Landlord Turnover Cleanouts in Los Angeles

Two very different turnover jobs

The first is the ordinary one. A tenant of two or three years leaves behind a sofa, a mattress, a bookcase and a bag of odds and ends. That is a small or medium load, it clears in under two hours, and the unit is ready for paint the same day.

The second is specific to Los Angeles's housing stock. A rent-stabilized unit where the same household has lived since the eighties or nineties turns over, and what is left is not a pile — it is thirty years of accumulated furniture, layered closets, a storage cage in the garage, and a balcony that became a second closet. Those are volume jobs, frequently more than one load, and they need to be scoped before they are scheduled.

Priced by volume, quoted before the crew leaves

Turnovers are almost always better on volume than on items. A small junk pile is $82, a medium is $129 and a large is $208. The truck-fill ladder runs a quarter at $241, three-eighths at $338, a half at $431, five-eighths at $513, three-quarters at $587, seven-eighths at $661 and a full truck at $732.

Loose debris from a strip-out has its own bag pricing, which is often the cleaner way to quote a unit that has been emptied into sacks: 10 bags is $132, 15 bags is $196, 20 bags is $259, 25 bags is $390, 30 bags is $385, 40 bags is $449 and 50 bags is $575. A single contractor bag is $41.

The number is fixed before anyone drives out, which matters when you are the one signing off on the invoice rather than the one standing in the unit.

The items in almost every LA turnover

A sofa is $126, a loveseat is $119, a queen mattress is $103, a box spring is $92, a standard dresser is $126, a nightstand is $57, a standard desk is $83 and a particleboard bookcase is $100. A TV between 42 and 65 inches is $68.

Appliances turn over too when a tenant installed their own: a washer is $133, a dryer is $128, a mini fridge is $115, a window AC unit is $87 small or $109 large, and a portable AC is $85. Window units are the classic LA leave-behind, because most of this city's pre-1980 rental stock has no central air and every tenant buys their own.

A typical two-year turnover — sofa, queen mattress, box spring and a dresser — is $126 + $103 + $92 + $126 = $447.

Carpet and the paint-ready unit

If the turnover includes flooring, that is priced separately and it is usually worth doing in the same visit rather than leaving rolls in the unit for a week. Carpet removal is $71 per room, and rolled carpet already pulled is $68. A bathroom vanity is $69, a detached toilet is $64, a medicine cabinet is $41 and an interior door is $41.

Clearing furniture and flooring in one appointment is what gets a unit to paint-ready in a day instead of three, and in a market where a week of vacancy has a real number attached to it, that sequencing is the actual saving.

Document everything if you are charging the deposit

If any of this is coming out of a security deposit, the documentation has to be in place before the removal, not after. Photograph every room with the items in it, timestamped. Keep the itemized invoice — an itemized flat-price invoice reads far better in a dispute than a lump sum for a fraction of a truck, because every line can be checked against a published catalog.

California has specific requirements around deposit accounting and timelines, and they are not something to take from an article. Check the current official state guidance or your own counsel before deducting.

Scheduling around the building

Los Angeles buildings impose their own constraints. Dingbats and courtyard buildings have no elevator, so a third-floor unit takes longer than a ground-floor one — same price, more time. Tuck-under parking means the truck often cannot get close, and the load walks to the street.

Managed high-rises in Downtown, Marina del Rey, Century City and along the Wilshire Corridor want a freight elevator reservation and a certificate of insurance before a crew enters. Request the COI when you book so it is on file rather than discovered on the morning. And if the building has an alley — common behind Hollywood and Koreatown buildings — say so, because alley access is faster than street access every time.

Portfolio owners and repeat turnover

If you run several buildings across the county, the operational problem is not price, it is coordination. Los Angeles is about seventy miles across and a crew that is in Long Beach at noon is not in Pasadena at one.

Two things help. Batch turnovers in the same area into the same day where the calendar allows, and send photos of each unit in advance so every load is quoted and sequenced before the truck leaves the yard. That is how a three-unit day stays a three-unit day.

What is included

Labor, carry-out from any floor, disassembly where a bed frame or a bookcase has to come apart to clear a 1920s doorway, transport, and disposal or recycling. No stair charge, no long-carry fee, no hillside surcharge and no same-day surcharge.

Priced separately: paint at $30 for a one-gallon can and $52 for a five-gallon bucket, a 20-pound propane tank at $33, and tires at $22 each or $87 for a set of four. Tenants leave all three behind more often than you would expect.

Frequently asked questions