Student Move-Out Junk Removal
NC State · Duke · UNC

Lease ending or dorm closing? We haul mattresses, futons, mini-fridges, desks and the whole move-out pile across all three Triangle universities — twin mattress $111, mini-fridge $155, $75 minimum, flat-quoted from a photo, carried down the stairs, same-day during the May rush. No NC sales tax on the service.

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Free · No login · Same-day in May
Flat photo price, no surprise fees No per-mattress surcharge We carry it down — no stair fee Parents can book from out of town No NC sales tax

The whole Triangle move-out, one service

Every spring, roughly 38,000 students at NC State, about 21,000 undergraduates at UNC and around 17,000 at Duke all finish within days of each other. The dump clusters early-to-mid May — a single compressed week when every lease on Hillsborough Street flips, every apartment stairwell near Ninth Street in Durham has a futon coming down it, and every rental house in Chapel Hill and Carrboro empties at once. Then August brings the echo: move-in weekend, when the last tenant's furniture is still in the unit and yours is on the sidewalk.

It is a genuinely hard logistics problem for the person living it. You have a final exam, a car packed to the roof, a landlord counting the days, and a mattress that will not fit in anything you own. We're built for that week specifically — same-day hauls straight through it, a flat number quoted from one photo before anyone drives out, and a crew that brings it down the stairs so you can keep studying, keep packing, or keep driving.

How it works during move-out week

1 · Text one photo

Stand in the doorway, photograph the pile. Every item is identified and priced automatically and one flat number comes back in seconds. No walkthrough, no phone call, no estimate appointment during finals week.

2 · Lock a slot early

Book against your actual move-out date, not the morning of. The first two weeks of May are the tightest of our year — the students who text on May 1 get the window they want.

3 · We come up and get it

An insured local crew climbs the stairs, takes the mattress and the futon out of the room, loads, and leaves the unit clear for the walkthrough. Nothing has to be at the curb.

How much does student move-out junk removal cost in Raleigh?

Flat, photo-quoted, and the same whether it's a dorm room, a shared house on Gorman Street or a one-bedroom off Ninth Street. Disposal and the carry-down are already in the number.

The usual move-out itemsFlat price
Microwave$40
Bag of loose stuff (each)$47
Office / desk chair$82
Bookshelf$97
Twin mattress$111
Desk (standard)$112
Full mattress$126
Loveseat$128
Queen mattress$139
Futon$139
Mini-fridge$155
Sofa / couch$170
Ten bags, priced together$178

Clearing the whole apartment instead of a few pieces? It prices as truck-fill — quarter truck $295, half truck $525, full truck $895, whichever is cheaper than the itemized total.

$75 minimum on any job. Split it four ways with roommates and a shared-house clear-out gets cheap fast. No NC sales tax on the service.

Worth comparing against the published local rate cards: Junk Doctors lists a $135 minimum and $738 for a full truck; McJunk lists a $175 minimum and $695 for a full truck, plus a $40 per-mattress fee and trip surcharges of $10–$50. A single twin mattress is the classic student job, and those minimums are the reason it's usually the most expensive item you'll ever throw away.

5 ways to clear a student apartment in the Triangle

OptionCostSpeedBest for
Your campus move-out donation driveFreeDuring the collection window onlyStart here. Working mini-fridges, lamps, clean clothes, unopened food, textbooks — usable things that should stay in the community, not go in a truck
Sell it (Marketplace, campus groups)Free, you get paidDays — if it sellsThe desk or the TV. Everyone on Hillsborough Street is selling the same futon the same week, so price low and start early
City of Raleigh Bulky Load (curbside rentals)$35Scheduled — you wait for the assigned dayStudents whose lease ends weeks after their last exam and who can carry it out themselves
Rent a truck and haul it yourselfTruck rental + ~$37/ton tip fee ($15 per mattress)One long afternoonA group with a driver, straps and a free Saturday
JunkRabbitTwin mattress $111 · quarter-truck $295 · $75 minSame day, through the May rushThe stained mattress, the dead futon, and the day you're actually leaving

We'd rather say this plainly than sell you something you don't need: if your stuff is still good, the campus drive is the better answer and we're not competing with it. Call us for what the drive won't take, and for the pile that's still there after it closes.

