Every basement cleanout starts the same way: a door you avoid opening. Here's exactly what it costs, how to prep (or not), and what a Montreal basement actually looks like before and after.
Describe your basement — quarter full, half, packed wall to wall — and we'll give you a range before we ever set foot on your stairs.
Call now: (514) 295-2123
Almost every basement cleanout we do follows the same story arc. Somebody moves in with a plan to "keep the basement organized," and within two or three years it's holding decade-old holiday decorations, a treadmill nobody's touched since February 2019, four half-empty paint cans, the kids' outgrown bikes, a defunct water heater the last owner left behind, and boxes nobody remembers the contents of. It's not laziness — a basement is simply the path of least resistance in a Montreal home where storage space is at a premium and stairs discourage regular trips.
The problem shows up at the worst possible moments: a burst pipe forces you to move everything at once, a real estate agent tells you the basement is killing your listing photos, or you're finally finishing the space and need it emptied before a contractor can start. Whatever brought you here, the good news is that a basement cleanout is one of the most straightforward jobs we do, because unlike a full-house or estate cleanout, almost nothing in a basement requires an emotional decision — most of it is stuff people forgot they had.
There's also a version of this that's a little more emotionally loaded: inheriting a family home, or helping a parent downsize, where the basement turns out to be the last room anyone gets to because it's the least visible and the least urgent — until it isn't. If that's your situation, know that we treat those calls differently in pace and tone than a routine "clear my storage" job. We'll slow down if you need to go through boxes on-site, and we're not going to rush a decision on something that clearly matters to you, even while we move fast on the boxes that obviously don't.
If your basement matches two or three of these, you're squarely in normal-cleanout territory — not an outlier:
Cardboard boxes gone soft from humidity, plastic totes stacked past shoulder height, holiday decorations, outgrown kids' items, off-season clothing nobody's rotated back in years.
An old washer/dryer replaced but never removed, a broken furnace or water heater left by a previous owner, exercise equipment used twice, a workbench buried under project debris.
Half-used cans of paint, offcuts of drywall or lumber from a project finished years ago, tools that don't work, extra flooring or tile "just in case."
Boxes from the last move — or the move before that — never unpacked. Furniture from a previous apartment kept "for later." Bags of miscellaneous items nobody can identify by sight anymore.
None of this is unusual, and none of it means you need to sort through every box before calling us. We can work from either end: fully sorted with clear keep/donate/junk piles, or completely untouched, where we do the sorting on-site as part of the job.
| Basement condition | Example | Price range |
|---|---|---|
| Light clutter | A handful of boxes, one or two large items along a wall | 200$ – 400$ |
| Quarter to half full | Storage along two walls, a few pieces of furniture or equipment | 400$ – 700$ |
| Packed wall-to-wall | Full basement, floor to ceiling in places, multiple appliances or large furniture | 800$ – 1500$+ |
Prices are for Montreal, Laval, and the South Shore, and are confirmed by phone or photos before we arrive. Narrow or winding staircases, low ceiling clearance, and heavy single items (a piano, a safe, a hot tub shell) can shift the estimate — we'll flag that upfront, never after the fact.
Two things move the number more than almost anything else: total volume, and how hard it is to get that volume out of the basement and into the truck. A basement with a walk-out door to the backyard is a much faster job than the same volume behind a steep, narrow interior staircase with a 90-degree turn at the bottom — which describes a large share of Montreal homes built before the 1980s. We account for that in the estimate rather than surprising you with it on move day.
The price table above gives you a range, but if you want to understand exactly what pushes a job toward the low end or the high end of its bracket, here's the honest breakdown:
This is the biggest factor by far. We price by how much space your items take up in the truck, not by counting individual pieces — so ten small boxes cost less than one bulky sectional sofa even though it's "one item."
A walk-out basement door to a driveway is fastest. A narrow interior staircase with a turn, or a long carry to the truck (common on properties without direct laneway access), adds labor time that factors into the price.
Appliances with refrigerant, anything requiring two or more people to lift safely, and material needing special disposal handling (see below) each carry their own handling cost beyond straight volume.
What doesn't move the price: how "messy" or embarrassing the basement looks, how long it's been since you cleaned it, or how the items are organized (or not). We've seen it all, and none of that factors into the estimate — only volume, access, and item type do. If you're comparing quotes, ask any company for their pricing structure in those same terms — volume, access, item type — rather than accepting a single flat number with no explanation behind it. It's the fastest way to tell whether an estimate is grounded in something real or just a guess.
An outdated appliance is one of the most common single items we remove from Montreal basements — the chest freezer from a previous owner, the washer/dryer set replaced two renovations ago, the mini-fridge from someone's old apartment. These need slightly different handling than general junk because of refrigerant recovery requirements and the sheer weight involved (a full-size fridge or washer easily runs 150-250 lbs).
We remove these as part of a standard basement cleanout, but if appliances are the majority of what you're dealing with — say, you're clearing out several units in a rental property, or replacing a full kitchen and laundry set at once — it's worth reading our dedicated guides on appliance disposal and recycling options in Montreal and bulky appliance and heavy furniture removal, which go deeper into pricing and the recycling process specific to large appliances than we can cover here.
