Home to ASU, Town Lake, and the densest student-apartment belt in the Valley (85281–85284). When the residence halls close in early May, Tempe fills with furniture nobody can move. We clear it: a twin mattress is $111 flat, a queen $139, a sofa $170, the whole apartment as truck-fill from $325 — carried down from any floor, no stair fee, no sales tax on the service.
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Upload a Photo & Get Quote →The mattress, the futon, the mini fridge, or the whole apartment in one shot. An exact flat price comes back in seconds — no walkthrough, no estimator in your doorway.
Tell us the move-out date. During the early-May crush we book by the hour, so the earlier your date is on the calendar the more likely same-day works.
Third-floor walk-up, tight stairwell, no elevator, cars parked in both loading spots — that's a normal Tempe job. Nothing you own touches the dumpster area.
Two or three items go by the piece. A whole apartment goes by truck fraction, which is nearly always cheaper than pricing the room item by item. Both numbers are fixed before we're dispatched, and the carry-down and disposal are already inside them.
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Twin mattress | $111 |
| Box spring | $124 |
| Queen mattress | $139 |
| Futon | $139 |
| Bed frame | $92 |
| Sofa / couch | $170 |
| Mini fridge | $155 |
| Desk | $112 |
| Bookshelf | $97 |
| TV (medium) | $91 |
Whole apartment, by truck fraction: quarter load (2/8) $325 · 3/8 $455 · half truck $580 · 5/8 $690 · 3/4 $790 · full truck $985. A studio or a shared bedroom usually lands in the quarter-to-half range; a four-bedroom student house at the end of a lease is often most of a truck.
$75 minimum. Splitting the bill with roommates? Send one photo of everything going out and we'll price it as a single job — one number to divide, instead of four separate pickups. Disposal is included and there's no charge for stairs. No Arizona sales tax on the service.
For context, junk removal across the Phoenix metro is cited at an average of roughly $226–$237 per job — and that's typically a volume estimate confirmed once a crew is already parked outside your building. Ours arrives before anyone is dispatched.
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leave it by the complex dumpster | Billed to your lease | Immediate | Property managers charge the removal back to the lease-holder — and cameras make it easy to find who |
| Wait for the city bulk schedule | Free | Whenever the calendar says | It won't match the Saturday your lease ends, and it doesn't come up to a second-floor unit |
| Donate it | Free | Days | Goodwill of Central & Northern AZ and St. Vincent de Paul take usable furniture — but not used mattresses, and you deliver it |
| U-Haul + a transfer-station run | Rental + fuel + $55/ton dump fee | Half a day | You still carry everything down the stairs, and SR-85 landfill isn't open to the public |
| JunkRabbit | $111 flat mattress · apartment from $325 | Often same day | None — flat photo price, we carry it down, donation-routed |
Not on your schedule. Tempe runs its own bulk-collection schedule, separate from the City of Phoenix program — every Valley city does, which is precisely the problem when you're a renter who's about to hand back keys.
To see how tight modern Valley bulk programs have become, look at the one whose rules are published and verified: the City of Phoenix bulk-trash program is appointment-based, capped at four collections per calendar year, booked up to three business days out, with items set out no more than seven days early. That's Phoenix's rule, not Tempe's — but it tells you the direction the whole metro moved: away from an automatic quarterly pile you could just push a couch onto, toward a scheduled appointment tied to a specific single-family address.
Now put your actual situation against that. Your lease ends on a fixed date. The residence halls close around May 9, 2026, and thousands of off-campus leases turn over inside the same ten days. The truck comes when the truck comes. Whatever your city's window is, it will not be the Saturday you need, and you can't legally leave a mattress on an apartment complex's landscaping until it arrives.
Which leaves the dumpster enclosure — and that's the expensive mistake. Apartment dumpsters in Tempe are contracted for household bags, not furniture. A mattress, a futon frame, or a broken IKEA dresser parked beside the bin is an overflow charge the property manager passes straight back to the lease-holder, often with a fee on top and a note in your file that follows you to the deposit. It's the single most common way a $111 mattress turns into a charge on your move-out statement that you never agreed to.
So the honest framing in Tempe isn't "the city won't take it." It's that no municipal calendar in the Valley is built around a lease-end date — and the fallback that feels free is the one that gets billed to you.
A lot of Tempe move-out furniture is barely a year old, so the first stop is donation. Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and St. Vincent de Paul both have a serious Valley footprint and take furniture in usable shape; we route resellable pieces to them and can get you a receipt.
Electronics are separated on the truck — TVs, monitors, desktops, printers — and sent to e-waste recycling rather than the landfill. Metal frames and shelving go to scrap.
On mattresses we'll be straight with you: Arizona has no statewide mattress-recycling mandate, and charities do not accept used mattresses. Recyclers exist and we use them where a load makes it practical, but most used mattresses are disposed of, responsibly, through the City of Phoenix transfer-station system at the 2026 gate rate of $55 a ton. We'd rather say that plainly than imply every mattress gets a second life.
