Have you ever had the paid junk remover people come?

[Ginevra]

I sort of accidentally made an appointment for them to come next weekend to remove an old piano, an ancient cedar chest and a crappy old chair from my first apartment. But after I accidentally made an appointment, I thought well, maybe I’ll just keep it and get rid of those stupid things. The piano and cedar chest are particularly hard to get rid of and I would feel great relief for those things to just go away. Initially I thought dh would poo-poo it because he would interpret it as paying someone to do something he could do himself. But he was surprisingly more okay with it than I expected and agrees that those two things in particular are really hard to get rid of. 
 

So…have you done it? Was it a positive experience? Anything I should know? 

[Katy]

No but we’ve called two men and a truck to move heavy stuff upstairs & downstairs (a large safe, a deep freezer, a fridge). It was super easy & helpful so now DH wants to pay for anything like that. 

The couple people I know who did remove the junk loved it. One did it twice at her house and once for her mom. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Yup. We’ve done it a couple of ways—junk removal (they carry) and renting a dumpster that they drop off and pick back up. 
 

My advice is to walk through your house and see if there is anything else that you want to get rid of. Odds are you have something stashed somewhere that you’ve forgotten about that is broken and hard to get rid of. 
We absolutely fix, donate, and recycle whatever we can…but this many years into home ownership = a lot of worn out stuff.  

[Catwoman]

Yes, and it was worth every dime!

[Catwoman]

36 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Yup. We’ve done it a couple of ways—junk removal (they carry) and renting a dumpster that they drop off and pick back up. 
 

My advice is to walk through your house and see if there is anything else that you want to get rid of. Odds are you have something stashed somewhere that you’ve forgotten about that is broken and hard to get rid of. 
We absolutely fix, donate, and recycle whatever we can…but this many years into home ownership = a lot of worn out stuff.  

Yes! That's such a good idea. When we were getting ready for the junk guys to come, we cleared out a bunch of closets and found a lot more stuff in the basement and the garage. I know we could have thrown a lot of it away with our regular trash, but knowing the junk guys were coming on a certain date lit a fire under us and we got rid of so much stuff that probably would still be here today otherwise.

[rebcoola]

Yep it was great! Its been years but they came we pointed and they did the rest basically.

[Catwoman]

2 minutes ago, rebcoola said:

Yep it was great! Its been years but they came we pointed and they did the rest basically.

That's how it was for us, too. We have done it at two different houses with two different companies and both times were very good experiences.

[SKL]

Yes, we cleared out our basement last year after 30 years of accumulating crap.  It's 1000% worth it.

[Ginevra]

1 minute ago, rebcoola said:

Yep it was great! Its been years but they came we pointed and they did the rest basically.

One thing dh mentioned that bothers him is that he is afraid they will bang the walls or do damage in some way. I actually think that is less of a risk with people who move furniture every day than it would be if dh and a couple of sons tried to move these items. 

[sassenach]

Just recently used a company for the first time and it was well worth it. They took away a variety of items- batteries and light bulbs that needed to be recycled, box spring and bed frame, water pump that was broken, other various junk. It was easy and quick. Not really that pricey, either.

[Catwoman]

45 minutes ago, Ginevra said:

One thing dh mentioned that bothers him is that he is afraid they will bang the walls or do damage in some way. I actually think that is less of a risk with people who move furniture every day than it would be if dh and a couple of sons tried to move these items. 

I was a little worried about that, too, but the guys we used were very careful.

[itsheresomewhere]

Ask what they do with the stuff if it helps with the guilt of hiring someone.  There are a few who try to salvage a lot of the stuff people want to get rid of and give to organizations that can use it.  One near me tries to give as much as they can to habitat for humanity and other organizations in the area like them to help out and keep stuff that is still good and usable from the landfill.  
 

For me-  I hired one company once to help me get some stuff out and it was not worth it.  They were kind of nasty and witchy like they didn’t want to work ( the stuff was all out in the driveway so I had done the hard work), grumble a lot, not careful with knocking stuff over or almost hitting things and then tried to change the cost of the job.  I wasn’t happy with them at all and left a detailed review.  Another company was fantastic when trying to get a relative’s house done.  They were careful and polite.  They would be hired again anytime if I needed it.  Ask questions and if you get a negative feeling about them, just cancel. 

