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Cleanout · NJ + NYC · $50/hr per person

Apartment cleanouts and tenant move-outs.

The tenant left the country with three rooms of furniture and a refrigerator full of food. The estate is closing Friday and the apartment has to be empty. The eviction is scheduled and you need to be ready for the marshal. We bring a truck, three pairs of arms, contractor bags, a Sawzall, and the dump fees — you get the keys back to the broom-clean state your lease requires.

Book a cleanout crew → Call (855) 82LABOR

Best for

What we knock out on a cleanout job.

  • Tenant skipped — abandoned furniture, clothes, food, paperwork
  • Estate apartments — full clear, donations sorted, mementos saved per family request
  • Eviction prep or post-eviction cleanup
  • Roommate left mid-lease and you need the unit show-ready
  • Section 8 / housing-authority inspection prep
  • Owner-occupied move-out where the next tenant arrives in 48 hours

What we bring

Gear in the truck.

  • Pickup truck plus a second vehicle for multi-load apartments
  • 3-mil contractor bags by the case — usually 2-3 boxes per studio
  • Sawzall, pry bar, and screwdrivers for furniture that has to break down
  • Mop, broom, dustpan, and shop vac for the final broom-clean pass
  • Bleach, glass cleaner, and degreaser for kitchens and bathrooms
  • Dump and donation drop-off fees built into the hourly — no surprise add-ons

Price examples

Real jobs, real numbers.

  • Studio cleanout, fully furnished — 2.5 hours, 2 crew, $250 total
  • One-bedroom apartment, moderate furniture + appliances — 3.5 hours, 3 crew, $525 total
  • Two-bedroom apartment, heavy stuff + boxes — 5 hours, 3 crew, $750 total
  • Estate apartment with sorted mementos, broom-clean — 6 hours, 3 crew, $900 total
  • Post-eviction cleanup (heavy debris, neglected unit) — 7 hours, 4 crew, $1,400 total

All examples assume travel inside our NJ + NYC service area. No travel surcharges.

The deep dive

Cleanout in NJ + NYC — what actually happens.

Apartment cleanouts are the rental-market version of the larger cleanout-and-hauling category, and they live or die by the calendar. A tenant skipped on Tuesday and the new tenant signs the lease on Saturday — you have 96 hours to clear three rooms, broom-clean the unit, photograph it for the security-deposit conversation, and stage it for showings. An estate apartment is on a probate clock — the family has 60 days to inventory and the landlord wants the unit back. A post-eviction unit comes with a marshal date that cannot move and a property manager who needs to show the unit to the next prospect by the end of the week. Brick Labor specializes in the rental side of this work because the legal-deadline context shapes the entire job — what gets saved, what gets thrown, what gets cleaned, what gets photographed, who gets the keys.

Tenant skips and the lease-deposit triangle

Tenant skips are the most common rental-cleanout call. The lease ended legally on the first, the tenant left two weeks before that with a U-Haul and some friends, and they left behind whatever did not fit — a couch, a mattress, the fridge they did not empty, three garbage bags of clothes, a TV stand, paperwork that may or may not be important, and a refrigerator full of food that has been growing things since the AC stopped working. Your security deposit obligation as the landlord is shaped by what you can legally retain — "abandoned property" has specific notice requirements in NJ (typically 30 days written notice to the tenant's last known address before disposal) and the timeline runs in parallel with your need to ready the unit. We work both sides: we sort genuinely-abandoned-looking stuff into a holding category (boxed, labeled with the date) so you can fulfill the notice requirement, and we clear the obvious trash and unsalvageable furniture immediately so the unit can start the cleaning and listing process. The hourly stays the same; the legal compliance is up to your lease lawyer.

Mementos box set aside on a kitchen counter during a Brick Labor estate cleanout — labeled paperwork and framed photos held for family review
Estate cleanout in Jersey City — mementos box per room, family review pile staged in the kitchen, the rest triaged into the truck.

Estate apartments and the mementos box

Estate cleanouts are emotionally heavier and operationally calmer. The decedent's family is typically not in town, the property manager has set a date the unit needs to be empty, and someone has to do the work of sorting what the family wants to see from what nobody is going to miss. We bring a dedicated "mementos" box per room — photos, jewelry, paperwork that looks legal or financial, framed art, anything handwritten, anything that looks like an heirloom. The box goes to the family member designated at booking; what is not in the box gets the standard donation/scrap/dump triage. We move slowly and respectfully. The crew is bilingual where helpful — many estate calls come from Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking families in Newark, the Ironbound, and Hudson County. The price is the same flat hourly; the emotional bandwidth is part of the job, not an upcharge.

Eviction units and the rough-end of the spectrum

Post-eviction cleanups are the toughest job category we run. Units that have been through eviction often arrive in worse condition than tenant-skip apartments — sometimes deliberately so, sometimes because the tenant was already in crisis when the legal process started. We have cleared units with mattresses on the floor and no other furniture, units where every room is buried in waist-high debris, units with significant kitchen and bathroom neglect, and units where the cleanup itself is the entry hazard (broken glass, exposed nails, biological waste). We arrive with gloves, masks, contractor bags by the case, and the willingness to start a job that looks impossible. We do not handle hazardous waste (chemicals, biological waste, drug paraphernalia in quantity) — those have specific NJ DEP and county-health handling rules and we coordinate the right vendor. Everything else, including the genuinely rough end of the spectrum, is on the menu at the same hourly.