Does the City of Raleigh pick up move-out furniture?

Most student rentals — the houses off Hillsborough Street, the duplexes in 27606 and 27607 — are on curbside collection, which means the city's bulky program technically covers you. City of Raleigh Solid Waste Services charges $35 for a Bulky Load pickup and $70 for a special or appliance item, and it collects household electronics free, capped at four items per week. Tires aren't accepted. Cheap, real, and worth using if your timing allows.

The problem is that all of it is scheduled. You submit the request, you're assigned a collection day, and then you wait for it — and in the first week of May, the curbs along Hillsborough Street are already piled from the houses that requested theirs before you did. Meanwhile your landlord isn't waiting: anything left in the unit or stacked out front past the lease date comes out of the security deposit, and in a shared house that's four people's money. A Tuesday pickup window is useless when your lease ends Saturday, your parents' car is loaded, and you have a nine-hour drive ahead. That gap — between a cheap scheduled service and a hard personal deadline — is the entire reason this page exists.

What we take out of a student place

We can't take hazardous items — paint, propane canisters, solvents, ammunition. Those go to Wake County household hazardous waste drop-off.

Where your move-out pile actually ends up

Anything still usable is routed to donation before it ever gets near a landfill — Habitat ReStores operate ten Triangle stores across Wake, Johnston, Durham and Orange, and Goodwill of Eastern NC is headquartered in Raleigh — which is the same instinct the campus drives are built on, just extended past the collection deadline. Appliances and metal, banned from NC landfills, go to scrap; the Durham transfer station takes appliances and metal free. Televisions, monitors and computers go to a certified electronics recycler, because North Carolina bans those from landfills too. Only what's genuinely finished — a torn mattress, a broken futon frame — goes to disposal, where the South Wake Landfill charges about $37 per ton and $15 per mattress. That routing is inside your flat price, not billed back as an extra line.

Campus by campus — the access reality

NC State / Hillsborough Street (27606, 27607). A mix of dorms, purpose-built student apartments and older rental houses on the side streets. The apartments mean stair carries and one loading zone shared by six moving trucks; the houses mean narrow driveways and a porch. We time around the worst of it and there's no stair fee either way.

Duke / Ninth Street, Durham (27705). Apartment-dense and student-heavy, tight on-street parking, plenty of second- and third-floor walk-ups. Same-day is usually open here even during peak week because it runs on a slightly different calendar than Raleigh.

UNC / Chapel Hill and Carrboro (27514, 27516, 27510). Old rental houses with steep staircases and small doorways, plus a lot of shared-house clear-outs where four leases end on the same day. Sectionals and futons frequently have to come apart to clear a 1940s stairwell — that's included, not an upcharge.

Wherever you are, if the building or property manager wants a certificate of insurance before a crew works in the stairwell, we'll send one — the larger student-apartment complexes ask more often than the houses do.

When students and parents call us

Why Triangle students book us

Move-out questions, answered

How much does it cost?

Twin mattress $111, full $126, queen $139, futon $139, desk $112, office chair $82, bookshelf $97, mini-fridge $155, microwave $40, loveseat $128, sofa $170; bags $47 each or ten for $178; a whole apartment from $295 (quarter truck). $75 minimum, disposal included, no NC sales tax.

Can you come the same day in May?

Usually — it's our busiest stretch of the year and we run same-day through it. Slots go fastest in the first two weeks of May, so text a photo when you know your date, not the morning you're leaving.

Should I use the campus donation drive instead?

For anything still usable, yes — start there. NC State, Duke and UNC all run end-of-year collections and we're not trying to compete with them. Call us for what they won't take and for after they close.

Will the city pick it up from the curb?

Only on a scheduled day, for a $35 Bulky Load fee, and only if you carry it out yourself. In early May the curb is already full and your landlord is already counting deposit deductions.

Do you charge extra per mattress?

No. The listed price is the price, with no per-mattress fee added at the truck.

Can my parents book it from out of town?

Yes. The photo can come from the apartment and the approval from anywhere; nobody needs to be present at pickup as long as the crew can reach the unit.

By campus

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