[Pawz4me]

We've only used a haul away service for a queen mattress and box spring that we'd already moved into the garage. We used a local family business that comes highly recommended, not one of the chain places. Someone was here in less than an hour after our call. We have a truck and could have hauled them to the dump ourselves, but it was a lot easier to call them. Between the gas and the dump fee it wasn't much more expensive, either.

[QueenCat]

Yes! So worth it. Dh always has such bad back strain after doing the heavy stuff. His back is worth whatever

we need to pay for the help.

[annandatje]

We’ve paid local junk removers couple times for large items.  Everything went smoothly.  When we did some remodeling last year, we gave away furniture, exercise equipment and other large items to workers who wanted them.

[Home'scool]

I have used them a few times. Always have had a good experience.

One funny story ........One time we needed the attic cleaned out, which meant the men were pretty much walking throughout the house. Just to be on the safe side (having a police officer in the family makes you extra aware of stuff) I decided to let them see my vicious dog so they wouldn't get any ideas about coming back at night. Only, my dog was not vicious, just HUGE. And he was afraid of everything, so whenever a stranger was around he would bellow his loudest bark which made him seem very intimidating.

So when I heard them coming down the stairs I let the dog out of the room I was keeping him in and pretended to "hold him back". The guys rounded the corner, the dog started bellowing his barks, and the three guys literally bumped into each other trying to back up. I said "Oh, I'm sorry, he escaped out of his room. Let me just put him back" and then pretended like it was a big wrestle to get him under control. 

Just in case. ...... but based on their reactions I did sleep soundly that night haha.

 

[Spryte]

I used a local company when cleaning out my mother’s house, and it was an excellent experience. Wish we had called them earlier! 

I was dealing with a kidney stone (I’m allergic to pain meds), and passed that little sucker in the midst of clearing out my mother’s (hoarding) house. Huge stone. This was back when they gave us filters at the ER, so years ago. Whew! I only had two weekends to get her house finished, and just powered through. She was an artist — and I took so many spray paint cans to the special dump that they filled 27 big barrels (like oil drum sized?). It was massive amounts of stuff.

We called the junk guys on the last day, when we were out of time, and they made short work of the three sets of encyclopedias I had piled in the driveway, a bed too heavy for me to lift, and a few piles of trash. We should have called them sooner.

Highly recommend.

[Clarita]

I've done it. No complaints, the guys that came were great at moving stuff. They were quick and had all the equipment (dollies, back brace harness thing, ramps and a Uhaul type vehicle).

On 8/12/2023 at 6:36 PM, Ginevra said:

One thing dh mentioned that bothers him is that he is afraid they will bang the walls or do damage in some way. I actually think that is less of a risk with people who move furniture every day than it would be if dh and a couple of sons tried to move these items. 

I agree with you the friends that helped with moving banged up my walls and scratched my floors. The movers are super careful (even though they are faster). They know to cushion/tarp/blanket areas that are iffy; they do a little more planning than just lift the thing and get it done. 

[katilac]

12 hours ago, Spryte said:

  (I’m allergic to pain meds) 

What a terrible thing to be allergic to! 

[Soror]

We have a friend that does scrap pick it up if it is a metal item. For other things we've taken it in our truck to the local trash place. It is only $40 and that is for a full truck load (and it is new and not terrible unlike the dump). We could take metal to the scrap yard ourselves but dh refuses to take his truck through there- he says it isn't worth the risk to his tires. I absolutely hate things just laying around so I'm always anxious to get rid of things.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Soror

[Longtime Lurker]

This thread reminded me that I had a card from a junk remover who I met while walking in my neighborhood a couple of months ago. I contacted him and he is coming tomorrow morning. $50 for anything we can fit in a 6 ft by 10 ft by 18 in deep trailer. I will report back tomorrow with more details 🙂

[dsmith]

My brother-in-law had it done when selling his house next door to us. He was nice enough to let us get rid of some stuff, too. We would definitely consider it in the future - it was great not having to figure out what to do with the stuff we wanted to get rid of or lugging it to the town recycling/waste center.

