The short answer
Hurricane season runs June through November, and it splits junk removal in this city into two completely different jobs.
Before: you need garage space. Everything loose in the yard — patio furniture, the grill, the potted plants, the kids' basketball hoop — has to come inside when a storm enters the cone, and in a city with no basements the garage is the only place it can go. If the garage is full of a treadmill and forty boxes, you have a problem the forecast will not wait for.
After: you need volume. Water gets in, humidity does the rest, and the contents of a garage or a lanai go from stored to ruined in about forty-eight hours.
Half truck $431. Full truck $732. Large junk pile $208. Minimum visit $75. Same prices in September as in March — there is no storm-week surcharge.
Do the prep job in April or May
Not in June, when the first system is already being tracked. Not in August, when it is a hundred degrees with the humidity to match and the afternoon thunderstorms start at three.
April and May are the workable months. The weather is tolerable, the garage is not yet an emergency, and you are making a decision rather than reacting to one.
The target is simple: enough clear floor in the garage to fit everything that lives outside. For most Bay area houses that means clearing at least one bay. A half truck at $431 will usually do it. A three-quarter truck at $587 does a two-car garage that has not been touched in a decade.
The things that most often go: the treadmill at $115, the elliptical at $97, the home gym at $241, the portable basketball hoop at $115, the second refrigerator at $164 if it is not actually running, and the shelf of boxes that humidity has already softened.
What comes inside, and what it costs to not have room
The standard Tampa pre-storm list, priced as removal items in case you decide they are not worth storing at all:
- Patio table $89, patio chairs $30 each, chaise lounge $93
- Charcoal grill $59, propane grill $71 — the cylinder goes to household hazardous waste, not on a truck
- Portable basketball hoop $115
- Bicycles $37 each
- Cat tree, planters, bins and the rest — small junk pile $82, medium $129, large $208
A lot of people discover at exactly the wrong moment that a four-chair patio set at $89 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 = $209 is furniture they have not sat on in two years and are now risking their back to drag into a garage at nine at night. If that is your set, the honest move is to price it in May.
Screen enclosures and lanais
The screened pool enclosure is the most storm-exposed structure on a Tampa property. Panels tear, framing bends, and the cage catches everything that blows through the neighborhood.
Before the season, get the cage clear: no loose furniture, no umbrellas, nothing light enough to lift. Anything left inside a cage in high wind becomes a projectile that takes out the screen from the inside.
After a storm, the cage is often the first big clean-up. Torn screen panels, bent aluminum, wrecked furniture, and whatever blew in from three houses away. That is construction debris at $120, or bagged: 10 bags $132, 20 bags $259, 30 bags $385. If there is a hot tub in there that has been sitting unused anyway, it is $322 and this is the moment.
After the water: what is actually salvageable
Be quick and be ruthless, because in this climate the clock is short.
Anything porous that took on water — upholstered furniture, mattresses, rugs, cardboard, particleboard furniture, insulation — needs to be out fast. At Tampa humidity, with the power possibly still off and the air conditioning not running, mold establishes in a matter of days, not weeks. A sofa that got wet at the base is not drying out in a closed garage in September.
Priced: sofa $126, loveseat $119, queen mattress $103, mattress and box spring set $143, large area rug $68, rolled carpet $68, carpet removal per room $71.
Solid wood, metal, glass and plastics usually clean up. Photographs and documents can sometimes be saved if you get to them in the first day or two. Everything with foam in it is generally finished.
The garage freezer after a multi-day outage
Specific, grim, and extremely common in this metro.
Almost every older Tampa house has a second fridge or a chest freezer in the garage. After a multi-day power outage in summer heat, the contents of that freezer are a serious problem — and the smell does not come out of the unit afterwards. People try. It does not work.
Empty and bag the contents before anyone comes, and run the unit's drain out. Then: chest freezer $146, upright freezer $149, standard fridge $164, side-by-side or French door $183. Refrigerant is handled as part of the job, with no surcharge.
If yours survived, buy a freezer thermometer before next June. It is the cheapest thing on this page.
What we cannot take from a storm cleanup
Some of what a storm generates is not junk-truck material.
- Fuel and propane. Generator gas cans, propane cylinders, stabiliser — household hazardous waste, at your county's collection site.
- Chemicals. Pool chemicals in particular. Degraded chlorine products stored in a hot garage are dangerous to consolidate; take them as they are.
- Vegetative debris at scale. Downed limbs and yard waste are usually collected separately after a storm, and jurisdictions generally want storm debris sorted into categories. Check what your city or county is collecting and how they want it separated before you build a pile.
Household furniture, appliances, electronics, soaked boxes and ruined carpet are exactly what we do take, and mixing them into a vegetative pile can hold up the whole street's collection.
Prices do not move in storm weeks
The ten days after a system passes the Bay area are our busiest of the year. South Tampa, Shore Acres, the Pinellas beaches, the low-lying parts of Ruskin and Apollo Beach — everybody wants the same thing at the same time.
Our numbers do not change for it. A large junk pile is $208. A half truck is $431. A full truck is $732. Twenty bags of debris is $259. Whether you call in the calm of February or the week after an evacuation order lifts, it is the same published list.
Book early in that window rather than late, and be honest about volume when you do, so the right truck comes the first time.
Frequently asked questions
When should I clear my garage for hurricane season in Tampa?
April or May. The weather is workable and you are not racing a forecast. A half truck at $431 usually recovers enough floor space to fit everything that has to come in from the yard.
Do you charge more in the week after a storm?
No. There is no surge pricing and no storm-week rate. Large junk pile $208, half truck $431, full truck $732, all year.
Can you take storm debris?
We take the household side — soaked furniture, mattresses, ruined carpet, boxes, appliances, screen-enclosure debris. Vegetative debris and yard waste are usually collected separately after a storm, and jurisdictions want the categories sorted, so check your city or county's guidance first.
My garage freezer was off for four days. What now?
Empty and bag the contents, then price the unit. A chest freezer is $146, an upright $149, a standard fridge $164. The smell generally does not come out afterwards, which is why most get replaced.
Can you take my generator fuel cans and propane?
No. Fuel, propane cylinders and pool chemicals are household hazardous waste and go to your county's HHW collection. Do not consolidate degraded pool chemicals to save a trip.
Is wet upholstery worth drying out?
In this climate, almost never. With high humidity and possibly no air conditioning running, mold establishes in porous material within days. A sofa is $126 and a queen mattress $103 — get them out fast rather than hoping.