Mill Valley Refuse Service

Absolutely rude service at the switchboard, and often you sit on hold for a length time to work out problems.
But the company is a monopoly, so what can you do?

I hired them for a porta-​potty …and I found out kind of late that they were not forthcoming in their pricing at all, or what you pay for the service and when. I got a surprise bill at the end that far exceeded what was anticipated — no apologies or any willingness to work it out. I see their porta-​johns out on a lot of sites around here, but my advice to the homeowners would be to go elsewhere (no pun intended).

One star is too high, however, NONE was not an option. They are your only choice for garbage if you live in Mill Valley and I have for 22 years. Their «customer service» people are rude and not helpful anytime. There are rules upon rules for everything especially where to leave your items to be picked up. Also, rules about leaving items on the side of cans that will not go into a can (larger boxes). Then there are surcharges for anything they can gin up.
I long for the days when you just put out garbage and it got picked up. Instead there is a bureaucracy that is finicky about everything.

My 80 year old mother lives in Marin and, as she’s gotten older, she’s gotten weaker and more frail. She called me recently, crying, that MVRS called her to inform her that she would have to pay EXTRA because she cannot physically drag her trash cans about 100 yards across a cement parking lot every week. I was actually convinced that my mother had to be wrong, as this is clear violation of ADA and this company is charging seniors and people with disabilities more for the same service. I called the company and they were shockingly rude and almost smug, making comments like, «Well, the City of Mill Valley approved it so…» as if that is some type of moral barometer. I contacted someone in Marin County government who looked into it but that didn’t seem effective. Still VERY shocked and disappointed that this city agency is allowed to discriminate and financially prey on the elderly and disabled. What an embarrassment. I’m sad to say that my mother passed away recently but one of the by-​products is that these morally deficient assholes will not get one more cent from me.
*UPDATE-​Thanks for your response, however, this was not my experience with your company. I was told repeatedly that my 80 year old mother had to pay an extra fee because she could not drag her garbage can across the full length of the parking lot. Your customer service person said her address had been «assessed» and this was the best you could offer. I understand why you wouldn’t want this to be publicized as it doesn’t make MVRS look very good. I contacted what I thought was your governing body in Marin County Govt. so hopefully they have contacted you as well regarding the ADA and it’s application.

I recently rented a Portable toilet for one of my construction sites. The service was fast and pick up was quick. I called in Thursday morning and they brought it over the same afternoon upon my request. Pick up was quick as well I called in the previous day and asked them to come as soon as they could.
Total price I was told to at 171.38, later I got a letter in the mail saying I owned 7.50… This was my only downturn with the company everything is great. Still recommend it. Will still use them again except this time I will expect another small bill in the mail.

im a senior citizen. my garbage can is located down my driveway around 20 ft.
my driveway is on an incline. today they didnt pick it up. i called. i was told that i have to now bring it to the curb. i asked why. the answer ‘thats what we decided to do’.
why? ’cause thats what we decided to do’.
great answer, but since they have been picking it up at the same place for 25 years,
and since its hard for me to lift anything, maybe their answer should have been a simple ‘screw you!, old man”.

having been with them for many years, you would think customer loyalty would be something that this company would stand for-​not so, after not cleaning a port a potty for many weeks, they then wanted to charge us extra for coming out to clean it, and would only offer to meet halfway on the payment; just not good customer service for a long term customer

Their service is second to none. I skipped a week and they called to make sure I hadn’t missed the truck. Now that’s service!

This company treats their customers like trash. They lie, cheat and steal from them. They play games and all to their advantage.

We have had problems for the last few years now…
For whatever reason they continuously skip our green. It has literally been a month and they STILL have not picked it up. It goes out every week… and it is ignored. This happens time and time again and I call them and complain… it gets picked up for maybe a week or two… then goes right back to being skipped again. I don’t understand how this keeps happening. We are on a main street that is easily accessed.
When I asked to be refunded or compensated some how for my service now being done for a month… I was told there is nothing they could do. Oh well i guess huh?
At lease they are coming out today to pick up the VERY FULL Green bin… lets see how long the service lasts this time.

We needed a storage container so I assumed the ubiquitous Pods were the best option. Wrong. Pods is a massive business and operates like one. They actually charge less if you allow them to take unit away/​store/​return it. Mill Valley offered bigger box for less $s and unlike Pods, they pro-​rate. The drivers that dropped & picked-​up container couldn’t have been nicer too.

Mill Valley Refuse has been a great company to work with! We use them every year for our school carnival. They are extremely professional, great to work with and provide excellent communication. The delivery and pickup was easy and the units delivered were in great shape. Also, they had a new delivery person who was excellent! Very courteous and prompt. In fact, he was too early and had no problem rescheduling his delivery for us. DEFINITELY will use Mill Valley Refuse again next year!

The problems continue, and the trash is only picked up intermittently. I am paid through March, and they have failed to pick up my trash for two weeks running. I am literally having to call them every other week or so.
Then when I left a message to call me after noon, on my cell phone, they called me at 8am, on the landline.
A couple of times, I’ve even heard them banging around at my trash cabinet door — and then still found they hadn’t actually taken the trash!
These people simply don’t pay any attention to what you tell them, they give out wrong (and incomplete) information about billing, and they obviously just don’t give a damn.
As Tristan N. said, this does seem to have been a fairly abrupt change since sometime last fall. They were never perfect, but also never even remotely this bad.
What happened?

