They take junk and make it money.
It’s really that simple.
Along with repairing and reselling used appliances and electronics, Alex Coogan and his staff at Coogan’s Reliable Appliance & Home Services do the kind of work no one else wants to do. They clean out buildings, houses, and apartments, they recycle metals and furniture, and they will chop down disasters formerly known as landscaped yards.
“As always, we buy, sell, and trade appliances, and we sell the salvaged parts,” said Coogan, whose has operated his Reliable business at 55827 National Road outside of Bridgeport for the past eight years. “The appliance side of the business has always been the bread and butter, and we’re known for our donations and our payment plans for the folks who need them. We do appliance repairs, too, and we repair some TVs and electronics, too.
“Our businesses also offers the services no one else wants to do, and that means we’re in demand most of the time,” he added. “We do what people don’t want to, and that’s OK. It’s a good way to help people and make a living at the same time.”
Far too often, according to Coogan, property owners leave buildings riddled with debris when place the parcel on the market, and local landlords frequently must clear their units of remnants from former residents.
“One division of our business involves clearing out buildings and houses and to dispose of what comes out of them in the best possible ways, and we get a lot of scrap metal that way, too,” Coogan said. “We also help felons who in (addiction) recovery because we’re willing to hire those folks to give them another chance at making a living. Some local companies do the same, some don’t.
“So, we scrapped about a million tons of steel last year alone, and that doesn’t include the precious metals we discover along the way,” he explained. “That’s why people see the ever-changing piles of scrap on our property. That’s how we sort it, and in all, we likely process about 3 million pounds of metals that we make sure go in the proper places.”
The repurpose business, Coogan has discovered, can be profitable while also benefiting environmental efforts in the Upper Ohio Valley. While common-day trash is handled easily by local landfills, it is the disposal of appliances and electronics that can prove tricky with the future in mind.
“I don’t buy scrap,” Coogan explained. “I buy broken appliances and what can’t be fixed becomes scrap, and that’s what’s taken away and sold. It’s not simple, and I didn’t invent it. A lot of people on both sides of the river do the exact same thing. It’s what the government wants us to do instead of just throwing into landfills.
“It’s all about recycling and there are people who get state and federal grants to do what we do here,” he said. “It’s all about keeping as much as possible out of our landfills and it’d be great if more people did it instead of creating ecological disasters along our creeks and streams. We’ve seen tragedies happen because of what people do with the stuff they don’t use anymore.”
You Can’t Miss It
Motorists traveling U.S. 40 – or National Road – can easily find Reliable Appliance & Home Services thanks to how Coogan and his crew have decorated the exteriors of the buildings.
Along with a number of signs, the walls also deliver a few three-dimensional display, as well.
“I decorated the buildings to have some fun and to give people an idea of what we have here for sale, and it’s worked really well,” Coogan said. “The decorations draw attention, so I have done a little more the past weeks based on some of our customers’ suggestions. It’s helped us get customers that we wouldn’t have stopped without them, and we’re not in violation of any codes.
“A lot of the new customers have admitted to us that they had no idea what we did here until the decorations convinced them to stop to check us out. They’ve seen the appliances, and they know we fix them and resell them, but they didn’t know about our other services,” he explained. “As we all know, it takes customers to keep you in business, so if that means mounting a couple of skeletons on the building, then that’s what it means and that’s why we did it.”
Coogan’s Reliable businesses are located in Pease Township, a territory that covers areas in East Ohio that include Martins Ferry, Bridgeport, and Yorkville. Now, Coogan has been contacted by township trustees who have told him they’ve received some complaints concerning the decorations and his properties in general.
“All I am doing is conducting business the way I need to, and I’m not breaking any laws or going against any codes, but if they want, I will defend myself,” Coogan confirmed. “It’s either that or they drop it because they understand that I’m not trying to cause any problems. All I’m doing it trying to make a living while employing local people.
“My businesses have operated at this location for eight years, and we sell used and repaired appliances, we recycle just about everything, we do building clean-outs for people, and we come and make sense of the ‘yard jungle’ when the landscaping has gotten out of control,” he detailed. “We don’t do weekly yard maintenance, but we will come in and clear a mess for a new landlord or property owner, and when we clear abandoned houses or apartments, we do donate what we can to folks who need it, and then we make the rest goes where it legally needs to go.
“Honestly, you would think the township officials would treat us like heroes for what we do here.”
