Seattle's Craftsman and box homes have basements and attics — and that's where decades of stuff piles up. We carry it up the stairs and out, you don't lift a thing. Flat truck-fill price from $325, quoted from a photo, sorted for donation and recycling, swept clean when we go.
Send a photo of the basement or attic — exact flat price back in seconds
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Unlike the Sun Belt, Seattle homes have basements and attics, and over the years they fill up: old furniture, boxes, tools, holiday bins, the exercise bike, a dead water heater. Getting it back up the stairs is the hard part — which is exactly what we do. Point at what goes; we carry it up and out, separate donation from recycling from disposal as we load, and sweep the space clean, all priced flat as truck-fill from a photo. Attic, basement, crawlspace, detached garage, or all four in one job. It's the most common thing we clear in Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, Wedgwood and the Craftsman neighborhoods — and a pre-sale basement clear is one of the best things you can do before listing.
Three or four pictures from the bottom of the stairs, plus the attic hatch and the garage if they're in scope. You get an exact flat truck-fill number back in seconds.
Same-week is normal across Seattle and the Eastside, often same-day. Tell us anything the crew should know — a tight half-landing turn, standing water, a bulkhead door that sticks.
Everything comes up the stairs by hand. Donations get set aside, metal and e-waste separated, garbage last. The floor is swept before we leave.
A basement is a volume job, not an item job, so it's priced as truck-fill — how much of the truck your stuff actually takes up. Here is the full ladder, all seven steps, not a rounded-off version of it:
| Truck-fill | Flat price | Roughly what that is |
|---|---|---|
| 2/8 (a quarter) | $325 | One corner, a workbench and a stack of boxes |
| 3/8 | $455 | A storage wall plus a couch or an old appliance |
| 4/8 (a half) | $580 | Half a Craftsman basement — furniture, shelving, bins |
| 5/8 | $690 | Most of a basement, or a basement plus the attic hatch |
| 6/8 (three-quarters) | $790 | A full basement of a mid-size home |
| 7/8 | $890 | Basement plus garage, or a heavily packed full basement |
| 8/8 (a full truck) | $985 | Floor-to-joists, decades deep, plus the attic |
$95 minimum order. Not every basement needs a truck. If it's a defined pile or a short list, it prices by item and the multi-item rule is simple — everything in the photo is priced together in one number, and if the item math beats the truck-fill tier, you pay the item math:
| Common basement line items | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Small loose pile | $110 |
| Medium loose pile | $174 |
| Large loose pile | $280 |
| 10 bags / 15 bags / 20 bags | $178 / $264 / $348 |
| Box of books | $47 |
| Bags of clothing | $47 |
| Metal shelving unit | $95 |
| Small filing cabinet | $81 |
| Misc. medium item | $104 |
Loading, the stair-carry, the sort and the sweep-out are all included, and there is no surcharge for stairs, a steep driveway, or a long carry from a detached garage.
Third-party context, so you can sanity-check us: cost trackers (Homeyou, Yelp Costs) put an average Seattle junk-removal job around $253–$325, with local rule-of-thumb tiers of roughly ¼ truck $150–$250, ½ $300–$450, full $450–$700+. A published local competitor, Junk Seattle, lists $89 for 1–3 small items under 200 lb, $149 quarter, $279 half and $449 full. Franchise ranges run higher: 1-800-GOT-JUNK $400–$600 half / $700–$1,000 full and College HUNKS $600–$800+ full, both on-site estimate only. All of those are third-party published figures, not ours — ours are the two tables above.
Washington does not charge its ~10.35% retail sales tax on this service. It charges a 3.6% state refuse tax on disposal, shown as a line in your total.
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPU special-items pickup | $30 per item | Your next garbage day, by appointment | Per item, curbside only — a 40-year basement is 60+ items and none of it leaves the basement without you |
| Regular garbage, bagged | Your usual bill | Weekly | SMC 21.36 bans recyclables, yard waste and compostables in the garbage — a mixed basement load gets tagged as a violation |
| Self-haul, SPU or King County station | SPU ~$35 min/trip (≤420 lb), ~$165/ton as published · King County $40.25 min/load (≤320 lb), $243.38/ton, +$25 unsecured-load fee | Same day if you own a truck | A basement is many trips, each with its own minimum — plus you load and unload every one of them |
| Traditional full-service hauler | ~$450–$1,000 full truck (third-party ranges) | 1–3 days | Volume priced and quoted on site, so the number arrives with the crew |
| JunkRabbit | $325–$985 flat by truck-fill | Often same day | None — photo price up front, we carry it up, sorted for donation, swept clean |
No — and it's worth understanding exactly why, because the city's program sounds more useful than it is. Seattle Public Utilities runs a special-items pickup priced per item at $30 (see seattle.gov/specialitems). You book it by appointment, it's scheduled to your next regular garbage day, and it is curbside only. That design works fine for a single mattress or one couch. Against a basement it's arithmetically useless: a house that's been lived in for forty years produces sixty-plus discrete items down there, and at $30 apiece you're well past the cost of a full truck before anyone has picked up a box. And the number isn't even the real problem — SPU does not enter your home. Nobody from the city is going to walk down your basement stairs and carry a dresser up them. Every item you pay $30 for is an item you first had to move to the curb yourself.