[Spryte]

4 hours ago, Longtime Lurker said:

This thread reminded me that I had a card from a junk remover who I met while walking in my neighborhood a couple of months ago. I contacted him and he is coming tomorrow morning. $50 for anything we can fit in a 6 ft by 10 ft by 18 in deep trailer. I will report back tomorrow with more details 🙂

Wow, that’s a good price!

[Ginevra]

The junk people come in a few hours. 🙂 I can’t wait to feel unburdened by heavy things that are hard to get rid of. 

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, Ginevra said:

The junk people come in a few hours. 🙂 I can’t wait to feel unburdened by heavy things that are hard to get rid of. 

Yay!  

[Eos]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:01 AM, Soror said:

We have a friend that does scrap pick it up if it is a metal item. For other things we've taken it in our truck to the local trash place. It is only $40 and that is for a full truck load (and it is new and not terrible unlike the dump). We could take metal to the scrap yard ourselves but dh refuses to take his truck through there- he says it isn't worth the risk to his tires. I absolutely hate things just laying around so I'm always anxious to get rid of things.

We've done metal pick up several times, and I'm about to call them for two junk cars.  One, my beloved only new car in my entire life has gone past its abilities and must be scrapped.  The other is ds' junker, actively molding from the inside out.  They pay $300.00 per car, so that's motivational!

[Longtime Lurker]

On 8/15/2023 at 8:56 AM, Longtime Lurker said:

This thread reminded me that I had a card from a junk remover who I met while walking in my neighborhood a couple of months ago. I contacted him and he is coming tomorrow morning. $50 for anything we can fit in a 6 ft by 10 ft by 18 in deep trailer. I will report back tomorrow with more details 🙂

I almost forgot to report back. For $50, we were able to get rid of:

=an old mattress
=a very heavy tabletop form a broken table
=an old door with broken glass panes
=the frame to a broken screen patio slider
=a huge cardboard box from the treadmill we bought in 2014 that is too big to fit in our recycling
=a large broken mirror in a frame
=many old, large, unusable boards and pieces of wood paneling from various house projects
=some other random stuff we threw in at the end that I don't remember

It was well worth it and felt great. 

[Ginevra]

3 hours ago, Longtime Lurker said:

I almost forgot to report back. For $50, we were able to get rid of:

=an old mattress
=a very heavy tabletop form a broken table
=an old door with broken glass panes
=the frame to a broken screen patio slider
=a huge cardboard box from the treadmill we bought in 2014 that is too big to fit in our recycling
=a large broken mirror in a frame
=many old, large, unusable boards and pieces of wood paneling from various house projects
=some other random stuff we threw in at the end that I don't remember

It was well worth it and felt great. 

Wow! That is absolutely amazing! 
 

The young men who did my job today were excellent but it was significantly more than $50.  They removed:

a piano

a full sized box spring

a large, broken cabinet that used to hold games and puzzles

a very old small armchair

an absolutely ancient cedar chest

a big broken printer/copier

three (yes, three!) old laptops and one empty CPU case

a broken CD player

a large, cracked trash can 

a small, white bookcase that was all three of my babies’ bookcases in their nursery. 🥺

 

I feel such huge relief that this things are gone! 
 

There is an amazing aspect to being at this turning point of life. Baby boy goes to college on Thursday. We have lived in this house 20 years. I always thought of myself as a declutterer - and, indeed, I have off-loaded things regularly for all of those twenty years. Still, though; we raised and homeschooled three kids to adulthood under this roof. There is such a *LOT* of *STUFF* here. I feel like I’m going through a process of strip-mining, because I make multiple passes of parts of the house and still keep seeing so much stuff that needs a new home or is actual trash. 
 

I don’t know what my point is, or if I actually have one. It’s just, I don’t feel that old. But I have all this stuff that is telling me I AM old. Only old people have a broken cabinet full of games like Uncle Wiggly and Uno and Candyland. Only old people have a camcorder in a camera bag the size of a small pet carrier. 😄 One of the laptops was a Dell from around 1998. It was like six inches thick and weighed 15 lbs. It was the first laptop I ever bought. 
 

Will current, young homeschoolers ever have eight hundred physical books to give away? I doubt it. I have been slowly getting rid of books, finding them new homes, but I still have several hundred books to re-home. 
 

