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May 02, 2005
Tired of your shitty programming job?
It sounds like one computer programmer has stumbled upon an area of fertile growth in the US software industry:
"My parents paid for me to get a (degree) in math and now I am a pooper scooper," Relles, a 42-year-old married father of two told Reuters. "I can clean four to five yards in a hour if they are close together."Relles, who lost his computer programming job about three years ago, got the idea of cleaning dog dirt from people's back yards from Mark Booth, a friend in Buffalo, New York.
Relles has over 100 clients who pay $10 each for a once-a-week cleaning of their yard.
Relles competes for business with another local company called "Scoopy Do." Similar outfits have sprung up across America, including Petbutler.net, which operates in Ohio.
In the United States, there are about 63 million dogs, each producing about 23 "presents" per week, which if left can be unsafe for children and pets.
Relles says his business is growing by word of mouth and that most of his clients are women who either don't have the time or desire to pick up the droppings.
"St. Bernard (dogs) are my favorite customers since they poop in large piles which are easy to find," Relles said.
His "scooper" is a converted ice scrapper duct-taped to a ski pole. He flicks the poop into a dust pan lined with a plastic bag, then loads the waste into a large garbage can which he takes to the dump when full.
"It sure beats computer programming because it's flexible, and I get to be outside," he said.
With 63 million dogs leaving 23 droppings a week, in 52 weeks that's 75 billion droppings every year. Just get 30 million homes paying $10 a week, that's $15 billion a year. The opportunities are almost limitless! This could really turn the US software industry around! You can't pay someone in China to scoop your dog poop now can you?
Posted by Mike at May 2, 2005 10:59 PM
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