When a Yard Sale Won't Work, Call a Pro

When the truck can hold no more, we pull a tarp over the contents and head to the trash transfer station near Brentwood. Frank is 32 and lives with his wife and baby daughter in LeDroit Park. He wasn't always into junk. A Boston University communications major, he worked at a software company, then in marketing at Fannie Mae. He figured he'd get his MBA eventually, but when he realized his punishing work schedule wouldn't leave time for that, he quit Fannie Mae four years ago.

"I happened to have a pickup truck," he says. "When the stock option money ran out, I put an ad in the paper just to get some money." He said he'd haul junk.

"And here we are today."

Frank says he's different from a lot of junk guys. He tries to recycle as much as he can, giving usable items to thrift shops and nonprofit groups. It can affect the bottom line -- hunting for the right charity burns up time; and time is, well, you know -- but he thinks Washington is ready for a green junk hauler.

After we've dumped two tons of debris at the transfer station, we pick up more construction trash from a bakery in Columbia Heights, then clear moldy drywall and cabinets from a flooded River Road basement and finish up near the National Cathedral with the sort of job Frank loves.

Arrayed on the porch are a dresser, a rocking chair and matching ottoman, a bookcase, a mirror, a glass coffee table, a bag of clothes, a stainless steel kitchen shelf and a cat carrier full of china.

This client wants Frank to donate as much as he can and get her a receipt. But some people don't care. They just want that lovely feeling that comes from purging. Sometimes in those cases, Frank or his right-hand man, Edwin Benitez , will rescue an item, such as the carved Peruvian doll that sits on his dashboard, Our Lady of the Junk Truck.

Frank says one of his workers, an artist named Chris Goodwin , took the job partly so he could get good stuff. On his first day he found a pottery wheel that he sold on eBay for $300.

"It was more than he made all week," says Frank.

My e-mail:kellyj@washpost.com