Even the box spring felt like a relic. New beds don’t have them, I don’t think. Neither of my YAs living elsewhere even *have* a box spring. It is no longer considered an important part of a bed. 
 

With both my MIL and my mom dying this year, I am thinking a lot about what state my house will be in over the next 20 years. I embrace the Swedish Death Cleaning thing. I don’t want to leave a mess behind that takes a year of Sundays to go through. I want to move, to downsize, to have fewer places for stuff to go so there will be no reason to keep all the stuff. 
 

Okay, enough of my ramble. Today felt good, but it is still kind of the beginning part. There is a lot of stuff to still get rid of, and lots of walls to paint. Forward, March! 

[scholastica]

Congratulations! Having that weight off is an amazing feeling!

[Longtime Lurker]

6 hours ago, Ginevra said:

Wow! That is absolutely amazing! 
 

The young men who did my job today were excellent but it was significantly more than $50.  They removed:

a piano

a full sized box spring

a large, broken cabinet that used to hold games and puzzles

a very old small armchair

an absolutely ancient cedar chest

a big broken printer/copier

three (yes, three!) old laptops and one empty CPU case

a broken CD player

a large, cracked trash can 

a small, white bookcase that was all three of my babies’ bookcases in their nursery. 🥺

 

I feel such huge relief that this things are gone! 
 

There is an amazing aspect to being at this turning point of life. Baby boy goes to college on Thursday. We have lived in this house 20 years. I always thought of myself as a declutterer - and, indeed, I have off-loaded things regularly for all of those twenty years. Still, though; we raised and homeschooled three kids to adulthood under this roof. There is such a *LOT* of *STUFF* here. I feel like I’m going through a process of strip-mining, because I make multiple passes of parts of the house and still keep seeing so much stuff that needs a new home or is actual trash. 
 

I don’t know what my point is, or if I actually have one. It’s just, I don’t feel that old. But I have all this stuff that is telling me I AM old. Only old people have a broken cabinet full of games like Uncle Wiggly and Uno and Candyland. Only old people have a camcorder in a camera bag the size of a small pet carrier. 😄 One of the laptops was a Dell from around 1998. It was like six inches thick and weighed 15 lbs. It was the first laptop I ever bought. 
 

Will current, young homeschoolers ever have eight hundred physical books to give away? I doubt it. I have been slowly getting rid of books, finding them new homes, but I still have several hundred books to re-home. 
 

Even the box spring felt like a relic. New beds don’t have them, I don’t think. Neither of my YAs living elsewhere even *have* a box spring. It is no longer considered an important part of a bed. 
 

With both my MIL and my mom dying this year, I am thinking a lot about what state my house will be in over the next 20 years. I embrace the Swedish Death Cleaning thing. I don’t want to leave a mess behind that takes a year of Sundays to go through. I want to move, to downsize, to have fewer places for stuff to go so there will be no reason to keep all the stuff. 
 

Okay, enough of my ramble. Today felt good, but it is still kind of the beginning part. There is a lot of stuff to still get rid of, and lots of walls to paint. Forward, March! 

Wow, that's great! I think part of the reason my removal was a bargain is that we had to bring it out to the driveway ourselves. But it still seemed like an awfully good deal!

I have had some very similar thoughts/feelings as you lately. I feel like I declutter regularly but we still seem to have too much stuff. We had to move a bunch of bins around in the basement this week for the electricians (we are switching to an electric range which requires some new wiring) and that really highlighted how much stuff we have. Our living spaces are quite uncluttered already, partly due to DS's special needs, but we have so. much. stuff. in the basement. And this is after some extra decluttering I did this summer with DD's help (she and I both work school-year jobs). I am really feeling inspired to dig a little deeper and get rid of more things. Unfortunately, I will have less time now that I have to head back to work, but I still want to keep going. 

[Ginevra]

10 hours ago, Longtime Lurker said:

We had to move a bunch of bins around in the basement

Relate. The only thing the men took that was in the basement was the box spring. Before they went to the other part of the house to address, one said something like, “Is there anything else down here that could go?” And I’m thinking, “For sure yes. But not today.” And he’s probably thinking, “I know you ain’t keeping all this nonsense and foolishness…” 😃

[Ottakee]

I have three times now rented a huge dumpster.

first was the largest roll off dumpster they make when I sold my hobby farm and was moving to a house half the size.   My friends laughed, but we managed to STUFF that dumpster with all manner of stuff and junk.

