Garage cleanup
A garage cleared out, and quoted after we have seen it
Clearing, sorting, hauling and sweeping a garage back to a space you can park in. Quoted per job on the size of it and how much is in it — there is no price list, and there was never a real one.
How much does it cost to clear out a garage?
It depends on the size of the garage and how much is in it, and anybody who gives you a number before seeing yours is guessing. A packed two-car with a workbench buried at the back and a tidy single with six boxes in it are not the same day’s work, and no figure on a website can know which one you have. What moves the price is volume, how much has to be sorted rather than simply loaded, whether anything needs dismantling to get it out, and the dump fees — which go on the invoice at cost with the ticket attached rather than marked up. Send two photographs and you will get a real figure.
What we have actually done
Straight about the record: there is no garage-labelled job in eleven months of invoices. What there is, twenty-five times over, is the same work under its real name — clearing a property of everything left in it, loading it, hauling it and disposing of it. Full trash-outs after a tenancy, furniture and mattresses, yard brush and logs, appliances, eviction clear-outs. One of those twenty-five was a house and the detached garage behind it, emptied back to the concrete and swept, and it is written up on this site with its invoice number and its photographs. The trucks, the dump relationship and the disposal pricing all exist and are used every month. What has never happened is a homeowner buying it as a garage clear-out — every one of the twenty-five was bought by a property manager. That is the whole gap, it is a sales gap rather than a skills gap, and you are entitled to know which one it is before you call.
- Kinds of work on this page
- 2
- Invoiced jobs behind them
- 25
- Case studies
- 1
- Towns with work on record
- 2
Counted across every kind of work listed on this page, from our own invoices. Read the paragraph above it for which of them has been sold under this name and which has not — the two are not the same number and this page does not let them blur.
What this actually covers
Taken from the scopes on our own invoices rather than from a list of services, so it is the work as it was actually bought.
Junk Removal, Trash-Out & Hauling
Clearing a property of everything left in it, loading, hauling and disposing of it.
- Full property trash-outs after a tenant leaves
- Furniture, mattress and bulk-item removal and disposal
- Yard brush, log and debris clearing
- Appliance removal
- Dump fees billed at cost with the receipt attached
- Eviction clear-outs
Garage Cleanup & Clear-Out
Clearing, sorting, hauling and organising a garage back into a space you can park in.
- Full clear-out and sort
- Haul-away and dump runs
- Shelving and storage installation
- Sweep-out and finish
What it costs, and what that is based on
No price is published on this page, deliberately, and it is worth saying why. The old site advertised fixed garage packages at three set prices. The owner does not price this way and never has — garage work is quoted per job — and two of those three published figures were mangled by the shop software into numbers a hundred times too large. Nothing has replaced them, because the honest replacement is a quote.
There is no figure below, and that is a decision rather than a gap. What the invoice record for this service holds is set out underneath with the number of jobs and customers behind it, so you can see the work is real; what it does not hold is a price that would also be yours.
Junk Removal, Trash-Out & Hauling
Property-manager work order — no figure published. Every one of these 25 clear-outs was a property-manager work order billed against a negotiated hourly rate. Publishing that number on a page a homeowner reads would be quoting you somebody else’s rate card, so it stays where it belongs — in the quote we write for the property managers who agreed it.
Garage Cleanup & Clear-Out
Quoted per job. Nothing in eleven months of invoices prices this on its own, so there is no figure to publish and none is invented here. It is quoted after a look, in writing, before anything starts.
The counts on this page were read line by line out of 337 QuickBooks invoices covering 709 line items, alongside 289 job records and 84 customer quote documents. They are counts of work, not of money: what this service has been charged elsewhere was charged for a specific property under a specific arrangement, and it is not published here because it would not be your price.
The terms, in full
There is no charge for turning up, looking, or coming back.
Coming out
No charge
No trip charge, no call-out minimum, no diagnostic fee, and no charge for a return visit. Attendance and diagnosis of what you reported are included in the job price. True on all 84 written quotes this company has issued.
Materials
At cost, no markup
Supplied at cost with the receipt attached, and not discounted either — there is no margin in them to discount. Across eleven months of invoices, materials are $10,080 of $210,693 billed on labour-and-materials lines: 4.8%.
