The steep hill (98109, 98119) of no-elevator walk-ups and classic homes with basements. A sofa is a flat $170, a queen mattress $139, a whole-home clear $325–$985 by truck-fill — and we carry the couch and mattress down the stairs, and the basement stuff up, with no hill fee and no stair fee. Flat price from a photo.
Snap a photo — flat price back in seconds
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Queen Anne is steep — full of no-elevator walk-ups on the lower slopes and classic homes with basements up top. Either way, the stairs are the hard part, and that's what we handle: we carry furniture and mattresses down from the walk-ups and basement contents up from the houses, priced flat by item or as truck-fill from a photo. Nothing about the grade, the flight count or the distance from the truck to your door changes the number you were quoted.
That matters here more than almost anywhere else in the city. Queen Anne Ave N climbs roughly an 18–19% grade for five blocks — the old Counterbalance, named for the weighted cars that used to be hauled up it — and the hill is stitched together by more than 100 public stairways. Some houses are reached on foot, from a stairway or a footpath, with no driveway to back a truck into at all. Every option that ends with "put it at the curb" quietly assumes a curb you can actually reach.
Photograph the couch, the mattress, the garage or the basement corner. An exact flat price comes back in seconds — no walkthrough, no "we'll quote on site once we see the stairs."
Same-day is usually open on the Queen Anne–Uptown–Magnolia route. Tell us if it's a stairway approach, a switchback driveway or a walk-up flight so we bring the right crew size.
An insured crew lifts it from the room it's in — top floor, basement, garage — down the stairs or the public stairway to the truck. Usable pieces get routed to donation. You lift nothing.
Flat and photo-quoted. The drive up the hill, the carry, and the disposal are already inside the number — single items price per piece, and anything room-sized or bigger prices by how much of the truck it fills.
| Item / volume | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Sofa / couch | $170 |
| Queen mattress | $139 |
| Dresser (standard) | $169 |
| Refrigerator | $221 |
| Treadmill | $155 |
| 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) | $985 |
$95 minimum on any job. Disposal and carry-out included; no hill surcharge and no stair fee. Clearing several pieces at once? Send one photo and we price the group — once you're past three or four items the truck-fill tiers are almost always cheaper than adding them up individually. A small WA refuse tax may apply on the disposal portion.
For outside context, Homeyou and Yelp Costs put the average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253–$325. See the full Seattle price guide →
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch on this hill |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPU special-items pickup | $30 per item | Next garbage day | Appointment, curbside only — and your curb may be at the bottom of a public stairway |
| Donation (Goodwill, ReStore, Salvation Army) | Free | Days to weeks | Resellable condition only; trucks take pieces from the ground floor or driveway, not down a stairway |
| Sell / give away | Earn a little | Days | The buyer sees the grade, the flights and the parking, and stops answering |
| Self-haul to the transfer station | Truck rental + gate fee | Same day, if you drive | You still carry it down the hill first — and back up if it won't fit |
| JunkRabbit | $170 flat sofa · $95 min | Often same day | None — flat photo price, we carry it down, donation-routed |
Municipal figures are the published Seattle Public Utilities rates; ours are flat and photo-quoted with disposal included.
Inside city limits, yes — with a catch that this specific hill turns into a dealbreaker. Seattle Public Utilities runs a "special items" collection for garbage customers at a published $30 per item. It's by appointment, it's scheduled to your next regular garbage day rather than on demand, and — the part that matters up here — it is curbside only. The crew collects what's already at the street. Booking lives at seattle.gov/specialitems.
On flat ground that's a fine deal. On Queen Anne, "the curb" is frequently at the bottom of a public stairway. The neighborhood has over 100 public stairways knitting the slopes together, plenty of homes whose only approach is a flight of steps or a switchback path, and a spine — Queen Anne Ave N's Counterbalance, roughly an 18–19% grade for five blocks — that makes "just walk it down" a genuinely bad idea with a sleeper sofa. A $30-per-item program is only cheap if the $0 part, the carry, is something you can physically do. For a lot of this hill, it isn't.
Two more limits worth knowing before you book it: the fee is per item, so a hilltop house being cleared before a sale runs into dozens of $30s, and apartment buildings on private hauling contracts often aren't on the program at all — which covers a good share of the 1920s walk-ups down in Lower Queen Anne. We're the opposite arrangement: we come to the room the thing is in, carry it down the stairway or the driveway ourselves, and the price was fixed before we left.
