The moving-out cleanout: what doesn't go on the truck in Milwaukee

The short answer

The last ten per cent of a move is the part that ruins the week. The furniture you decided not to take, the basement contents you never looked at, the grill, the mattress that is not going in the new place.

Price it either way:

• By volume — 1/4 truck $241, 3/8 $338, 1/2 $431, 5/8 $513, 3/4 $587, 7/8 $661, full truck $732.
• By item — sofa $126, queen mattress $103, mattress and box spring set $143, dresser $126, refrigerator $164, medium junk pile $129.

Minimum per visit is $75. The single best piece of advice on this page: book it for the day before the movers, not the day after.

Why the day before

Booking the cleanout first does three things.

• Movers charge by time. Every item they carry down a Bay View duplex staircase and then have to think about is time you are paying for. Clearing the discards first shrinks the move itself.
• You still have access. Once the keys are handed over, that pile in the basement is somebody else's leverage over your deposit or your closing.
• You will see the place empty-ish and find more. There is always a second pile behind the first one. Discovering it the day before is fine; discovering it on closing morning is not.

People who book the day after almost always do it because they underestimated what was left. It works, it is just more stressful and occasionally more expensive.

Milwaukee's moving calendar

Three windows dominate, and all three sell out.

• The end of August into the first days of September. The city's main lease turnover. Half of Riverwest and the East Side changes address in the same seventy-two hours. If you are moving in this window, book the cleanout two or three weeks ahead.
• May. UWM, Marquette and MSOE let out. Student flats on the Lower East Side and around Avenues West empty at once, leaving futons, particleboard shelving, mini fridges and a great deal of pizza-adjacent debris.
• Late spring through summer generally. Home sales here cluster after the thaw for obvious reasons.

Winter moves are the opposite: slots are wide open, and if your timing is flexible, February is the easiest month of the year to get exactly the slot you want.

What movers will not take

Worth knowing before moving day, because these are the things that end up abandoned:

• Anything with fuel or fluid in it. The mower, the snowblower, the spare gas can. Drain them.
• Propane tanks. The grill is fine; the tank goes back to an exchange point.
• Paint and solvents. Every Milwaukee basement has a shelf of them. These go through household hazardous waste channels — check your county's current program.
• Open food and anything from the chest freezer. That second basement freezer full of venison and fish from 2019 is a genuine local category and it has to be dealt with before the truck comes.
• Mattresses you were hoping they would just take. They will move it to the new place. They will not dispose of it.

Worked example: a Riverwest upper, moving to a Tosa house

The new place is furnished differently and half the flat is not coming.

• Sofa — $126
• Mattress + box spring set (queen) — $143
• Bookshelf — $72
• Desk (standard) — $83
• Dining table (2-4 seat) — $103
• Medium junk pile (basement locker, closets, bags) — $129

$126 + $143 + $72 + $83 + $103 + $129 = $656.

A five-eighths truck is $513, which is likely the cheaper route for that volume. The quote page compares the two automatically — you do not have to work out which side of the line you are on.

Downsizing, which is a different job

A large share of Milwaukee moves are not lateral. They are a long-time family home in Wauwatosa, Enderis Park or Story Hill going down to a condo in the Third Ward or a smaller place in Whitefish Bay, and there is no version of that where everything comes along.

The hard truth people need permission to hear: the dining set nobody has eaten at since 2008, the china hutch, the piano that has not been tuned in twenty years, the contents of the attic half-story. An upright piano is $290, a china hutch is $160, a large armoire is $197. Those are flat prices that include getting them out of a house with a front stoop and a turn at the bottom of the stairs.

Do the family walk-through before the move, not after. "Take it to the new place and decide later" is how a one-bedroom condo ends up with a storage unit attached to it.

The Milwaukee access notes that matter on moving day

• No driveway on most city blocks. Your movers and our truck are both competing for street space. If the alley is the better access for the discard load, say so at booking.
• The shared staircase in a two-flat. If you are the upper unit, everything goes past the lower tenant's door twice on the same day. Warn them.
• Third Ward and Walker's Point loft buildings. Freight elevator slots get booked solid on the first and the last of the month. Reserve two — one for the movers, one for us.
• Winter. Salt the stoop and the walk. A moving day with a slick back stair is how somebody gets hurt carrying a sleeper sofa.

Booking

Put the discard list into the online quote, see the flat total, and pick a slot the day before your movers. No stair charge, no long-carry charge, no separate disposal fee. If you find another pile between booking and the day, tell us and we will add it at the published price for those items — you approve the new total before anything moves.

Frequently asked questions