Getting trim for spring

Winter is over, and we finally get to say goodbye to Jack Frost. Unfortunately, a lot people will now be saying hello to a new arch nemesis—Harry Hay Fever. (Forget about skipping through fields of flowers. These people will be sprinting to the nearest chemist to to buy a truckload of Claratyne.)

Yes, spring is here at last. And if you stop for a minute and take a look around you’ll immediately be trampled by hay fever sufferers.

But once the stampede has passed, take another look and you’ll see the trees and gardens bursting with colour. It’s as if they’ve all had a month’s worth of growth overnight. Unless they happen to be your trees and gardens, in which case it will be more like three months’ worth.

And while you’re more than happy to just let nature take its course, your partner probably has other ideas.

Fact: Father’s Day was deliberately moved to September so men could receive chainsaws and hedge trimmers as gifts.

Of course, along with your “gifts” you’ll need protective gloves, protective eyewear and a wide-brimmed hat. The hat is very important, as it hides your face from passers-by so they hopefully won’t recognise you as you turn your garden into a topiarist’s worst nightmare.

Make no mistake: it’s going to be hard work. But after an hour or so you should have your power tools revving away, which is the signal for the local paramedics to be on standby.

It’s finally time to have some fun. Forget about geometric shapes, and even straight lines. You aim is to remove as much of the growth as you can possibly get away with. So slice away as much as you can while still keeping your limbs (and hopefully your letterbox) intact.

When you finish you’ll no doubt have a knee-deep pile of branches and hedge clippings. (You may also have several species of wildlife and one or two missing children, but the local authorities can deal with them.) You could wait to see if Santa got you a wood chipper for Christmas, or you could get in touch with Brizzy Rubbish Removals and let them take care of it for you.

They’ll come around to your house (“It’s the one with the police car and the Parks and Wildlife vehicle out the front”), gather up gather up all those branches and clippings, and take them away for you. You don’t even need to be there for garden rubbish removal, although right now you’re pretty much stuck. And all without you lifting a finger.

Which is good, because by now you’ve probably lost the feeling in both your arms.

Garden Horrors

First, the good news. Today is Halloween, which means you get the chance to dress up and scare people senseless. Chances are you won’t even need to go out and buy a costume—just pick something from the wardrobe that your partner refuses to let you wear outside.

Health warning: Even though it’s getting quite warm, please choose an outfit that covers most of your body. The idea is to scare everyone, not scar them for life.

You also get the chance to give away all the stuff in your pantry that your entire family refuses to eat, including the dog. (It’s the main reason trick-or-treating happens at night.)

And now the bad news. After today, you really are going to have to clean up the yard.

You’ve been lucky so far. You’ve managed to stave off protests from your partner, your neighbours and the Environment Protection Authority by telling them, “It’s for Halloween”. You even started writing “R.I.P.” on all your pizza boxes before throwing them into the grass, which is now waist high. 

Of course, the chances of anyone actually making it up the path to your front door are highly remote. In fact, about the only way they could get there is if they were dressed as The Grim Reaper and carrying a working scythe.

But after today you’ll have to cut/slash the grass, collect the pizza box, and possibly reunite long-lost children with their families. 

Fortunately, Brizzy Rubbish Removals can help you get rid of it all. (Okay, most of it. You’ll have to deal with the kids yourself.) They’ll bring a truck, load up all your rubbish, and take it away. You don’t even need to be there when they do it.

Which is probably just as well, because chances are a lot of people will be lining up to talk to you now that your path is clear.

Brizzy > Brisbane and Queensland + white goods removal

If you’ve avoided buying whitegoods that connect to the Internet for fear of them downloading music and buying stuff on eBay, I have some bad news.

From the moment you plugged in your fridge, freezer, washing machine, dryer, oven or dishwasher, it’s been communicating with your other whitegoods. But they’re not talking about the latest album they downloaded, or the eBay item they just put a bid on. 

Instead, they’re working out the most inconvenient time to break down.

And it’s a fine line. If they break down too early, they’ll probably be repaired under warranty. And if they leave it too late, they may be replaced before they have the chance to destroy your clothes and spoil your food.

Your fridge and freezer will probably go first, because they know how much you love food. Right now you might not think it’s such a bad thing. Your house feels pretty much like a freezer anyway, so you could just leave everything out on the kitchen bench. 

But with no way to hide anything from view, it won’t be long before your family devours the lot, leaving only a few Brussels sprouts and a jar of mayonnaise that gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘cultured dining experience’.

The oven will probably be the next volunteer, especially if it fits snugly in your kitchen bench. And chances are they don’t make ovens that size any more, so you’ll have to replace not only your oven but also half your kitchen.

