Landlord turnover cleanouts in Milwaukee

The short answer

Turnover clear-outs price by volume, because that is what an abandoned unit is.

Minimum per visit is $75. No stair charge, no long-carry charge, no same-day surcharge — which matters when you are turning a unit against a showing date.

The Milwaukee turnover calendar

Two windows dominate this city and both of them compress everything into days.

The end of August into the first days of September. The main lease turnover across the metro. Half of Riverwest, Bay View and the East Side changes address in the same seventy-two hours. If you have units turning in that window, book the clear-out two to three weeks ahead — it is the tightest week of our year and it is tight for every hauler in the city.

May. UWM, Marquette and MSOE let out. Student units around the Lower East Side and Avenues West empty at once, and student turnovers are the most reliably furniture-heavy ones: futons, particleboard shelving, mini fridges, a mattress on the floor, and a great deal of loose debris.

Outside those windows, same-day and next-day slots are usually open, including through the winter.

The two places the volume hides

Landlords quoting from a walk-through of the unit itself routinely under-count, and it is always the same two spaces.

The basement locker. Almost every older Milwaukee multi-unit has storage in the basement — sometimes a proper locker with chicken wire and a padlock, sometimes an understood corner. Departing tenants very nearly never empty it. Check it before you book, because it can move a job a full truck fraction.

The detached garage or its stall. If the unit came with garage access off the alley, look in it. Tires, a bicycle, a mattress leaning against the wall, bags.

A third one, less often: the enclosed rear porch, which in this housing stock is where a tenant puts the things they had already decided not to move.

Property a tenant leaves behind

This is the part to get right, and it is a legal question rather than a logistics one.

Wisconsin has rules about how a landlord must handle personal property left behind by a departing tenant, and what those rules require can depend on what your lease says and how the tenancy ended. They are not something to improvise or to take from a neighbor's account of what they did in 2019. Check the current requirements, and where an eviction or a dispute is involved, take proper advice before disposing of anything.

What we would suggest regardless, because it costs nothing and protects you:

• Photograph everything before it moves, room by room, with the date. This is the single most useful thing a landlord can do at a turnover.
• Document the condition of the unit at the same time, since you are photographing anyway and you will want it for the deposit.
• Keep the clear-out receipt. It evidences what was removed, when, and by whom.
• Set aside anything that looks like documents or valuables rather than disposing of it with the rest.

We will work to whatever instruction you give us, including clearing some rooms and leaving others, or setting a category of item aside rather than loading it.

Why not the alley

The temptation at a turnover is obvious: the alley is right there, the collection truck comes eventually, and the tenant is gone.

Two problems. First, your municipality's bulky-item rules set what can go out, when, and how much — and the categories tenants most reliably abandon are the most commonly restricted: mattresses, refrigerators, televisions. Second, and more expensively, a nuisance complaint about a pile in an alley is filed against the property address. The tenant is not there to receive it. You are.

And a pile behind your garage attracts other people's furniture within days, which is how a single abandoned mattress becomes a removal job plus a citation plus a bad conversation with the neighbors who have to get past it.

Scheduling a clear-out on a date you choose is cheaper than any of that, and considerably less trouble.

Worked example: a two-bedroom upper in Bay View

Tenant left mid-lease. Everything still in place, plus the basement locker.

• Sofa — $126
• Mattress + box spring set (queen) — $143
• Mattress — twin — $82
• Bed frame (standard metal) — $68
• Dresser (standard) — $126
• Dining table (2-4 seat) — $103
• Dining chairs, 4 at $45 each — $180
• TV (42" to 65") — $68
• Medium junk pile (kitchen, closets, basement locker) — $129

Itemized: $126 + $143 + $82 + $68 + $126 + $103 + $180 + $68 + $129 = $1,025.

As a three-quarter truck that is $587, saving $1,025 − $587 = $438. Full-unit turnovers are volume jobs every time — describe the unit, not the inventory.

How we work with landlords and managers

• You do not need to be there. Give us access and instructions and we clear the unit and send photos when it is done. Useful when you are turning several units in the same week, and essential if you are managing from out of state.
• Written price before the job. Published rates, quoted in advance, no on-site re-quote. That matters when you are budgeting a turnover against a re-let date.
• Multiple units in one booking. If you have three flats turning on the same block, tell us — it is one trip.
• Photos on completion for your records and your deposit file.
• Upper flats are normal. No stair fee, ever, which in a city of two-flats is the difference between a predictable turnover cost and a variable one.
• The shared staircase. If the lower unit is occupied, give them a day's notice and tell us which stair to use.

Booking

Describe the unit — size, how furnished, whether the basement locker and garage stall are included — or send photos from the doorway of each room. We will come back with a flat total at published prices before anyone drives over.

For the September window, book early. For everything else, same-day and next-day are usually available, and there is no surcharge for either.

Frequently asked questions