Chicago sets one true garage deadline a year: the first real snow. Whatever fills the bay that morning owns it until March, and the car pays the difference — scraped at 6 AM, buried by plows, salted to the frame. The fix is an October afternoon: $241 quarter truck, $431 for the packed two-car, loaded from inside, slab swept, car home before the flakes.
Open the door, one photo — flat quote in seconds
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →| The load | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Single-bay accumulation — quarter truck | $241 |
| Packed two-car bay — half truck | $431 |
| Grill — charcoal / propane | $79 / $71 |
| Lawn mower / dead snowblower | $65 |
| Patio table / chairs / umbrella | $120 / $40 each / $53 |
| Metal shelving unit | $71 |
| Set of 4 tires | $87 |
| Bagged loads — 10 bags | $132 |
$75 minimum. Loaded from inside the garage — the alley never hosts a pile — donation sorting and the slab sweep included. Old paint and chemicals: consolidated but not hauled (household-chemical collection is the route; we'll point you there).
Two rules survive a Chicago winter: nothing stores on the floor (shelves only — the floor is for the car), and the bulky exits happen before the freeze — anything big that dies in December waits in misery or goes out through the 311 system's winter timing. October's clear is cheap; February's is character-building.
Free, no signup — flat quote from one photo of the chaos
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →October — after the patio season ends (so the summer gear can make the keep/toss cut honestly) and before the first real snow, which is when the decision locks in: whatever's in the garage when the snow flies owns the bay until March. Same-day windows are usually available booked by 4 PM; the closer to the first forecast flake, the busier the calendar.
Flat by volume: a quarter truck at $241 clears the typical single-bay accumulation, half truck $431 the packed two-car. By piece: dead grill $79–$95, lawn mower or dead snowblower $65, patio table $89 and chairs $40 each, metal shelving $71, set of tires $87, bagged loads from $178 for ten. Loading from inside the garage and the slab sweep are included.
Four months of 6 AM windshield scraping, snow-emergency parking chess, salt spray eating the paint, and the January morning the door locks freeze — versus a car that starts warm in a garage. The stuff occupying the bay is usually worth a few hundred dollars; the winter it costs you is priced in mornings. Also: alley-facing garages are the neighborhood's favorite midnight dumping spots once yours visibly stores junk instead of a car.
The dead snowblower is the most Chicago item we haul — kept 'for parts' since two winters ago while a working one was never bought. It's $65 flat, drained and recycled for the metal. Clearing it in October also forces the honest question: buy the working one now, before the first storm sells out every hardware store in the city.