The second wall people hit is the one they don't know exists. Seattle's SMC 21.36 ban keeps recyclables, yard waste, food scraps and compostable paper out of the garbage — past roughly 10% contamination, the load gets tagged as a violation. A basement is the definition of a mixed load: cardboard, scrap metal, a decade of newspapers, old yard tools, damp compostable paper, e-waste that's banned from the trash outright. You legally cannot just bag a Seattle basement and set it on the curb, which is precisely why a hauler that source-separates while loading is worth something here that it wouldn't be in a city without the ban.
Self-hauling is the honest alternative, and the math is the reason most people call instead. Inside city limits SPU runs two stations — the North Recycling & Disposal Station in Wallingford on N 34th St and the South Recycling & Disposal Station at 8105 5th Ave S — at roughly $35 minimum per trip for up to 420 lb and about $165 a ton as published (SPU's published rate page is dated 4/1/2023, so treat it as "as published" and confirm at the gate). Out on the Eastside and around the county, King County Solid Waste's 2026 rates are $40.25 minimum per load up to 320 lb, then $243.38 per ton, plus a $25 unsecured-load fee if it isn't strapped and tarped. None of that is outrageous per trip. The problem is the word trip: a basement is many of them, each with its own minimum, each requiring a truck you probably had to rent and two people you had to find, plus loading at your end and unloading at theirs. We do it in one visit, at one number you already agreed to.
The truck leaves your house sorted, because in this county sorting is both the compliant thing and the cheap thing, and those two facts point the same direction.
Donation first. Furniture, housewares, tools and goods that are still genuinely usable go to donation rather than a tipping floor — Evergreen Goodwill, the Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat for Humanity ReStore and St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County all take resellable furniture and household items, and all of them run free home pickup for the qualifying pieces. If you want a receipt for the donated portion, ask and we'll route it so you get one.
Then the material streams. Metal — shelving, bed frames, tools, the old water heater — goes to a scrap recycler. Televisions, monitors, computers and laptops are banned from Washington garbage and recycled free through the state's E-Cycle program, so they never ride to a landfill. Yard waste and clean wood tip at roughly $115 a ton against about $243 for garbage, so separating the lumber pile out of a basement clear is a real cost difference, not a gesture. And because diverted material isn't disposed material, none of it lands in the 3.6% refuse-tax base either.
Garbage last. What's genuinely spent — the mildewed cardboard, the crumbling particle board, the carpet — goes to disposal, and that's the only part of your load that carries a tip fee. That's the whole reason our sorting isn't performative: every pound we divert is a pound that doesn't cross a scale at $243 a ton.
This is the job Seattle has that Phoenix and Dallas don't. The city's pre-war housing stock — Craftsman bungalows and box homes — came with full basements, and the neighborhoods where they cluster are where our trucks spend most of their weeks: Ballard (98107 and 98117), Wallingford, Ravenna and Bryant, Wedgwood and View Ridge, Green Lake, and Greenwood/Phinney Ridge. Wallingford is the purest example — roughly 33.6% of its housing stock predates 1940 — which means original stair geometry: narrow treads, a half-landing turn, low headroom at the top, and a door that opens the wrong way for anything wide. A sleeper sofa that went down there in 1988 comes up in a specific choreography, and knowing that choreography is most of the skill in this work.
Then there's the climate. Seattle doesn't get a snow surge, it gets a slow, permanent wet. That produces a distinct inventory: cardboard that's gone soft at the bottom of the stack, upholstery with mildew bloom, tools with a film of rust, storage bins with a tide line, particle-board furniture that's swollen at the feet, and the water-damaged half of a garage from the winter the gutter backed up. It's year-round work rather than seasonal, and it's why "can you take damp and moldy boxes" is one of the questions we get most. Yes — bring it up in advance if there's standing water or a large visible mold area so the crew arrives with the right protection and we plan the sort before we start.
