they’re neat, and they don’t give me the creeps,” she says. While the possibility of romance exists among customers and such dashing service people, Hoskins says he hasn’t heard of any trysts. “To my knowledge, nothing like that has happened. But, I don’t know if they’d tell me. That might be too much of a fringe benefit. They’d be afraid their salary would be cut.” -------------------- Larry Knowles is the editor of Vyuz.com.Suggested Vyuz reading... What it's like to be straight in Hillcrest | By Leopard J. Ferry San Diego Mayor talks corruption and the Strong Mayor form of government | By Larry Knowles Steve York, UCSD pornographer, chooses law over porn | By Larry Knowles The bare facts about Brazilian waxing | By Romina Cleary A look inside Imperial Beach border patrol | By Larry Knowles A serial networker walks among us | By April Labine-Katko |
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