Meet Larry DeRoche of Clean Out Your House

Today we’d like to introduce you to Larry DeRoche.

Larry, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I worked for Verizon for 31 years. After leaving them a good friend of mine approached me with an idea. Starting your own business doing clean outs. I said what is a clean out? He came up with the idea by driving through a local neighborhood and saw people throwing rubbish out that was still usable. After working in the computer industry for many years and having management experience I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in the rubbish removal business. The other concern was I was 51 years old. Could I lift heavy furniture and climb in dumpsters.

After 2 months of searching for a job I was trained in, without success, I decided to ask more questions. Together we put together a business plan. It looked like a dream with expectations we hoped for. The idea we were basing it on was the baby boom era. We figured there will be a lot of seniors downsizing, passing away, or just selling their house. After 30-40 years in their house most people accumulate a lot of stuff, whether it is from their children’s lives or their own. In most cases the children don’t want it. They ask themselves what do I do with all this stuff?  Who’s going to help us? In many cases their children are grown up and have families of their own or are living in another state. So we figured they need a source to deal with this.  After serious consideration and talking with my wife I decided to give it a shot. I’ve always heard people saying there is nothing like owning your own company.

Now that I was committed I had to figure out how to do it. My partner helped with finances and an empty building. This was the reason the original start-up was a little easier. My part was to put it all together. I didn’t know how to get rid of a sofa let alone empty a house, yikes!  After about two months I figured out how to start. My first job was in May 2002. After many trial and errors I started to gain momentum. My belief from the beginning was customer service. If you were good and you leave the customer with a good feeling and a smile on their face that word would spread. We kept on growing and I was getting older. I took on another partner so I would be able to do less physical work and more managing. Five years ago we decided to open up a Consignment Store. It’s called Buy and Consign in Waltham.

Now we not only do rubbish, donations, but we offer consigning. We take everything. With this addition it was the icing on the cake. We now have 5 box trucks and one dump truck. Most days 3 trucks are on the road. We have the work for 4 trucks but staffing the right people is a challenge. I’m sure I left out a lot but this should give you an idea.

Has it been a smooth road?
Getting good, reliable help is a constant struggle.  Finding warehouse space within our client base is also difficult.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Clean Out Your House story. Tell us more about the business.
I said a lot on the previous page, but good customer service is our first priority.  We have surveys and I watch them carefully. If I read that a customer was not happy I do my best to turn that around. A lot of our clients are emotional about parting with their stuff and we understand that and try to make it as pain free as possible.  We take everything.  We mean everything!  There is no need to call anyone else to dispose of anything.  We even take the hazardous house hold stuff like  paints and pesticides. We provide receipts for items donated.  We consign customer’s items 50/50 for a 60 day period.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Getting more work, people are always going to down size etc.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cleanoutyourhouse.com
• Phone: 781-826-3120
• Email: larry@cleanoutyourhouse.com

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