How Do You Get Rid of Unwanted Furniture When Moving

How Do You Get Rid of Unwanted Furniture When Moving?

Junk Removal Advice:

What is the best way to get rid of furniture when moving?

What is the best way to get rid of old furniture when moving? Determining how you’ll safely transport your furniture from your current house to your new one is obviously one of the most important parts of planning your move.

Making arrangements for your largest, heaviest, and most cumbersome items can be as easy as outsourcing the job to qualified, professional movers. But what about the furnishings you don’t want, and those that won’t stand up to loading, unloading, and a long truck ride?

How do you get rid of these? Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to clear your home of unwanted furniture and unwanted items without investing a ton of time or spending a veritable fortune. From donating your unwanted goods to working with top-rated junk removal companies, following is everything you need to know about leaving your former residence pristine and rubbish-free.

Why Bother Getting Rid of Your Unwanted Furnishings?

After you’ve cleared your apartment or house of everything you want, you always have the option of leaving your unwanted furnishings behind. Unfortunately, although this might seem like the easiest and most convenient solution right now, it could cause a number of costly problems further down the road.

This is true for both homeowners and renters. Leaving unwanted furnishings behind as a property seller can lead to frustrating buyer conflicts, legal challenges, and unnecessary spending.

This is especially true in instances in which the Purchase Agreement for a home sale includes language in the “Additional Terms and Conditions” section stating that the seller must be fully vacated at the time of move-in.

When sellers breach this portion of the contracts, they may owe buyers monetary damages that exceed the costs of simply moving their stuff out, or having a junk removal company move it for them.

As a renter, leaving furniture behind can result in the loss of some or all of the security deposit that was placed at the time of move-in. In some instances, the costs of removing abandoned furnishings may even exceed a renter’s security deposit.

This is especially true in instances in which unit damages and move-out cleaning fees are deducted from these funds as well. Furniture removal charges that exceed tenants’ security deposits can result in legal efforts on the part of landlords to seek additional monies.

It’s always cheaper and far easier to get rid of your unwanted mattresses, futons, bookshelves, and other furnishings yourself.

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Donating and Selling Your Unwanted Items

Selling furniture online or donate furniture? Items that remain in relatively good condition can often be donated or sold. Best of all, most companies accepting charitable donations have their own trucks, and movers who will load your furnishings directly onto their vehicles. When working with these companies, be sure to:

  • Understand the standards for donation quality
  • Schedule your appointment for pick-up well in advance of your move-out date
  • Create a clear path for those picking your items up for easy loading


You may be qualified to receive a tax deduction for certain furniture donations. It’s important to note, however, that donation companies have the right to refuse your items on the day of pickup due to quality concerns or other issues.

Moreover, given that many of these organizations are largely run by volunteers, it may take weeks before they’re able to schedule a pick-up date and honor it.

When opting to sell your unwanted furnishings, you have the choice of staging a yard sale or hosting a virtual garage sale.

You can require all buyers to haul off their own purchases, and you can use the resulting funds to offset the costs of your move, or pay for junk removal services. No matter how successful virtual garage sales and yard sales may be, most consumers wind up needing junk removal for further clean-up.

If selling your old furniture, used furniture, unwanted furniture, large furniture and all the household items you want to get rid of, cant be sold at a garage sale, then you might want to consider a roll off dumpster to get ride of the furniture quickly.

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To Move or Not to Move Your Furnishings?

Surprisingly, you may have more furniture to leave behind than you think. Professional movers often advise their customers to part with items that are already in a significant state of disrepair.

If you’ve got dressers with broken drawers, tables with wobbly legs and missing screws, or bed frames that have obviously exceeded their lifespans, these items will likely look and function far worse once they’ve reached your new home.

Even professional moving services are bound to cause moderate amounts of additional damages to items that are barely held together. Before packing, labeling, selling, or donating any furniture, spend some time seriously considering its age and overall state.

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The Benefits of Choosing a Junk Removal Company

There are actually quite a few benefits that you can gain by hiring a junk removal service. While many consumers turn to junk removal simply because they don’t have suitably large vehicles, hiring a licensed and insured company to haul off your waste can prevent a host of problems.

To start, you won’t have to recruit your family members or friends with pickup trucks to help you. More importantly, you won’t have to place these individuals or their personal vehicles at risk of injury or damages. Even if you do own your own truck, these are risks that you can personally avoid Imagine having a close companion lift and transport your couch, only to suffer a twisted ankle, a back injury, or lasting shoulder pain as the result.

Consider the legal, financial, and personal ramifications of having a bureau or a couch smash out your family member’s auto glass or cause damage to their truck bed.

Junk removal companies are prepared to both prevent and mitigate problems like these. You’ll have the benefit of trained professionals who are properly equipped for safely lifting and transporting cumbersome items. When things go wrong, their own liability insurance will keep everyone protected, especially you.

Hiring a junk removal company will also allow you to sidestep the stress and frustration of any especially challenging moving effort. For instance, if your heavy, all-wood futon has to be negotiated down a steep set of stairs or around any sharp corners, professionals will know exactly how to do it.