The washing machine may also join in, but not until you leave the house during a wash cycle. Only then will it rock its way across the laundry floor, ripping its hoses off and telling the others, “I’m free, I’m free!” 

And of course it’s only a matter of time before the dishwasher and dryer stop working as well.

It’s time to go shopping for replacement whitegoods. You’d like to get ones that run on batteries so they can’t talk to each other, but instead you have to rely on extended warranties. (“How much would 50 years cost?”)

And after paying for delivery and installation, you can finally get back to listening to the kids complain there’s nothing edible in the fridge. (And for the first time in their lives, they’d be right.)

The question is, what do you do with the old ones (other than use them for target practice)?

You could just leave them out on the front lawn and wait for the next kerbside collection. But that could take months, during which time a family could have moved into your fridge. (“Dibs on the top shelf.”)

Another option would be to pile them up, paint them in hideous colours, and convince your local art gallery to buy your latest masterpiece (“Industrial Devolution”). 

But the simplest option of all is to call Brizzy Rubbish Removals. They’ll come to your house, pick up your whitegoods and take them away to be recycled and/or disposed. (You may want to tell the family living in your fridge first.)

And the best thing is, as long as they can contact you by phone you don’t even need to stick around. Which means you can get on with more important things.

Like finding out which appliance has been ordering all that stuff on eBay.

Shouldering your gardening responsibility

Summer is finally over, and it’s time to get outside and tackle the garden.

And I do mean tackle. It’s probably so overgrown you have to slam the front door with your shoulder just to get it open. Unless it swings inwards, in which case you now have to get the door repaired (and quite possibly your shoulder).

Of course, you’ve been meaning to keep the garden under control. But you’ve spent practically the entire time trying to keep the lawn below eye level. And in summer that’s a tough ask. Sometimes you turn around after mowing one strip of lawn and can barely see where you’ve been. (And that’s on a good day. Other times you turn around and can barely see the house.)

But we’re approaching winter now, and after a couple of marathon efforts (you definitely walked the equivalent of one) you finally have the grass under control. Unfortunately that now means you can see everything else that needs raking, trimming, pruning and pulling.

You don’t mind doing the pruning, trimming, etc. (it will be nice to use something other than a lawn mower for a change). But just the thought of having to deal with all the debris sends a shiver through your body, which isn’t good for your shoulder.

Fortunately all you have to do is contact Brizzy Rubbish Removals. They’ll come over, collect all the leaves, branches and anything else you’ve “trimmed”, and take it all away. They’ll even take away the remains of your front door. (Sorry, they don’t do replacements.)

And the best part is you don’t even need to be there. They just need to be able to reach you by phone.

So make sure you switch it back on as soon as you leave the hospital.

Renovation Rubbish Rescue

I don’t want to alarm you (well, not much anyway), but there’s a real chance that at some point in the future you will be overcome by the need to renovate.

You may not think it could ever happen to you. After all, you’ve managed to get through life so far without succumbing to planking, Facebook or Justin Bieber.

But all it takes is a few episodes of The Block, a month of nagging from your partner or one too many Bunnings commercials, and suddenly you’ll think you’re a jack-of-all-trades instead of someone who knows jack.

Before you know it you’re digging random holes for a deck, chipping away tiles in the bathroom or taking out an entire wall (and quite possibly the electricity).

If you’re lucky, you’ll come to your senses before it’s too late (i.e. before you start) and either abandon the idea or get a professional to finish the job. But be warned: you may be so determined/stubborn/delusional that you keep going until either the job’s done or the beer runs out.

And the result? Well, you could have a new deck in your back yard, a freshly tiled bathroom or an ‘open-plan’ living area. Or, if you insisted on doing it yourself, a tiled deck in the middle of the lounge room. (“Well, we’ve always wanted a dancefloor…”)

Regardless of who did the work, one thing you’ll definitely have is a large pile of debris. And as much as you’d like to keep all those timber offcuts, broken tiles and beer bottles as a monument to all your hard work, your partner will think it’s an eyesore. And considering how the bathroom now looks, that’s quite a statement.

Now you could try getting rid of it yourself, but chances are you’ll miss a tile fragment or something, which is just asking for trouble. Even if your partner doesn’t notice it straight away, they will when your lawn mower sends it hurtling through the lounge room window. After all, there’s nothing worse than broken glass on the dancefloor.

A much better option is to give Brizzy Rubbish Removals a call. They’ll quickly come around to your house, remove all the renovation rubble and debris and take it away for you. You won’t have to lift a finger, which is just as well because it’s quite sore.

Instead, you can simply enjoy the fruits of your labours. See you on the dance floor.

