How to get rid of a mattress in Cleveland

The short answer

If you live in the City of Cleveland, the free route is bulk week: the first full week of each month, on your regular trash day, wrapped in plastic, counted as one of your three bulk items. If you live in Lakewood, Parma, Euclid, Shaker Heights or Cleveland Heights, your suburb has its own version of that rule. If you want it gone this week and carried out of the bedroom, a JunkRabbit pickup is $103 for a queen and $114 for a king, with the order minimum at $100.

Option 1: City of Cleveland bulk week

The City collects bulk items only during the first full week of each month, on the day your trash already goes out. Each home gets up to three bulk items per month. A mattress counts as one. A box spring counts as another.

The catch that trips people up: mattresses and cloth furniture have to be wrapped in plastic. An unwrapped mattress on the tree lawn is not what the program accepts.

Bulk week works well when three things line up:

• It is actually the first full week of the month, or close to it.
• You can get the mattress down from the second floor of a double, through the side door and out to the tree lawn yourself.
• You do not have more than three bulky things going out that month.

Miss the week, and the mattress sits in the hallway or garage for most of a month. In a two-family house where the upstairs tenant is moving out on the 20th, that is the common problem.

Option 2: Your suburb's rule

Bulk rules change the moment you cross a city line. The versions we have checked:

• Lakewood: mattresses, box springs and upholstered furniture must be wrapped and sealed in plastic. The city sells bags for $3 at its Drop-Off on Berea Road. Set-outs go on the tree lawn between 6 pm and 6 am around your collection day, and improper set-outs carry a minimum $100 fee.
• Parma (Rumpke): bulk goes out with weekly trash, but mattresses and box springs must be wrapped in sealable plastic.
• Euclid (Kimble): mattresses must be double wrapped in plastic and sealed with duct tape.
• Cleveland Heights: four items per pick-up on a rotating route, fabric items wrapped in plastic, extra items $10 each up to ten.
• Shaker Heights: bulk by request only, up to three items per pickup, placed on the driveway, mattresses wrapped.

Elsewhere in Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain or Medina, check your own city's service page before you drag anything out.

Option 3: Drive it to a drop-off

City of Cleveland residents can use the Ridge Road Transfer Station at 3727 Ridge Rd, open Monday to Saturday, 9 to 3, free for residents with a limit of 4 cubic yards per visit. The Carr Center at 5600 Carnegie Ave is the other residents-only drop-off.

The honest math: a queen mattress does not go in a hatchback. You need a pickup or a van, rope or straps, and someone to help you get it off the second floor. Weekday hours of 9 to 3 also mean most people go on Saturday.

Option 4: Sell or give it away

A clean, recent mattress in a plastic cover sometimes finds a taker. A ten-year-old one rarely does. Most charities are cautious about used mattresses, so call before you load it. Be straight with anyone picking it up about stains, sagging and pets.

If nobody bites in a few days, move to one of the other options before the next bulk week passes.

Option 5: A flat-price pickup

The order minimum is $100, so a twin on its own ($82) is billed at the $100 minimum. Add the frame and it is $82 + $68 = $150. A queen set plus a metal frame is $143 + $68 = $211.

No plastic wrap needed, no tree lawn, no bulk-week calendar. The crew carries it from the bedroom, the attic room or the basement, any floor, with no stairs fee. You pick a 2-hour arrival window, and same-day pickup is available when you book by 4 PM.

Which one fits your situation

Use bulk week if it is the first full week, you have a plastic bag, and the mattress is your only bulky item. That is a perfectly good choice.

Use Ridge Road if you already have a truck and a free Saturday morning.

Book a pickup if any of these is true:

• The mattress is upstairs in a double and the stairwell has a turn in it.
• The move-out date falls in the third week of the month.
• You have more than three bulky items and the bulk-week cap will not cover them.
• It is January in the Heights and the tree lawn is under a foot of lake-effect snow.

For the rules behind all of this, see mattress disposal rules in Cleveland.

A note on bed bugs

If you suspect bed bugs, bag the mattress in the room before it moves through the house. In a two-family home, the stairwell is often shared, and dragging an unwrapped mattress down it can carry the problem to the other unit. Tell the crew when you book. The price does not change: a queen is still $103.

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