About us
Locally Owned Dumpster Rental in Detroit Since 2014
One truck, one phone number and a promise to quote honestly. Here is how DTR Dumpster Rental grew into Wayne County’s go-to roll-off company — and why Andre Whitfield still answers the phone.
Our story
It started with a borrowed truck and a garage full of somebody else’s junk
Andre Whitfield grew up off Livernois in a brick bungalow his grandparents bought when the west side was still filling in, and went to work for a metro Detroit remodeling crew out of high school. He spent most of his twenties gutting kitchens, tearing off roofs and carrying plaster up out of basements from Redford to Highland Park, watching the same problems repeat themselves. The container never came when it was supposed to. When it did, the invoice had grown. Nobody ever warned a homeowner what a plaster-and-lath house or a three-layer roof actually weighs, so the overage landed before the dust settled. And a can left open on an empty block got stripped overnight.
In 2014 he bought a used roll-off truck and four cans, parked them on 14286 Meyers Rd off Schoolcraft, and started answering the phone himself. The first job was a tear-off in Corktown for a homeowner whose previous hauler had cancelled twice while the crew stood on the roof waiting. She still calls us, and she still tells the story.
Word moved the way it does in a city of neighbourhoods — through contractors, through neighbours, through the guy at the supply counter who mentions that the dumpster people actually showed up. Then the rehab work took off and settled it: when an investor has four gut jobs running at once, people remember who answered. We added trucks as the calls came in rather than borrowing against volume we did not have yet. 12 years on we run a small fleet, we still dispatch out of Detroit, and the phone still rings at a desk with somebody local behind it.
Why we care about getting the quote right
The dumpster industry has a reputation problem and it is largely self-inflicted. Low teaser rates, a tonnage allowance buried in the fine print, then a bill with an overage charge nobody explained. We priced against that from day one. When you call, we ask what you are throwing away, what it weighs, how long you need it and where it is going. Then we give you a number that includes delivery, pickup, the rental window and disposal. If we think you are about to order the wrong size, we say so — even when the wrong size is the more expensive one.
What being local actually buys you
It is not a slogan. It means our dispatcher knows which blocks off Grand River have drives too narrow to take a 30, which Grosse Pointe Park and Ferndale lots can only be served off the rear alley, which alleys out toward Livonia and Farmington Hills a loaded truck cannot commit to during the spring thaw, and roughly what a 1,900 square foot brick house produces when three layers of roof come off and the plaster comes down. It means that when an ice storm runs through Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and half the region wants a container in the same week, our trucks are already here.
At a glance
- Founded2014
- OwnerAndre Whitfield
- BaseDetroit, MI
- Container sizes10, 15, 20, 30, 40 yd³
- Service radius~35 miles
- InsuranceFull commercial cover
Our values
Six things we do not negotiate on
We quote it, we honour it
The number on the phone is the number on the invoice. If we get the size wrong, that is our mistake to wear, not yours.
We turn up
A delivery window means a delivery window. If something goes sideways — and occasionally it does — you get a phone call, not silence.
We treat the property like ours
Boards under the rails, a walk of the drop, and a driver who will move the can rather than argue about where it landed.
We sort before we bury
Metal, clean wood, cardboard and brush get separated and recovered where we can, and we will tell you to pull salvage first. It is cheaper for you and better than filling a hole.
We tell you the awkward thing
If your job needs two hauls instead of one, or a permit you did not know about, you hear it before we load the truck.
We answer to neighbours
We live here. Our kids go to school here. There is no head office to hide behind when something goes wrong.
Experience
What 12 years around Detroit containers teaches you
We have seen the mistakes so you do not have to
The three that cost people the most money, in order: ordering by volume when the debris is dense, forgetting that plaster and lath runs two to three times the weight of drywall and that a three-layer tear-off is three roofs and not one, and setting a container on a narrow original drive or a soft alley that was never built to carry it. Every one of those is avoidable with one honest conversation before delivery.
