Sofas, sectionals, beds, dressers, desks and patio sets removed from Santa Monica apartments, condos and houses, carried out rather than left at a curb.
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Santa Monica runs its own bulky collection, capped at five items per pickup and three free pickups a year, and crews will not step onto private property. Furniture removal here therefore covers the carry the city skips: down the stair, along the courtyard, out to the alley. Quoted free upfront.
Santa Monica runs its own waste system, so furniture removal here works nothing like it does across the city line in Los Angeles. The city's Resource Recovery and Recycling Division collects bulky items Monday through Friday for both residential and commercial customers, but with a hard ceiling: a maximum of five items per collection, three free pickups per year, and anything beyond that billed at the rate effective July 1, 2025 of $253.37 per hour with a one-hour minimum. You request it by emailing 311@santamonica.gov or calling (866) 311-7266, you are asked to allow 7 to 10 days, and the items must already be at the front curb or in the alley behind the property and clearly labeled for city pick-up — because, in the city's own words, city crews do not come onto private property. Los Angeles Junk Removal & Hauling covers exactly what that program does not: the carry from inside the unit, the count above five, and the deadline that does not fit a 7 to 10 day window. The quote is free and upfront.
Almost every Santa Monica furniture call comes down to one of two numbers. Either there are more than five pieces, or the piece in question is on the second floor of a building with an outside stair and the city was never going to come and get it anyway.
That is not a criticism of the city program, which is well run and genuinely free three times a year. It is a description of where it ends. What we clear across the city is on junk removal in Santa Monica, and the county-wide service is on furniture removal.
Santa Monica is an independent city with its own Public Works department, and its Resource Recovery and Recycling Division operates out of the City Yard at 2500 Michigan Avenue. It is not LA Sanitation, it does not run the S.A.F.E. centers, and none of the City of Los Angeles rules apply here. What it runs instead is a bulky item collection Monday through Friday, available to both residential and commercial customers, for large items that do not fit into a refuse container.
The published parameters are specific and worth reading before you move anything. A maximum of five items will be picked up per collection. Three free pickups are available per year. If you have used your three, or you have more than five items in a single pickup, the additional items are collected at the rate effective July 1, 2025 of $253.37 per hour with a one-hour minimum. Examples the city names are mattresses, furniture, large appliances, and tree trimmings bundled no longer than three feet and no heavier than ten pounds, limited to four bundles. Construction debris and hazardous waste are not collected as part of the process at all.
The request itself is straightforward. You move the items to the front curb or to the alley behind your property and label them clearly for city pick-up before you call, then either email 311@santamonica.gov with your address, unit number, phone number, a description and whether the items are at the curb or in the alley, or call (866) 311-7266 with the same information. Then you wait: the city asks you to allow 7 to 10 days, and it is explicit that work orders are addressed in the order received rather than by appointment.
And then the sentence that defines the whole thing. The city's own FAQ asks whether crews will pick up items from inside a house or a yard, and answers that city crews do not come onto private property, and that all items must be moved to the alley or curbside to be collected. That is the boundary. Everything on the street side of it is the city's and it is free three times a year. Everything on the house side of it — the stair, the hallway, the courtyard, the garage — is yours, and that is the part we do.
Source: City of Santa Monica, bulky and abandoned item collection. Cited in full below.
| Who collects | the City of Santa Monica's own Resource Recovery and Recycling Division, not LA Sanitation |
|---|---|
| City Yard | 2500 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica 90404 |
| Collection days | Monday through Friday, for both residential and commercial customers |
| Item ceiling | a maximum of five items per collection |
| Free allowance | three free pickups per year |
| Beyond the allowance | additional items at the rate effective July 1, 2025 of $253.37 per hour, one-hour minimum |
| Lead time | allow 7 to 10 days; work orders are handled in the order received, not by appointment |
| How to request | email 311@santamonica.gov or call (866) 311-7266, with address, unit number, phone and a description |
| Where items must be | at the front curb or in the alley behind the property, clearly labeled for city pick-up, before you call |
| Private property | city crews do not come onto private property; all items must be moved to the alley or curbside |
| Not collected | construction debris and hazardous waste are excluded from the bulky item process |
Sources: City of Santa Monica, how to request bulky and abandoned item collection · City of Santa Monica Public Works, Resource Recovery and Recycling
Santa Monica's residential grid is alley-served across most of the city, which is why the city's own instructions name the alley before they name the curb. That is a genuine convenience: it gives a working frontage at the back of the building that is not the street, and it is why so much of the collection here happens out of sight. It is also why the alley becomes the flashpoint. A Santa Monica alley is narrow, shared with every neighbor's bins and garage doors, and frequently occupied. Put five items in it on the wrong day and you have blocked somebody's garage for a week and a half.
