What an apartment cleanout costs in Miami

The short answer

Apartment cleanouts price one of two ways, whichever is lower.

• Per item, when you can name what is going. A sofa is $126, a mattress and box spring set is $143, a standard dresser is $126, a 42-to-65-inch television is $68.
• By truck fill, when you cannot. A quarter truck is $241, three-eighths $338, a half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661 and a full truck $732.

In practice a studio or a lightly furnished one-bedroom usually lands between a quarter truck at $241 and a half at $431. A furnished two-bedroom with a balcony's worth of outdoor furniture attached is more often three-quarters at $587 or the full $732. The minimum visit is $75.

Carry-out from any floor, loading and disposal are all inside those numbers. There is no stair charge and no elevator charge.

Three Miami apartments, itemized

A Brickell studio, corporate tenant leaving. A loveseat at $119, a queen mattress and box spring set at $143 and a coffee table at $67 is $119 + $143 + $67 = $329. That is below a half truck, so it prices per item.

A South Beach walk-up one-bedroom, third floor, no lift. A sofa at $126, a standard dresser at $126, a nightstand at $57 and a floor lamp at $36 is $126 + $126 + $57 + $36 = $345. The stairs do not change it.

An Edgewater two-bedroom with a balcony. Once the outdoor furniture, a sectional and two bedrooms are all going, itemizing stops being useful and the truck ladder is cheaper — usually three-quarters at $587.

The building is the hard part, not the furniture

In a tower — Brickell, Downtown, Edgewater, Aventura, Sunny Isles, Surfside — the sequence matters more than the price.

Nearly every association requires a certificate of insurance naming the association on file before a crew carries furniture through the lobby. That takes a day or so to issue and the front desk will not wave anyone through without it. Then the move itself goes through the service elevator on a booked window: usually weekdays, usually a fixed block, often finishing mid-afternoon, and in season booked several days out.

So the order is: ask the management office what the COI has to name and which window you can have, request the COI, then book the pickup inside that window. Doing it the other way round is how people end up rescheduling twice.

Two details that catch people out. The loading dock and the service elevator are sometimes separate reservations. And some buildings will not allow a move on a weekend at all, which quietly turns a Saturday plan into a Tuesday one.

Why so much Miami apartment furniture is not donatable

People plan on donating and then find out nobody will take it. The reason is the climate, and it is worth knowing before you build the plan around a charity pickup.

Upholstery in this county lives in permanent humidity. A sofa that has sat in a unit where the AC was turned off between tenants, or in a seasonal apartment shut up from May to November, picks up a mildew smell that does not come out. Foam holds moisture. Particleboard swells at the edges and the veneer lifts. Anything with metal legs or a metal frame that spent time near a balcony door has salt corrosion on it.

Charities in the metro are strict about upholstery and mattresses for exactly this reason. Check first, honestly assess the smell, and have a disposal plan for anything that fails — otherwise you are moving the sofa twice.

Things that do usually rehome: sealed hardwood furniture, kitchenware, lamps, clothing, and unopened household goods.

Turnovers: leases, seasons and short stays

Miami apartments turn over on more clocks than most cities, and each one produces a different cleanout.

Seasonal units. Around the ends of the snowbird season, beach and Aventura buildings generate a wave of clear-outs within the same few weeks. The truck is not the bottleneck; the service elevator is.

Short-term rentals. In the Grove, Wynwood, Edgewater and North Beach these turn constantly and the jobs are urgent — a damaged sofa at $126 gone today, because the next guest checks in tomorrow.

Standard lease turnovers. Landlords and property managers across Kendall, Westchester, Hialeah and Little Havana mostly want the unit empty and photographed in one visit, which is what the truck ladder is for.

Hurricane season. From June through November anything loose on a balcony has to come in or go. A unit being cleared anyway in that window should have the balcony cleared in the same visit rather than left for the next tenant.

Common apartment items and their prices

What is not on the bill

• No stair charge. A third-floor Art Deco walk-up off Washington Avenue with no lift is priced the same as a ground-floor unit.
• No elevator or high-floor charge. A 40th-floor unit in Brickell is priced the same as a first-floor one.
• No disposal fee added afterwards. It is inside the quoted number.
• No same-day surcharge and no charge for disassembling a bed frame or cutting down an oversize sofa to clear a doorway.

The number you are given before the work starts is the number you pay.

Getting a number for your unit

Fastest route: photograph each room from the doorway, plus the balcony, and send the set. If you can name the items, send the list instead and you get an itemized total. Either way you have the price before anything is booked.

Tell us the building and the window the management office gave you, and send the COI requirements at the same time so the certificate is issued before the day rather than on it. Bookings and crews work in Spanish across the county.

Frequently asked questions