Garage Cleanout Cost in New York City

What a garage cleanout means in this city

Outside the outer-borough one- and two-family belt, the word covers several different rooms. A detached garage behind a house in Bayside or Marine Park. An attached one-car garage in Staten Island. A brownstone cellar in Bed-Stuy that has held bicycles and paint cans since the nineties. A chain-link storage cage in the basement of a co-op, which is a garage in everything but name.

All of them price the same way, because our prices are set by what leaves rather than by where it was standing. That includes the cellars, where the load has to come up a narrow flight and out through a sidewalk hatch or a service door.

Item list or truck share

Garages are one of the few jobs where listing the items genuinely beats guessing at volume, because garage contents are mostly recognisable things rather than anonymous piles.

Common garage prices: a lawn mower is $88, a bicycle is $50, a ladder is $45, a set of four tires is $117 and a single tire is $30. Metal shelving is $95, a rolling tool chest or workbench is $135, a snow blower is $95 and a wheelbarrow is $50. A charcoal grill is $79 and a propane grill is $95. A 20 lb propane tank is $45.

If the floor is a single undifferentiated heap, we price by truck share instead: $325 for a quarter, $455 for three-eighths, $580 for a half, $690 for five-eighths, $790 for three-quarters, $890 for seven-eighths and $985 for a full truck. The minimum for any visit is $75.

Worked example: a one-car garage in Queens

A detached one-car garage that has not held a car in a decade. Here is a realistic list:

That prices out at $178 + $95 + $88 + $117 + $50 = $528.

The same load as a truck share would be about half a truck at $580. The list is lower here, so the list is what you pay. Bagging the loose material before we arrive is what makes the item list possible in the first place — a contractor bag is $55 and a 33-to-55 gallon trash bag is $47, so the bag count is worth knowing before you book.

Paint, fuel and the things people leave until last

Garages accumulate a specific category of item that nobody wants to think about: half-used paint, old fuel cans, propane cylinders, a car battery on a shelf. A one-gallon paint can is $40 and a five-gallon bucket is $70, and tell us about them when you book rather than on the day, because they travel differently from a bookcase.

Some materials genuinely cannot go on a truck with household goods, and the honest answer is that we will tell you which ones before the crew comes rather than discover it in your driveway. The city publishes current guidance on household hazardous material on its sanitation pages, and that is the right place to check the present rules.

Curb cuts, shared driveways and where the truck stands

A detached garage behind a house usually means a long shared driveway, and in a lot of Queens and Brooklyn that driveway is shared with the neighbor and used for parking. If the truck cannot get down it, the load walks to the street, which is fine but slower.

The other frequent snag is the curb cut. On narrow blocks the only legal place to stage a truck is directly across the apron of a driveway, and doing that in front of somebody else's house is how a smooth job turns into an argument. Tell us the layout when you book and the crew will plan the approach rather than improvise it on arrival.

Cellars and storage cages instead of garages

In the apartment half of the city, the equivalent job is a basement storage cage or a cellar under a brownstone. The contents are the same species — bicycles, luggage, paint, a stroller that outlived its child — but the route out is worse. Low headroom, a turn at the bottom of the stairs, and in a managed building a service door that is only unlocked when the super is on site.

Prices do not change for the stairs. A storage trunk or chest is $95, a suitcase is $40, baby gear is $45 and a bag of clothes is $47, whether it comes out of a suburban garage or up a cellar flight in Park Slope. If the building needs a certificate of insurance before the crew can use the service entrance, we can issue one.

Alternate-side parking sets your arrival window

On most residential blocks the practical question is not when the crew is free but when there is room to put a truck. Alternate-side rules clear one side of the street for part of the day, and a crew that knows the neighborhood will aim for that window rather than circle at four in the afternoon.

This is why a garage cleanout is quoted with an arrival window rather than a minute. Once the truck is parked and the ramp is down, the job itself is usually the fast part.

How to price yours today

Photograph the garage from the door, then from the back corner, and send the two images with a rough bag count. We will price it both ways — as an item list and as a truck share — and quote the lower of the two before anyone is dispatched. Disposal and recycling are inside that figure, and the crew carries everything out, including whatever is on the top shelf.

Frequently asked questions