Clean up your yard and put some spring in your ste

Spring is finally here! (Fortunately it doesn’t need a place to sleep.) Time to venture out to the yard and feel the sun on your face, the breeze on your back, and grass pollens in your nose. (Don’t you just love hay fever?)

Of course, you won’t be able to venture very far because the grass is now waist-high. At least it explains the rustling you’ve been hearing at night, and the poachers lining up at the front gate.

Everything else seems to have grown too—the garden, the trees, and the rubbish pile. Mind you, the rubbish pile isn’t much of a pile any more. In fact it’s grown wider rather than higher because it’s a long way from the back door and you don’t have a very good throwing arm.

Unfortunately, the yard is what separates the house from… well, everything else. So before you can even think of taking a relaxing bike ride (at least until the magpies start swooping), you need to get it all cut and cleared.

Cutting everything back is the first step of any backyard clear out and it shouldn’t be too hard, as long as you have the right tools. A whipper snipper  is probably a better option than a scythe because you’ll need one hand free to continually blow your nose. (Stupid hay fever.)

And when that’s done, you should call us. Just tell us where you live (“It’s the house with the poachers out the front”) and we’ll take everything away for you—the grass, the tree limbs, and the rubbish “pile” that seems to be growing wider by the minute. You don’t even need to be there, which means you can head to the chemist for some hay fever tablets.

Once the yard’s been cleared, the wildlife captured and relocated, and the poachers told to try next door, it’s time to enjoy the fabulous spring weather. So grab your bike, put on your helmet (with eyes painted on to keep the magpies at bay), and head off to wherever your fancy takes you.

Oh, and watch out for poachers.

Out with the old…

You still can’t quite believe it.

You’re holding your official statement from the tax department (motto: “What’s yours is ours—eventually.”) But instead of telling you how much you owe and which kidney you’re better off selling, there’s actually a cheque at the bottom.

The tax department is actually giving you a refund.

And unlike the ones you’ve had before, this one has more numbers before the decimal point than after it.

So now you’re thinking about the best way to use the money. Do you put it towards the mortgage, pay off your credit card, or maybe invest it in…

Ha! Just kidding. What you really want to do is buy a new television. A big one you can actually watch from the couch instead of needing to sit a metre in front of it.

And speaking of couches, you want to get a new one of them as well. You’re sick of sinking so far down you need a grappling hook to get out again. You can even reclaim the blanket that’s currently hiding all the rips and tears.

The question is, what do you do with the old ones?

You could do what most people do—haul them out onto your nature strip and hope someone will take them off your hands. But while the TV may find a new home, there’s a good chance the couch may become a permanent fixture. (Even the council has to draw the line somewhere.)

Worse still, you may even find your neighbours sitting on it, complaining they can’t get anything on the TV. (You’re pretty sure they came from the shallow end of the gene pool.)

Or you can forget all the dramas and just call Brizzy Rubbish Removals. They’ll swing by your house, pick them up and take them away for you. You don’t even have to haul them outside. They’ll do all the heavy lifting for you.

And unlike your neighbours they won’t yell out “Geez, what’s that smell?” at the top of their lungs on the way out.

On second thoughts, maybe you should haul them out onto the nature strip first and then call Brizzy Rubbish Removals.

If you’re lucky, they’ll take your neighbours away too.

Getting rid of a few bits

Remember when mobile phones first arrived? They cost a fortune to buy, were about the size of a house brick, and weighed just as much. (That’s why all the tradesmen all them—they were the only people strong enough to carry one.) But these days you can a mobile phone for next to nothing and slip it into your pocket.

That’s the great thing about technology—everything is getting smaller, faster and cheaper. And that’s great if you’re buying your first computer.

It’s not so great, however, if you’re buying your fifth.

And let’s face it: once you’ve owned a computer for a couple it becomes annoying to use. Especially when your kids keep complaining it’s not powerful enough to play Space Death Zombie IV.

But what can you do with those old computers gathering dust/sitting in your cupboard/keeping the back door open? It’s not as if you can sell them. (“Oh, sorry. I thought you wanted to pay me to take it.”)

And if you tried donating them to a local school they’d only be used as an example of ancient history.
One thing you can’t do is just throw them away. (If they’re particularly old you won’t even be able to lift them.) The bits and pieces that make up the insides of your computer (other than dust) are full of nasty chemicals that can leak out and cause major damage to the environment. And you thought the virus that ate your report was nasty.

Fortunately, Brizzy Rubbish Removals can solve the problem for you. They can come and pick up your old gear (computers, monitors, keyboards, etc.) and take them to one of Brisbane's premier recycling stations.

