Forest Hill is solid 1960s family housing on regular blocks, with mature trees and gardens that turn out leaves and prunings every season.
Not a franchisee or a truck driver from a booking system. The bloke who quotes it is the bloke who loads it.
No bags to fill, no skip to load. Leave it in a pile and he loads it, sweeps up and takes it away.
Not a bin size. A heap beside the driveway and one at the bottom of a steep yard are different jobs and get different prices.
Standing tree, asbestos, or more rubbish than garden — he tells you before he starts, not after.
A pruning pile hauled away and a few bags of leaf litter collected is the usual combination on a Forest Hill block.
Piles of prunings, branches, hedge trimmings, leaves and weeds that won't fit in the green bin. Ross backs the trailer in, loads it himself and takes it away to be recycled — you don't lift a thing.
Seasonal prunings and leaf piles.
Doing a big garden clean-up — overgrown beds, a back corner nobody has touched in years, a rental between tenants or a property being tidied for sale? Pile it all up and Ross collects the lot in one visit.
Family yards and rentals put back in order.
Fallen limbs, shed bark, leaf litter and dry prunings gathered up from around the house — the fine fuel that matters most in a grassfire or ember attack. Collected and taken away before the Fire Danger Period starts.
Leaf and twig build-up removed before summer.
A gum has dropped a limb across the driveway, or a windy night has left the yard covered. Ross collects what's come down and hauls it away. Standing trees and hung-up limbs are an arborist's job — once they've dropped it, Ross can take it away.
Backyard limbs picked up and removed after storms.
Forest Hill filled up mostly during the 1960s, and it still has that feel: brick and weatherboard family homes on regular suburban blocks, curving streets, and gardens that have matured over half a century. There's a steady mix of long-term owners, young families and rentals.
The garden waste here is seasonal. Autumn brings the leaves down from deciduous trees; winter and spring are when roses, fruit trees and shrubs get pruned; and summer storms occasionally bring down a limb. Ross is there when the pile gets too big for the bin.
Many Forest Hill gardens and streets have big deciduous trees — oaks, maples, liquidambars and ornamental pears — that shed heavily in autumn. Raked into piles, leaves take up a lot of room, and once wet they are heavy and slimy.
A single pickup at the end of the drop clears it all. Ross loads the leaves along with any other garden waste you've gathered.
Like much of Whitehorse, Forest Hill has its share of rentals. When tenants move out, the garden often needs attention before the next lease begins.
Ross can take away everything from an end-of-lease tidy-up — prunings, weeds, raked leaves and all — and property managers are welcome to book directly.
Most Forest Hill homes have a single driveway down the side, which usually allows the trailer to get fairly close. Some have carports or garages blocking the way to the back.
Where that's the case, Ross barrows the material out. It adds a little time, and he'll allow for it in the quote.
The heaviest leaf drop in Forest Hill is usually through May. Everyone wants their piles gone at the same time, and the wet weather makes them harder to handle each week they sit. Book early in autumn to get the date you want.
Suburb, roughly how much there is, and what the access is like. A photo saves a lot of back and forth.
Ross comes back with a number. On big or awkward jobs he has a look first rather than guessing.
Loaded by hand, driveway swept, and off for proper green waste disposal.
Ross runs this on his own. He quotes the job, he turns up, he loads the trailer and he takes it away — the same bloke every visit. There is no office in between, no skip company, and no franchise cut coming out of what you pay.
It also means he will tell you when something isn't his job — a standing tree that needs an arborist, or a pile that is more rubbish than garden — rather than taking the money and leaving you with half a problem.
The suburb, roughly how much there is, and how easy it is to get a trailer to it is enough to work with. A photo of the pile gets you a price fastest.
Prefer to talk? Call or text Ross on 0416 030 925. Monday to Saturday, daylight hours — weather permitting.
Get a price on your pile. Takes a minute — Ross reads them himself.
Thanks — that's gone through to Ross. Spring is his busiest time, so if it's close to fire season he may take a day or two.
