Junk Removal in Lancaster, PA

Lancaster is an old city, and the housing shows it. The Census Bureau counts 53.8 percent of the City's homes as built before 1940 and about 71 percent before 1960. Only about 1 in 9 is a single-family detached house; the rest are attached homes and apartments. For a cleanout, that translates to narrow staircases, shared walls and basements you reach by one set of steps. There's no backing a truck up to the garage door. Everything leaves by hand, one carry at a time.^[4]

A little over half of city households rent (51.4 percent), and the median resident is 32. Leases end, tenants leave things behind, and landlords need a unit empty before the next one moves in. A mattress here and a dresser there is easy. A whole apartment of abandoned furniture is a different afternoon.^[4]

Neighboring Lancaster Township looks different on paper. Its median home dates to 1968, about 43 percent of homes are single-family detached, and nearly 23 percent of residents are 65 or older. More detached houses usually means more garages, sheds and yards to clear, and an older population means more downsizing moves.^[5]

The City provides weekly curbside trash and recycling through a city contract. A household can put out up to six 32-gallon bags or cans a week, each no heavier than 30 pounds.^[6][7]

Big things get one slot a week. Each residential unit can set out a single oversized item, such as a sofa, a stuffed chair, a mattress and box spring set, or a carpet roll no wider than 4 feet, and it can't weigh more than two people can lift into the truck. Use that slot and your regular trash drops to four containers for the week.^[6]

That system works for a recliner. It wasn't built for a basement. One big piece a week means a houseful of furniture takes months to set out, and anything too heavy for two people never qualifies at all.