Valet trash, defined
Valet trash is doorstep trash collection for apartment communities. Each unit has a lidded container. On the property's service nights, residents set it out before a collection window the property chooses, a crew works every door and carries the bags to the property's compactor or dumpster, and residents bring the empty container back in.
A five-night week, Sunday to Thursday, is the common industry schedule. RPMTX runs 1-7 services a week in the window your property picks: at night in Austin, and on a schedule set per property everywhere else. Either way, the community sets the schedule.
How an RPMTX service night works
Every RPMTX service night follows the same four steps. The full detail, including reporting and the make-good, is on how it works.
- Before the window: residents put the lidded container at the door, trash bagged inside. Nobody needs to be home.
- During the window: the crew works every door and logs it as collected, no set-out, or exception. Loose trash, liquids and overweight bags are flagged, not collected.
- The same night: exceptions are photographed and timestamped. Resident violations come with a notice already written, ready for your office to send.
- By morning: a door-level report is in your inbox, by email from the first service night, with nothing to install. Residents bring their empty containers back inside.
What residents do
Very little, which is the point. They bag their trash, set the container out before the window on service nights and bring it in the next morning. Recycling goes in its own container where the community has doorstep recycling. RPMTX's resident rules are on the resident help page, and your leasing office has your community's exact nights and window.
If the log shows nothing was set out at a door when the crew worked it, that is not a miss. The timestamp is there for the office to share with the resident.
What the property gets
- No resident carrying bags down stairs and along hallways, where they drip and break on the way to the compactor.
- An amenity residents are billed for. Industry sources put what properties pay vendors at $8 to $15 a door and what communities bill residents at $25 to $35, so it often runs as a net revenue line rather than a cost. The pricing page shows the spread with your numbers.
- With RPMTX, a record of every service night: which doors were collected, which set nothing out and which were exceptions, with photos of the exceptions.
- With RPMTX, the compactor area policed every service night, strays bagged and overflow photographed, included with core service.
Valet trash versus a chute or compactor alone
Valet trash does not replace the compactor. It changes who carries the bag there. With a chute, compactor or dumpster alone, residents haul their own trash to a central point, at any hour. That flexibility is the upside. The downside is trash that gets stuck in chutes, piles up in chute rooms and drips along the way.
| Topic | Chute, compactor or dumpster alone | RPMTX valet trash |
|---|---|---|
| Who carries the trash | Residents, to a central point | The crew, from each door |
| When | Any time | Set-out window on service nights |
| Where problems show up | Stuck chutes, piled-up chute rooms, drips on the way | Flagged at the door and photographed the same night |
| What the property sees | No nightly record | A door-level report before the morning walk |
What to ask a valet trash vendor
Nightly frequency and containers are standard across the market. These questions tell vendors apart. RPMTX's answers are in parentheses.
- Who is at the door, your employees or subcontractors? (RPMTX: our own employees, background-checked, badged, uniformed and covered by our insurance.)
- What happens when a door is missed, and is the remedy written into the contract? One 2026 buyer's guide tells managers to negotiate a service credit per missed night and a cure period, and warns that a contract silent on missed pickups means nothing happens. (A missed door made right within 24 hours at no charge, a credit if the same unit is missed twice in one billing month, and a 30-day cure clause on any service failure.)
- How will I know what happened last night? (A door-level report by email every service night.)
- What is outside the per-door rate? Ask about setup fees, container deposits, fuel surcharges and recycling. ($0 setup, no container deposit, no fuel surcharge. Doorstep recycling is an add-on on the same route.)
- What insurance do you carry? ($2M aggregate general liability, commercial auto and workers' comp.)
- Which contract terms will you quote? (12, 24 and 36 months, and we quote all three.)
- For Austin properties with 5+ units: how does the service fit the Universal Recycling Ordinance's recycling and composting requirements? (RPMTX helps with doorstep or hub organics collection, resident signage and education, and the service details your annual recycling plan asks for. See URO composting.)
For residents: where the fee comes from
The property, not the valet trash company, decides whether the service is part of the lease and sets the monthly fee residents pay. Questions about the amount go to your leasing office.
In Austin, the Rental Fee Transparency Ordinance lists trash as an example of a mandatory fee. From October 1, 2026, housing providers with 50 or more dwellings must give prospective renters a written, itemized list of mandatory, optional and variable fees before quoting rent or accepting applications, and advertisements that show a rent figure must list mandatory recurring fixed fees alongside it. Providers with 5 to 49 dwellings follow from January 1, 2027. This is a summary, not legal advice. The city page has the details.
Ready to see the service itself? Doorstep valet trash from RPMTX covers what is included, or see how it works, step by step.