Quick answer
Hannah Baker is the founder of Trash Fairies Memphis, a locally owned service that rolls customers’ trash cans to the curb before pickup and brings them back afterward. It serves High Point Terrace, Normal Station and nearby East Memphis neighborhoods. Baker signed up 15 founding members, documented the push on TikTok, and launched her first routes on October 15, 2026. The launch rate is $9.99 a month for customers who sign up by October 31; the regular price is $12.99 a month from November 1.
Hannah Baker has, by her own account, chased a trash truck down the street in her pajamas. So she did what a lot of founders do with a problem that won’t go away. She built the fix and started charging for it.
Baker is the founder of Trash Fairies Memphis, a small East Memphis business that takes customers’ trash cans to the curb before pickup and brings them back afterward. “I love building things,” she writes on @hannahbaker388 on TikTok. “I do not love repetitive little tasks taking up mental space. Trash day was one of them. So I built the service I wished existed.”
Key takeaways
- Trash Fairies Memphis rolls customers’ trash cans to the curb before pickup and returns them afterward, every week.
- Baker set a goal of 15 founding members before launch and documented the “Race to 15” on TikTok. Every one of the 15 was a woman.
- When Facebook ads reached people outside her tiny service area, she switched to flyers, door hangers and yard signs.
- She launched October 15, 2026, in High Point Terrace and Normal Station, and runs the routes herself.
- The launch rate is $9.99 a month through October 31. The regular price is $12.99 a month for new customers from November 1.
Who is Hannah Baker?
Baker describes herself as an “ADHD girly, mom of two, always juggling 47 things at once.” She is open about why she started it. “Turns out I created a business to solve my own problem,” she writes in one video. “I hate remembering trash day, I hate dragging the cans out, and apparently I’m willing to pay $2/week to make it someone else’s problem.”
Her business’s website puts it more simply: remembering trash day “shouldn’t be a personality trait.”
What does Trash Fairies Memphis do?
The service is deliberately simple. Trash Fairies keeps each customer’s pickup day on its calendar, rolls the cans to the curb before collection, and puts them back in their spot after. Customers check whether their street is covered and sign up at trashfairiesmemphis.com.
Baker pitches it to busy parents, shift workers, travelers, older neighbors, people recovering from an injury and ADHD households, or anyone who would rather not think about trash day. There is also a practical angle. The City of Memphis’s household garbage rules say carts can go to the curb no earlier than 5 p.m. the day before collection and must be removed by 8 a.m. the day after, citing a city ordinance.
The business is independent and not affiliated with the City of Memphis or its waste collection service.
How did she find her first 15 customers?
Before launching, Baker set a target: 15 homes signed up in her first neighborhood. She turned the push into a TikTok series called Race to 15 and posted updates as she went.
It was not smooth. Her Facebook ads, she explains in one update, kept reaching people outside her small service area, so she switched to what she calls a neighborhood takeover: flyers, door hangers and yard signs. Someone took two of the signs down. She also ran a Halloween “Boo Basket” promotion to get neighbors talking, and her own kids, she joked, had “ZERO faith” in her.
The local, personal pitch worked. In one video she describes handing a flyer to a skeptical neighbor and telling him, “I’m the founder, and this isn’t some big company.” When she explained the founding price of about $2 a week, she held up the McDonald’s Coke she had just bought for more than that. He asked to pay her on the spot.
I met my first Memphis skeptic
When a single customer turned out to have a Tuesday pickup instead of Wednesday, Baker went looking for more Tuesday streets and expanded the launch area to Normal Station. By October 12 she had her 15. “Every single one of my founding 15 is a woman,” she said in the video announcing it.
What happened on launch day?
Trash Fairies went live on October 15, 2026. Baker ran the first routes herself and shared what she learned. Full cans make it “a full body workout.” Steering two cans at once between parked cars is not a good idea. Some customers have hills, which, she said, explained why they hired her.
Running the routes herself was the point. “I’ve already got a full list of improvements to make,” she said in her launch-day video, “and that’s exactly why I wanted to run these routes myself first.”
Around launch, her videos drew her biggest audiences yet, with one passing 16,000 views and another 11,000. In them she took to calling Trash Fairies her “stupid little trash business,” then answered the label herself: “Turns out there’s nothing stupid about making someone’s life a little easier.”
How much does Trash Fairies cost?
Pricing has moved in stages, and Baker has been open about each one:
- Founding members signed up at $8.99 a month, about $2 a week, a rate she promised to lock in for life.
- Launch special: $9.99 a month for customers who sign up by October 31, 2026, kept as long as the membership stays active.
- Regular price: $12.99 a month for new customers starting November 1.
There is no contract, and customers can cancel anytime, according to the company’s website.
What can other founders learn from Trash Fairies?
Trash Fairies is tiny next to the startups behind Esther Crawford or serial founder Rob Miller, but the playbook is familiar:
- Solve a problem you have. Baker’s best marketing line is that she forgets trash day too.
- Get commitments before you launch. Fifteen founding members proved demand before she moved a single can.
- Match your marketing to your market. For a business that serves a few streets, door hangers beat broad ads.
- Build in public. Her Race to 15 series turned a small local launch into a story people wanted to follow and share.
- Do the work yourself first. Running the routes herself gave her a list of fixes on day one.
Frequently asked questions
What is Trash Fairies Memphis?
Trash Fairies Memphis is a locally owned service in East Memphis that rolls customers’ trash cans to the curb before pickup and brings them back afterward, every week. It is not affiliated with the City of Memphis.
Who founded Trash Fairies Memphis?
Hannah Baker, a Memphis mom of two, founded Trash Fairies after repeatedly forgetting trash day herself. She launched the first routes on October 15, 2026.
Where does Trash Fairies operate?
It serves High Point Terrace, Normal Station and surrounding East Memphis neighborhoods, and is expanding one neighborhood at a time. Customers can check their address at trashfairiesmemphis.com.
How much does Trash Fairies cost?
The launch rate is $9.99 a month for customers who sign up by October 31, 2026. The regular price is $12.99 a month for new customers from November 1. There is no contract.
When can trash carts be at the curb in Memphis?
The City of Memphis says carts should go to the curb no earlier than 5 p.m. the day before collection and be removed by 8 a.m. the day after collection.
Live in East Memphis?
See if Trash Fairies serves your street at trashfairiesmemphis.com, and follow Hannah Baker’s build on @hannahbaker388 on TikTok.
This profile is based on Hannah Baker’s public TikTok videos and the Trash Fairies Memphis website. Booked Impact did not interview her, and she did not review this article before publication.
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