Important note: Before you get rid of them, make sure no-one can get the data off the hard drives by either running an erase program or destroying them with a hammer. The first method is more secure, but the second is much more fun.

So now, thanks to Brizzy Rubbish Removals you can finally get rid of all those old computers once and for all.

All you need to do is find something to keep the back door open.

Getting fit for a refit

As they say in real estate, it’s all about “location, location, location”. Which makes you wonder if the people who work there have a real problem with their short-term memory.

The good news is that after weeks of searching you’ve finally found the perfect location to set up your business. It’s got plenty of space, and has everything you need close by—parking, ATMs and a pub where you can wind down after a long day/morning/meeting.

Unfortunately it looks like the previous owners celebrated their last day at the same pub before coming back to “clean up”. There’s a mountain of broken chairs in one corner, desks overturned and scattered across the room, and rubbish everywhere. And the carpet is stained so badly you half expect to see a pool of blood and a chalk outline.

(One thing’s for sure: they definitely won’t be getting their bond money back.)

Unfortunately, before you can even think about starting your refit all that stuff needs to go. Either that or you become a landlord and rent it out as a college dormitory. (Believe me, the kids won’t mind how it looks.)

But the last thing you want to do is haul it all away yourself. Not only will it add weeks to your schedule, you can’t remember when you last had a tetanus shot.

Fortunately, you don’t have to.

Just give Brizzy Rubbish Removals a call. They’ll come to the rescue by taking away those old desks, broken chairs and anything else you want to get rid of. Yes, they’ll even take that disgusting carpet—probably to forensics. Office rubbish removal is par for the course for our boys.

And that means you can get on with the important stuff, like finding out when Happy Hour starts at the pub.

Congratulations on finding the perfect location, and good luck with your business. We hope it’s such a success you get to have a day off now and then.

Because you really should get that tetanus shot.

Out with the old…

You still can’t quite believe it.

You’re holding your official statement from the tax department (motto: “What’s yours is ours—eventually.”) But instead of telling you how much you owe and which kidney you’re better off selling, there’s actually a cheque at the bottom.

The tax department is actually giving you a refund.

And unlike the ones you’ve had before, this one more numbers before the decimal point than after it.

So now you’re thinking about the best way to use the money. Do you put it towards the mortgage, pay off your credit, or maybe invest it in…

Ha! Just kidding. What you really want to do is buy a new television. A big one you can actually watch from the couch instead of needing to sit a metre in front of it.

And speaking of couches, you want to get a new one of them as well. You’re sick of sinking so far down you need a grappling hook to get out again. You can even reclaim the blanket that’s currently hiding all the rips and tears.

The question is, what do you do with the old ones?

You could do what most people do—haul them out onto your nature strip and hope someone will take them off your hands. But while the TV may find a new home, there’s a good chance the couch may become a permanent fixture. (Even the council has to draw the line somewhere.)

Worse still, you may even find your neighbours sitting on it, complaining they can’t get anything on the TV. (You’re pretty sure they came from the shallow end of the gene pool.)

Or you can forget all the dramas and just call Brizzy Rubbish Removals. They’ll swing by your house, pick them up and take them away for you. You don’t even have to haul them outside. They’ll do all the heavy lifting for you.

And unlike your neighbours they won’t yell out “Geez, what’s that smell?” at the top of their lungs on the way out.

On second thoughts, maybe you should haul them out onto the nature strip first and then call Brizzy Rubbish Removals.

If you’re lucky, they’ll take your neighbours away too.

Gadget Hounded

Thanks to those clever people we affectionately call “nerds”, technology is getting smaller, faster and cheaper every day. Except for televisions, which will soon be measured in square kilometres.
Unfortunately it also means by the time you get your new gadget home it’s already obsolete.
This is great for the nerds, who keep adding millions to their bank account but nothing to their wardrobe. But for the rest of us, it poses two major questions:

How can we afford to keep buying new gadgets?

What do we do with the old ones?

The answer to the first one is simple. We keep using our credit card until the numbers on the front resemble our monthly repayments.

Unfortunately, answering the second one isn’t so straightforward.

In the good old days we could simply offload… sorry, “pass them down” to our children, who were happy to receive anything they could break and not get in trouble for. But these days kids are more tech-savvy than we’ll ever be, and wouldn’t touch anything we’ve owned with a laser pointer.

You could try selling it online, but it’s probably too old to attract any buyers and too new to catch the interest of your local museum. And by the time you factor in the seller fees, the hassles of posting it, and the public humiliation of ever owning such a thing, it probably isn’t worth it anyway.

Another option is to take it to the local dump. But along with the hassles of actually taking it there, you also risk your gear contaminating the ground, or even being re-programmed by cockroaches to destroy mankind.

