Bagster Dumpster in a Bag

This post is brought to you by Waste Management’s Bagster Dumpster in a Bag.

 

As carless urban DIY’ers, with strict limited city garbage pick-ups, getting rid of our renovation junk can we pretty darn problematic.

In fact, we just kinda stockpiled all of it until we could figure out how to get rid of it. I promise we’re not into hoarding territory yet, but dammit the junk is piling up. In the last year we have completed a kitchen mini-reno, a basement reno, decking re-vamp, general projects, and woodworking. All of this has created a lot of debris. We could just get a dumpster, but they’re expensive, and the biggest problem we have is access. We have no front yard or laneway, and our backyard access is blocked by our garage. When we had the house fixed my Mike Holmes, they actually put a dumpster in our neighbors yard (thanks best neighbors ever!), and took down our fence for access.

So I think you can see our issues. No place for a dumpster, and no way to get rid of our non-recyclable renovation junk. Enter Waste Management’s Bagster dumpster in a bag. It’s a fold out portable dumpster made with tarp like fabric. It can hold a crazy amount of stuff. 3300lbs or 20 garbage bags of renovation debris. Perfect. So we ordered our bag online, and got it shipped to our house. You can also pick them up at the Hardware Store. See thebagster.com for your closest retail locations. You don’t have to pay for the collection of the bag until you schedule the pick-up.

Bagster Dumpster in a Bag well really, it's a Bagster bag IN another bag ;)
Bagster Dumpster in a Bag well really, it’s a Bagster bag IN another bag 😉

Now, where do we put it up? We can set it up on the 4′ of concrete behind our garage that is technically our property between the garage and the alleyway. Except…. I called Waste Management, and you need to have 16′ of clearance above the pick-up site, and our garage has a roof overhang (of about 2′). This complicates things, as the arm from the pick-up vehicle won’t be able to reach the bag without hitting the roof overhang. Oops.

Time for plan B: Pushing back our front planter box, and placing the Bagster dumpster bag on the concrete in between the sidewalk and the Storefront. The problem here, is that the planter box is about oh… a thousand pounds. We can either dig up a bunch of the dirt/flowers to lighten the load to move it, or push it Worlds Strongest Man style.

Exterior of the Storefront & Planterbox
Large, HEAVY planter!

Guess which one we choose? OH THAT’S RIGHT, muscles baby!

El Granto and I heaved and hoed and pushed that planter out of the way!

Now we could assemble the Bagster bag. The bag came with assembly instructions. Basically you open it up, then fold the sides down so that it stays open. When you start to fill it up, you can lift the sides up and put more stuff in.

Bagster Dumpster in a Bag set up and ready to go
Bagster Dumpster in a Bag set up and ready to go

Let the junk cleaning begin! We stored our construction debris in large bins, boxes and bags, and we started carting out the junk and dumping it into the bag. A few hours work later, and the Bagster dumpster bag was really filling up.

Construction Debris be gone!
Construction Debris be gone!

These are some of the things we tossed in the Bagster bag:

Tile, whole & broken
Drywall, small and large pieces
Old laminate kitchen counters
Melamine molds that we used for our concrete countertops
Used buckets coated in concrete (unrecyclable)
Pressure treated deck railings
Paint & stain covered drop cloths
Wood offcuts
Old and Broken Bicycle and Snowboard Parts

WOWZA! That's a whole lotta junk in the dumpster bag!
WOWZA! That’s a whole lotta junk in the dumpster bag!

LOOK AT ALL THAT JUNK!

We were able to fit in way more than we anticipated, removing all the junk from our garage.

This used to be a storing ground for renovation debris. So nice to have the space back!
This used to be a storing ground for renovation debris. So nice to have the space back!

After we finished, we went online and scheduled a pick-up and made payment for our order. They will come and pickup within 3 days. Our pick-up actually came the next day, which was awesome.

The one thing we had to deal with for pick-up was that parking is allowed in front of our house. If cars were parked there, they wouldn’t be able to access the Bagster Bag. I called and spoke with a Waste Management Bagster rep, and they said they could call me an hour before pick-up, so that I could ensure no cars were in the way. After I got the call, I ran out and placed some temporary pylons in the way, so that the truck could easily collect. Within the hour they had picked it up, and even sent me a confirmation email saying everything went as planned.

