Document Shredding
 

The part of my dad's estate I want to take care of next is the documents. I swear to you, this man did not throw out a single piece of paper that crossed his path since 1976. We're down to a 4-drawer file cabinent and a dozen file boxes worth of documents (about 200 lbs. worth in all). Some of the stuff we can recycle, but most of the stuff is old tax documents, old pay stubs, old bankruptcy documents, old court documents (my dad liked to sue--and he got sued a few times too), and worst of all: old documents from his two failed businesses. A good portion of the stuff needs to be shredded. We broke a $50 shredder after using it continuously for 18 hours and only put a very small dent in the pile.

Is there any way I can dispose of all of this stuff quickly and cheaply?

I live in the middle of town, so burning is out of the question. I tried to burn a 18" stack of the stuff in my BBQ and it took about 1½ hours. That would mean days of non-stop burning to get through it all.

Commercial shredders start at $500, a little more than I want to spend.

Wood chippers start at $500, a little more than I want to spend.

The only "professional" shredding service in town is Iron Mountain, which just sounds expensive (I'm very familiar with their services).

Any ideas that won't cost me more than $100?

I had a similar problem on a smaller scale.

Look up the document destruction services in town. There are a bunch around. They have trucks that have large shredders on them. They have a schedule and will stop in front of large buildings - if you can be there at the same time, the driver might let you dump the stuff in for a few bucks.

Alternatively, law firms, escrow companies, cpa's etc. have bins in their office for shredding. Maybe you have a friend that works in one. Ask if they can call for a pickup and bring your stuff by - and pay for that month's service for them.

Another vote for a commercial service. All big businesses do it.

DO you have access to a fireplace?

Commecial shredding should not be to much. I used a place in Milwaukee that had a huge shredder right on the truck. The stuff was confetti before they drove away.


I agree with Don, if you have trouble finding one, call the big law firms and ask who they use.

My thought exactly. Thats what I do when I dont want to burn out my shredder.

That's exactly what I did when I lived in Oregon. Now I shred every single piece of mail that has a name or an address on it. I actually shred a bunch of nonsense / non-personally-identifiable stuff along with it just to make it all the more difficult for someone to root through the shredded stuff in order to put it back together (if they ever wanted to). Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I haven't been victim of any ID theft either (knock wood).

I've been doing the same for a while now....I try my best to prevent PII from leaving my house intact.

Burn it! That's the fastest cheapest way to get rid of it. If you don't have access to anything look into a local campground. There's gotta be one not too far away. Make a day out of it.

I just save a small bag or box up and start the Weber or hasty bake smoker with it. Use one of those chimney fire starters to get things going good. Then the charcoal and selected cuts of Kansas city's finest BBQ and Gates Sauce.
K.T.
1973 911 E 2.4 MFI
1983 911 SC
1965 Devin "D" - 1967 912 Power Plant

I just got off the phone with Iron Mountain. $0.10 a pound and a $25 minimum. I think my decision has been made...