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People,
Diane Rossi admits, think tramping through yards to clean up pet
waste is a degrading way to make a living. But Ms Rossi's unlikely
service is a study of how to create a life and livelihood out of
something nobody wants. " I'm proud of what I do; I'm not embarrassed,"
she says, driving through northwest Chicago in a van bearing her
business name: Have Doggie, We'll Doo!!
Working from
her home, Ms. Rossi has won more than 200 weekly and short term
customers, at about $10.00 a visit, plus special assignments, Revenues
last year totaled about 100,000 last year. She has two trucks and
accepts credit cards. She also has started up two related publications
and is now working on turning waste into fertilizer.
On most days, her partner and live-in companion, Ivan Bilic, does
the pick-up although they also rely on part-timers. But on Thursdays,
the 40 year old Ms. Rossi, her magenta fingernails neatly tucked
into gloves, drives to 28 homes, raking dog waste into an industrial
dustpan and depositing it in double bagged trash containers. Back
in the truck, she logs the time on a clipboard, as well as the mileage
and even the number of dog piles per yard.
Turning waste into a livelihood is an apt metaphor for her life.
When she was seven, her parents gave her up to be a ward of the
state. For reasons she still doesn't understand, she was the only
one of six children to be sent away. She bounced around from foster
and group homes. " I was a throwaway kid" she says. She
never went to High School. At 21, she had a daughter, a husband
and a shared antiques business. But a bitter divorce left her broke,
and she lived in her car with her two-year old for several weeks.
 he
sought help from an acquaintance, a stripper who had married
a wealthy man. "It was straight into the frying pan" says
Rossi, who moved in with the woman and answered phones at a strip
club.
Later she married again, had a son, and was divorced again. Then
the past came back to haunt her. Police officers showed up at her
door one day, and took her in for questioning. Her stripper friend
had been indicted in the insurance scam murder of her husband.
Ms. Rossi was distraught. She was facing eviction and wound up in
her car again. Her second husband took in her son and daughter temporarily.
"I was sick. I was tired." she says. "I tried to
figure out why some people had great lives and why others had lives
that aren't so great."
Then Ms. Rossi found a book left behind by a roommate; "The
Magic of Believing", about, among other things, the importance
of personal responsibility. To this day she keeps a copy on her
office shelf. "That's when it hit me that I could change my
life."
She got a job
with a personal care products company and rented an apartment. She
had to leave at 5 a.m. to get her children to school and daycare
before work. Still, she relished her more normal life.
After working there about 18 months, she overheard neighbors arguing
about who was going to clean up a dog mess. " I thought, I'd
do it if someone would pay me" she said. She printed up flyers
advertising her new venture, and posted them through her neighborhood.
She felt compelled to include the line, "This is serious".
When she got home, her phone was ringing.
So in the summer
of 1990, with a shovel and a bag in the trunk of her car, she went
from house to house, a women on a mission to clean up yards and
her messed up life. She hated trudging over frozen lawns in the
bitter Chicago winter, but she built upon every small gain. She
got herself on local radio call-in programs, and had a local advertising
agency do posters.
 t
was slow going at first. She earned about $1500 the first
year. She got a little help from her second husband but needed money
to expand her business. Not surprisingly, banks didn't see her as
a likely business customer.
A turning point came when, through a mutual friend, she met Mr.
Bilic, a tourist from Germany, where he had a catering business.
He loved Ms. Rossi's venture, hit it off with her children and moved
in the same art and music circles. Soon they were business partners
and living together. His
savings kept them afloat for more than a year. "Even in her
desperation, she was positive" said Mr. Bilic, "We had
the same vision." They agreed that their business being what
it is, everything must gleam with cleanliness. Every work day ends
at the car wash, where the trucks are cleaned, deodorized and disinfected.
They have landed assignments such as kennel club shows and hiring
up to a dozen employee's to clean after 2500 dogs. When customers
began asking her for referrals to Veterinarians, pet sitters and
other services, she compiled a Chicago Pet Directory. It now has
over 250 advertisers. She also gives discounts to senior citizens
and the disabled and has launched a newsletter "The Inside
Scoop". Ms. Rossi will start an industry trade group for similar
business's in other states. Best of all, building a business over
eight years has brought stability to her family. Her daughter, an
18-year-old college freshman, gets A's as does her 12-year-old.
His Science fair project last year? Turning pet waste into energy.
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