Apartment Cleanout Cost: Move-Outs, Estates & Evictions

Apartments become cleanouts in three ways: a tenant moving out leaves half a life behind, an estate has to be settled from two states away, or a landlord gets a unit back full of someone else's belongings. Different stories, same question — what does it cost to make this unit empty? Apartment cleanouts price by volume, and once you know the load sizes, you can estimate your own job within a few dollars of the quote. Here is the ladder, the building realities that shape the plan, and how landlords and tenants each use the service differently.

Apartment cleanout prices by scenario

Every cleanout runs on the junk truckload ladder — quarter load $299, half $499, three-quarter $649, full $999 — and the scenario decides where your unit lands:

A 5% admin fee applies to every job and is shown on your written estimate up front, and these are starting prices: photos of the unit confirm the exact figure before the crew is booked. Our apartment cleanout service page walks through the full process, from first photos to broom-clean.

Elevators, walk-ups, and building rules

An apartment cleanout is half carrying and half diplomacy. Most buildings of any size want the freight or service elevator reserved for furniture removal, a certificate of insurance naming the building on file before the crew arrives, and the work kept inside approved hours. Skip any of that and the cleanout stops at the lobby. We handle those arrangements as part of coordinating the job — it is the unglamorous half of the work, and it is the half that determines whether the day goes smoothly.

Walk-ups ask a different question: stamina. A fifth-floor unit in the Bronx or Brooklyn means every piece makes five trips down, and the plan accounts for it — the right crew size, staged loads, hallway protection where the building demands it. What access does not do is change the pricing model: the load is priced by volume, confirmed in writing in advance. A walk-up does not earn a surprise surcharge; it earns a better plan.

The move-out pairing: cleanout plus clean

For tenants, the cleanout is only half the deposit battle. Landlords deduct for what is left behind and for the condition it is left in — and a unit emptied but filthy still bills against the deposit. Pairing the cleanout with a move-in/out clean closes both halves in one visit: the clean runs on our cleaning card at a $220 total for the 4-hour minimum, covering the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, and the insides of the oven and refrigerator that move-out inspections actually check. One booking, one crew day, and the unit is handed back empty and clean. The service details live on our move-out cleaning page.

Landlords and tenants are buying different things

A tenant booking a cleanout is buying a clean exit: the furniture too worn to move, the bags and boxes, the deposit protected. The timeline is the lease end date, and the standard is the landlord's walkthrough. A landlord booking the same service is buying turnover speed after a move-out or a completed eviction: every day the unit sits full is a day it is not being repaired, cleaned, shown, or re-rented, so the priority is one visit that takes it to broom-clean and makes it workable for the next trade in the door. Estates are the third case — a family or executor clearing a unit after a death, often from out of town — where the priority is neither speed nor deposit but care: usable items separated for donation or family, the rest cleared, and the unit surrendered properly. Tell us which situation you are in when you send photos. Same ladder, same crew — different plan.

The estate case deserves one more note, because it often runs long-distance. An executor or family member clearing a parent's apartment from another state cannot stand in the doorway making keep-or-go calls — so the cleanout gets coordinated around that: a video walkthrough to identify anything the family wants kept, shipped, or photographed before removal, donation routing for the usable furniture, and photo confirmation when the unit stands empty. Attorneys and realtors involved in the estate get the documentation they need for their files. It costs the same ladder price as any cleanout; what changes is the communication around it, and for a family settling an estate, that communication is most of the service.

How to get your exact price

Walk the unit with your phone: one photo per room, closets open, plus a note about the floor, elevator, and any building requirements you know of. That is enough to confirm the load size and your exact price in writing — before the crew is booked, not after the truck is loaded. A 25% deposit of the expected total holds your date, and the balance is settled when the unit is empty. Start on the quote page below and the number comes back fast.

Frequently asked questions