Access varies more than people expect. Some basements have a proper interior stair; some only have a bulkhead or exterior stairwell at the side of the house; West Seattle and Magnolia add slope, so the "basement" is at grade on one side and two stories down on the other. None of that changes the price. There's no stair fee, no hill fee, no long-carry fee — the truck-fill number in the table is the number.
"Twenty years in a Ballard basement — furniture, boxes, a workbench. They carried it all up the stairs, swept clean. Flat price from a photo, same-day. Didn't lift a thing."
"Cleared the attic and basement before listing the house. Donation-routed, broom-clean, realtor-ready. One fair flat price."
"Old water heater and a basement full of junk, carried up and out. Fair flat quote, no surprises. Highly recommend."
How much does it cost in Seattle?
Truck-fill, flat: 2/8 $325, 3/8 $455, 4/8 $580, 5/8 $690, 6/8 $790, 7/8 $890, full $985. $95 minimum for a small job. Loading, stair-carry, sort, sweep-out and disposal included. No ~10.35% sales tax on the service; the 3.6% WA refuse tax on disposal shows in your total.
Do I have to bring it up the stairs?
No. That's the job. You point, we carry — no stair fee, no steep-driveway fee.
Can't SPU just pick it up?
Only at $30 per item, by appointment, on your next garbage day, from the curb. A 40-year basement is 60-plus items and SPU won't come inside for any of them.
Can I bag it and put it out with the trash?
Not legally. SMC 21.36 bans recyclables, yard waste and compostables from the garbage — past ~10% contamination the load gets tagged. We separate as we load.
Is self-hauling cheaper?
Per trip, sometimes — SPU is ~$35 min (≤420 lb) and ~$165/ton as published; King County is $40.25 min (≤320 lb), $243.38/ton, plus $25 for an unsecured load. A basement is many trips, plus the truck, the help and the loading at both ends.
Attic, crawlspace and garage too?
Yes, in the same visit and priced as one truck-fill rather than three jobs.
What gets donated?
Anything genuinely usable — routed to Evergreen Goodwill, Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat ReStore or St. Vincent de Paul. Metal is recycled, TVs and computers go free through WA E-Cycle.
Everything down there is damp and mildewed.
Standard for Seattle. Bring up standing water or a large mold area in advance so the crew brings the right protection.
No — that's the whole point. Seattle's Craftsman and box homes have real basements and attics, and we carry everything up the stairs and out. You point at what goes; we do the lifting. There is no stair fee and no charge for a steep driveway or a long carry.
No, not in any practical sense. SPU's special-items pickup is priced per item at $30, booked by appointment, scheduled to your next regular garbage day, and curbside only. A 40-year basement is easily 60-plus items, which is arithmetically absurd at $30 each, and SPU does not enter the home or carry anything up the basement stairs. Details are at seattle.gov/specialitems.
Legally, no. Seattle's SMC 21.36 ban keeps recyclables, yard waste, food scraps and compostable paper out of the garbage — over roughly 10% contamination and the load gets tagged as a violation. A basement is exactly the kind of mixed load that trips it: cardboard, paint-adjacent items, scrap metal, old yard tools and damp compostable paper in one pile. We source-separate as we load, which is both the compliant route and the cheaper one.
Third-party sources put an average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253 to $325, with local rule-of-thumb tiers around $150 to $250 for a quarter truck, $300 to $450 for a half and $450 to $700-plus for a full load. Published franchise ranges run higher: 1-800-GOT-JUNK about $400 to $600 for a half truck and $700 to $1,000 full, College HUNKS about $600 to $800-plus full — both quoted on site only. Our ladder tops out at $985 for a full truck and you have the number before anyone drives out.
Yes — attic, basement, crawlspace and detached garage in the same visit, priced as one truck-fill rather than as separate jobs. In most Seattle Craftsman houses the three spaces hold one continuous forty-year archive, so we quote them together from photos.
It gets sorted, not dumped. Resellable furniture and household goods are routed to donation — Evergreen Goodwill, Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat for Humanity ReStore and St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County all take usable items. Metal goes to a recycler, televisions and computers go to Washington's free E-Cycle program, and yard waste and clean wood tip at roughly $115 a ton versus about $243 for garbage. Diversion is cheaper, compliant, and sits outside the 3.6% refuse-tax base.
No. This is Seattle: damp cardboard, mildewed upholstery, rusted tools and water-marked storage bins are the normal contents of a basement here, and we come equipped for it. If there's standing water or visible active mold across a large area, tell us in advance so the crew brings the right protection and we plan the sort accordingly.