Portland
Basement Cleanout in
Portland
Here's the thing the Sun Belt cities don't have: Portland's old houses have real basements — full, unfinished, and holding thirty years of damp storage. Emptying one is the signature Portland job, and it's the one we do best. We clear the whole space, carry every piece up the basement stairs ourselves, add on the attic and the detached garage, and route the good stuff to donation. Flat truck-fill pricing from $241, same-week scheduling, and no Oregon sales tax on the total.
Portland has basements — which is why this is our signature job
Search "basement cleanout" in most Sun Belt metros and you'll come up empty, because their houses are built on slabs. Portland is different. The city's early-1900s to mid-century housing stock — the Old-Portland Foursquares, the Craftsman bungalows, the Tudors on the leafy NE and SE blocks — was built over full, unfinished basements, usually with a detached garage out back for good measure. That gives a Portland home an entire floor below grade to fill, and across a few decades of family life, it fills: holiday bins, the kids' outgrown furniture, a warping bookshelf, cases of who-knows-what, and every box labeled "deal with later." Then a reason to finally deal with it shows up — a sale, a downsize, a parent's estate, a burst pipe, or a plan to turn the space back into something useful.
That's the job, and it's genuinely different from a curbside haul. A basement clear means everything has to come up a narrow, often turning staircase; a good share of it has gone soft and musty in the Pacific-Northwest damp; and buried somewhere in the pile is a piece that might actually be worth saving. We handle all three at once — emptying the space top to bottom, carrying it up the stairs so you never touch a box, and sorting the keepers as we go. It prices as one flat truck-fill that already covers the labor, the sorting, the donation runs and the disposal, with no hourly meter and no tax line, because Oregon doesn't have one.
What a Portland basement cleanout includes
- The full unfinished basement — shelving, the workbench, boxes, old furniture, and the accumulated everything, emptied and swept.
- The attic — decades of stored boxes and forgotten furniture brought down before a sale or a downsize.
- The detached garage — tools, tires, lumber, paint, and the overflow that migrated out of the house.
- Damp & moldy storage — mildewed cardboard, water-stained mattresses, and musty furniture, handled without fuss.
- Heavy & awkward pieces — an old chest freezer, a cast-iron sink, a broken-down washer, carried up the stairs by the crew.
- The keepers, sorted out — resellable furniture and goods set aside for donation with a tax receipt.
How much does a basement cleanout cost in Portland?
A basement or attic clear prices as truck-fill — you pay for how much space it takes, quoted flat from your photos. The carry-up, the sorting, the donation runs and the disposal are already in it.
| Volume / Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Truck-fill — quarter | $241 |
| Truck-fill — half | $431 |
| Truck-fill — three-quarter | $587 |
| Full basement (truck-fill full) | $732 |
| Sofa / couch | $126 |
| Dresser (standard) | $126 |
| Bookshelf | $72 |
| Refrigerator / chest freezer | $164 / $146 |
| Queen mattress + box spring | $103 / $92 |
$75 minimum. Disposal included; usable pieces donated with a receipt. No Oregon sales tax — the flat price is the total. Freon is recovered on old fridges and freezers at no extra charge.
3 ways to clear a Portland basement
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| City bulky-waste pickup | Per item + $18 trip, each batch | Up to 7 days per batch | Curbside and per-item — you carry every piece up the stairs and out to the curb, and it can't empty a basement in one go |
| Self-haul to Metro | ~$37+ minimum + $30 fee per load | Several weekends | You rent a truck and make load after load; a full basement is many trips of heavy, damp boxes |
| JunkRabbit truck-fill | From $241 flat, no tax | Same week, one visit | None — photo quote, we carry it all up, sort the keepers, and sweep |
City bulky-item pricing is per the local franchised-hauler program; a truck-fill cleanout empties the whole space in one visit instead of piece by piece.
Does Portland pick up a basement's worth of junk?
Not in any way that helps with a real cleanout. Portland's residential bulky-waste program, run through the franchised garbage hauler tied to your address, is designed to grab a few individual items from the curb — one couch, one mattress — priced per item plus an $18 trip fee, with up to a seven-day wait each time. It was never meant to empty a floor. To use it for a basement you'd have to itemize dozens of pieces, pay a fee on each, haul every one up the stairs and out to the curb yourself, and stage it across several pickups over several weeks. For a damp basement packed with decades of soft boxes and heavy furniture, that isn't a solution — it's the problem restated at the curb.
A truck-fill cleanout flips it. We come once, our crew does all the up-the-stairs carrying, we separate the keepers from the compost as we work, and you get one flat price for the whole basement instead of a mounting tally of per-item fees — no tax on the total, and the good pieces routed to donation with a receipt.