Calling junk removal companies to help you finish the clean-out of your old apartment, home, or office is a convenient and easy way to make sure that the job is done fully and right. Finally, junk removal companies can do more than simply cart off old, unwanted, or severely damaged furniture.

They can also get rid of many other miscellaneous items that you have no intention of bringing to your new residence. Everything from old board games and threadbare clothing can be carted off in a single trip. It’s also important to note that when hiring a junk removal service, you can rest assured that your items will be disposed of properly.

Conversely, when you pay unlicensed parties to cart your junk off, your threadbare sofa may be discarded on the roadside.

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What to Expect When Working With Junk Removal Companies

Not all junk removal companies are created equally. There can be vast differences between the type and level of service supplied. Some companies may have very strict limitations on what they can and will pick up, and others may limit the amount of physical work that they’re willing to do.

Choosing a junk removal company with an expansive range of needs-specific services will simplify your clean-up project and limit your overall spending.

One key factor to consider before choosing a company to work with is the cost of service. Most providers will base their rates upon the type and volume or weight of goods that you need hauled away.

For accurate rates and quotes, reputable junk removal services will always perform an onsite assessment of the items that you’ve marked for disposal. However, although cost is definitely worth accounting for, it should never be the sole basis of your hiring decision.

You should also take stock of the company’s length of time in business, current and past reviews, overall reputation, and waste disposal methods among other factors.

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What Junk Removal Companies Will and Will Not Take

Every junk removal company has a list of items that it will and will not transport. Most will not pick up certain forms of electronics, and some types of appliances. Few to no junk removal companies are willing or able to transport any hazardous materials. For instance, if you need to get rid of:

  • Stored paints
  • Stored cleaning agents
  • Automotive batteries
  • Automotive fluids
  • Pesticides or herbicides
  • Fuel
  • Medical waste
  • Fluorescent lightbulbs
  • Asbestos or asbestos-containing materials
  • Pressurized containers
  • Paints
  • Ammunition
  • Oils

Local waste management company

In addition the above listed items or any other caustic, flammable, explosive, or otherwise dangerous items, you’ll have to find an alternative means for transporting and disposing of them. You will need to contact your local waste management company to dispose of these items.

However, when it comes to the common items that people are typically wont to leave behind when moving, a good junk removal company can take it all. This includes:

  • Sofas
  • Dressers
  • Headboards and bed frames
  • Mattresses
  • Boxsprings
  • Bookshelves
  • Filing cabinets
  • Desks
  • Tables
  • Chairs


and all other like furnishings. Some services will also cart off unwanted or damaged appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, ovens, air conditioners, and water heaters. These companies usually have larger trucks, ample and well-trained teams, and adequate lifting, moving, and safety equipment.

If you’ve got unwanted televisions, computers, monitors, gaming systems, and other electronics, be sure to ask your chosen junk removal company whether these items are accepted.

Some providers will take them, and some will not. More importantly, some companies have solid plans for disposing of and recycling electronic waste, and others will take a far less environmentally friendly approach to these jobs.

Researching the waste management plan of a junk removal service can be key for choosing one that helps you limit the environmental impact of your move.

Businesses that are conscious about how their operations might affect the natural environment always have detailed and completely transparent waste management plans.

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Why Are There Items That Junk Removal Companies Will Not Transport?

Legally, there are certain items that junk removal companies cannot transport. Financially, the liability and overall health risks associated with moving and disposing of some items are simply too high.

For most hazardous materials, there are very specific guidelines for disposing of them. If you’ve got an automotive battery that you want to get rid of, you can usually turn this into any local auto supply store.

In fact, if you get rid of this component when purchasing your replacement battery, you may even be qualified for a credit or a modest cash return. When cleaning out a shed or a garage, you’ll likely stumble upon a number of items that aren’t on your junk removal company’s approved list. Find out what the requirements are for each type of hazardous waste disposal in your region.

If you’ve got asbestos-containing products to get rid of, it’s always best to only have these handled and moved by licensed, asbestos removal companies.

Getting Ready to Hire a Junk Removal Company

Given that junk removal companies charge their rates based upon the volume or weight of goods that must be transported, and upon the type of items marked for removal, selling and donating as much as you can is a great way to limit your spending.

If you’ve got unwanted items that might be of value to anyone, try your best to get them into the right hands. Not only is this a sure way to limit your spending on junk removal services, but it’s also the most environmentally friendly choice. Anything that can be recycled, repurposed, or reused should be kept out of local landfills whenever possible.

Always be sure to account for the damages that your existing furnishings have sustained before including them in the list of things that you want your moving company to transport. Consider that replacing these items with brand new ones will likely be much cheaper than repairing both their current damage and any additional damages that they sustain along the way.

Take the time to search for, screen, and hire a junk removal service well before your actual move-out date arrives. Although many companies are able to accommodate last-minute service requests, you don’t want to risk of having delayed service hold up your move-out.

Advance scheduling will allow you to create a smooth and perfectly streamlined plan for cleaning out your old unit and getting into your new one.

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