Bigfork women help reuse, recycle and repurpose unwanted items

It all started with spring cleaning, and an idea.

Lori Elwell thought, what if she helped people get rid of things they didn’t want or need, charged them nothing for labor, and made up her profit reselling unwanted items?

“I thought well gosh, that sounds kind of interesting,” Shawntelle Mueller, Elwell’s friend said. She agreed to help out. “The next day we were buying business cards.”

The pair of Bigfork women have turned the idea, and their love of a treasure hunt, into a business.

They started Gone for Good last spring and have watched their idea change and develop over the summer.

The premise is simple. They will come in to a home, storage unit, garage or any other place people are looking to clean, and take away all of the unwanted items, at no cost to the client, with the promise that everything will be resold, repurposed, recycled or donated.

“Our goal is to throw away as little as possible,” Elwell said.

They began advertising on Craigslist and got some weird calls. One person wanted them to come organize her whole house for free, but get rid of nothing.

Eventually they found a couple jobs that were what they were looking for and word of mouth has been their primary advertising since.

They’ve helped people downsize, clean out entire houses, and just individual rooms.

But they’re not movers, organizers, or garbage removers. Both Elwell and Mueller have families and other fulltime jobs. Gone for Good, they say, is a hobby.

“It’s our whirlwind hobby,” Mueller said.

As a way to find potential clients Elwell and Mueller have begun working with Rising Mountain retirement home, helping people move in, which a few jobs have come from.

So far many of the people they’ve worked with have been elderly, and don’t have the energy to put on a garage sale, haul items to an auction or a thrift store in Kalispell.

When someone is interested in utilizing their unique service, Elwell and Mueller do a consult and see if there are any items the client is looking to get rid off, that they can sell to pay for their time and energy.

When there isn’t, they will charge for their services, but the cost is still minimal, ranging from 25 to 50 cents per square foot.

“We’re not garbage removers,” Elwell said.

“But it’s amazing what some people think is garbage and we think is treasure,” Mueller added.

Of course, not everything they remove for people is easy to sell. And trying to figure out what to do with those items has been both fun and challenging for Elwell and Mueller.

“How can we get it into the hands of people who need something?” Elwell said.

What they can’t sell they try to use to give back to the community. They’ve donated items to be used in the Bigfork Elementary School Santa Shop. Given clothes to Lakeview Care Center, and plan to donate books to the local schools.

“That’s kind of fun,” Mueller said. “Finding ways to get it where it needs to be.”

They are still looking for homes for some items no one seems to want. Sets of encyclopedias, non-flat screen televisions and cassette tapes.

“We haven’t run into any 8-tracks yet,” Mueller said.

Other items that no one would want, they’ve been dreaming up ways to turn into something new. Mueller is planning to make a tabletop out of broken knick-knacks, and turn stained torn clothing into dog beds.

“We’re brainstorming how we can use absolutely everything,” she said. “If we want this earth to live on 20, 30 years down the road, we have to do something.”

When they originally started the pair thought Elwell’s storage unit would be enough holding space between garage sales, and when things went on Ebay. But they filled it quickly, and had to get a storage container, which is now also full.

They’ve held two big garage sales at Swan River Hall so far, and have another planned for August 29, and 30 at 220 Swan River Road.

Besides trying to help the planet and the community, the other fun part of the job, is the hunt.

“We both love that treasure hunt,” Elwell said. “It’s exciting when we find that really cool thing.”

Some of the coolest treasures so far have been a mimeograph and a military uniform from the 1800s.

When they started Gone for Good both Elwell and Mueller said their husbands were worried they’d just bring stuff home, and clutter up their own houses. But they say the opposite has happened, and clearing out other peoples stuff, has helped them de-clutter their own homes.

“Other peoples homes have no emotional connection to us,” Elwell said.

For many of their clients, they said knowing their old possessions weren’t just going to the landfill, seemed to make them feel better.