Storage unit cleanout cost in Minneapolis

The short answer

Storage units price by volume, and unit size is a good predictor because people fill what they rent.

The minimum is $75 per visit. If the unit only has a few large items in it, item pricing is cheaper — a sofa is $126, a mattress and box spring set $143, a dresser $126 — and you get quoted both.

Why so many Minneapolis households have one

Two structural reasons, and they are both about this specific city.

The seasonal double. A four-season climate means every household keeps a summer set and a winter set of nearly everything — patio furniture and the snowblower, bikes and skis, screens and storm windows. The detached single-stall alley garage was built for a Model A and now has to hold a car plus two parallel inventories. The overflow goes to a storage unit.

The move gap. The moving season here is compressed into the warm months and the two big turnover dates, June 1 and the end of August. When the dates do not line up — a closing that slips, a lease that ends before the next one starts — a storage unit bridges the gap. Then it stops being a bridge and becomes a standing monthly charge.

The typical cleanout call is about a unit that has been paid for far longer than anyone intended.

Run the arithmetic on keeping it

This is the part worth doing before you book anything.

Add up what you have paid for the unit so far. Then walk it and ask, item by item, whether you would buy that thing again today at its replacement price.

For most units the answer is a small number of genuine keepers — documents, photographs, a few pieces of real furniture, seasonal gear you actually use — surrounded by a lot of things that were kept because emptying the unit was a bigger decision than paying for another month.

A one-time $431 to clear a 10x10 against an indefinite monthly charge is usually not a close call. The reason people do not do it is that the unit is across town and clearing it requires a truck and a Saturday, which is exactly the friction a booked pickup removes.

Facility access, which is where these jobs go wrong

Storage cleanouts are logistically fussier than house jobs. Sort these before the day:

• Gate access. Someone with the code needs to be there, or the facility needs to be told to admit the crew. Most will not let anyone in on a phone call from you.
• Facility hours. Access hours and office hours are different. If you need the office open for anything, check both.
• Indoor versus drive-up. A drive-up unit is a ten-foot carry. An interior unit on an upper floor means a cart, a corridor and a freight elevator, which some facilities require you to book.
• Loading dock. Multi-story facilities often have one bay shared by everyone. Weekend mornings are the worst time.
• Your lock. Bring the key. It is the most common reason a crew is standing in a corridor doing nothing.

None of these change the price. All of them change how long the day takes.

Winter at a drive-up unit

Most of the drive-up facilities in this metro are on the edges — out along the highways in Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Eagan, Fridley and the industrial pockets near the river — and in winter they are exposed.

What that means in practice: the apron in front of your roll-up door has a plow ridge across it, the door track may be iced, and the aisle between rows drifts. Facilities plow the lanes but the strip directly in front of each door is usually the tenant's problem, which means nobody's.

We work year round at the same prices, with no winter surcharge. But a drive-up unit in February takes longer, and if you have any flexibility this is a job worth doing between April and October.

Interior units are the opposite — climate controlled, unaffected by the weather, and genuinely easy in January.

Worked examples with the addition shown

• 5x10 in Richfield, mostly boxes and two chairs. Quarter truck $241.
• 5x10 with furniture. Sofa $126 + mattress and box spring set $143 + dresser $126 = $395. A half truck at $431 is more, so you pay the $395.
• 10x10 after a downsize. Half truck $431, or three-quarters at $587 if it is packed to the door.
• 10x15 holding a whole household. Full truck $732.
• Partial clear, keeping the good pieces. Large junk pile $208 + 10 bags of debris $132 = $340.
• Unit with one real item left. Upright piano $290 on its own.

Plain addition of published rates. Carry from an interior unit down a corridor and a freight elevator is included, with no long-carry fee.

Sorting on site, and what cannot go

Most storage cleanouts are not pure disposal. The crew works with you: keep, donate, dispose, sorted at the unit so the keepers go in your car and the rest goes in the truck.

Usable furniture and household goods get routed to donation where there is a taker, at no change to your price. Storage units often hold better-condition furniture than houses do, because it has been sitting rather than being used.

What cannot go in the truck: paint, solvents, fuel, propane cylinders, car batteries and automotive fluids. These turn up in storage units more often than they should, since facilities prohibit them and people put them in anyway. They go to a Hennepin County household hazardous waste drop-off.

One more thing to do before the day — open every box that could hold documents. Storage units are where tax records, deeds, titles and photographs end up, and once a load is gone it is gone.

Frequently asked questions