How to get rid of a mattress in Sacramento

The short answer

Flat prices, carried out from wherever the bed is:

Note the set. Booked as two separate items a queen and a box spring is $103 + $92 = $195. The set price is $143. Book it as a set.

Why mattresses are the thing that gets dumped

Drive an alley in Oak Park, Del Paso Heights or the back of the numbered streets in Midtown after the first of the month and you will see one leaning against a fence. They are bulky, they do not fold, they do not fit in a sedan, and they are the one item where every free route has a condition attached.

They also do not survive Sacramento storage. A mattress stood up in a garage through July and August in this valley does not come back. The foam breaks down, the glue lets go, and anything that was borderline reusable in June is waste by September.

The free and cheap routes, and their catches

• Statewide recycling drop-off. California runs a mattress recycling program with participating collection sites, and some transfer stations take them under it. Check which sites near you participate, what they accept and how many units per visit before you load anything. You still have to get it there.
• Municipal bulky pickup. Your city or county bulk-item page will tell you whether mattresses are included, how many pickups a year you get and how far out the schedule runs. The schedule is the catch, not the rules.
• Retailer haul-away. If a new bed is being delivered, ask about removal of the old one when you order, not on delivery day. Delivery crews will not improvise.
• Donation. Most charities in this metro will not take used mattresses at all, and the ones that will want no stains, no sag, no odor and a legally required label still attached.

The Sacramento timing problem

Everything above works fine in February. In May it does not.

Sac State empties out along Folsom Boulevard and through the apartment blocks in La Riviera and Tahoe Park. Davis turns over at almost the same moment. Every free mattress route in the region gets a queue on top of it, and the property manager wants the unit clear by the 31st regardless.

If you are inside two weeks of a lease end, book a slot rather than hoping for a free one. A twin at $82 is not the expensive part of a move-out.

Getting it out of the building

On the grid, the bedroom is usually upstairs and the staircase turns. A queen bends enough to make it. A box spring does not, which is why box springs end up sawn in half in Midtown apartment hallways with more regularity than anybody admits.

In the garden apartment blocks in Arden-Arcade, Natomas and along Watt Avenue, the problem is the exterior stair and the breezeway. Manageable, but not alone, and not at 4pm in August.

Under flat pricing, none of that changes the number. A queen is $103 on the ground floor of a Pocket-Greenhaven ranch and $103 out of a second-floor unit off Howe Avenue with a switchback stair.

Bed bugs and what to do about them

If you suspect them, say so when you book. It changes how the item is wrapped and handled, not the price. What it should change on your end is the DIY plan: dragging a suspect mattress through a shared breezeway and into a rental van is how a one-unit problem becomes a building problem.

Seal it, label it, get it out in one move, do not store it in the garage first.

Worked examples

Guest room in an East Sac bungalow. Mattress and Box Spring Set $143 + Bed Frame (Standard) $68 = $211.

Kids' room in Elk Grove, both beds going. Bunk Bed $123 + Mattress, Twin $82 + Mattress, Twin $82 = $287. That is above the quarter-truck rate of $241, so it books at $241.

One mattress from a Midtown studio. Mattress, Queen $103. Above the $75 minimum, so $103 is the visit.

How to book it

Tell us the size, whether there is a box spring, whether the frame is going too, and which floor it is on. The total comes back before a truck leaves the yard, and the crew brings the plastic.

In July and August, take the early slot. Carrying a king down an exterior stair in Citrus Heights at 3pm in a triple-digit week is a worse plan than getting up at seven.

Frequently asked questions