Waste

Waste management is a big deal.

Unfortunately, most houses are designed to look good in order to appeal to buyers, but often at the expense of practicality. Homeowners frequently end up dealing with ongoing hassles related to poor waste management systems.

One overlooked aspect is the true cost of these systems—both in time and in outsourcing tasks like cleaning to third parties.

I remember one of the first challenges I encountered after buying my house, which we had rented out to tenants over the Christmas and New Year period. When we opened up the trash compartment—a nice-looking (sort of) cupboard with a gliding mechanism—it was filthy and infested with roaches. Roaches are waste eaters; they consume whatever waste they can find.

If you want fewer roaches, you need to make it difficult for them to access food. That means making sure your rubbish—especially food scraps and other edible waste—is stored securely.

A good solution is to separate your waste streams, aka recycling. This principle ties into separation in general: in my own home, which is relatively large, I found it effective to use premade units with secure lids that keep pests out. I also made sure to have enough bins.

Initially, I tried to organize the bins within the original garbage area, but that idea turned out to be impractical. It would have made much more sense to convert that area into another cupboard for storage.

Having separate recycling bins—clearly labeled with instructions on what goes where—is a far better system. This way, guests know exactly what to do. It’s also helpful to have bins of different sizes, since you typically have more waste of certain types and less of others.