Fortunately, Brizzy Rubbish Removals can help. Not only will they collect your old television for you, they’ll take it to one of Brisbane’s premier recycling stations, where it will be disposed of properly. No worries about contaminating the ground, and no chance of it falling into the hands of evil cockroach overlords.

That means you can relax and get on with more important issues. Like trying to understand the manual that came with your latest gadget.

Trashed Again

You made it through another year. Well done.

And let’s face it: it was tough, particularly towards the end. You had to survive not only the Christmas cavalcade of visitors, gifts and meals, but also New Year’s Eve. But you got through it all, although you’ve vowed once again to give up alcohol. (You now consider it one of your ‘traditions’.) 

Unfortunately it now means you’ve got one hell of a mess to clean up. And that’s after you wake up everyone in your lounge room and tell them to go home.


First there’s the wrapping paper and packaging left behind from all those presents. The wrapping paper you can handle, but the packaging almost feels like a conspiracy. The boxes are huge, but when you open them you realise it’s 90% Styrofoam. (The manufacturers got the idea after opening a packet of chips that was 90% air.)


Then there’s the leftover food that, despite having leftovers three nights in a row, still hasn’t disappeared. Even the dog takes one look and walks away thinking, “No thanks. I’d rather eat grass”.


Then there’s the evidence of what was supposed to be a quiet New Year’s Eve celebration. You’ve probably got enough bottles, cans and wine bladders for an Arts graduate to create an award-winning sculpture. Well, maybe when the yard stops spinning.


And like any other New Year’s Eve party, you probably have the odd piece of garden furniture that didn’t quite make it through the night. (We won’t mention the clothesline leaning at a weird angle, as if you’re trying to pick up radio transmissions from outer space.)


Fortunately Brizzy Rubbish Removals can help. They can collect all your rubbish and take it away for you. (Unfortunately you’ll have to deal with the guy sleeping on your couch on your own.) And the only time you’ll need to lift a finger is to block your ears when the bottles start clinking together.


Which is good, because the way your head is at the moment, the less you have to move the better.

Taking the Next Step

Congratulations! You’ve just bought a house.

It wasn’t easy. It took ages to find, and then you had to fight tooth and nail with the owners over the price. (Things were going quite smoothly until you realised they were talking dollars and not yen.)

But after countless bids, counter-bids, counter-counter-bids (and the odd prayer), you finally settled on a price. The paperwork is signed, you’ve been handed the keys, and now you’re about to take your first step into your new home.

Unfortunately, that first step may be the only one you want to take.

You pretty much knew the house wouldn’t be clean when you moved in. After all, there’s no “This place must be spotless before you leave or we’ll take your children” clause in a sale contract. (There was, but it was removed after too many parents took advantage of it.)

But you didn’t expect it to look this bad.

The carpet looks like it hasn’t been vacuumed in years, let alone cleaned. It’s as if the owners rented it out to a fraternity. Cigarette burns and a multitude of stains and spills have come together to create an image Jackson Pollock would be proud of. (At least you hope it’s tomato sauce.)

And there aren’t just indentations where the furniture once sat. There are actual holes, as if it was nailed down to stop poltergeists rearranging it in the middle of the night.

There’s no point even thinking of getting a carpet cleaner in. (Once news of the poltergeists gets around they won’t come near the place.) You’ll have to rip it all up, take it outside, and somehow get rid of it before the police cordon off your yard as a possible murder scene.

The good news is Brizzy Rubbish Removals can help. No, they won’t solve the crime or find the killer (I don’t think they even watch CSI). But they will help you get rid of your old carpet so you can get new flooring installed and finally move in.

And don’t worry about unpacking all those boxes. Just open them up and let the poltergeists arrange everything for you.

Nothing to sneeze at

 If you flick to the right page on your desktop calendar you’ll see it’s actually September, not March. The good news is any Easter eggs you see will be really cheap. The bad news is the stores will have already put up their Christmas decorations.

It also means it’s spring, unless you had an incredible buck’s night and woke up on the other side of the world.

There’s something special about spring, isn’t there? Everything seems to come alive, and there’s something in the air—anticipation, hope, even love.

Unfortunately for many of you that ‘something’ in the air is pollen, and so you’ll spend the entire month blowing your nose. And even if you do own shares in Kleenex it’s still a bummer—especially if you’ve only just shaken off that winter cold.

(

And on behalf of everyone who uses public transport or sits in an office all day, please blow your nose. Don’t just sit constantly sniffing until someone beats you to death with a WyteBord marker. Thank you.)

So what can you do? Well, you could propose to your partner, get your rich friend to throw a buck’s party and hope he throws you on a plane when you pass out. Or you could try eliminating as much of the pollen as you can.

