Welcome, our names are Kyle & Vickie and we started Trashbusters in January of 1991 with a pick-up truck and just 13 customers in the town of Nottingham. Although it was planned as a side job, it quickly became our only job. Growth was very rapid over the first years and required many truck changes to keep up. In 1995 we expanded our business into Barrington when we purchased a route from a northern NH based company. Being a neighboring town, this was a perfect addition for us.
Our continued growth in those two towns lead to a major change in the way we conducted our routes. To avoid the higher costs of adding days, we decided to add a satellite truck. Since this is uncommon in the rubbish industry, we had to custom design and build this truck ourselves. This small truck is able to pick up customers in out of the way areas and roads that are just to small for our larger trucks. Using this system, we are able to cover twice as much area in the same amount of time while saving lots of diesel fuel in the larger trucks. Over the years, we have modified and changed the types of small trucks that we have used, but it's still something we rely on to this day.
In 2005 we started a route in Raymond when the Town switched to the Pay-As-You-Throw program. We then purchased all of the residential routes from one of our local competitors in 2006 as they were preparing to sell their business. This added the towns of Epping, Newton, and Sandown, as well as many customers within our existing towns of Barrington, Nottingham, and Raymond. We also provide weekly pick-up in some areas of the towns of Lee, Northwood, and Strafford that are near our main towns.
For the first time in our history, we sold off routes in 2 towns in 2016. While we're always looking to expand, it made sense to consolidate our routes due to our continued growth in our more local towns. We choose a couple companies more local to Newton and Sandown, and sold these routes to them. This change substantially cut our milage and time, allowing us to focus our efforts to a more local area, which helps keep our costs down, and continue the lowest rates around.
2020 hit us all with the worldwide Pandemic. This was a very interesting time in the trash industry as we were suddenly hit with everyone being home at the same time, and supply chain issues that lasted years. The amount of trash skyrocketed, as did all costs and wait times for everyone, and everything. The growth during the pandemic increased and in 2022 we again made the decision to sell off a small section of our route. We sold a small western section of Raymond to a friend of ours in the business again cutting fuel and maintenance cost, which has been a much bigger cost over the last few years. The changes we have made in recent years has allowed us to really focus our areas and money into the best possible places.
2024 saw a bit of different growth for us when one of our longest area competitors hit a really rough spot and were unable to continue their routes. We know all our competitors, so when we started getting tons of calls from their very loyal customers, we knew something was up. We placed a call to her and found out she was without a truck for an unclear amount of time and was already 3 weeks behind on pick-up. We offered to do her routes from her while waiting on the truck, and picked up all 3 weeks worth of trash in 2 days. Over a few weeks it became clear this was not a survivable situation for the other business, and we made a deal to take over all those customers with no interruption in service. We can comfortably say, none of our competitors would have been able to jump into action and take on another 400 people in 1 week, let along 3 weeks worth. While all the other area services jumped on Facebook trying to grab those customers who were understandably upset after 3 weeks, we went to work to help save a competitor. THAT is the difference of true small and local!
2025 saw more changes as we actually bought back the customers we had sold off in 2022. When we have sold off a few areas over the years, we have always gone out of our way to pick the "right" small local option. We do this as those customers are important to us. Just because they aren't ours anymore, we had decades with many of them. We could have made more money selling the routes to large companies, but most come to us because we're not big corporate business. When the business we sold those customers to in 2022 had unsurvivable massive truck & money issues hit all at the same time, we stepped back in and bought them right back.
There has also been a new trend in our industry of new start-up businesses. While some have been great, the trend is to build a business fast just to sell in 5-10 years. Building a business is much easier now than we did it in the 90's. Now you can post on Facebook and get customers quick. We were driving around Nottingham knocking on doors for years. The issue with this trend lands on the customer. You're promised the world and they offer things no one else does. They sell you on the great service they provide, then sell the business to one of the big guys, and you're left holding the bag. For a business looking to stick around, we don't offer those things they do because there's no money in it. They can promise the world as they don't need to make much money off the customer, the profit comes from the sale of the business. So while it might "sound" like there are better options out there, do yourself some homework and look at what it is they are actually offering. New and pretty doesn't necessarily mean good and reliable. We offer reliable service at great rates with much larger trucks and more back-ups. Being in business as long as we have allows us to handle rough stretches much better than a new business.
Now in 2025, we have been in business more than 35 years. We're happy to say we still have almost all of those 13 original customers and around 200 customers that have been with us over 30 years! We now have lots of their children, and even quite a few grandchildren. As our motto says, we strive to be big enough to provide excellent service, without getting so big that we don't know our own customers. This cuts cost by eliminating the need for multiple trucks and employees. When you call, you'll be talking to one of us. When your trash is picked up, you'll be seeing one of us. We look forward to working with you and providing the service we are known for. -Kyle and Vickie