Getting their hands dirty: A look inside unusual, dirty jobs in Midland County – Midland Daily News

Midland resident Audrey Mills works to clean out trash bins at Grove Tea Lounge as part of her new business, Better Bins, Wednesday in Midland. (Katy Kildee/kkildee@mdn.net)

Midland resident Audrey Mills works to clean out trash bins at Grove Tea Lounge as part of her new business, Better Bins, Wednesday in Midland. (Katy Kildee/kkildee@mdn.net)

Midland resident Audrey Mills works to clean out trash bins at Grove Tea Lounge as part of her new business, Better Bins, Wednesday in Midland. (Katy Kildee/kkildee@mdn.net)

Midland resident Audrey Mills works to clean out trash bins at Grove Tea Lounge as part of her new business, Better Bins, Wednesday in Midland. (Katy Kildee/kkildee@mdn.net)

Getting their hands dirty:A look inside unusual, dirty jobs in Midland County

Whether they are entrepreneurs making a living or county employees, several people within the Midland County area work their hardest to keep the community safe and sanitary by getting their hands dirty and picking up the jobs others would not.

One man's junk is another's treasure

When Dave Schuder, of Clare, tells people that he collects junk for a living, most people are surprised such a service even exists.

"I've been an entrepreneur all my life doing lawn businesses and landscaping - it just didn't pay as well as I wanted it to," Schuder said. "At one point, I was injured in motorcycle accident and had to give up working for several years. Once I was able to start working again, I started doing scrap on the side and then it just slowly morphed into this."

Since April, Schuder has been operating his own LLC, Junk Dragons. Through the company, he offers a junk removal service for a plethora of places such as basements, sheds, foreclosed homes, offices, retail stores, storage units and more. In addition, Junk Dragons offers demolition of small sheds, playgrounds, above ground pools and hot tubs.

Depending on the job, Schuder will recruit help from his two adult sons or use a temp agency to get a few more hands on deck.

"The best part of the job is when you show up to the person's house and they've got it all basically in one room and they say 'this is it' and you have one doorway to go through and maybe down a couple stairs -- those are the best jobs," Schuder said.

"The worst jobs are the basements that aren't walk-out basements and you've got half a dozen stairs and maybe two turns - You know, you get those houses in the bigger cities."

Despite the logistics of a pick-up, sometimes they can be quite "dirty" jobs and aside from hazardous waste, there is little Schuder will not do. Since he does a lot of clean-outs for private and bank-owned properties, sometimes they are rental units and can be left quite a mess.

And sometimes, if renters leave on bad terms, they intentionally deface a house using their own feces, Schuder said.

"Some of the jobs they do it intentionally - I mean, where there will be poop in the house and it's not canine poop - it's people poop," Schuder said. "I mean, they're mad; they'll just smear it on the walls."

Schuder said he does not take care of that type of mess, but it is something he encounters when removing other things from a residence.

"It does get nasty - if you want to talk about dirty, that's probably the nastiest," he said.

However, Schuder said the worst encounters are with bugs and animals. While he never gets used to the critters, roaches and mice got nothing on bed bugs in terms of their fear factor.

"There's been a couple jobs where you need to wear the disposable suit because of bed bugs and stuff like that," he said. "We wrap the mattress in a mattress wrap or box spring, or both sometimes. I charge more for that because it's more labor intensive and we don't want to bring that crap home -- if it gets on you, it's coming home."

When working on outdoor projects, such as dilapidated sheds and barns, wildlife can pose a threat as well. Schuder said sometimes animals like opossums, foxes and raccoons will make dens where he needs to clean, and they become territorial to their space.

"There's been a few times that we've actually had to do the job after we've disturbed their home well enough. We would leave the job and come back the following day and they would be gone," he said. "Or you get the occasional bees' nest or hornets' nest that we usually take care of that right there on the spot. But, we don't like doing that either because that hurts."

However, despite any dirt, danger or crawly critters that might come with the territory, Schuder said he loves what he does. He said he truly lives the philosophy of "one man's junk is another man's treasure."

Once the junk is collected, Schuder takes care of it - whether that means hauling the lot to the landfill, recycling what he can, repurposing and even selling items when feasible.

