1800GotJunk or other junk haulers?

[Garga]

Anyone ever hired a junk company to haul your junk away?  My DH has a bad shoulder and I'm no superwoman, but we have a bunch of junk that needs to be hauled.  Broken tv stand (5 foot tall), broken treadmill, broken dresser, a couch, and then just a ton of junk that has been hidden in the basement for 10 years. 

 

I'm not strong enough to lift some of the things.  PA doesn't have junkyards, or at least not where we are, so even if I could lift it, there's no where to take it.  (Maybe our trash collectors would haul it away, but I don't know, I'd have to call and ask them.)

 

So...how does one get rid of junk that they can't lift for themselves?  I briefly looked at the 1-800-Got-Junk site and read some reviews but the reviews said they're are $$$$$$$.  I don't have $$$$$$$.  I have $$.

 

I could start trying to google for things, but maybe someone here already knows the best way to get rid of junk.  After all, we all just finished reading about Kon Mari, so someone must have a big pile of junk to deal with like I do.

[Spryte]

I helped my mom clean out and put her house on the market last year. Big house. 25 years of stuff. Packed to the gills.

 

We put a lot of stuff on the curb, and it was taken away by people who come through the neighborhoods at night, gleaning from trash. I didn't even know these people existed! They took truckload after truckload.

 

For the stuff we could not lift, we did two options. First, we hired a neighborhood guy (early 20s) to pull stuff down from the attic and take it to the street.

 

And, at the end, we hired Got Junk. :)

 

They were great. I have nothing but glowing reviews for them. It wasn't cheap, but we were exhausted and it was worth every penny!

[StephanieZ]

You can call your trash company about getting a dumpster delivered to your house. You pay a delivery/pickup fee(s) and then a daily (or monthly) rate. We had to do that twice during recent renovations, and I think it was 200-400 each time, for a huge dumpster. If you do that, then you just need to hire a couple strong boys (or girls) for a half day to a day to follow your instructions on what to haul where. If you can get someone with a chain saw, sledge hammer, or reciprocating saw (best bet), then that would make dismantling items into smaller pieces a bit easier. Or if you are handy with tools, you can start taking things apart into pieces. You could do that ahead of time. 

[Guest]

Try craigslist. I have always found a guy (or several) needing to earn a bit of money by hauling trash. And they are always cheap compared to GotJunk or whatever. Some of them only have trucks but some have trailers too for large loads.

Just an idea.

[MysteryJen]

I second a dumpster from your city or trash company. In our recent move, we got a dumpster ($180 per rental). I would hire teens or young guys in your neighborhood/church to fill it.

[Pink and Green Mom]

We used 1-800 Got Junk to come take a metal swingset (remember those?) that was cemented into the ground out of our yard when we first bought our house.  We paid somewhere between $150 and $200 just for that one thing.  So yeah, it isn't cheap.  We just needed it out of the yard because it was dangerous (sharp broken metal, rust, etc).

But for a lot of stuff I would definitely get a dumpster from your city and hire neighborhood teens or the like to fill it.

[happi duck]

Around here, on trash day they'll take one big thing in addition to our trash and recycling.

 

If your service is similar maybe someone could do you a favor and put out one thing per week.

 

Usuable things I can't transport to donate go to the curb and people usually take it. I put a 'free' sign on it so it's clear. Anything metal gets picked up by 'the metal guy'. For things that have a lot of metal someone might pick it up (from the basement) for free. Not sure how to search for that though.

 

 

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Edited February 4, 2016 by happi duck

[Spryte]

Can you freecycle any of this stuff?

[displace]

If you don't know local teens, u haul has links on their website for rental mover men (people?). I think you can find the links threw u haul but maybe only if you rent through them.

[Piper]

Another happy user of Got Junk here. It was desperation for us! We had a bunch of stuff left over after our move here, added to the random stuff the previous owners "kindly" left behind after we told them we didn't want it (massive metal desk, anyone?) Not cheap, but totally worth every penny to get our garage space back, and all we had to do was point to stuff and say "Take this!" Just a note on the Got Junk people - I was impressed that they put aside stuff that was still in decent condition for donation or consignment, so they were obviously not just mindlessly sending everything to the landfill.

[mom2scouts]

If you have metal things (like the treadmill), it should be easy to find someone who sells scrap metal and will pick stuff up for free.

[Allearia]

We used Got Junk a few times. It is $$$$. But they give an estimate and tell you how much before they load things in the truck, and you can change your mind before they start. They carried everything out from the back yard to the truck, nothing was that heavy though. They swept and cleaned the area thoroughly. I was very happy. We don't have a lot of money to spare, but i liked that they were very professional. I felt a bit unsafe calling someone I didn't know from Craigslist, which played a small part.

[Allearia]

Oh, and we did call a scrap metal guy to haul away a washer and dryer from Craigslist, he was here around 20 minutes after I called. I thought that was going to be a huge expensive hassle but it was great as I'd bought a used washer and dryer on Craigslist for $150. It has to have enough metal to make it worth their while, I tried a few times to get someone to take away a dishwasher but that was mostly plastic.

[Ewe Mama]

I used a local service found through an Angie's List deal of the day. It wasn't cheap, but a more affordable option that way.

[gingersmom]

I think I paid 1-800-got junk about $400 for hauling stuff out of my house. They quoted me price beforehand and were very professional. I would not hesitate to use them again.