The day I walked into a minivan that had been packed full of camping gear for three years

Last Wednesday a guy rolls in with a 2017 Odyssey, says the sliding door is stuck. I pop it open and find out why. The whole back half was stuffed with tents, coolers, sleeping bags, and a broken camp stove. Looked like he just drove home from a trip and never unloaded. Customer said it's been like that since 2021. Took me and my helper 45 minutes just to clear a path to check the track. Found a crushed granola bar wedged in the mechanism. That was the whole problem. Has anyone else seen a car that's basically become a storage unit?

3 comments

3 Comments

joel_martinez17d ago

Oh man, that's nothing compared to the guy I dealt with last year. Had a trunk so packed with old newspapers and Fast Food wrappers it took two trips to empty everything before we could even see the spare tire well. Found a bag of half-eaten tacos from 2019 under the floor mat.

tara79317d ago

My own car cleaning business ran into something similar with a 2015 sedan where the owner had been tossing coffee cups into the passenger footwell for like two years straight. What finally worked for me was bringing a separate trash bag and going in sections, pulling everything out by layers so I didn't miss any hidden mold or old food. Your mileage may vary but taking photos of each layer as I went helped me show the owner exactly what we were dealing with, which made the whole process way smoother.

ellis.leo17d ago

Wow, I gotta say the "layers" method is a really smart way to do it! But just a small heads up on those photos - I'd be careful showing the owner a full timeline like that unless they want to see it. Some people get defensive if you document every gross layer they ignored for years. They might think you're shaming them instead of showing off your work. I usually just snap a before and after, keeps things friendlier and stops any awkwardness about how bad it really got in there.