An apartment cleanout is a deadline job. The lease ends, the next tenant signs, the probate closes, the marshal date hits — and the unit needs to be empty and clean by then. We slot in for that window, bring the crew and the gear sized to the job, and finish on a calendar that matches your legal and business reality. Book early, give us full access, and the unit returns to rental-ready by the deadline.

Why us

Why Brick Labor for apartment cleanouts.

Apartment cleanouts demand the rare combination of speed, calm, and emotional bandwidth — and a willingness to do the rougher version of the job when the unit needs it. The crew is enthusiastic, multi-cultural, and bilingual where it matters. We are professional with property managers and respectful with families. We rely on teamwork: one person triages and bags inside, one runs the dolly to the truck, one handles the cleaning pass at the end. Pride shows up in the broom-clean handoff and the photo-documented empty unit. We do not charge for the dump fees, the bags, the cleaning supplies, or the emotional labor — all of it lives in the flat $50 per hour per person.

  • Enthusiastic — we like the puzzle of clearing a complicated unit on a tight clock
  • Multi-cultural + bilingual — Spanish + Portuguese on most rotations, important for Newark estate work
  • Calm under surprise — abandoned-property paperwork, hidden damage, biological surprises, all handled honestly
  • Teamwork — every cleanout is a 2-4 person rotation with rotating roles
  • Pride in the broom-clean handoff — photo-documented empty unit, keys returned, dump receipt texted

How it runs

How a Brick Labor apartment-cleanout job runs end to end.

  1. Walk every room

    On arrival the crew lead walks every room with you (or the property manager) and flags anything that needs special handling — heirlooms, paperwork, legal documents, valuables. We agree on the keep pile location and confirm what stays.

  2. Triage by category

    Furniture and appliances get the donation/scrap/dump triage. Clothes go to a clothing-donation partner if they are wearable, otherwise bagged for textile recycling. Paperwork goes in a "review later" box for the family or property manager. Food and toiletries get bagged for the trash pile.

  3. Load the truck

    Heaviest pieces (couches, appliances, mattresses) first. Boxes and bags fill the gaps. We typically need 1-2 truck loads for a one-bedroom and 2-4 for a larger unit. Donations get dropped first on the route, scrap second, dump last.

  4. Broom-clean the unit

    Sweep, mop, vacuum, shop-vac the closets. Wipe kitchen counters and stove. Clean bathroom surfaces. Empty the medicine cabinet. Pull tape and stickers off appliances and windows. The unit is left show-ready, not deep-cleaned — for a deep clean book separately.

  5. Final walk + key handoff

    You or the property manager walks the empty unit with the crew lead. We photo-document every room for the security-deposit conversation, hand off the keys, and text you the dump receipts before invoicing.

Why it matters

Why hire a crew for this at all.

Tenant skips, estate apartments, and post-eviction units each have legal clocks. Security deposits, lease-end inspection dates, marshal schedules, probate timelines — the cleanout has to happen on the date the lawyer or the lease says, or money and access disappear. A flat-rate crew that can show up Tuesday at 9 a.m. and finish by 3 p.m. is the difference between hitting the deadline and forfeiting a deposit.

Cleanout FAQ

Common cleanout questions.

How is this different from hauling?

Apartment cleanout is the rental-specific version of cleanout work — broom-clean handoff for a landlord, lease compliance, security deposit context. We sweep, mop, wipe kitchen surfaces, and leave the unit show-ready. Generic hauling does not include the cleaning pass.

Will you sort what stays vs goes?

Yes, with as much instruction as you give us. For estate apartments we set aside anything that looks personal — photos, paperwork, jewelry, framed art — in a labeled box for the family to review. For tenant skips we just clear everything that is not legally protected.

What about appliances — fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer/dryer?

We can haul appliances or leave them in place — your call. Refrigerators get drained and emptied before transport (NJ requires EPA-certified refrigerant draining, included). If you want them left for the next tenant, we wipe them down and call it done.

Can you handle post-eviction units?

Yes. We have worked post-eviction with Essex, Hudson, and Bergen marshals. Some units arrive in rough shape — mattresses on the floor, neglected kitchens, abandoned animals (we will not handle live animals, but we coordinate humane removal). We come fully equipped and you pay the same hourly.

Does the unit need to be empty when we arrive?

No — that is the entire point. We clear whatever is in there. We do need access (key, lockbox code, super on site) and we need water and electricity for the broom-clean pass. If utilities are off, tell us at booking and we adjust the scope.

How much notice do you need?

Studios and one-bedrooms typically fit within 2-3 days. Larger units or estate apartments need 4-7 days because we have to allocate a 3-4 person crew and stage multiple truck rotations. Same-week is almost always possible; same-day is sometimes possible for studios in our coverage radius.

Pick a city

Cleanout in your city.

Same flat $50/hr rate everywhere we cover. Pick yours for the local crew page.

Field notes

How we run cleanout jobs.

All field notes →

Coverage map · live

One Newark crew. All of NJ + five NYC boroughs.

Home base in Newark. We cover 45 New Jersey cities and the 5 NYC boroughs at the flat $50/hr rate. Trace the route, drop into any city, hop into any service hub — all from the map.

NEWARK · BASE
50 cities · NJ + NYC
Home base Newark, NJ 07102
  • Home base
  • NJ city (45)
  • NYC borough (5)
Book your area

By region

NJ counties we hit weekly

  • Essex
  • Hudson
  • Bergen
  • Union
  • Passaic
  • Morris

NYC boroughs

  • Manhattan
  • Brooklyn
  • Queens
  • Bronx
  • Staten Island

Outside the lines? Email hey@bricklabor.com — we travel.