Sellwood-Moreland
Basement Cleanout in
Sellwood-Moreland
The unfinished basement under your Craftsman or Foursquare has been filling up for thirty years — soft boxes, a warped dresser, paint cans, the shelving nobody emptied. We clear the whole thing, carry every piece up the basement stairs ourselves, and because you're in Antique Row's backyard, we set aside anything worth saving and route it to donation or consignment with a receipt. Flat truck-fill pricing from $241, same-week scheduling, and no Oregon sales tax.
Why the Sellwood basement fills up — and how we empty it
Sellwood-Moreland (97202) sits on old-Portland family stock: Craftsman bungalows and Foursquares, most of them over a full, unfinished basement with a detached garage in back. Unlike the slab-built Sun Belt, these houses give you a whole floor below grade to fill — and over a few decades, people do. The holiday bins multiply, a bookshelf warps in the damp, the kids' old furniture comes to rest down there, and every "we'll deal with it later" box settles into the corner. Then a reason arrives to finally deal with it: a sale, a downsizing, a leaking pipe, a parent's home, or simply wanting the room back for an ADU or a workshop. That's when the basement cleanout becomes a real project — and it's the one we do best here.
A basement clear is a different animal from a curbside haul. Everything has to come up a narrow, often turning staircase, half of it has gone soft or musty in the Pacific-Northwest damp, and somewhere in the pile is a piece that might actually be worth something. We handle all three. Our crew empties the space top to bottom, carries it up the stairs so you never touch a box, and leaves the floor swept — one flat truck-fill price 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 Sellwood basement cleanout includes
- The full unfinished basement — shelving, workbench, boxes, old furniture, and the accumulated everything, emptied and swept.
- The attic — decades of stored boxes and forgotten furniture brought down before a listing 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 warped dresser, carried up the stairs by the crew.
- The keepers, sorted out — resellable and Antique-Row-worthy pieces set aside for donation or consignment with a receipt.
Sellwood basement cleanout pricing
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 Sellwood basement
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| City bulky-waste pickup | Per item + $18 trip, each time | 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 your address's franchised garbage hauler, is built to grab a few individual items from the curb — a couch here, a mattress there — priced per item plus an $18 trip fee, with up to a seven-day wait. It was never meant to empty a basement. To use it for one you'd have to itemize dozens of pieces, pay a fee on each, haul every single one up the stairs and out to the curb yourself, and likely stage it across several pickups over several weeks. For a damp basement packed with thirty years of soft boxes and heavy furniture, that's not a solution — it's the whole problem restated.
A truck-fill cleanout is the opposite. We come once, our crew does all the up-the-stairs carrying, we sort the keepers from the compost as we go, and you get one flat price for the entire basement instead of a growing tally of per-item fees — with no tax on the total and the good pieces routed to donation with a receipt.
"Wait — is any of this worth something?"
In most neighborhoods that's a throwaway line. In Sellwood-Moreland, home of Antique Row on SE 13th, it's a fair question — the basements here really do turn up mid-century furniture, old tools, glassware, and pieces with a resale life left in them. So we treat the sorting as part of the job, not an afterthought. As we clear, we set aside anything that could resell, route usable furniture and household goods to Goodwill of the Columbia Willamette, Community Warehouse, or the Habitat for Humanity ReStore — or onto a consignment path if it's genuinely Antique-Row-worthy — and hand you a donation receipt for the tax 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 gets recycled. What's left after all of that is the only part that sees a landfill — which keeps the disposal honest and the flat price flat.
The stair-carry, handled
The reason a basement cleanout is worth paying for is the staircase. A century-old Sellwood basement is reached by a steep, narrow, sometimes turning flight, and everything you want gone has to travel up it — a warped dresser, a cast-iron laundry sink, a soggy box that's ready to give out at the bottom. We plan the route from your photos, bring enough crew for the heavy pieces, protect the stair treads and door frames on the way up, and take the awkward items apart when the turn demands it. It's the same care we bring to a detached-garage clear out back or an attic that has to be emptied down a pull-down ladder. You point at what stays; we carry out everything else.
When Sellwood neighbors book a basement cleanout
- Selling the house — the basement and attic have to be empty and swept before the listing photos.
- Downsizing a parent's home — a lifetime of storage cleared with care, the good pieces donated with a receipt.
- Reclaiming the space — turning the basement back into a workshop, a rec room, or the start of an ADU.
- After water gets in — a leak or a wet winter ruins the boxes below grade and they all have to go.
- An estate or move — an executor or a mover who needs the whole lower level cleared on a schedule.
Why Sellwood 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 or attic 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 or consigned 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 southeast.
What Sellwood-Moreland customers say
"Full basement under our Moreland Foursquare, packed since the '90s and half of it damp. They carried every box up the stairs, pulled out a few pieces for donation and gave me the receipt, and swept it clean. One flat price, no tax."
"Clearing my mom's Sellwood bungalow before we sold. Basement, attic, and the garage — they were patient about it, routed the good furniture to Community Warehouse, and quoted the whole thing flat from photos. Kind crew."
"We wanted the basement back to build an ADU. Old freezer, a warped dresser, decades of boxes — freon handled, everything carried up the narrow stairs, gone in one morning. Exactly the quote."
Sellwood basement cleanout questions, answered
How much does a basement cleanout cost in Sellwood?
Truck-fill and photo-quoted: quarter $241, half $431, three-quarter $587, full basement $732. Single pieces are priced 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.
Can you clear a full unfinished basement, not just a few items?
Yes — the whole space, emptied and swept, carried up the stairs by us. It prices as truck-fill, so you pay for the volume, not by the hour.
The boxes are damp and some are moldy — will you still take them?
Yes. Mildewed cardboard, water-stained furniture, and musty storage are exactly what we expect in a century-old basement, and they haul at no extra charge.
This is Antique Row — can you route the good stuff to donation or consignment?
Yes. We set aside anything resellable, route usable pieces to Goodwill, Community Warehouse, or a consignment path, and hand you a donation receipt. Only the truly finished gets recycled or disposed.
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 Sellwood-Moreland and the close-in southeast. 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.
Upload Photos & Get Your QuotePrefer texting? 💬 Text (971) 375-4285 — send a photo, get the price.