The building stock is the second constraint. A large share of Santa Monica's housing is apartments and condominiums, much of it two and three story walk-ups built mid-century with external stairs, a courtyard path and a narrow landing. The carry from a second-floor unit to the alley in one of those is fifty to eighty feet with a turn in it, and that is the distance the city program explicitly does not cover. North of Wilshire and in Ocean Park the pattern shifts toward small lots with subterranean or tuck-under garages, which add a posted clearance that a box truck cannot use, so the route becomes garage ramp to street on foot.
Third, parking. Preferential parking districts cover much of the residential city, street sweeping closes one side of a block on a set morning, and the commercial cores around Downtown, Main Street and Montana have metered frontage with time limits. On a one-item job none of that matters much. On a full apartment clearance it decides where the truck stands for two hours, and we check it before quoting a window rather than after.
Fourth, the buildings' own rules. Managed buildings and condominium associations here commonly want notice for a move, want the elevator padded, want a specific loading door used, and often want a certificate of insurance on file before any crew works in the building. That is all routine and all of it is much easier arranged the day before than negotiated in a lobby.
Fifth, the sea air. Santa Monica furniture that has lived on a balcony, in a carport or in an unheated garage ages faster than its equivalent inland: fixings corrode, particle board swells, and outdoor furniture frames fail at the joints. A patio set that looks intact from the door will sometimes come apart in the lift, which is worth knowing before somebody tries to carry it down a stair alone. If the furniture is part of a whole-property clearance see estate cleanouts in Santa Monica.
Tell us how many pieces and which floor. Santa Monica furniture jobs are decided by count and carry.
Free upfront quote, no obligation. One number, agreed before anything is lifted.
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Our own crews on Los Angeles County jobs. The furniture removal we run in Santa Monica looks like this too: side yards, narrow walkways and the back of the property is where the work actually is.
Furniture leaving a Santa Monica address splits four ways, and this city produces an unusually high share of the first stream. Turnover is high, tenancies in the newer stock are short, and a lot of what leaves is only a few years old and structurally sound. Clean, odor-free upholstered pieces and almost any solid wood case piece go to donation, and that decision has to be made before anything is stacked, because a sofa that has ridden under a broken table is no longer donatable.
The second stream is materials recovery: wood, particle board, metal frames, springs and glass, all separable once the fabric is off. The third is mattresses, which ride their own statewide financial system. California charges a mattress recycling fee at the point of sale on every mattress, futon and foundation — $18.00 per unit for sales on or after April 1, 2026 — administered by the nonprofit Mattress Recycling Council under CalRecycle oversight, and Los Angeles County has nearly twenty permanent no-cost collection centers funded by it.
The fourth stream is the one that surprises people, because it is not furniture. A powered recliner has a motor and a transformer. A media unit usually leaves with a television still inside it. A desk arrives with a monitor on top. All of that is universal waste under California law: the household exemption ended on February 9, 2006, banning batteries, cell phones, computers, fluorescent lamps, mercury switches and thermostats, printers, microwaves, televisions and monitors from the trash.
Santa Monica handles that fraction differently from its neighbors, and it is worth knowing. Rather than sending residents to a weekend drop-off center, the city contracts a free residential door-to-door household hazardous waste collection, booked on (877) 443-2371, which accepts electronic waste along with paints, solvents, fuels, fertilizers, fluorescent tubes, batteries, pool and photo chemicals, household cleaning chemicals and sharps, up to a maximum of 125 pounds per pickup. For a single old television that is a genuinely good free answer. For the contents of a whole apartment it is a scheduling exercise, which is where we come in.