We have cleared whole streets of storm-damaged roofs in a single week, three-layer tear-offs and slate off the big houses in Boston-Edison and Palmer Woods, full gut jobs in Brightmoor, Bagley, Grandmont-Rosedale, Morningside, East English Village and Jefferson-Chalmers, basements holding sixty years of contents around a dead octopus furnace and a coal bin, plaster and lath stripped out of Corktown and Garden City houses, restaurant and retail fit-outs along Woodward Avenue and out at Midtown, driveways, aprons and front steps broken out after another freeze-thaw winter, brush and branches run as clean separate loads out toward Livonia and Farmington Hills, and garages, attics and back-lot sheds packed with two decades of bikes, tools and holiday boxes. Every one of those loads behaves differently at the scale house, and knowing that in advance is most of the job.
Credentials and cover
- Licensed to haul solid waste in Michigan
- Full commercial general liability and auto cover — certificates available on request for GCs and property managers
- Workers’ compensation cover for every driver on the road
- Material taken only to permitted, licensed transfer and disposal facilities
- Compliance with Michigan disposal rules and Part 115 yard-waste separation on every load
Contractors and property managers: ask for our COI when you set up an account. We can usually have it emailed the same day.
Community
We are part of Detroit, not just parked in it
We donate container time to local school and church cleanup projects, we discount storm work for older residents on fixed incomes when a tree comes down, and we sponsor a couple of youth teams that mostly involve us hauling nets around at weekends. None of that makes us special — it is what a business in a town this size is supposed to do.
Detroit is a working city that still builds things. GM runs the Renaissance Center and Factory ZERO, Ford is in Dearborn and has brought Michigan Central Station in Corktown back into use, Stellantis assembles at Mack, and DTE Energy, Henry Ford Health and the DMC employ tens of thousands more. Wayne State University and the Midtown corridor turn students over every year, Eastern Market runs every Saturday, and Hamtramck and Highland Park sit inside the city as cities of their own. Around all of that is the housing stock: pre-1940 brick that gets rehabbed, flipped, inherited and cleared out constantly, plus Detroit Land Bank Authority parcels and side lots changing hands. Roofs, basements, kitchens, garages and whole houses come due year-round, and one hard winter puts a season of repair work on the calendar at once. That generates a lot of debris. We would rather it left less behind than it otherwise would, which is why we pull scrap metal, clean wood, cardboard and clean concrete and brick out of loads instead of tipping the lot, why we tell customers to pull salvage before the container arrives — old-growth lumber, doors, hardware, radiators, clawfoot tubs, mantels and common brick all have buyers here — and why grass, leaves, brush and branches always ride as a separate clean load to a composting facility, never mixed into construction debris. Nothing gets stockpiled where runoff reaches the Detroit River.
About DTR Dumpster Rental
Who owns DTR Dumpster Rental?
Andre Whitfield, who founded the company in 2014 and still runs it from our yard on 14286 Meyers Rd in Detroit. We are independently owned — not a franchise, not a broker reselling somebody else’s trucks, and not a national call centre routing your job to whoever bids lowest that morning.
Are you a broker or do you own your trucks?
We own our trucks and our containers and we employ our drivers. That matters because a broker cannot promise you a delivery window — they are passing your job to a third party and hoping. When we say Tuesday morning, our dispatcher is looking at our own truck.
What areas do you actually serve?
Detroit and roughly a 35 mile radius across metro Detroit. Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Redford and Garden City right on our doorstep; Livonia, Westland, Farmington Hills and Lincoln Park west and south; Highland Park, Hamtramck, Ferndale, Oak Park, Southfield and Royal Oak north over 8 Mile; and Harper Woods, Grosse Pointe Park and Warren over on the east side. Our full service area is listed here.
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes on both. We carry commercial general liability, commercial auto and workers’ compensation cover, and we are licensed to haul solid waste in Michigan. Contractors and property managers can request a certificate of insurance when setting up an account and we will usually turn it around the same day.
Do you handle commercial accounts?
We do — builders, remodelers, roofers, property management companies, restaurants and retail. Standing accounts get priority scheduling, next-day swap-outs and consolidated monthly invoicing. See commercial dumpster rental or call to set one up.
Talk to a real person
Talk to Andre or one of the team
No call queue, no chat bot, no form that promises a response within one business day. Call the number and a person in Detroit picks up.
Serving Detroit, Wayne County and metro Detroit · Mon–Fri 6:30am–6pm, Sat 7am–3pm