The Center of the Universe (98103) runs on three kinds of building at once — Craftsman houses with basements, mid-rise apartments, and the tech offices along the canal. We clear all three: basements carried up, move-outs carried down, and desks, chairs and monitors out of the office. Flat photo price from a $95 minimum, desks $112, truck-fill $325–$985, often same-day.
Snap a photo — flat price back in seconds
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Shoot the basement from the bottom of the stairs, the apartment before the movers come, or the row of desks nobody's sitting at. A flat price lands in seconds — no site visit, no hourly meter.
We're routed through north Seattle most days, so same-day is often open in 98103. Tell us if it's a fourth-floor unit with no elevator, a suite that needs after-hours access, or a lease-end deadline.
Up from the basement, down from the walk-up, or out through the freight elevator. E-waste and donations are split at the truck; the space gets swept before we go.
Flat and photo-quoted, and legible on purpose: a handful of things price per item, while a basement, an apartment or an office suite prices as truck-fill — how much of the truck the load actually fills. The carry, the drive and the tip fee are already inside both numbers.
| Item / volume | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Sofa / couch | $170 |
| Queen mattress | $139 |
| Desk (standard) | $112 |
| Desk (L-shaped) | $139 |
| Office chair | $82 |
| Monitor | $78 |
| Desktop computer | $83 |
| Filing cabinet (small) | $81 |
| Truck-fill — 2/8 (quarter) | $325 |
| Truck-fill — 3/8 | $455 |
| Truck-fill — 4/8 (half) | $580 |
| Truck-fill — 5/8 | $690 |
| Truck-fill — 6/8 | $790 |
| Truck-fill — 7/8 | $890 |
| Truck-fill — 8/8 (full truck) | $985 |
$95 minimum on any job. Loading, the stair carry and disposal are included, and there's no stair or floor fee. A one-bedroom apartment's leftovers usually land at 2/8 ($325) to 4/8 ($580); a Craftsman basement is more often 4/8 ($580) to 8/8 ($985); a ten-desk office suite with chairs and monitors is typically a 5/8 ($690) or 6/8 ($790) — and pricing that as one truck-fill beats adding up thirty item prices, which is exactly why we quote it both ways and charge the lower one. Washington does not charge retail sales tax on this service; the 3.6% state refuse tax applies to disposal and is shown in your total.
Outside context: Homeyou and Yelp Costs put the average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253–$325. Third-party numbers, not ours — we cite them so you can check that a flat photo quote isn't a premium for convenience. See the full Seattle price guide →
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch in Fremont |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPU special-items pickup | $30 per item | Next garbage day | Curbside-only, by appointment, residential only — dozens of $30s for a basement, and no help at all for an office |
| Self-haul to SPU North station (Wallingford, N 34th St) | ~$35 min/trip ≤420 lb · ~$165/ton | Same day, per trip | Genuinely close — but a basement is many trips, and you need a truck, straps and someone to help on the stairs |
| Donation (Goodwill, ReStore, Salvation Army) | Free | Days to weeks | Resellable pieces only, judged at the door; pickup crews take from the ground floor, not the basement or the fourth floor |
| JunkRabbit | From $95 · truck-fill $325–$985 | Often same day | None — flat photo price, carried out for you, donation and free E-Cycle routed |
Municipal figures are Seattle Public Utilities' published rates; SPU's self-haul rate page is dated 4/1/2023, so confirm before you load. Ours are flat and photo-quoted with disposal included.
Yes — narrowly, and with two limits that decide the whole question. Seattle Public Utilities collects "special items" at a published $30 per item, by appointment, scheduled to your next regular garbage day, and curbside only. You book it at seattle.gov/specialitems. For the one armchair that finally gave out, that's a good deal and you should use it.
Now hold it up against a real Fremont job. A Craftsman basement clear is not one item — it's a sofa bed, two dressers, a workbench, four bookcases, a filing cabinet, a mattress, a dead dehumidifier and the boxes. That's dozens of $30 charges rather than an appointment, and every one of those pieces has to be carried up the basement stairs and out to the curb by you before the truck arrives, because SPU's crew works from the street and doesn't come inside. The program was built for a single object, not a room.
The second limit is sharper still: it's a residential collection service. If you're clearing a small office along the canal — desks, task chairs, a wall of monitors, filing cabinets — the $30-per-item program isn't a worse option, it's not an option at all. That's the gap Fremont's tech-office lane lives in, and it's the reason so many suites here end up hiring on-demand.
Where Fremont genuinely does have an advantage is self-haul: SPU's North Recycling & Disposal Station is minutes away in Wallingford on N 34th St, published at roughly $35 minimum per trip (up to 420 lb) and about $165 a ton — although that rate page is dated 4/1/2023, so check it before you drive over. We'll say the honest thing about it: it's cheap per trip, and if you own a truck and have one light load, take it yourself. But a basement is never one trip, an office is never one trip, and the gate fee was never the expensive part — the stairs, the straps and the four round trips are.
Sorting is the difference between a fair flat price and an expensive one, because in this market the disposal stream you choose is the cost. Electronics are free to recycle and illegal to bury; furniture that still works is worth more to a thrift floor than to a transfer station; only the genuine remainder should ever pay by the ton.
Fremont doesn't have one building type, it has three stacked within a few blocks of each other — which is why the jobs here look so different from one call to the next.
