By Josephine Petersen

We all have things we need to get rid of — like some old furniture that has been sitting in your garage for years and can barely stand, but it can be hard to get rid of things on your own.

Mark Muilenburg took that to heart and made it his goal to help people who just need to get things clean — though his business, Helping Hands Junk Removal, does more than just remove junk.

“We provide the service of just picking up unwanted items for people, from appliances, whole house cleanouts, storage units, estate cleanouts and helping with some moving and demolition, too,” Muilenburg said.

Whether you need something cleaned or you need help moving, he is ready to show up with his orange trailer and get to work. After cleaning, Muilenburg also does his best to rehome or donate as much as he can.

“I started about a year and a half ago as a side job, just to kind of make a little extra. And transitioned full time into it about six months ago,” Muilenburg said. “I saw a need. There’s a need in the community.”

His goal has been to fill that need and to help people out, even if it’s just by cleaning out a garage or kitchen. At the moment, his business is self-run though sometimes with the help of family.

“I have no employees at this time, but hope to in the future,” he said. “My family does help out though — they like to help out. Especially the kids like to come and hang out. And that’s really fun, to get them involved and helping out.”

The business is more than just him going alone and working, it’s a family business that lets family spend time together. With having a limited amount of people working at a job, it can end up taking a while to finish some projects.

“It just depends on the size. If it’s just a garage, maybe an hour or two. But if it’s a whole house, I mean it could take days even,” Muilenburg said.

There’s a sense of uncertainty to the job, as it could be a few hours or a few days to finish a project.

Having a career that isn’t set in stone can lead to some worries, like if you’ll still have a job in a few months.

“It’s tough because you just don’t know what the future holds,” he said. “You know, is it going to continue to grow, is it going to succeed, am I going to have to just close up shop and go back to a day job?”

He said he thinks the community is thankful for his business, as he has seen a lot of good reviews and positive comments on his social media accounts. Muilenburg tries to keep an active social media presence for his business and often posts fun videos for people to watch.

He tries to spread word about his business as best as he can, both online and by people’s words.

“I’ve been feeling very blessed by the support of the community and the people that are using my services,” he said. With all the work from his business, Muilenburg has seen a lot of positive reactions coming from the community.

“Some people are just so ecstatic, that they feel so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff they have, and then I’m able to come in and help them,” he said. “And they’re just so ecstatic, and some even get emotional. Like I’ve gotten hugs from people when I’m done. Like I didn’t do anything crazy, I just helped clean a little bit of stuff. It’s not like I’m doing anything extraordinary, I’m just helping.”

Helping Hands Junk Removal is his way of helping the community, even if it’s just a small thing for him. He said he wants to keep expanding and ultimately help more people in the community.