Pollen comes from plants, which makes you wonder if vegetarians are such bad people after all. (“No, I’m not an animal lover, really. I just hate plants.”) It travels through the air and into your nose, where it quickly turns on all the taps and makes you sneeze every five minutes.

As you can imagine, finding love at this point would be a miracle.

Getting rid of the air is not only difficult (there’s an awful lot of it), but also has nasty side-effects, such as death. So it’s time to fire up your gardening tool of choice—hedge trimmer, whipper snipper, bazooka, etc.—and clear away any plants that look suspicious.

It won’t be an easy fight. Some plants can be incredibly resilient. But with the right attitude (and the optional flamethrower attachment), you’ll eventually have a yard devoid of any living thing. (Including your partner, who’s suddenly decided to stay with their parents for a few months.)

But don’t worry. Brizzy Rubbish Removals can help. No, they won’t try to convince the parents you haven’t gone crazy. (They’re not miracle workers.) But they can quickly come around and get rid of the “evidence” for you, leaving you to celebrate/commiserate with a few… dozen cleansing ales.

Just make sure you have your passport on you before you pass out. You may get lucky.

Time for an Olympics update

As you’re no doubt aware, The 2012 Olympic Games are in full swing.

This event gives people around the world a chance to show everyone how well they can jump over hurdles, fight each other with foils (“pretend swords”) and put their horses into reverse.

But as much as we all love the chance to cheer on our teams and listen to the commentators struggle with everyone’s names, I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking, “Why are they still doing that?”

Think about it. When was the last time you tried hurdling something instead of either slowly stepping over it or grabbing a foot ladder? Have you fought anyone with a pretend sword since your eighth birthday? And when was the last time you were even on a horse, let alone trying to make it go backwards?

(For the record, I have actually been on a horse while it was reversing. Just before it lodged me in the branches of a tree.)

We need to scrap some of these events and replace them with modern-day equivalents. Not only will we get more people taking part in the Games, but the athletes will be able to use their abilities for more than two weeks every four years.

Here are just a few ideas:

Hurdles: Drag a wheelie bin across the yard, jumping over kids toys and garden implements, in a race to the garbage truck that is about to drive away. Points deducted for swearing as you stub your toe on a Tonka truck.

Fencing: Find a long stick, and fend off cobwebs and spiders as you gather rubbish from under a house.  Bonus points for dragging out the cardboard boxes without them falling apart. Points deducted for screaming when a spider lands on your shoulder.

Dressage: Manoeuvre your car and trailer around a rubbish dump, before finally reversing into position to shovel out your load. Points deducted for not recycling and passing out from the stench.

And they should definitely be cooking some sausages and onions on that Olympic flame.

Of course, to people living in Brisbane these “new” events will still look ridiculous. “Why are they doing it all themselves?” they’ll be asking each other. “Why don’t they just call Brizzy Rubbish Removals and get them to do it all?”

And that’s exactly what you should do as well. Let them collect your rubbish and take it away so you can sit back, relax, and watch the athletes in action.


Because some of their names sound really funny.

The Tipping Point

With the school holidays here (along with half the kids in your neighbourhood), now is the perfect time to get rid of all your household rubbish.

Of course, your partner thinks it’s always the perfect time, threatening you with everything from divorce to cancelling the sports package on your cable TV if you don’t do it. But now that the kids have effectively taken over your house, it’s probably as good a time as any.  So how will you get rid of it? You’ve got a few options:

• Hide it in the garage/shed/bushes and hope to God your partner doesn’t find out.
• 
  
• Hire a skip (a large metal bin designed to instantly lower the value of your house).
• 
  
• Take it to the local rubbish tip/transfer station/whatever-they’re-calling-them-this-week and get rid of it yourself.
• 
  
• Arrange for Brizzy Rubbish Removals to pick it all up for you and take it away.

Forget about the first option. Women can spot a mote of dust from across the room. Do you really think you’ll be able to hide a pile of rubbish from them?

We’ve already talked the perils of hiring a skip, so you should probably forget about that option as well. Besides, as soon as it’s delivered the kids will turn it into a cubby house.

So that leaves you with two options— get rid of it yourself or let Brizzy Rubbish Removals get rid of it for you. (There is another option, but the kids won’t let you play with their flamethrower.)

You might think doing it yourself is the better option, especially if you’ve been listening to video games at a hundred decibels all day. But before you don the protective gloves and grab the waste vouchers off the fridge, let’s see if you’re right.

First, you need to get all that rubbish into your car. Now even if what you’re throwing away isn’t too messy and won’t spill on the way, do you really want your car smelling like a dumpster? Okay, do you want it smelling even more like a dumpster?

