What a storage unit cleanout costs in Milwaukee

The short answer

Storage units price by volume, and the mapping is reasonably predictable because the units themselves are standard sizes.

Minimum per visit is $75. Individual heavy items are flat on top if they are unusual — an upright piano is $290, a hot tub is $322.

The honest caveat: a packed unit holds far more than an empty one looks like it should. If you loaded it well, assume the higher figure in each band.

Why Milwaukee households end up with storage units

It is worth understanding, because the reason usually predicts what is inside and how hard the job is.

• Newer apartment buildings have no basement locker. This is the big one. Older Milwaukee stock — two-flats, bungalows, Polish flats — comes with a deep basement and a storage area, so people never needed a unit. The newer buildings on the East Side, in the Third Ward, Walker's Point and along the river frequently do not, and residents rent a unit instead.
• The gap between leases. The city's main turnover falls at the end of August into the first days of September. Anyone whose move-out and move-in do not line up puts everything in a unit for a few weeks, and a few weeks becomes three years.
• A parent's house. Extremely common here, where families stay in the same house for decades. Someone dies, the house has to be sold on a timeline, and the contents go into a unit "until we can go through it." Nobody goes through it.
• Seasonal overflow. Boats, trailers, patio furniture and lawn equipment, because a Milwaukee garage is full of the snowblower and the salt from November to April.
• Downsizing. A family home in Wauwatosa or Enderis Park goes down to a condo, and the difference goes into storage rather than being decided on.

The arithmetic people avoid

The uncomfortable conversation, and we will have it plainly because it saves people real money.

Work out what you have paid in rent on that unit since you took it. Then work out honestly what the contents would fetch, or what it would cost to replace the things you would actually replace. For units opened during a move three or more years ago, the first number is frequently larger than the second — often considerably.

The contents of a unit like that are usually: furniture that did not fit the new place, boxes nobody has needed in three years, a mattress, exercise equipment, and several boxes of paperwork. A full truck is $732, once, and the rent stops.

The other thing people do not factor in: if you fall behind on payments, facilities have a lien process and the contents can be sold at auction. That is a bad way for a decision to get made for you — and it is worth knowing that once the process starts, it moves. If you are behind, deal with it before the facility does.

Facility access, which is the real complication

The unit itself is usually easy. The building around it is not. Tell us these things at booking, because they determine how long the job takes.

• Gate hours. Access is not twenty-four hours at most facilities, and gate hours are often shorter than office hours. We need to be in and out within them.
• The gate code. If you are not meeting us there, we need the code and the facility needs to know we are coming. Many require the tenant to authorise a third party in advance — a phone call the day before prevents a crew standing at a keypad.
• Drive-up or interior? A drive-up unit is straightforward. An interior unit means a corridor, a lift and a distance, all of which take time.
• Upper floor? Multi-story facilities have freight lifts, and sometimes only one, shared with everyone else moving that day.
• Carts. Facilities provide a small number and they are frequently all in use on a Saturday.
• Loading bay access. Some sites restrict where a truck can park or for how long.

None of this changes the price — there is no long-carry charge and no facility surcharge. It changes the scheduling, so a weekday morning is almost always the better slot.

Go through it once, properly, before we come

Nearly everyone finds something they want. Almost nobody finds as much as they expected.

• Paperwork first. Deeds, tax records, insurance documents, savings books. In units holding a parent's house contents, these are in boxes rather than files and they are the one genuinely irreplaceable category.
• Photographs. Same reason, and they are usually in a shoebox in the back.
• Check for damp. Non-climate-controlled units in this climate go through the full range — humid Julys and hard freezes. Upholstery and cardboard stored in one for years may be musty and mildewed in exactly the way a Milwaukee basement does it, which ends any plan to donate or sell.
• Be realistic about furniture. If it did not fit your home three years ago, it does not fit now.
• Set aside what you are keeping and put it in your car before we start, or mark it clearly. We do not touch anything marked.

Worked example: a 10×10 after a parent's house sale

Contents put in during a probate sale two years ago. Family has taken the photographs and the documents.

• Sofa — $126
• Mattress + box spring set (queen) — $143
• Dresser (large / double) — $148
• Cabinet / china hutch — $160
• Dining table (6-8 seat) — $163
• Dining chairs, 6 at $45 each — $270
• Boxes of books, 4 at $45 each — $180

Itemized: $126 + $143 + $148 + $160 + $163 + $270 + $180 = $1,190.

As a three-quarter truck that is $587, saving $1,190 − $587 = $603. Storage units are volume jobs without exception — never book one item by item.

Booking

Describe the unit size and how densely it is packed in the online quote, or send a photo taken from the door with it open — that is genuinely the most useful thing you can give us, because a photo from the door shows depth and stacking in a way a size does not.

Then tell us the facility, the gate hours, the gate code, and whether the unit is drive-up or interior. Authorise us with the office if you are not meeting us there. We clear it, and you can send the facility a final notice the same day rather than paying for another month.

Frequently asked questions