TrashCanBossPro Blog — HOAs & Commercial

Bin Cleaning for Property Managers With Dozens of Rental Homes

A property manager with thirty or eighty single-family rentals is one of the best customers a bin cleaning company can have. One decision maker, many addresses, steady monthly work. She is also one of the easiest customers to lose, because she has no patience for twenty separate invoices or a crew that cannot find the cans.

How It Differs From an HOA

HOA work, covered in Serving an HOA Bin Cleaning Account Once You Have It: Routes, Residents and the Board, usually means one neighborhood and one trash day. A property manager's homes are scattered. Three on one side of town, five across the river, one in the next city. They have different trash days, different can setups and different tenants.

That changes how you set up the account and how you route it, but the core idea stays the same: one client, many addresses.

One Client, Every Rental Under It

Make the property management company the client. Put every rental under it as its own address. Do not create a customer for each tenant. Tenants come and go. The manager stays, and the manager pays.

Each address gets:

• Can counts: trash, recycling and yard waste
• Its own city trash pickup day
• Can location: side of the garage, behind the fence, in the alley
• Any access note: gate code, "cans in the side yard, gate latch sticks"

Tag the client Commercial (or a tag you create for property managers) and add a custom field for the manager's portfolio name or region if they run several. Big portfolios come in as a CSV import. Ask for the address list in a spreadsheet; most managers have one.

Routing Scattered Homes

Because each rental keeps its own trash day, scattered homes fall onto your existing residential routes naturally. A rental on Tuesday trash goes out with your Wednesday route in that part of town. You do not need a special property manager day.

Monthly cleanings for each rental come due on the Waiting List by themselves. When you look at the map, the manager's homes show up alongside your residential pins, colored due now or overdue. Assign them to the trailer already heading that way. That is how a scattered portfolio stays profitable: it rides along with routes you are already driving.

Tenants Are Not Your Customer, But They Matter

Tenants are the ones who put the cans out or do not. Ask the manager how they want tenants told about cleaning day. Many managers include it in the lease addendum or send a notice when a tenant moves in. Some just want the cans cleaned whenever they are out after pickup.

Write that policy on the account so the office does not have to ask again. If a rental keeps skipping because cans are never out, the crew's skip reason tells you, and you text the manager. She can handle the tenant. You should not.

Move-Outs and Turnovers

Property managers have a special need: a rental turns over and the cans left behind are disgusting. A one-time deep clean at move-out is a natural add-on. Put it on your service list so it can go on an estimate or be added as a one-time job, and it shows up on the monthly statement next to that address.

The manager can request it by text or through the customer app. There is a whole guide on this: Move-Out Bin Cleaning for Property Managers: Turnover Requests That Don't Get Lost.

One Statement, Labeled by Address

This is the part that wins and keeps property managers. Set the account to Monthly billing. At the end of the month the manager gets one statement covering every rental you cleaned, each line labeled with its address. Her bookkeeper can split the cost to each property owner without calling you. Line items and sales tax show the same as any invoice.

Whether she pays by card on file charged on a schedule or by check is your policy. Many managers are used to paying vendors by check or online against a statement, and the customer app lets her see invoices and pay online.

Photos for the Owner Behind the Manager

Property managers answer to owners. When an owner asks what the cleaning fee on their statement is for, the manager wants to show something. Before and after photos taken in the tech app are saved with every job. Pull up the address and date and the photos are there.

Adding and Dropping Rentals

Portfolios change. The manager picks up three new homes, sells one, loses a contract on another. Make it easy for her to tell you: two-way texting from the office works well. Add the new address under the account with its cans and trash day, and it starts coming due on the Waiting List. Removing one is just as quick.

A manager who can add a home with a two-line text keeps sending you homes. For the tools behind all of this, see the bin cleaning software for property managers and HOAs.