The Craftsman houses on the slopes up toward Phinney Ridge come with full basements, the thing Sun Belt cities don't have and the reason "cleanout" means a room here rather than a corner. Thirty years of storage in a damp basement doesn't age gracefully: the bottom boxes go soft, the dresser swells shut. The whole room prices as one number, and we carry every load up the stairs.
The mid-rise apartments around the core turn over constantly, and many of them are stair-access. We load from inside the unit — a mattress and a sofa down three flights is a normal Tuesday — with no stair or floor surcharge, because asking a tenant to drag a queen mattress to the sidewalk and leave it there is exactly the thing the curbside program already asks and we don't.
Then there are the tech offices along the canal, Google and Adobe among the neighbors, and the smaller studios and startups that fill in around them. That work is desks, task chairs, monitors and filing cabinets, usually against a lease date, often after hours, and always better handled as one flat-priced visit with the e-waste split out properly than as an hourly crew and a landfill invoice.
"Basement full of stuff, carried up and out, swept clean. Flat price from a photo. Didn't lift a thing."
"Walk-up move-out — couch and mattress down and out same-day, no stair fee. Easy."
"Cleared the office e-waste and old desks in one quote. Fast and fair."
How much does it cost in Fremont?
From a $95 minimum. Sofa $170, queen mattress $139, desk $112, L-desk $139, office chair $82, monitor $78, desktop $83, small filing cabinet $81. Basements, apartments and offices as truck-fill: 2/8 $325, 3/8 $455, 4/8 $580, 5/8 $690, 6/8 $790, 7/8 $890, 8/8 $985.
Why not just use the $30-per-item city pickup?
Use it for one item. It's curbside-only, by appointment, on your next garbage day, and residential-only — so a basement becomes dozens of $30s you carry up the stairs yourself, and an office can't use it at all.
The North station is right here — should I self-haul?
For one light load you can lift alone, genuinely yes: it's on N 34th St in Wallingford, about $35 minimum per trip up to 420 lb and around $165 a ton as published (that page is dated 4/1/2023). For a basement or an office, it's several trips, all loaded by you.
Do you do small-office cleanouts?
Yes — desks, chairs, monitors, filing cabinets, conference tables and shelving in one visit, one flat number, after-hours if the building requires it.
What happens to old monitors and computers?
Free WA E-Cycle recycling. They're banned from Washington garbage, so they never belong in a paid disposal load.
Is there a stair fee for a walk-up?
No. Stairs, floors and long carries are inside the flat price, and we load from inside the unit rather than asking you to stage anything at the curb.
How fast can you get here?
Same-day and next-day windows are usually open across 98103. Tell us your deadline and we'll book to it.
Is there sales tax on this?
Not on the service — Washington doesn't apply its ~10.35% retail sales tax here. A 3.6% state refuse tax applies to the disposal portion and appears in your total.
Flat and photo-quoted from a $95 minimum. Single pieces: sofa $170, queen mattress $139, standard desk $112, L-shaped desk $139, office chair $82, monitor $78, small filing cabinet $81, desktop computer $83. Basements, apartments and offices price as truck-fill — 2/8 $325, 3/8 $455, 4/8 $580, 5/8 $690, 6/8 $790, 7/8 $890, 8/8 $985. Loading, the stair carry and disposal are included. Washington does not charge retail sales tax on this service; a 3.6% state refuse tax applies to the disposal portion and is shown in your total.
For one broken chair, yes. Seattle Public Utilities collects special items at $30 per item, by appointment, scheduled to your next regular garbage day and curbside only — booking is at seattle.gov/specialitems. It falls apart on the two jobs Fremont actually has. A Craftsman basement is dozens of items, which means dozens of $30 charges and every one of them carried up the stairs and out to the street by you, because SPU crews do not come inside. And an office cannot use it at all: it is a residential collection program, not a commercial one.
Honestly, for one small load, it is a fair option and Fremont is one of the few Seattle neighborhoods where it is genuinely convenient — SPU's North Recycling and Disposal Station sits minutes away on N 34th St in Wallingford, published at roughly $35 minimum per trip up to 420 pounds and about $165 per ton. Note that SPU's rate page is dated 4/1/2023, so confirm before you load. The catch is not the gate fee, it is the arithmetic around it: a basement or an office is never one trip, you need a truck and straps, and you are the one carrying every load up the stairs at the start of each run.
Constantly — it is one of the two signature Fremont jobs. Desks, task chairs, monitors, filing cabinets, conference tables, printers, shelving and the cable graveyard in the closet all go in one visit, with an invoice that is one flat number rather than an hourly estimate. We work around the building's freight elevator and after-hours access when the office needs it.
No. Fremont's mid-rise apartment stock and its Craftsman houses both mean stairs, and the carry is already inside the flat price — there is no stair, floor or long-carry surcharge. We load from inside the unit rather than asking you to drag a mattress down to the sidewalk first.
Same-day and next-day windows are usually open across Fremont, Wallingford and Ballard, and we are north-Seattle routed most days. If you are working to a lease-end deadline or a Friday office move-out, say so when you send the photo and we will book to the deadline.
It is fixed before dispatch, which on a mixed load usually means cheaper and always means predictable. Third-party cost trackers Homeyou and Yelp Costs put a typical Seattle-area job at roughly $253 to $325, generally confirmed only once a crew is on site. Ours comes back from a photo and includes the carry-out plus the disposal.