Two-flat basements, alley rules, and five big campuses that all move out at once — here's what we've written about getting rid of stuff in Chicago, with more guides on the way.
Municipal bulky programs around this metro all draw similar lines, and these five categories are on the wrong side of them almost everywhere. Here is what…
A small window unit is $87 and a large one is $109. An outdoor condenser is $115. Refrigerant is handled correctly and there is no separate fee for it.
A metal or platform frame is $68. A solid or upholstered frame up to queen is $126, and a king is $152. Taking it apart and carrying it down the back stairs…
A Chicago single-car garage off the alley, cleared to the walls, is usually a half truck at $431 or three-quarters at $587. Two-car garages go to $661 or…
A hot tub is $390 to remove. A 6 to 8 person tub is $501. That covers cutting it down, getting it out past the gangway or through the alley, and disposing…
The minimum is $75 and a full truck is $732. Everything in between is either a per-item price or a step on the truck-fill ladder, and neither one changes…
A standard refrigerator is $164 and a French door is $183. That includes taking the doors off, carrying it down the back stairs, and handling the…
A TV is $62, $68 or $73 depending on size. Electronics do not belong in household trash, and an old CRT in a bungalow basement is not going to walk itself…
A refrigerator is $164 out of a Chicago basement, a washer is $133, a dryer is $128. Carry-out and disposal are inside the price, and the narrow basement…
Leaving furniture somewhere it was not authorised is treated as dumping across the metro, and the notice usually lands on whoever owns the ground. A sofa…
Every item below is a flat price that includes the carry-out and the disposal. The minimum for a visit is $75 and a full truck is $732.
A dumpster is a container you fill yourself over several days. Removal is a crew that carries it out in one afternoon for a published price, from $241 for a…
A queen mattress is $103 to have carried out and hauled away. The rules on what you may set out are written by your own municipality, and Chicago, Oak Park…
A queen is $103 and a box spring is $92, or $143 for the pair as a set. That covers the carry down the back stairs and where the mattress goes afterwards.
Our minimum is $75, which is less than $99. It also is not a teaser, because every item above it has a published price you can read before anyone drives to…
There are four honest ways old furniture leaves a Chicago apartment, and only one of them works on a deadline. A sofa hauled out is $126.
In a city of high-rise COI requirements, shared back staircases and alleys that collect other people's furniture, insurance is not paperwork. It is the…
The three-part test — your building, your timing, your ward — and when the alley couch becomes a fine.
Yes — for buildings with black carts. How 311 requests work and who's left out.
Six routes ranked — the free 311 option, the alley folklore, and the flat $126 no-stairs version.
The item the alley refuses and donation declines — every real route, $82–$114 flat.
Five real options — including the free 311 route half the city qualifies for.
$241–$732 by the truck, back stairs and freight elevators included — May 1 / Oct 1 ready.
The 311 route, the fridge door-removal law, the scrappers — and the doors-stay-on flat pickup.
The fall lease flip's junk playbook — book against the walkthrough, not the move.
The Illinois landfill ban means no legal curb exists — the four real routes, TVs $62–$73.
Chicago's hundred-year storage unit — the moisture clock, the flood-rescue rule, the flat-price fix.
The first snow locks the decision — car inside by November or the scraper till March.
Real numbers, stairs included — and the price-drift levers flat pricing kills.
The permit reality: where would the box even go? The honest math, alley politics included.
Why Chicago estates run three houses deep, and the flat per-truck pricing that doesn't care.
Volume prices as volume: flat per-truck, family-paced, no alley announcements.
May 1 & Oct 1 blocks, per-unit photos, and paperwork built for deposit-ordinance stakes.
Flat by unit size — and the apartment-overflow rent math nobody runs.
The upfront-priced field — photo vs catalog, and the back-staircase assumption.
Chicago buyers always open the basement — the listing-prep sequence for sellers and agents.
The April inventory, ward cleanup events and their limits, the alley-safe purge.
The vetting checklist, including why the $80 deal ends fly-dumped in an alley with your mail in it.
Rehab debris arrives in phases, not all at once — what each wave weighs, which rate applies, and why the heavy wave must never meet the light one.
Five streams, the scrapper economy's real role, and the honest landfill paragraph.
No cheap day exists — what timing actually controls, lease flips and icy stairs included.
The adoption table, the legality overlay, and the 48-hour rule for when to stop waiting.
Including the line item nobody prices: parking a box truck while you load it solo.
Split the job first: movers for moving, flat junk pricing for hauling.
The full flat-rate list — by item and by truckload — and what moves the number.
UChicago, DePaul, Loyola, Northwestern, UIC — the move-out weeks, handled flat-priced.