I hear their ads on the radio all the time, so I decided to check out their prices on their website…and found out absolutely nothing, except that they charge by volume, not weight. Has anyone here used their service and, if so, how was it?
I haven’t used them, but my daughter has. Worked out fine.
What did she pay to get what moved?
Here’s an older thread for reference: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=443740.
I believe I used them many years ago, but don’t recall what they charged. I recall being happy with the service, though.
After my father died, I had staggering amounts of junk to get out of his house. It took weeks of sorting and purging and packing and bagging and prioritizing. I used 1-800-Got -Junk twice to come pick up the stuff, which totaled almost two truckloads. If memory serves, each load was only $300-400. If that’s affordable and worth it to you, they’re a great service and I would use them again without hesitation.
Used them when I was finishing emptying out my apartment in Jersey City right after Hurricane Sandy dumped eight inches of water in it. They were prompt (came right when they said they would; even wanted to come earlier but I wouldn’t have been there), and did the job quickly and professionally. Price wasn’t my main concern as I just wanted all the stuff gone.
I’ve closed our 16-year-old online art business whose leftover inventory and shelving take up about 75 square feet. While I could probably piecemeal a lot of it on eBay, it just too time-consuming and trashing it all has a strong appeal to me. Thanks to this thread I may give them a call and get an estimate.
That’s not bad. My parents are in their 80s so we’re going to have to deal with this sooner (or preferably later) and this sort of company is one way we might deal with the stuff. I wonder if these guys go through the things you give them to dispose and resell what they can, much as other people do when buying the contents of storage lockers at auction.
(The annoying thing is that you would think the kind of stuff in my parents’ house would be saleable; there are piles of vinyl records, many books, good furniture, multiple sets of china, etc. But no one is interested in much of that stuff. I’m their kid and even I don’t want Wedgwood china with twelve place settings or a bolt of very nice wool fabric from which a custom men’s suit could be tailored.)
I used the Got Junk guys a few times several years ago. They definitely set aside items they thought had resale value, but at the time at least, I got the impression that it wasn’t company policy, but just enterprising young folks looking to make a little side money. Could be wrong about that.
That said, when I had to clean out my parents’ large and quite full house, after my sister and I took what we wanted to keep, we hired an estate company to handle the rest. They came out and dealt with everything still in place. We got a well-documented cut of what they sold, and they handled getting the rest to the dump. Only thing they wouldn’t take was a piano. Can’t give those away. I finally paid a guy to haul it.
We used them a few years ago to clean a crapton of junk out of our garage. As I recall the charge was several hundred dollars, but I considered it worth every penny. They showed up, I stood in the middle of my garage and pointed at things, and they took them all away. When they were done loading the truck they grabbed a broom and swept clean the entire garage floor - including the parts that had been buried under the junk they had just loaded up, which they couldn’t possibly have been responsible for getting dirty.
As I dimly recall, they had a bunch of odds and ends they wanted gone, so they piled everything up into their garage and called the got-junk folks. Everything fit into a single truck, and the charge was only a couple of hundred dollars.
I have also heard about the “we’ll sell what we can and junk the rest” option (which was not a consideration in my daughter’s case). Our next move will be from a huge house that my wife and I are using about half of into something that makes more sense, and when that time comes we are thinking of moving what we want and then calling one of those got-junk companies to clear out the rest and then broom-sweep the house for resale. We won’t care if any particular item gets resold or gets trashed, because it will be an item that neither we nor our kids want. I understand that these days there are several such companies that compete for this business (but I haven’t looked and don’t know who they are).
They have the stupidest commercial I’ve ever seen on TV.
I used them several times during the prep for my last move. I thought they were awesome. You show them what you want moved, wherever it is, they total up everything (by volume in the truck), and then give you a number. I had things like a stone-topped table taken, which I wasn’t even sure could be moved. They work fast. I think I spent $100-150 each time I used them.
I would definitely use them again.
I used them a little over a year ago when I moved my mother from San Diego to assisted living in Texas. We didn’t take any furniture or anything, so what I hired them to do was to clear out her apartment after her friends there took whatever they wanted. Got-Junk came after we left for the airport, so I never even saw or met any of them. I made all the arrangements over the phone. I talked to the apartment manager afterwards and he said everything went great. I would definitely recommend them. As I recall, the whole thing cost about $400.
Got-Junk just packs and hauls stuff away. If you have elderly parents who are downsizing, you need a different kind of service. Look for something geared to that specific mission, i.e., a company that will pack and move your elders to a new place, then pack up what’s left and either hold a garage/estate sale (or find someone who will), and dispose of the rest, either through donating to Goodwill or taking to the dump. I used a service like this when I moved and they were fantastic. They packed me at the old house, moved me and my furniture to the new (much smaller) house, unpacked and put away everything, and took away the boxes. At the end of moving day, I was completely moved in with nary a box in sight. For an ex-military brat, this was nothing short of a miracle. Google stuff like “senior moving, senior transitions,” or look for elder care, elder services in your community.
Yes, but you remembered them, didn’t you? That’s the definition of a good commercial. 
I used them when clearing out my late in-laws’ house. It was expensive but worth every penny. We had had an estate sale, then the Salvation Army came and took what they wanted, and I had to get rid of the rest of the stuff in order to sell the house. Their radio ads say something like “point and we make it go away” and it’s true. They charge by volume, that is, by percentage of the truckload.
I chose them because my then-employer had used them when we underwent an office renovation and consolidation, and I thought they did a good job. I will probably use them again in the future, when circumstances warrant.
Sell the china and glass and flatwater to replacements unlimited… and you could try hitting the local historical society and asking them if they want the fabrics for recreating older clothing. Or do what I am thinking of doing, pulling everything out of Mom’s house we want to keep and contacting an auction house to come in and sell everything off.
ISTR they wanted $85 to pick up an old TV.
I was considering them when pricing out disposal services after my mother passed. They ended up being the most expensive in our area, so I crossed them off the list. The contractor who did our kitchen floor, in contrast, will rent us his “dumpster truck” (which isn’t a real dumpster but a truck similar to the one 1-800-Got-Junk uses) for a flat fee for as long as we need it. We throw whatever we want into it and he’ll haul it away.
An alternative is Bagster. It’s a huge, 3 cubic yard bag that you fill with junk and then they come and take it away. It’s about $150
I don’t have any personal experience with them, but they were the company that the Hoarders TV show contracted with. They will do anything up to and including removal of animal carcasses and mounds of human waste, at least in exchange for TV exposure.