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.