The Bagster Dumpster in a Bag seems like it would be perfect for a small bathroom or kitchen reno, flooring project, spring cleanup or if mother nature strikes and you need to clean up after a flood. We are tackling our bathroom renovation next, and this will be perfect for carting away the old tiles & subfloor. If you were doing a whole house renovation, a traditional dumpster will still be the way to go, but for small renovations and cleanup projects this works perfectly.

The Bagster Dumpster in a Bag
The Bagster Dumpster in a Bag

Have you ever used a Waste Management Bagster Dumpster in a Bag? How did you like it?

Disclosure: This project was brought to you by Waste Management Bagster Dumpster in a Bag, but all opinions and junk are our own.

The Time Mike Holmes Fixed our House

I completely missed our Blog Anniversary last week!

On July 5th, we officially turned two!

I had plans of a whole Blogaversary week with my fave stuff, behind the scenes etc, but heck, summer happened, and so did work in our backyard. However, I will give you one flash back post!

I was talking to a good blog friend a few weeks ago, and mentioned that my lifelong dream was to have my own show on HGTV, and that we had loved being on Holmes Inspection. She gave me the WAIT WAIT WAIT, you were on HOLMES INSPECTION? And I was all like “yeah dude, Mike Holmes fixed our house! It’s on my blog!”. Then I realized I posted about being on the show on my 2nd ever blog post. Back when…oh about two people read the blog (Thanks Moms!)

So I said to myself. “Maybe my new readers don’t know about the time I cried on international TV, and Mike Holmes saved our butts”.

Here’s the scoop. We moved into our place, and had big problems from day one. We were in over our heads, and had spent ALL our money on buying the place. We had a home inspection (from a VERY reputable company) but a lot of things were missed.

Mike, Damon & the team stepped in, and fixed all the problems hiding behind the walls of the Storefront.

I wont spoil the show for you, so head on over to HGTV and give it a watch!

Watch Moisture Madness
Watch our episode “Moisture Madness” on hgtv.ca

For my American & International readers, I don’t think it will let you watch it on the Canadian site, and I do not see whole episode listed as streaming on hgtv.com. Keep an eye out for our episode on your local listings, or give it a google and see if you can find it.

Our Episode: Holmes Inspection Moisture Madness.

FAQ

We get a ton of questions about the show. Here are answers to your most asked questions!

Whats Mike Like? Exactly as you see him on TV! He is kind, friendly, funny, and cares sooo much about quality construction, and helping people! The first time we met him was literally when he knocked on our door in the show. Nothing is scripted. He is genuine, and it was awesome to have Mike and his team come to our rescue.

Did we have to move out? Yep! We had a lot of construction going on, and some safety concerns, so we moved out for the duration of the show. We stayed at Grant’s Mom & Dad’s place, and the only time mid construction that we came back to the house was when you see us come back in the show.

How did we get on the show, and why did we apply? It was Christmas time, the house was falling apart around us, and no contractors were returning our calls as it was the Holidays. Defeated, we were sitting on the sofa watching TV, and a Holmes Inspection marathon was on HGTV. El Granto turned to me and said we should apply. I said, oh our house isn’t THAT bad, is it? He said…well, yeah it is. We emailed them our story via their casting call on hgtv.ca. I drafted the email, read it back aloud to El Granto, and burst into tears, as yeah, it did sound pretty terrible when you put it all on paper. Our story must have been compelling, as they picked us!

moisturemadnessdemos2

When did the show air? It aired in September 2011, a week and a half before our wedding! Don’t worry, we still got married, although we did have to postpone our honeymoon, and never did get to go to Europe. Instead we took a short tropical honeymoon six months later.

Did you have to pay? How much? Sorry guys, we’re not discussing anything about money. That’s private!

Would we do it again? OF COURSE! They saved our butts! We owe Mile & the team a world of gratitude and I don’t know where we’d be without them. We now have an awesome home, that we are loving putting our own stamp on.

moisturemadnessasbestos

Let me know if you have any more questions, and I will do the best to answer them.

Have you ever be on TV? Have any television aspirations? What did you think of our episode?