How to get rid of an old TV in Milwaukee

The short answer

Flat, published, carried out from any floor with disposal included. Minimum per visit is $75 — so a single TV comes to the minimum on its own, and it is worth adding whatever else is going.

Measure the diagonal, corner to corner across the screen, not the width of the cabinet. An old wood-console television might be five feet wide with a 27-inch picture tube in it — that is the $62 price, not the $73 one.

Why it cannot go in the alley

This is the reason so many Milwaukee basements contain a television nobody has watched since the analogue switch-off.

Electronics are handled differently from ordinary household waste in Wisconsin. Televisions, monitors and computers are not a curbside or alley item the way a broken chair is, and the arrangements for collecting and processing them sit outside general trash collection. Milwaukee and each surrounding municipality handle electronics through their own routes, so check your own municipality's current guidance rather than assuming.

What that looks like in practice: a TV set out next to the garage on collection day is usually still there afterwards. And once it has sat for a week it is a nuisance complaint filed against the property address — not against whoever put it there, which is a particular problem for landlords after a turnover.

So the real choices are: take it somewhere yourself that accepts electronics, on their terms and hours, or have it collected at a flat price.

The CRT, which is the Milwaukee TV problem

The most common television call we take in this city is for a cathode-ray-tube set — the deep, boxy kind — that went into a basement or an attic when flat screens arrived and has not moved since.

They are extraordinarily heavy for their size. A 32-inch CRT is a genuine two-person lift, and the console versions from the sixties and seventies — a picture tube inside a full wooden cabinet on legs, which are still sitting in living rooms across Jackson Park, Enderis Park and West Allis — are heavier again. They also contain leaded glass, which is exactly why electronics are handled separately in the first place.

Where they end up in Milwaukee houses is the difficulty: at the bottom of a steep, narrow basement stair with a low header, or up in a bungalow attic half-story, because that is where things went when the family room was redone.

A CRT under 42 inches is $62, the same as any other television that size. That price is doing a lot of work when the set weighs as much as the person carrying it and has to come up twelve narrow steps.

Wipe it first — yes, even the TV

People remember to wipe a laptop and forget the television. A modern smart TV holds your streaming account logins, your home Wi-Fi password, your viewing history and, on some sets, a linked payment method.

Before we arrive:

• Sign out of the streaming apps individually if you can be bothered, then run a factory reset from the settings menu. The reset is the part that matters.
• Forget the network if the reset option does not obviously cover it.
• Unpair any remotes, soundbars or game controllers linked to it.
• Remove USB sticks and memory cards from the ports at the back. There is nearly always something in there.

This is the one part of the job that has to be yours. We cannot do it for you and should not.

Wall-mounted sets

Increasingly common, and worth flagging at booking.

If the TV is on a bracket, you can leave it there — taking it off the wall is part of the job and there is no charge for it. What we will not do is patch the plaster afterwards, and that is the bit worth thinking about in an older Milwaukee house.

Brackets in these homes are usually lagged into the studs through lath and plaster, and plaster does not come away neatly. Expect four holes and some cracking. If the room is being redecorated anyway, fine. If it is not, have a look behind the set before the day so you know what you are dealing with.

Tell us at booking if the set is mounted, and particularly if it is a 65-inch-plus panel high on a wall. Those are awkward and they are fragile, and we would rather bring two people who are expecting it.

Worked totals

The living-room upgrade. New set going up, the old one and its stand going out: a 42-to-65-inch TV $68 and an entertainment center $96, which is $68 + $96 = $164.

The basement sweep. Twenty years of displaced electronics from a Washington Heights bungalow:

• TV (under 42", the CRT) — $62
• TV (42" to 65", the plasma that replaced it) — $68
• Computer monitor — $58
• Entertainment center / TV stand — $96
• Box of electronics (cables, a DVD player, two routers, a console) — $77

$62 + $68 + $58 + $96 + $77 = $361, up the basement stairs, disposal handled.

If the televisions are part of a larger basement clear-out, compare against volume: a quarter truck is $241, three-eighths is $338, a half truck is $431. Put the full list into the quote and it picks the cheaper structure.

The free routes, and what they are worth

• Retailer take-back. Several electronics retailers around the metro accept certain devices for recycling, usually with limits on type, size and quantity, and the terms change. Ring the specific store before driving out with a CRT in the boot — size limits are exactly where those programs tend to stop.
• Collection events. Municipalities and community groups in the metro periodically run electronics collection days, typically spring and autumn. Watch your municipality's page. Excellent if the timing happens to line up with when you need it gone.
• Give away a working set. A functioning flat screen under about eight years old will go on a neighborhood group within a day, and faster in May and late August when students are furnishing flats on the East Side. A 2007 plasma will not, and a CRT certainly will not.

All of them share the same assumption: you have already carried it out of the building and you have a vehicle it fits in. For a basement CRT in February, that assumption is the whole problem.

Booking

Measure the diagonal, pick the size band in the online quote, add the stand and the box of cables, and the total is on screen before you book. Factory reset the set, unplug it, and leave it where it is — carrying it out is what the price covers.

Tell us if it is wall-mounted or if it is a console CRT at the bottom of a basement stair. Same-day and next-day slots are usually available, all year.

Frequently asked questions