What an apartment cleanout costs in Columbus

The short answer

Two ways to price it, and you pick whichever is cheaper.

By volume. Quarter truckload $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732.

By item. Sofa $126, queen mattress $103, mattress and box spring set $143, dresser $126, desk $83, dining table (2-4 seat) $103, dining chair $45, bookshelf $72, TV 42" to 65" $68, medium junk pile $129, large junk pile $208.

The visit minimum is $75. A studio stripped to the walls is often a quarter load. A furnished one-bedroom is usually a quarter to a half. A two-bedroom double near campus with two sets of everything is typically a half to five-eighths.

What Columbus apartments actually are

The word covers four very different jobs in this city, and they do not cost the same effort.

• Campus-area doubles and half-doubles. University District, Old North, Weinland Park. Century buildings cut into units, interior stairs with a turn, porches, no elevator, street parking that is contested all week and impossible on a home game Saturday.
• Older-neighborhood conversions. Clintonville, Victorian Village, Olde Towne East. Second and third floors carved out of single-family houses. Beautiful. Narrow.
• Short North and Downtown buildings. Elevator, loading dock or a marked loading zone, a building manager with a reservation calendar and a certificate-of-insurance requirement.
• Suburban garden complexes. Along Bethel, Sawmill, Hamilton Road, out toward Reynoldsburg and Grove City. Ground-floor or breezeway units, a stairwell at most, parking right outside. These are the quick ones.

The price is the same across all four. The difference is scheduling, not billing.

Three worked examples

Studio in Victorian Village, tenant moved out and left the furniture. Sofa $126, queen mattress and box spring set $143, small junk pile $82. Total $126 + $143 + $82 = $351. By volume that is close to a three-eighths load at $338, so book the ladder.

Campus double, two bedrooms, end of an August lease. Two queen sets at $143 each, a sofa at $126, a desk at $83, a dresser at $126, and a large junk pile at $208. That is $143 + $143 + $126 + $83 + $126 + $208 = $829. Compare to a full truckload at $732 and take the $732.

Suburban one-bedroom off Sawmill, mostly boxes. Medium junk pile $129 plus a TV at $68 plus a dining table (2-4 seat) at $103 = $300.

The pattern: itemize when you have a handful of big pieces, use the truck ladder when the apartment is genuinely full.

August in the University District

Columbus has one immovable cleanout season. Tens of thousands of students turn over off-campus leases in the same handful of days in mid-August, and everything ends up on the tree lawn at once: couches, mattresses, desks, particleboard shelving, whole rooms of it.

If you own or manage units in that footprint, two things are worth knowing. Book before the first week of August, not during it. And put the pickup on the day after the lease end, not the day of, because the last tenant out will leave more than they told you they would.

For students, the honest advice is that a queen mattress at $103 split four ways is less than the fine your landlord will pass on for leaving the house loaded.

Buildings with rules

Downtown and Short North buildings often want a certificate of insurance on file before a crew works in the building, plus a reserved elevator window and the service entrance rather than the lobby. Some of the newer Grandview and Italian Village mid-rises are the same.

Tell us the building name and the requirement when you book. It is routine paperwork, but it takes a day or two, so a Tuesday request for a Wednesday pickup in a managed tower is the one thing that genuinely delays a job. Ground-floor garden units out in Reynoldsburg or Grove City have none of this and can usually go same-day.

Eviction and abandoned-property cleanouts

If you are a landlord clearing a unit after an eviction, the holding rules for a tenant's possessions are a legal matter and not something we will guess at in an article. Confirm your obligations before anything is removed.

What we can say is operational. Photograph everything before it moves, room by room. Book by volume, because abandoned units are never what the walkthrough suggested. Expect the kitchen to be the worst part, and expect at least one appliance: a mini fridge at $115, a microwave at $30, occasionally a full-size refrigerator left running at $164.

What is included

• Two people, loading, and the truck.
• Carry-out from any floor. No stair charge for a third-floor campus walk-up.
• Disposal, transfer and recycling.
• Broom sweep of the footprint we cleared.
• Same-day when it is available, at no extra cost.

Not included: hazardous material, and anything that legally must go to a specialist stream. Flag it in the notes and you will get a straight answer before the truck is dispatched.

How to get the cheapest accurate number

Walk the unit with your phone and list the big pieces. Anything you can name individually, price individually. Everything loose, the closets, the pantry, the bathroom cupboards, the pile behind the bedroom door, count as a pile: small $82, medium $129, large $208.

Add it up. If the total is above the next rung on the truck ladder, book the ladder instead. That single comparison saves people money more often than any other thing on this page.

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