Twice we have rented a junk trailer for the week 16 x 8 x 4 and filled that at my brothers house.  
 

both times cost was very reasonable, we had a week to fill it, and then they picked it up.  Yes, we had to do the loading of it, but the wonderful feeling of being rid of all of that stuff was so worth it.

[Spryte]

5 hours ago, Ottakee said:

I have three times now rented a huge dumpster.

first was the largest roll off dumpster they make when I sold my hobby farm and was moving to a house half the size.   My friends laughed, but we managed to STUFF that dumpster with all manner of stuff and junk.

Twice we have rented a junk trailer for the week 16 x 8 x 4 and filled that at my brothers house.  
 

both times cost was very reasonable, we had a week to fill it, and then they picked it up.  Yes, we had to do the loading of it, but the wonderful feeling of being rid of all of that stuff was so worth it.

We rented a dumpster in July. I had been joking that a dumpster in driveway was my fondest fantasy lately, and then we just did it. It was incredibly liberating! 

I try to donate or freecycle whatever we can, but some things have lived past their useful lives, and the dumpster just made cleaning out so easy. 

I’m already planning another round for the fall.

[Scarlett]

On 8/19/2023 at 12:52 PM, Ginevra said:

Wow! That is absolutely amazing! 
 

The young men who did my job today were excellent but it was significantly more than $50.  They removed:

a piano

a full sized box spring

a large, broken cabinet that used to hold games and puzzles

a very old small armchair

an absolutely ancient cedar chest

a big broken printer/copier

three (yes, three!) old laptops and one empty CPU case

a broken CD player

a large, cracked trash can 

a small, white bookcase that was all three of my babies’ bookcases in their nursery. 🥺

 

I feel such huge relief that this things are gone! 
 

There is an amazing aspect to being at this turning point of life. Baby boy goes to college on Thursday. We have lived in this house 20 years. I always thought of myself as a declutterer - and, indeed, I have off-loaded things regularly for all of those twenty years. Still, though; we raised and homeschooled three kids to adulthood under this roof. There is such a *LOT* of *STUFF* here. I feel like I’m going through a process of strip-mining, because I make multiple passes of parts of the house and still keep seeing so much stuff that needs a new home or is actual trash. 
 

I don’t know what my point is, or if I actually have one. It’s just, I don’t feel that old. But I have all this stuff that is telling me I AM old. Only old people have a broken cabinet full of games like Uncle Wiggly and Uno and Candyland. Only old people have a camcorder in a camera bag the size of a small pet carrier. 😄 One of the laptops was a Dell from around 1998. It was like six inches thick and weighed 15 lbs. It was the first laptop I ever bought. 
 

Will current, young homeschoolers ever have eight hundred physical books to give away? I doubt it. I have been slowly getting rid of books, finding them new homes, but I still have several hundred books to re-home. 
 

Even the box spring felt like a relic. New beds don’t have them, I don’t think. Neither of my YAs living elsewhere even *have* a box spring. It is no longer considered an important part of a bed. 
 

With both my MIL and my mom dying this year, I am thinking a lot about what state my house will be in over the next 20 years. I embrace the Swedish Death Cleaning thing. I don’t want to leave a mess behind that takes a year of Sundays to go through. I want to move, to downsize, to have fewer places for stuff to go so there will be no reason to keep all the stuff. 
 

Okay, enough of my ramble. Today felt good, but it is still kind of the beginning part. There is a lot of stuff to still get rid of, and lots of walls to paint. Forward, March! 

Do I miss that your mother died.! 😱 I am so sorry! I knew she was not well, but I don’t remember that she died.  

[Ginevra]

7 hours ago, Scarlett said:

Do I miss that your mother died.! 😱 I am so sorry! I knew she was not well, but I don’t remember that she died.  

Yes; she died June 16th. I was with her for those last minutes.

[Scarlett]

3 hours ago, Ginevra said:

Yes; she died June 16th. I was with her for those last minutes.

I am so sorry.  (((Hugs))))