Sources: Mattress Recycling Council, 2026 California mattress recycling fee adjustment · Los Angeles County, Mattress Recycling Program · Californians Against Waste, background on universal waste and DTSC regulations · City of Santa Monica, how to dispose of hazardous materials
Same rule in Santa Monica as anywhere else in Los Angeles County. The local part is the program above, not the disposal law. Full detail on furniture removal.
This page is furniture removal in Santa Monica specifically. The wider service is on furniture removal across Los Angeles, and everything we haul in this city is on junk removal in Santa Monica. Same crew, different job: Mattress removal in Santa Monica, Appliance removal in Santa Monica, Estate cleanouts in Santa Monica. Pricing works the same way everywhere: how our pricing works, and the full map is on areas we serve.
We are already next door most days. The whole list is on areas we serve.
Same crew, same trucks, same free upfront quote.
Recycled through a state-funded program, not dumped. Box springs and futons too.
Fridges, washers and AC units. Refrigerant units are handled as universal waste.
A full property cleared with care, on probate or move-out timelines.
Booked and cleared the same day, most days, across LA County.
TVs, CRT monitors and computers. Banned from the trash in California.
The whole garage in one visit. We sort, donate what is usable and sweep the slab.
The five-item ceiling, the alley, the property line and where the piece ends up.
Yes, within limits that are worth knowing before you start. Santa Monica gives you three free bulky pickups a year, a maximum of five items each, collected Monday to Friday, and you should allow 7 to 10 days. You email 311@santamonica.gov or call (866) 311-7266 after the items are already at the curb or in the alley and labeled for city pick-up. Beyond three pickups a year, or above five items, the city charges the rate effective July 1, 2025 of $253.37 per hour with a one-hour minimum.
No, and the city states this plainly: crews do not come onto private property, and all items must be moved to the alley or curbside to be collected. So the stair, the courtyard path, the landing and the garage are outside the program. That gap is the entire reason people call us in Santa Monica. If you can get the piece to the alley yourself and you can wait a week and a half, use the free pickup. If you cannot, we do the carry.
Eleven items is three separate city pickups spread over weeks, or one visit from us. If your deadline is soft and you are happy to stage five items in the alley, wait 7 to 10 days, then do it twice more, the city route is genuinely cheaper. If you are moving out on a date, that arithmetic collapses, because your allowance is three pickups a year and a lease end does not wait. We quote the whole clearance free upfront so you can compare properly.
Only after you have requested a collection, and only if it is labeled for city pick-up. The city's instruction is to move the items and label them before you call or email. Anything left in an alley without a request is an abandoned item, which the city will eventually remove but which in the meantime blocks a neighbor's garage and a shared access route. Santa Monica alleys are narrow and heavily used. It is worth ten minutes of planning to avoid becoming the reason somebody cannot get their car out.
Many managed buildings and condo associations here do, and it is far easier to handle the day before than in a lobby on the day. Tell us the management company, whether the building has an elevator, whether it must be padded, and which door the building wants used for loading, because it is often not the resident entrance. With those answers the job happens once. Without them you get a crew standing in a lobby waiting for somebody with a key.
It is sorted at your address. Sound, clean, odor-free pieces go to donation, and Santa Monica produces a lot of those because turnover is high and much of what leaves is only a few years old. What cannot be reused is separated into wood, metal, springs and glass. Mattresses go into the state recycling stream the purchase fee already paid for. Anything with a motor or a screen in it is universal waste, which California has banned from the trash since 2006, and it is routed accordingly.
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We needed a last min mattress removal and called these guys up and hunter came by to pick up the mattress and haul it away for a fair price and had great communication. Very friendly and quick. Callem up for any junk removal they got you 👍the rest is on Google
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Collection rules, transfer stations and permit counters change at the city line, so each of these is written for that city rather than for Santa Monica. A job that straddles two of them is still one visit and one number.
Everything we haul in the cities next door: Venice, Mar Vista, West Los Angeles. The whole list is on areas we serve.
Send a photo, get a flat number back. Free, no obligation, no pressure and no call-out fee — and if your city will haul it free instead, we will tell you that too. Most requests are answered within the hour during working hours.