You don't have to do anything before we show up — plenty of clients hand us the keys and let us handle sorting entirely. But if you have an hour or two and want to save money, here's where sorting pays off most:
Our crew does a quick walkthrough with you to confirm what stays and what goes, and reconfirm the price before starting.
Items are sorted for donation, recycling, and disposal as they're carried out — large pieces broken down if the staircase requires it.
We do a final sweep of the space so you're not left with debris, dust, or small leftover items.
A final look together to confirm everything agreed on is out, and you get a receipt if you need one for a sale, insurance, or your own records.
Most quarter-to-half-full basements take our crew one to two hours. A fully packed basement with a difficult staircase can run three to four hours. Either way, we work in one continuous visit rather than stringing the job out over multiple appointments — no coming back next week to finish, no partial job left half-done because we ran out of scheduled time.
The after-photo is the easy part to picture — an empty room, swept floor, maybe a bit of daylight through a window well you forgot was even there. What matters more is what that empty basement lets you do next:
We get basement cleanout calls year-round, but a few patterns repeat every year that are worth knowing if you have flexibility on timing:
If your timeline is flexible, booking outside these peak windows can mean faster scheduling. If it's not — say, your listing photos are Thursday — tell us that upfront and we'll do what we can to prioritize it. Winter cleanouts, by contrast, tend to be our quietest window and often the easiest to book on short notice, so if you've got a basement project you've been putting off and no hard deadline, a January or February call is usually the fastest path to getting on our schedule.
We handle basement cleanouts throughout Montreal and the surrounding region, from Côte-des-Neiges–NDG and Rosemont to Villeray–Saint-Michel and Hochelaga-Mercier, over to Laval neighborhoods like Chomedey and Sainte-Rose, and South Shore communities including Saint-Bruno and Candiac. Check our full list of service areas for your specific neighborhood.
If your basement cleanout is part of a bigger property job — a rental building with several storage lockers to clear, or a commercial basement under a retail space — our commercial cleanout service handles that scale, and it's worth mentioning if that's your situation when you call so we can plan the right crew size and truck for the day. For a whole-home job that includes the basement plus every other room, our residential cleanout service covers the full scope in one visit rather than splitting it across separate bookings.
Access varies a lot across the region and it genuinely affects how we plan the job. A bungalow in Candiac or Saint-Bruno with a walk-out basement and a driveway right at the door is the easiest layout — most of a full basement can be cleared in a couple of hours. A duplex or triplex in NDG or Rosemont with a narrow interior staircase and a turn at the bottom takes longer per load, since bulky items like sectional sofas or old freezers sometimes need to be broken down or carried at an angle. In Laval neighborhoods like Chomedey or Sainte-Rose, where many homes have a side entrance to the basement separate from the main door, we can often bring the truck close enough to skip the long carry entirely. None of this changes whether we can do the job — it just changes how we quote the labor time, which is why we always ask about stairs and access before confirming a price over the phone.
Furniture, boxes, totes, exercise equipment, shelving, old appliances, tools, toys, holiday decorations, mattresses, carpet remnants, general storage clutter.
Liquid paint and chemicals, propane and fuel tanks, large quantities of tires, and anything with a refrigerant (chest freezers, mini-fridges) — we'll flag these and point you to the correct disposal channel, since general junk removal isn't the right route for them.
Published price ranges by volume before we book, local crew experienced with narrow Montreal staircases, sorting for donation and recycling built into every job.
Wide availability through a national franchise model, though final pricing is generally quoted on-site rather than shown as a public range beforehand.
Known local name in Montreal searches. Ask directly for a written quote and what is included for a basement cleanout before you book.
A partial basement (a quarter to half full) typically runs 400$-700$. A fully packed basement runs 800$-1500$+ depending on volume, staircase access, and whether items need to be broken down.
No, you don't have to, but sorting into keep/donate/junk piles beforehand can lower your cost since we price by volume removed. If you'd rather we just clear everything, that works too — just tell us upfront.
We can remove mold-affected boxes, furniture, and porous material from a basement with a mild to moderate mold or moisture problem. For active structural mold behind walls or a significant remediation need, we recommend a remediation contractor first, and we can clear the space before or after their work.
Yes. Narrow, steep, or winding basement stairs are extremely common in Montreal homes and our crews are used to them. Large items are broken down when needed, and we plan the route before we start moving anything.
Liquid paint, chemicals, and pressurized tanks need to go through a hazardous waste ecocentre rather than general junk removal. We'll flag these items during your estimate and point you to the right drop-off option.
Almost always. An empty, clean basement photographs better, lets buyers picture the space, and often gets flagged directly by real estate agents as a quick win before listing photos and showings.
Planning a pickup? See all of our service areas, including Pointe-Claire. Related reading: Commercial Space Cleanout Before Closing or Relocating and Commercial Space Cleanout: What to Know Before You Book.
Call us for a price range in minutes, or send photos through our contact form for a fast written estimate.
📞 (514) 295-2123From $150, same-day pickup often available in Montreal, Laval, the North Shore and the South Shore.
GoodBye Junk Montréal
Montreal, QC, Canada
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