Anything outside the quote
$65 an hour plus materials
And only with your approval, in writing, before it is done. A fixed price is not a promise that nothing will be found behind a wall — it is a promise that you decide about it before it is billed rather than after.
Warranty
1 year on all labour
Two years on PVC trim installation and on flooring, stair and trim-joint work. Materials you supply yourself are not covered — our work on them is.
Payment
50% / 50%
Half on signing, which secures the date and buys the materials, and half on completion. A labour-only quote carries no deposit at all, because a deposit exists to purchase materials and that quote has none.
First-time customers
10% off labour
Applied to labour only, because materials are already at cost. Repeat and loyalty customers get the same 10%.
Where we stop
A contractor who writes down what they will not do is worth more than one who says yes to everything. These are the boundaries our own quotes already carry, in the same words.
- Hazardous material does not go in our trailer. Old paint, solvents, fuel, propane cylinders and anything that might contain asbestos are identified, left where they are, and referred to a disposal route that will take them legally.
- We sort to your instructions, not to our judgement. Nothing that has not been agreed as refuse leaves the property.
- Where a garage turns out to need structural or roof work rather than emptying, that is a different quote and it is said before the day rather than during it.
Finished and invoiced
One job of this kind, written up in full
Each one names its QuickBooks invoice number. Nothing on this site is a quote that was accepted and never done — the photographs of those are excellent and they are a portfolio of work we have not carried out.
Towns with garage cleanup & organization on the books
We do every service on this site across all ten towns. These are the ones with completed, invoiced work of this kind behind them, which is a different and more useful claim.
Questions we get asked about this
- Do you take the rubbish away, or just move it outside?
- Away. It is sorted, loaded, trailered and taken to the transfer station, and the dump fees appear on your invoice at cost with the ticket attached. Leaving a pile on the drive is not a clear-out.
- Why is there no price on this page?
- Because there is no price. The owner quotes garage work per job after seeing it, and the packaged prices the old website carried were never charged to anyone — two of the three were even displayed wrongly by the shop software. A number here that nobody has ever paid would be the least defensible thing on this site.
- Can you put shelving in once it is empty?
- Yes — shelving and storage installation is demonstrated work, and it is the part that decides whether the garage is still clear next year. It is quoted with the clear-out rather than after it.
- Have you actually done garages before?
- Not under that name, and we would rather tell you than imply otherwise. Clearing spaces out and hauling the contents away is invoiced twenty-five times in the last eleven months, including a detached garage taken back to the slab — but all twenty-five were bought by property managers, and none by a homeowner. The capability is real and the homeowner track record is not there yet.
- Do you charge a call-out fee or a trip charge?
- No — and no diagnostic fee and no charge for a return visit either. Attendance and diagnosis of the items you reported are included in the job price, and there is no minimum charge and no call-out minimum on any of the 84 written quotes this company has issued. Where a job is far enough out to need several days of round trips, a mobilisation figure is agreed with you in writing before anything starts, or the schedule is compressed into fewer longer days instead.
- What happens if the job turns out to be bigger than the quote?
- It becomes a written change order, priced and agreed before the work goes ahead, and it appears on the invoice by name. Anything outside the written scope is $65 an hour plus materials, and only with your approval — that rate is printed on every quote this company issues.
- Do you mark up materials?
- No. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, and the invoice record says so rather than the marketing: across eleven months, materials are $10,080 of $210,693 billed on labour-and-materials lines, which is 4.8% of it. On larger projects plenty of customers buy the materials themselves, and those are shown on the quote at no charge.
- Are you insured, and do you hold a contractor licence?
- Fully insured, and a W-9 and a certificate of insurance go out with every signed quote without being asked for. On licensing we are direct, because it is the question that matters and the one most trade websites blur: the Michigan residential builder licence is not held and no contractor licence is claimed or implied. Electrical and plumbing work here is repair and like-for-like replacement on what already exists — new circuits, panels, service upgrades, water-heater replacement and anything else requiring a licensed trade is referred out and named as such on the quote.
Need garage cleanup & organization quoting?
Tell us what is wrong and we will come and look — no trip charge, no call-out minimum and no diagnostic fee. You get a fixed price in writing with the exclusions listed as plainly as the inclusions, and materials at cost with the receipts attached.