Bed frame disposal in Chicago

The short answer

The minimum for a visit is $75, so a $68 metal frame on its own comes to $75. In practice the frame almost never goes alone, because the mattress is going with it.

Which frame you actually have

The price difference is about material and construction, not about how much we like the bed.

Standard metal or platform, $68. The wire-and-angle-iron rail frame, a basic metal platform, a slatted platform that bolts together. Light, comes apart, goes down a staircase in one trip.

Solid, upholstered or storage, $126 up to queen and $152 for a king. Real wood frames with headboard and footboard, upholstered platforms with a padded surround, and storage beds with drawers or a lift-up base. These are heavy, they do not always come apart cleanly, and an upholstered king platform is one of the genuinely awkward objects in a Chicago apartment.

Everything else has its own line. A bunk bed is $123, or $148 in solid wood or a loft configuration. A Murphy bed is $130. A waterbed is $167 and needs to be fully drained before anyone touches it.

The back staircase decides everything

A bed is a flat object that has to travel a route made of turns. In a Chicago three-flat, that route is a rear wooden porch and a back staircase with short landings, and the turn at the top is where a queen platform stops being a single object.

This is why frames get disassembled here as a matter of routine rather than as a last resort. A bolted wood frame comes apart at the rails. A slatted platform loses its slats first. An upholstered surround usually splits into headboard, footboard and side rails. All of that is included in the price and none of it is a separate charge.

The frames that cause trouble are the ones that were assembled in the room and were never designed to come apart twice. Flat-pack platforms with cam locks and glued dowels are the classic case: they go together once, they get moved once, and the second disassembly is destructive. That is fine, it is still $68 or $126, but it is worth knowing before you promise the frame to somebody on the internet.

Bunk beds and kids' rooms

Bunk beds get their own price because they are two beds welded to a ladder, and in Chicago they are usually in the smallest bedroom in the unit, the one off the hallway in a vintage courtyard apartment with a door that opens inward and takes half the floor.

A bunk bed is $123 and a solid wood or loft bunk is $148. They come apart, but a solid wood one comes apart into pieces that are still heavy, and the ladder and guard rails are their own trip.

The common bundle when a kids' room gets cleared: bunk bed at $123 and two twin mattresses at $82 each, which is $123 + $82 + $82 = $287. If the room is being converted entirely, add the dresser at $126 and it is one afternoon instead of three.

Murphy beds and vintage buildings

Chicago's older apartment stock has more wall beds in it than most cities, because a lot of these buildings were designed when a folding bed in the front room was ordinary. Some of them are original. Most of them are a later installation that somebody bolted into the wall of a one-bedroom in Uptown or Rogers Park.

A Murphy or wall bed is $130. The important part is that it is spring-loaded or piston-assisted, and those mechanisms hold real tension. It should not be unbolted by somebody guessing. Leave it in place and closed, tell us it is a wall bed when you book, and let the crew release it in the right order.

If the cabinet surround is being removed too, say that as well, because a full built-in surround is a different amount of work from a bare mechanism and it changes what the crew brings.

Waterbeds, adjustable bases and hospital beds

Waterbeds, $167. Drain it completely first. A drained waterbed is a heavy wooden pedestal and a liner. An undrained one is several hundred gallons on the second floor of a two-flat and nobody is moving it. Draining takes longer than you think, so start the day before.

Adjustable bases, $118. Motorized, with a transformer and a hand control. Unplug it, send the remote and the power brick with it, and mention that it is motorized when you book so it is priced right the first time.

Hospital beds, $145. These turn up a lot in Chicago bungalows and two-flats where an older relative was cared for at home, usually in what used to be the dining room. They break down into a deck, a frame and a motor assembly, and they come out fine. If the bed is going as part of clearing the whole room, bundle it.

Timing it around the lease calendar

Bed frames leave Chicago apartments in two waves, and they are the same two waves everything else leaves in: the end of April into May 1, and the end of September into October 1.

If you are moving on one of those dates, book the removal for a day or two before the movers, not the day of. The alley behind your building will be busy, the movers will want the access, and a frame you were planning to carry down yourself at 7pm on moving day is how people end up abandoning it on the back porch.

If you are the incoming tenant and the last one left a frame behind, that is a $68 or $126 problem, not a fight. Get it out before your own furniture arrives so you are not working around it.

Sending the whole bed at once

The frame is almost never the only thing going, and the minimum makes single-item visits inefficient anyway. Real combinations:

Queen bedroom, Wicker Park three-flat. Mattress and box spring set at $143 plus a solid queen frame at $126: $143 + $126 = $269.

King bedroom, Lincoln Square. King mattress at $114, box spring at $92, king upholstered frame at $152: $114 + $92 + $152 = $358.

Guest room reset, Portage Park bungalow. Metal frame at $68, full mattress at $94, headboard at $57: $68 + $94 + $57 = $219.

All of those are one visit, one price, disposal included, and no charge for the staircase.

Frequently asked questions