Who says Americans won't do the dirty jobs? A Roanoke Valley man cleans trash bins for $7 apiece.

Robert Kinney is a retired phone cable repairman who dabbles in real estate, credit consulting and computers. A month ago, he took up trash-can cleaning for "fun money," and finds satisfaction in having created what he says is the only business of its kind in the region. It's called Clean A Bin.

Kinney will drive to your home on garbage collection day and de-muck your just-emptied container with pressurized water. He also does a bit of detailing similar to a deluxe car wash by applying a deodorant.

And his method acknowledges the green movement: He filters his wash water before sending it down the storm drain.

Customers are asked to mail his fee in a stamped, self-addressed envelope he tapes to their front door.

"I don't want to make a million dollars. I just want to help people out with a problem I had myself," Kinney, 59, said. "My own garbage can stunk, so I figured everyone else's did too."

The head of refuse management for Roanoke County, where Kinney is marketing his service with fliers, was so intrigued she asked for his phone number. Nancy Duval said she might hire Kinney herself, though she has cleaned her own can with detergent and a blast from the hose many times. It is each resident's job to maintain his or her receptacle in reasonably clean condition, and there is nothing wrong with hiring someone else, she said.

For the record, the county replaces cans only when they lose a wheel, split open or develop lid or other operational problems -- not just because they get dirty, Duval explained.

Mary Lou Farley of Roanoke County received a Clean A Bin flier in her newspaper tube and hired out Kinney. She pronounced his work a success.

"It's so clean and smells so good, I hate to use it," Farley said.

In addition to concerns about his own can, Kinney was looking for extra income for entertainment, such as a cruise, when a friend from London told him about that region's corps of private garbage can cleaners. Kinney said he felt inspired to do the same in this valley. The name he chose is the same as an outfit in southwest England, although there they call municipal trash cans wheelie bins.

Kinney said he has spent part of the past three years on such preliminary steps as designing and building a tilted cleaning rack in the back of a panel truck. The rack, bearing a sheet of thin white flooring material, drains to a screened gutter that leads to a water receptacle. Nearby is a water tank, pressurizer and spray gun.

During a job Wednesday, Kinney put on a face shield and heaved a homeowner's trash can onto its side on top of the platform. With the lid out of the way, he stared into the black compartment. When trash collectors empty a garbage can, they don't always get everything out. Kinney said a few blasts of his sprayer usually does it.

"If there's tough stuff I got brushes," he said.

Wash-water screening is an obvious need. Kinney once blasted out the sticky, greasy remains of a barbecued chicken feast. He said he wouldn't want a stray bone unglued from the bottom of the can to enter the storm drain.

In his flier, Kinney vividly describes the usual conditions inside a trash can, using the ick factor to drum up business for his fledgling enterprise.

"When you close the lid of your trash bin you have created the ideal environment for bacteria, insect and fly larva growth. Leftovers or spoiled food, dirty diapers, dog/cat poop and trash of all kinds have caused quite a mixture of odors to develop in there," the flier reads.

Yet Kinney is concerned that too much publicity might have a downside for his one-man show. He refused at first to be photographed for this story, saying he worried that stinky cans are so widespread -- and his price is so attractive -- that the article might draw more orders than he can possibly take.

But he relented only after considerable coaxing.

To deflect a possible deluge of calls to this newsroom from those with offensive trash bins, here's Kinney's phone number: 819-3645. His e-mail address is cleanabin@cox.net.