I’d give them one star, but they get a bonus star because Mill Valley Refuse gave us good service for 13 years. All that changed in the fall of ’13.
First, without any notification, they stopped picking up our garbage cans. Then, their drivers started looking in our recycling bin to verify our address and would not pick up the can because the address on the discarded mail didn’t match. I’m not making this up!
For those interested in the details, read on…
We live on steps just off a cul du sac on a hill (as do many of MV residents). The garbage collector used to come down to our house from the street to pick up our cans… a distance of perhaps 50 feet. One week, our garbage wasn’t picked up. When we called the service line, the rather unhelpful lady informed us that driver/​collector is new and he doesn’t want to walk down the steps. Ok, so you’ve changed a policy based on one of driver’s whims? Without even telling us?
Their website still states, «Trash cans must be in a visible location (accessible side or backyard locations are OK) by 6:00 a.m. on your designated pickup day.» Our cans are accessible by this definition. But it was no use arguing with them.
Ok, fine, we will bring the cans up to the street.
It’s worth noting here that we also share the same property with three houses, each with its own street address. Between us, we share a single green can and recycling can. We’ve placed these cans at the end of the cul du sac for all these years.
Soon after, they missed another pick up, including the green and recycling cans. We called and were told they can no longer fit their truck at the end of the street. We’d have to bring all our cans 200 feet down the street, in front of a neighbor’s curb. Ok, so now we have to do that too.
Around this time, we decided to consolidate all our garbage into a single can, since we were never filling up two cans anyway. The property owner now takes care of the bill (so I’m technically not a direct customer anymore).
This week, they again failed to pick up the recycling, even though it was placed where they could get at it. The property owner called to ask what happened, when he was told about the mail address mismatch (which happens to be our house’s address).
This feels like a shake-​down, a blatant move to punish us and get us to reinstate our service. Shouldn’t we be rewarded for generating LESS trash?
I’ll be contacting the City of MV to file a complaint.

I have been using MV Refuse for portable toilets and debris boxes for over 13 years. I have always had a pleasant experience. If something gets missed, it is corrected immediately. Rebecca, the office manager, is very professional. I highly recommend their services.

This goes only to the COMPOST section. Trash and Recycle get 5 stars.
The Compost truck doesn’t take compostable bags? Two weeks went by and they didn’t pick up my compost trash because of this. For 2 weeks no one told me why they weren’t picking it up. Now I have to stick my hand in a two week compost bin to manually take out already broken down compostable bags.
A message/​email/​phone call would have helped.

I agree with the other comments about their rudeness.
Their customer service is horrible. The woman who answers the phone could not be ruder or less helpful if she tried. This company proves that without competition, a business will not make any effort to improve.
Mill Valley city council should kick these guys to the curb or bring in a competitor to keep them honest.

This company was very difficult to do business with. Although I did over $ 3,000 of business with them (hauling boxes of dirt out of Belvedere) evety time I called to request a box pick-​up they were… mean spirited, like l was taking to much time or asking stupid questions. Kind of like they had an exclusive agreement to service this area and if I didn’t like it, to bad.
On several occasions they made a commitment to exchange a full box with an empty box but their driver would arrive, pick up the full box, and and tell me he would bring out an empty box at a different time. Most times they would not arrive with a empty box as promised. They would say they would do an exchange at early morning but would come at late morning.
It’s very difficult doing business with Mill Valley Debris. I suggest using a different company (yes there is another authorized company that can hall debris in Belvedere). I used Grange for the remainder of the job. Grange was cheaper, willing, and happy to work with you in your efforts to haul out debris.

My company has been using Mill Valley Refuse for years for their portable toilets. The company has been great, but just now I had a surprising reaction when I called them.
We had ordered a porto potty to be placed in San Francisco, as we always do. They asked something that I had never been asked before, «do you have a preference to where we put it?» I said no, as there was a good amount of space on either side of the scaffolding and I figured they would know best.
Well, they didn’t. They put it in the driveway.
Anyone who has ever been in San Francisco knows that you don’t block driveways. This is common sense. I did not honestly imagine that this was an option to them, to block the driveway with it.
I called to let them know and to ask if someone was available to move it, since we had a very upset customer wanting to know why she couldn’t access her garage. Generally when I call I speak with Rebecca, who is wonderful. This time, however, I spoke with a woman named Deborah. Deborah told me that basically, this was my fault for not having specified to not block the damn driveway. I was really shocked by the way she spoke to me, and I expressed dismay that I had to deal with this, and that she was being so rude to me. She apologized in the way that a bratty teenager apologizes before flouncing off to their bedroom, and again I said that her tone was incredibly unapologetic.
I understand that mistakes happen. I think the way that a company addresses complaints says a lot about them. Despite working with Mill Valley Refuse for over five years, I will be finding a new company that we will use for our needs, one who possibly values customers rather than frustrating them further when they call about a frustrating situation.
Deborah, I hope you have chronic hemorrhoids for the rest of your life.

Our service with Mill Valley Refuse has always been excellent over the past 15 years. They never missed a pick-​up. They go out of their way to help with recycling issues. They pioneered Green in southern Marin before it was in.
Madeleine Austin
Mill Valley