That’s assuming you can fit it all in anyway. Like your partner’s shoe collection, rubbish expands to fill the space provided. And that would be fine if you didn’t have to get in the front seat to drive.
If your car has a towbar (the accessory that lets you take three layers of skin off your shin when you walk past it), you may be able to use a trailer instead. Providing you have a trailer. And a tarpaulin to cover your load. And enough rope to tie everything down. And a boy scout to tie the knots for you.
Now it’s time to take it all to the nearest rubbish tip, which shouldn’t be any more than an hour away by commercial jet. Unfortunately it’s a lot longer by road, especially when you’re driving the Junkmobile.

When you finally get there you’ll probably have to queue up behind every other person who’s taking a break from their kids. And once you’ve paid/handed over your waste vouchers it’s time to find a spot to dump it all. This is where you discover:

• you left your protective gloves at home
• 
  
• a shovel would come in very handy right about now (or maybe that flamethrower)
• 
  
• it might be easier to just dump the car and walk home.

After what seems like hours (but is probably much longer), it’s time to head home again. You may have left the rubbish tip, but it hasn’t left you and you get to experience the heady aroma all the way to the service station where you buy an entire forest of Alpine air fresheners to hang from the rear-view mirror.

Now, does that seem like the easier option to you?

How about you let Brizzy Rubbish Removals do it instead? They’ll pick up all the rubbish for you, load it into their truck, and take it all away. No messy car, no queuing up at the rubbish tip, and no being belted repeatedly in the head from swinging air fresheners.

Instead, you can spend some quality time with all the kids.

Asking if they have a TV at their house you can watch.

Weeding Out The Enemy

As you probably know, Brizzy Rubbish Removals can take away all your garden waste.

Unfortunately, a lot of people get confused about what ‘garden waste’ actually means. Especially when one person does the planting and the other cleans up the yard.

Now I could resort to stereotypes here, so I will. Women generally do the planting because they actually plan out what goes where instead of just burying the pots in a hole and heading off to the pub.

(Some plan their gardens out so well they spell out messages, such as “You’re sleeping in the doghouse again”.)

Men generally clean up the yard, not because they’re physically stronger but because they’re being punished for spending so much time drinking with their mates.

And this is where the problems start. The men have no idea what’s been planted, and they have no idea what’s a plant and what’s a weed. So rather than risk being accused of “just standing around like an idiot”, they do what they know best: grab as much as they can with both hands and pull.

Of course, when they see their metre-high pile of garden waste they think they’ve done a fantastic job. At least until they get hit over the head with a garden trowel.

Now we don’t like this happening any more than the men do, mostly because the lawyers always park their BMWs where we want to park our truck. So to avoid this, and the dog having to share its kennel again, we’ve compiled the essential information they need in a handy Q&A format.

Q. How can I tell the difference between a plant and a weed.
A. If you can pull it out easily, it’s a plant. If you try pulling it out with a tractor and it still won’t budge, it’s a weed.

Q. How much trouble will I be in for pulling out the plant?
A. Nowadays the tags on plants tell you not only how to care for the plant, but also how to file for divorce.

Q. What exactly are weeds?
A. Weeds are a kind of supergrass, genetically engineered to evade lawn mowers. While a blade of grass will happily have its head chopped, weeds will protect themselves by any means necessary (bending over, burying themselves, disguise themselves as letterboxes, etc.)

Q. Where did they come from?
A. Another planet, or possibly Hell.

Q. Why are they so hard to pull out?
A. A weed is like an iceberg—most of it is beneath the surface.

Q. So how far do they go down?
A. We’re not sure. We sent an excavation team down to find out, and they still haven’t reported back.

Q. Why not?
A. We believe they’re being held by Chinese immigration officials.

Q. So how do I get rid of the weeds?
A. Napalm works well. We’ve also heard of people getting good results from flame throwers.

Q. But what about the plants?
A. Um… what time does the pub open again?

The Options Are Piling Up

You’ve finally done it!

After months (if not years) of procrastinating, you finally did The Big Cleanup.

It took a full day, a lot of lifting and just as much swearing. But you’ve finally gathered up all the rubbish around the house, and it’s just sitting there, waiting for Brizzy Rubbish Removals to come and take it all away for you.

There’s the old television and all those other electrical items that died the day after the warranty ran out. Furniture so old and tattered even your dog refuses to jump up on them. And let’s not even mention the ghosts of projects past.

It’s quite an impressive pile. So impressive, in fact, that your family drag themselves away from the Internet to come and see it. But instead of patting you on the back for a job well done, they start circling the pile and pulling out random objects. And when you ask what the hell they’re doing they simply reply, “You can’t throw that out. I’m going to use it”.