Tempe's building stock splits into two jobs, and both are ours.
Around Apache Boulevard and Mill Avenue, the norm is a two- or three-story walk-up with no elevator: exterior stairs, a landing that barely turns a queen box spring, and a parking situation where the nearest legal spot is a hundred feet away with a permit sign over it. Loading near campus is tight, especially in the first two weeks of May when every U-Haul in the East Valley is double-parked on the same street. We plan the truck placement, carry from the unit, and there is no stair fee — the flat quote already assumed the stairs.
Along Tempe Town Lake, it's the opposite problem: mid-rise and high-rise condos that want a Certificate of Insurance on file before a vendor touches the freight elevator — typically $1M+ general liability naming the management company — plus a reserved elevator and dock window. We issue the COI and book the window, with no high-rise surcharge added to the flat price.
"Lease ended early May, third-floor walk-up. They carried the mattress and couch down and out same-day. Flat price, no stair fee, no tax line. Lifesaver."
"Booked the whole apartment in one quote — bed, futon, desk. Gone in an afternoon. So much easier than the dumpster."
"Town Lake high-rise — they handled the COI and elevator, cleared the unit clean. Fast and fair."
How much does junk removal cost in Tempe?
Flat and photo-quoted: twin mattress $111, box spring $124, queen mattress $139, futon $139, sofa $170, mini fridge $155, desk $112, bookshelf $97, medium TV $91. A whole apartment is truck-fill — $325 a quarter, $580 a half, $985 full. $75 minimum, disposal included, no Arizona sales tax on the service.
Can you handle an ASU move-out?
It's the week we plan around. Halls close about May 9, 2026 and the off-campus leases turn over with them. We clear the whole unit, carried down, flat-priced from a photo, with same-day usually available if you book before the final weekend.
Will the city take my mattress?
Tempe runs its own bulk schedule, separate from the City of Phoenix appointment program — and whatever the calendar says, it won't match your lease-end date. Phoenix's verified rule, for reference, is appointment-based, four collections a calendar year, three business days out, items out no more than seven days early. Leaving a mattress by the complex dumpster gets billed back to the lease-holder.
Is there a stair fee for a walk-up?
No. Two- and three-story walk-ups are the norm near campus, so the flat quote already includes carrying it down.
Do you clear Town Lake high-rises?
Yes — COI on file for management, freight elevator and dock window reserved, no high-rise surcharge.
Can it be donated instead?
Usable furniture, yes — Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and St. Vincent de Paul take it and we route it there. Used mattresses are the exception; charities won't take those.
Cheaper than renting a truck?
Once you add rental, fuel, the $55/ton transfer-station fee (SR-85 landfill isn't open to the public), and the two people you'd need for the stairs, rarely — and the metro average for a traditional volume-priced hauler is cited around $226–$237 per job, confirmed on site.
That is the week we plan for. ASU residence halls close around May 9, 2026, and the off-campus leases turn over with them, so Tempe fills with mattresses, futons, mini fridges and flat-pack debris all at once. We clear the whole unit, carried down from any floor with no stair fee, flat-priced from a photo, and same-day is usually available if you book before the last weekend.
Tempe runs its own bulk-collection schedule, separate from the City of Phoenix appointment program, and whatever that calendar says, it almost certainly will not land on the Saturday your lease ends. The verified Phoenix rule gives a sense of how tight modern Valley programs are: appointment-based, a maximum of four collections per calendar year, scheduled up to three business days out, items set out no more than seven days early. Meanwhile a mattress left beside the complex dumpster gets billed back to the lease-holder.
No. Most of the older buildings along Apache Boulevard and around Mill Avenue are two- and three-story walk-ups with no elevator, so stair carries are normal here, not an exception. The flat price you were quoted from the photo already includes carrying everything down and out.
Yes. Those towers require a Certificate of Insurance on file before a vendor uses the freight elevator, typically at least $1M in general liability naming the management company, plus a reserved elevator and dock window. We issue the COI and book the window, and there is no high-rise surcharge on top of the flat price.
For usable pieces, yes — Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and St. Vincent de Paul both take furniture in good condition, and we route resellable items to them for you. Used mattresses are the exception: charities generally will not accept them, which is why a mattress is the single item most likely to be left behind in a Tempe move-out.
A U-Haul plus a transfer-station run means a rental, mileage, fuel, a dump fee — City of Phoenix transfer stations charge $55 a ton in 2026, and the State Route 85 landfill is not open to the public — plus two people and an afternoon you do not have during move-out week. Traditional full-service haulers are volume-priced and usually confirmed on site, with the Phoenix metro average cited around $226 to $237 per job. Our number is flat, quoted from a photo, and includes the carry-down.