Sorting isn't a green flourish here, it's how the job stays honest — King County garbage tips at a published $243.38 a ton while clean wood and yard waste go for around $115, and electronics cost nothing at all. So the sorted load is both the compliant one and the cheaper one, and that's reflected in a flat price rather than a surprise.
The hill is really two neighborhoods stacked on each other, and they produce completely different jobs.
Up top (98119) it's grand Victorians and Tudors — big, old, and full. These come with real basements, attics with pull-down stairs, and driveways cut into the grade at angles a box truck won't love. We work them by parking where the truck is safe and legal and hand-carrying the rest of the way, which is why a "long carry" never becomes a line item on your quote.
Down the slopes, especially Lower Queen Anne / Uptown near Seattle Center, it's 1920s no-elevator walk-up apartments — narrow stairwells with a turn at the landing, tight street parking, and a constant churn of renters moving in and out. A queen mattress and a couch out of a third-floor unit is the single most common call we get from this side of the hill, and it's still a flat $139 and $170.
And then there are the houses with no driveway at all, reached from a stairway or a footpath, where the truck simply cannot get close. That's the hardest carry-down in Seattle, and it's the one we built the flat-price promise around: down any hill, no hill surcharge; the no-elevator carry is in the price. Other haulers in town advertise steep-driveway experience. We'd rather just tell you the grade and tell you it doesn't cost extra.
"Walk-up on the hill, no elevator. Carried the couch and mattress down and out same-day. No stair fee. Perfect."
"Basement clear in the old house — carried it all up the stairs, swept clean. Flat price. Didn't lift a thing."
"Whole apartment gone in an afternoon. Fair flat quote, easy. Highly recommend."
How much does it cost on Queen Anne?
Sofa $170, queen mattress $139, dresser $169, refrigerator $221, treadmill $155. Whole-home and basement clears go by truck-fill, $325 (2/8) through $985 (8/8). $95 minimum, carry-out and disposal included. Homeyou and Yelp Costs put the average Seattle job at roughly $253–$325.
Is there a hill or stair fee?
No. The Counterbalance runs an 18–19% grade for five blocks, the neighborhood has 100+ public stairways, and the slope apartments have no elevators. None of it changes your quote.
Will the city take it instead?
SPU's special-items pickup is $30 per item, by appointment, on your next garbage day — and curbside only. If your curb is at the bottom of a stairway, or there's no driveway, that program can't reach you. Details at seattle.gov/specialitems.
Can you reach a house with no driveway?
Yes. We park at the closest legal spot and hand-carry from the door to the truck, down the stairway or path. Same price as a level driveway.
Do you clear a whole hilltop house?
Yes — downsizing, estate and pre-sale clears are routine up top. Truck-fill priced, donation-routed, receipt on request, and we can split it across days.
Is there sales tax on it?
Not the ~10.35% retail rate. A 3.6% state Refuse/Solid Waste Collection Tax (RCW 82.18) applies to the disposal portion and may appear on your receipt.
How is this different from a traditional hauler?
Flat photo price before we arrive, versus a volume estimate given on site after they've walked your stairs. Ours includes the carry.
Can you come today?
Usually. Queen Anne, Uptown and Magnolia share a route, so same-day slots are often open.
No. Queen Anne Ave N climbs an 18 to 19 percent grade for five blocks through the old Counterbalance, the neighborhood has more than 100 public stairways, and plenty of the 1920s apartments on the slopes have no elevator. All of that carry is inside the flat price. The grade does not change your quote and neither does the flight count.
Yes — the grand Victorians and Tudors at the top of the hill are our most common whole-home job, usually a downsizing, an estate, or a pre-sale clear before the listing photos. Those price by truck-fill, $325 through $985, with resellable furniture routed to donation and a receipt on request.
Not the roughly 10.35 percent retail rate — that does not apply to junk removal. Washington instead charges a 3.6 percent state Refuse/Solid Waste Collection Tax (RCW 82.18) on the disposal portion, which may show as a small line on the receipt.
Our number is flat and quoted from your photo before anyone drives up the hill. Volume-priced haulers quote on site after they have seen the stairs, which on Queen Anne is exactly where an estimate tends to grow. We also carry it out ourselves rather than asking you to stage it at the curb.
Usually, yes. Queen Anne, Uptown and Magnolia sit on the same route, so a slot on the same day is often open — send the photo in the morning and it is generally gone that afternoon.