Schuder said one time, a Midland woman hired him to remove a nearly new exercise bike from her home, which he was able to turn into a win-win-win situation: The woman had the bike gone; Schuder sold it for a couple hundred dollars; and the person he sold it to had just left the hospital and needed it for physical therapy.

While Schuder was told winter is the slow season for junk removal business, he said he was happy to find that was not the case this year. Traveling all over central Michigan, Junk Dragons services Clare, Gladwin, Isabella, Mecosta and Midland counties.

Those interested in junk removal service can call Schuder at 989-330-8423 for a free estimate.

Cleaning up the trash

While junk removal business is booming for Schuder, another Midland resident has found her new business, Better Bins, is hitting a lull in the colder months.

Audrey Mills started a trash-can cleaning service in September. A wife and mother of three, Mills said it is her solution to making the best of a very hectic schedule.

"I was sick and tired of sitting around at home - I'm sure a lot of mom's feel the same way," she said. "I needed to find something that works for us."

However, the trade-off of a flexible schedule means Mills is doing some pretty dirty work, cleaning trash cans. She said she will clean any kind of bin, from residential outdoor bins and kitchen bins to commercial dumpsters.

Cleaning a trash can is something Mills said most people probably do not think about, but can be important for sanitary and health reasons. Now that she has seen how bad they can get, she said she wishes more people did think about it.

"It's one of those things - people don't like cleaning out their garbage cans," she said. "They don't generally want to find maggots in there and when you do, you generally just kind of pour some hot bleach water in there, close it and maybe it will go away with the garbage."

In addition to maggots - which Mills said are the worst - she's also come across materials stuck to the bottom of bins.

"Sometimes you have to get a scraper and get in there and it's not pleasant when you see poopy diapers stuck to the bottom of a bin and you know it's not coming out," she said. "So, you better put some gloves on and suit up and get in there."

When asked about the worst part of the job, Mills said it would be easy to complain, but really, she's just thankful to have a job.

"I just tell myself every time when I get out there and encounter maggots or dirty diapers that are stuck to the bottom of the bin; oils or paint spills; or whatever it might be inside that bin 'I'm thankful for the work I have,'" she said. "There's a lot of people who don't have any jobs, and I'm just honestly so thankful that I can get out there and do it and that's what I tell people; that's the icing on the cake. I'm actually happy to get into your nasty bin."

Mills is dreaming big, with the hopes of eventually expanding her service to do several houses in each neighborhood throughout the entire Tri-City area, and someday even franchising. She said at the end of the day, she just wants to give her kids' a better life, and this is her way of doing it.

"All parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles - they want to see their nieces and nephews, grandkids; kids have a better life. They want a better life for themselves," she said. "And sometimes, that's worth working for and worth the sacrifice."

Pest patrol

Entrepreneurs like Mills and Schuder are not the only people sacrificing their time and cleanliness for the sake of communal health; agencies like the Midland County Mosquito Control department also depend on determined men and women getting their hands and clothes dirty.

During the peak mosquito seasons of spring and summer, up to 27 Mosquito Control employees equip pressurized backpacks full of larvicide to treat areas that could become mosquito breeding sites, often working on a daily schedule doing work that takes them off the beaten paths in wooded areas.

"We all do our time on foot treating for mosquitoes in the areas where you'll find their larval habitats, and those can get pretty remote -- there can be a lot of brush you have to fight through to get to those," said director Carl Doud. "That's the nature of some of the work that we do that people don't see as much -- they see the aircraft and the trucks fogging down the roads, but we do a lot of on-foot treatments trying to get to the areas where mosquitoes come from."

Though it only takes place two days every season, Doud said the department's "tire drive" is likely the single dirtiest undertaking on Mosquito Control's agenda.

"We take in about 1,000 tires from individuals that drop them off -- we have to stack them in a trailer in a certain way to maximize the use of that space," Doud said. "If you've had a recent rain, (the tires) have a whole lot of muddy water in them, and it gets pretty dirty that way."

Though they can be a hassle to dispose of, scrap tires can be among the most potent breeding grounds for mosquitos due to their ability to collect and hold water.

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Getting their hands dirty: A look inside unusual, dirty jobs in Midland County - Midland Daily News