It’s enough to drive you to tears, or at the very least another round of swearing.

So what you can you do to avoid this situation happening to you? Here are a few options.

Get rid of a few items at a time. Okay, so they noticed the massive pile of stuff out the front (it may have interfered with the TV signal). So only drag out a few items each time to throw away so they don’t get suspicious. (Don’t worry: you’ll only pay for the volume of stuff Brizzy Rubbish Removals load onto their truck.)

Get rid of your family. No, I don’t mean like that. (Brizzy Rubbish Removals will take away almost anything, but they draw the line at family members.) Organise a weekend holiday for the rest of your family, and while they’re away gather all your rubbish up and get it taken away.

Make everything impossible to use again. Okay, so you may not have a smelter handy to reduce everything to a gooey mass. But you can certainly break things into smaller pieces so there’s no chance of it ever being used again. (If you don’t have time to do it yourself, just leave a couple of hammers lying around and let the local vandals do the work for you.)

Sooner or later all the rubbish will be gone, and you’ll get to enjoy all the extra space you’ve created

At least until everything your family ordered on the Internet gets delivered.

Take it away, Valentine

It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you’re male then you’re probably looking for a gift that best communicates those three little words: I'm really sorry.

Because let’s face it: buying the perfect Valentine’s Day isn’t easy. It has to give the traditional Valentine’s Day message (“I am helping to keep Hallmark in business”), yet still be unique enough to make your loved one feel special.

That pretty much rules out flowers and chocolates (although she’ll happily finish off the box while you’re in the doghouse), and even jewellery can be a mistake—especially when you get your credit card bill.

And don’t even think about buying her an appliance. Not only will she hate you for buying something so impersonal, she’ll hate the way it clutters up the house. (And you will too, because it will be a constant reminder of how badly you screwed up.)

So what can you give your Valentine that’s personal, relatively inexpensive and won’t clutter up the house?

Here’s an idea: Forget about giving her something, and take something away instead.

No, I don’t mean taking that necklace back to the jeweller. (As if you’d be able to find the receipt!) I mean getting rid of some of the stuff that’s been lying around the place since… well, for as long as you’ve been together.

How about all those bits of timber in the back yard you’ve been threatening to turn into everything from bookshelves to an aviary? She knows you’ll never actually use it (the fact you don’t own a single power tool is a bit of a giveaway), so why not just get rid of it?

And then there’s that old couch. I know you’ve had it since uni and it holds a lot memories (not to mention pizza stains). But when even your dog refuses to sit on it, it needs to go.

There’s probably lots of other stuff you can get rid of as well: boxes for appliances you no longer own (she threw away your last Valentine’s Day present, remember?), the pile of lawn clippings that’s so high you can ski on it in winter, and all those attempts a DIY that ended up DOA.

But don’t waste the day carting it all away yourself. Get in touch with Brizzy Rubbish Removals and let them do it all for you so you can get on with more important things.

Like finding the receipt for that vacuum cleaner before she sees it.

The recovery process

You’ve been through a lot in the past month or so—the whole Christmas thing, New Year’s Day, and of course Australia Day. And now it’s time to start the recovery process.

No, we’re not talking about your hangover (although we can get rid of all those empty bottles for you). We’re talking about getting rid of the other things you’d rather not think about (mainly because it hurts so much).

Maybe it’s that outdoor sculpture your family was given as a Christmas present that immediately lowered your property value. Honestly, it looks as if someone just whipped up a batch of concrete, let it set, and then half-painted it. It’s so hideous the birds won’t even crap on it.

Or maybe it’s your clothes line that, thanks to your brother-in-law’s kids, now leans at an angle as if it’s picking up alien signals from outer space. Of course, if it did pick up a message from outer space, it would probably be “You’re so lucky your father doesn’t own a ray gun”.

Maybe it’s the remains of the front hedge you decided to “trim” to look like Santa and his reindeer, but ended up looking like it came from the same artist who made your sculpture. Your six-foot privacy hedge is now only a foot high in some places, but should still do the job if the army decides to conduct its “commando crawl” training outside your house.

We can’t fix your clothes line or your hedge, but we can get rid of the evidence that it happened in the first place. (Well, you may want to flatten out that hedge before we come around.) We can pick it up, and more importantly take it away so no-one can accidentally peer inside your bin and discover your little secret. And if they comment on the Brizzy Rubbish Removals truck being at your place, just tell them you needed someone to get rid of all those empty bottles. They’ll understand completely.

On second thoughts, maybe you shouldn’t throw away that sculpture until the hedge is back to full height. It’ll be the perfect way to keep people out of your yard—if not your suburb.