Damp boxes and the stair-carry, both handled
Two things make a Portland basement worth paying someone to empty. The first is the staircase: these basements are reached by a steep, narrow, sometimes turning flight, and every last thing you want gone has to travel up it — a warped dresser, a cast-iron laundry sink, a soaked box ready to give out at the bottom. We plan the route from your photos, bring enough crew for the heavy pieces, protect the treads and door frames on the way up, and take the awkward items apart when the turn demands it. The second is the damp. This is rain country, and a century-old basement below grade holds moisture — so mildewed cardboard, moss-touched furniture, water-stained mattresses and musty storage are the norm, not the exception. We haul all of it without flinching and at no extra charge. It's the same care we bring to an attic emptied down a pull-down ladder or a detached garage cleared out back.
Clearing the basement for an ADU
Portland's pro-ADU policies have created a job almost nobody markets for: homeowners who want to convert the basement — or the old backyard cottage and detached garage — into an accessory dwelling, and first need every bit of stored junk out of the way. We do exactly that part. Before the contractor, the plumber, or the permit inspector arrives, we empty the space down to bare walls, carry decades of accumulation up and out, sweep it, and hand it back ready to build. Whether it's a full basement conversion in a Foursquare, a detached-garage-to-studio in a bungalow belt, or clearing a rentable in-law suite, the cleanout is the first honest step — and it's one flat truck-fill price with the good stuff donated and no tax on the total.
Where it all goes
Portland cares where things end up, and diverting also keeps our price honest — so the sort is part of the job. Resellable furniture and household goods are routed to donation through Goodwill of the Columbia Willamette, Community Warehouse, or the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, with a donation receipt for the write-off. Old mattresses and box springs are recycled free under Oregon's stewardship program instead of landfilled, TVs and computers go to Oregon E-Cycles at no charge, and the metal in that old freezer or washer gets recycled. Only the true remainder — the ruined boxes, the broken-down particleboard — is disposed at Metro, which is what keeps the disposal fair and the flat price flat.
Basement cleanouts by neighborhood
The full-basement belt runs through Portland's older bungalow and Foursquare neighborhoods. We work all of them — here are a few, including our detailed neighborhood pages:
When Portland homeowners book a basement cleanout
- Selling the house — the basement and attic have to be empty and swept before the listing photos and the inspection.
- Downsizing a parent's home — a lifetime of below-grade storage cleared with care, the good pieces donated with a receipt.
- Building an ADU — clearing the basement, backyard cottage or garage down to bare walls for the conversion.
- After water gets in — a leak or a wet winter ruins the boxes below grade and they all have to go.
- An estate or a move — an executor or a mover who needs the whole lower level cleared on a schedule.
Why Portland chooses JunkRabbit for basement cleanouts
- Flat truck-fill price from a photo — you pay for the volume, quoted before we arrive; no hourly meter, no per-item tally.
- We carry it up — the entire basement, attic or garage emptied up the stairs by the crew; you lift nothing.
- Damp & moldy is no problem — musty boxes and water-stained furniture are the norm here and haul at no surcharge.
- The keepers get saved — resellable pieces donated with a tax receipt, mattresses and e-waste recycled free.
- No Oregon sales tax — the cleanest total you'll get, with same-week scheduling across the metro.
What Portland customers say
"Our Irvington Foursquare had a full basement packed since the '80s, half of it gone musty. They carried every box up that narrow staircase, set aside pieces for donation with a receipt, and swept it out. One flat price, no tax."
"We're converting the basement into an ADU and needed it cleared to bare walls first. Old freezer, decades of boxes, a workbench — freon handled, all of it up the stairs, done in a morning. Exactly the quote from photos."
"Clearing my dad's Eastmoreland house before the sale — basement, attic, and the detached garage all at once. Patient crew, routed the good furniture to Community Warehouse, quoted the whole thing flat. No sales tax at the end."
Basement cleanout questions, answered
How much does a basement cleanout cost in Portland?
Truck-fill and photo-quoted: quarter $241, half $431, three-quarter $587, full basement $732. Single pieces too — a sofa $126, a dresser $126, a refrigerator $164. $75 minimum, carry-up, sorting, donation and disposal included, and no Oregon sales tax on the total.
Portland really has basements?
Yes — unlike LA, Dallas or Houston, Portland's older Foursquare and Craftsman stock sits over full basements, so basement cleanouts are one of the most common jobs we do. Carrying it up a narrow staircase is the whole point of the service.
The boxes are damp and some are moldy — will you take them?
Yes. Mildewed cardboard, water-stained furniture and musty storage are exactly what we expect in a century-old Portland basement, and they haul at no extra charge.
Can you clear the basement so we can build an ADU?
Yes — we empty the basement or detached garage down to bare walls, carry it all up and out, and hand it back swept and ready for the contractor.
Does the City of Portland pick up a whole basement's worth of junk?
No — the bulky-waste program is curbside and per-item, so you'd pay per piece, drag each one up and out yourself, and wait up to seven days. A truck-fill cleanout empties it in one visit, carried up for you, for one flat price.
How soon can you come?
Same-week scheduling is usually available across Portland and the close-in metro. Send a few photos of the basement for the exact flat price.
Ready to Get It Gone?
Send a photo and get one flat price back in seconds — carry-out, hauling and disposal are all in it.
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