How to get rid of a bed frame in Milwaukee

The short answer

Flat prices, carried out from any floor, disposal included. Minimum per visit is $75 — a $68 metal frame on its own comes to the minimum, so add whatever else is going.

Which price applies to your frame

The split is about construction, not about how much it cost.

$68 covers the light stuff: a steel rail frame on casters, a basic metal platform, a flat-pack platform bed with slats. These come apart, or they fold, and two people carry them out in pieces.

$126 covers the heavy stuff in twin, full or queen: a solid hardwood frame with a real headboard and footboard, an upholstered frame with a padded headboard, or a storage bed with drawers built into the base. These typically do not come apart neatly, and the upholstered ones are essentially a piece of furniture rather than a frame.

$152 is the same category in king or Cal king, where the side rails alone are over two meters.

If you are unsure, the drawer test works: if the base has drawers in it, or if the headboard is padded, it is the $126 or $152 price. If it is bare metal, it is $68.

Why the frame is the hard part in a Milwaukee bedroom

People book the mattress and forget the frame, then discover on the day that the frame is the item that actually will not leave the room.

Here is the specific problem. Milwaukee's older housing puts bedrooms upstairs — the upper unit of a two-flat in Bay View or Riverwest, a bungalow attic half-story in Jackson Park, an East Side third-floor walk-up, the raised cottage of a Polish flat on the south side. The staircase is enclosed, narrow, and turns ninety degrees on a landing partway up.

A mattress is flexible. It bends round the turn. A box spring is rigid but relatively thin. A solid king frame is rigid, long and wide, and on plenty of these staircases it simply does not go — which is often precisely how it got there. It was carried up in pieces before a later renovation boxed the stairwell in, or assembled in the room, or went up through a window during a move.

So a bed frame removal in this city is frequently a dismantling job: rails unbolted, headboard separated, slats out, the whole thing reduced to pieces that will make the turn. That is included in the flat price. There is no stair charge and no disassembly charge.

If you already know the frame came in as pieces and was assembled in the room, mention it at booking. It tells us to bring tools.

The adjustable base

Motorized adjustable bases have become common and they are a category of their own, at $118.

They are heavier than they look — a steel frame, motors, a transformer, and on many models a battery backup — and unlike a wooden frame there is very little you can take off to make it smaller. Unplug it before we arrive and leave it flat rather than inclined, which is the position it moves through a doorway in.

They are also effectively impossible to give away. Nobody wants a used motorized base, thrift operations decline them, and they are too heavy and too specific for Marketplace. If yours is being replaced, the $118 is the realistic route.

Bunk beds, cribs and the student calendar

A bunk bed is $123, or $148 if it is solid wood or a loft design. Both prices include taking it apart, which is not optional — a bunk bed does not leave a room assembled, and a loft bed in a small East Side bedroom is usually wedged in on purpose.

A crib is $67. Worth knowing before you plan around donating one: cribs are declined by almost every donation operation on safety grounds, because standards have changed repeatedly and organizations will not take on the liability. The same applies to car seats. This surprises new parents constantly and it is not a judgement on the condition of yours.

Two Milwaukee timing notes. May is when UWM, Marquette and MSOE let out and the flats around the Lower East Side and Avenues West empty at once — bunk beds, loft beds and cheap platform frames come out by the dozen. Late August into early September is the city's main lease turnover and the same thing happens in reverse. Book ahead in either window.

Worked totals

A complete bed, the common version: mattress and box spring set $143 plus a standard metal frame $68, which is $143 + $68 = $211.

A king bedroom in a Wauwatosa house:

• Bed frame (solid / upholstered / storage) — king — $152
• Mattress — king / Cal king — $114
• Box spring (any size) — $92
• Nightstands, 2 at $57 each — $114
• Dresser (large / double) — $148

$152 + $114 + $92 + $114 + $148 = $620.

That volume is close to a five-eighths truck at $513, which would be the cheaper route — exactly the crossover the online quote checks automatically when you enter the whole list at once.

Two children's rooms cleared at the end of a school year: a bunk bed $123, a solid wood bunk or loft $148, and two metal frames at $68 each ($136), which is $123 + $148 + $136 = $407.

Free routes, and where they stop

• Give it away. A solid wood frame in good condition moves quickly on Milwaukee neighborhood groups, particularly in May and August. Say in the listing which floor it is on and whether it is assembled — that is what determines whether anyone actually turns up.
• Donate it. Sound, dry, complete frames are accepted by some reuse operations. Ring ahead. Missing hardware is a common reason for refusal, so keep the bolts with the rails.
• Your municipality's collection. Metal frames are usually among the more acceptable bulk items, but each community here sets its own rules, schedule and limits — check your own collection page. You do the carrying, which is the whole difficulty.
• What will not work: upholstered frames from a basement, which will be damp and musty; anything missing its hardware; and adjustable bases.

Booking

Pick the frame type and size in the online quote, add the mattress as a set if it is going too, and the total appears before you commit. Strip the bedding, and if the frame has already been dismantled, stack the rails together — it is not required, but it speeds the day up.

Tell us at booking if the bedroom is up a turn-landing staircase or in an attic half-story. It does not change the price by a dollar; it just means the crew arrives with the right tools to take the thing apart at the top of the stairs.

Frequently asked questions