What a Storage Unit Cleanout Costs in Los Angeles

Priced by unit size

Storage cleanouts are quoted by the footprint, because the footprint is a reliable proxy for volume. A 5x5 is $226. A 5x10 is $397. A 5x15 is $539. A 10x10 is $587. A 10x15 is $880. A 10x20 is $1174. A 10x25 is $1463. A 10x30 is $1757.

Those assume a unit packed to a normal height. A half-empty 10x10 is cheaper priced as a volume load — a half truck is $431 or three-quarters is $587 — so send photos and take whichever number is lower. Both ladders are published.

Run the monthly-rent math first

Before you book anything, work out what you are paying a year to keep the unit, and compare it honestly with what is inside. Los Angeles storage rates are among the highest in the country and a mid-size unit adds up fast.

In a very large share of cases the annual rent exceeds the replacement cost of the contents, and the contents are furniture from two apartments ago, boxes that were never opened after the last move, and the dining set that did not fit in the new place. If that describes your unit, a single flat-price clearing pays for itself in months.

The LA reasons a unit exists in the first place

They are specific to this city and worth naming, because they explain what is usually inside.

The apartment was too small, which describes most of the 1920s and 1950s rental stock in Koreatown, Palms, East Hollywood and Mid-City where storage was never designed in. The garage got converted to an ADU, so everything that lived in the garage went into a unit. A household moved from a house in the Valley to a condo on the Westside and downsized in one step. Or someone came to Los Angeles for a job, stored a life somewhere else, and has been paying for it for eleven years.

The common thread is that almost nothing in the unit has been touched since it went in, which makes the sorting simpler than people fear.

Facility rules shape the day

Storage facilities are not casual places. Most have gate hours that are tighter than you expect, a gate code that has to work, and elevator or loading-dock access that other tenants are also trying to use. Many require a certificate of insurance from any contractor working on site, and several restrict which bay a truck can occupy.

Sort all of that before the appointment. Confirm the gate hours, confirm whether a COI is required and request it at booking, and if the unit is on an upper floor confirm the freight elevator is working. A crew that arrives at a facility that closes at six for a job that needs three hours is a wasted trip for everyone.

What is usually inside, priced

Furniture first: a sofa is $126, a loveseat is $119, a standard dresser is $126, a queen mattress is $103, a box spring is $92, a dining table for six to eight is $163, a particleboard bookcase is $100 and a large area rug is $68.

Then the boxes: a moving box is $31, a box of books is $45, a bag of clothes is $35, a suitcase is $30, a storage trunk or chest is $71. And the garage overflow that moved in with everything else: metal shelving is $71, a treadmill is $115, a weight set is $93, a bicycle is $37 and a kayak or paddleboard is $71.

For most units the size price is far cheaper than itemizing, which is exactly why it is published that way.

What LA storage does to the contents

Set expectations. Non-climate-controlled units in the Valley — the ones along the boulevards in Van Nuys, Sun Valley, North Hollywood and Chatsworth — get hot for months at a time. Upholstery foam dries and crumbles. Particleboard delaminates. Photographs stick together. Candles and vinyl records deform. Tape on boxes releases, so a box lifts and the bottom does not come with it.

Closer to the coast the marine layer substitutes damp for heat, and metal furniture, tools and bike components corrode. Either way, the assumption that things come out the way they went in is usually wrong, and the donation plan you were forming should be made after you open the door, not before.

Sort before the truck comes

If anything in there matters, go once on your own first. Pull the documents, the photographs, the few things with sentimental weight, and the handful of items genuinely worth selling. Put them in your car.

Then everything remaining is the load, which is easy to photograph, easy to quote and easy to clear in a single appointment. Trying to sort during the removal is how a two-hour job becomes a five-hour job in a facility that closes at six.

Closing the unit out

Clear it, sweep it, and complete whatever the facility requires to end the rental — most want the unit empty, broom-clean and formally checked out before they stop billing. A unit that is empty but not checked out is a unit you are still paying for.

Confirm the last billing date in writing. That is the step that turns a one-time cost into an actual saving.

Frequently asked questions