Paper Problems: Shredding Services Clear Out Old Paper Quickly

If you're in the process of cleaning out and closing up the apartment or home of a person who recently died, you are no doubt finding many old papers that do not need to be kept. While a certain number of years' worth of receipts, statements, and other documents should be kept, sometimes this amount can grow and grow if the deceased neglected to clean out older documents. When trying to get rid of these, look into shredding services. These services will save you time and labor, especially if you're dealing with decades of documents, and not just a few years' worth.

Lots of Paper Isn't Unusual

Previous to online billing and banking, paper was king. You had paper statements and receipts, and you got either your canceled checks back in the mail or had carbon copies stored in your checkbook. If you wrote a lot of checks or bought a lot of stuff, you ended up with quite a bit of paper.

You would think that someone who has all this paper coming in each month would want to keep it under control. But if the person had a lot of storage space, such as a spare room or attic in which to place boxes, it would have been easy to forget about the years and boxes already stored away. And if the person did see the boxes, he or she might have decided to handle them later. Of course, that "later" often turns into "never."

Fast Disposal Is Best

So now you have all these personal documents that you know need to be shredded. Instead of trying to shred them at home, bit by bit to save money, contact a shredding service. You will have to pay for this, but the amount of time and labor that you can save easily trumps the money you'll have to spend.

Many shredding companies offer two choices: you can bring the shredding to them, or they can arrange to come to you. Prices vary between companies and can change at any moment, but all you have to do is call on the day that you were planning to bring shredding in or have them pick it up. You will normally be charged by a specific unit, such as by the pound or by each box of a specific size.

Varied Options Exist

If you bring shredding to the company, you'll have to transport it to the location of the actual shredder yourself. In other words, if you have the shredding in your car trunk, you'll have to carry the bags or boxes over to where the company keeps the shredder. If the company stores the shredding until the end of the day, you'll have to bring it over to the storage bins. But once you do bring it over, the paper is locked away for shredding at a designated time, or it's shredded right in front of you.

If the company picks up the shredding, the service person will usually have a shredder installed in his or her company truck, and you can have the shredding pulverized immediately, as you watch. One thing to be sure of when you have the papers shredded is that the company will cut them into fine, tiny pieces, rather than using a strip-cut shredder. Companies that pick up shredding tend to use cross- or micro-cut shredders.

When you're ready to have all that old paper shredded, contact shredding services such as ABC Moving & Storage. You'll be able to get current prices and policies and set up an appointment to have all of those old documents finally taken care of.