Landlord turnover cleanout in Jacksonville

The short answer

Turnovers price by volume so you can budget them per unit without a phone call each time.

• Studio or one-bedroom, light leftovers: $241 for a quarter truck to $431 for a half.
• Two-bedroom: $431 to $587.
• Single-family rental with a garage and a shed: $587 to $732, and sometimes two loads.

The ladder in full: $241 / $338 / $431 / $513 / $587 / $661 / $732. Or itemize - queen mattress and box spring set $143, sofa $126, refrigerator $164, TV 42 to 65 inch $68, small junk pile $82, medium $129, large $208. Minimum $75 per visit.

Carry-out and disposal are inside every number. No stair fee for the second-floor walk-up, which matters given how much of Jacksonville's rental stock is exterior-stair garden apartments.

Speed is the actual product

The removal cost is small relative to the vacancy. A unit sitting empty costs you rent every day, and in a turnover the removal usually sits at the front of the chain - the painter cannot paint round a sofa, the carpet crew cannot lift carpet under a bed frame, and the cleaner cannot finish a kitchen with a dead fridge in it.

So the value of published pricing here is not really the price. It is that you can book the removal the moment you have keys, with a known number, without waiting on an estimate visit. In a county of roughly 875 square miles, an estimate visit at a property across town is a half-day you do not have during a turn.

Practical sequence that keeps the chain moving: removal, then any repairs, then carpet or flooring, then paint, then final clean, then photos. Book the removal as day one, not as a thing you fit in later.

Abandoned property: do the legal part first

This is the section to take seriously.

Personal property left behind by a departed tenant is not automatically yours to bin. Florida has a defined process covering notice to the former tenant and the handling of their belongings, and it applies whether the tenancy ended voluntarily, by non-renewal, or through eviction. Follow it with your attorney or property manager before anything is removed. Do not rely on this page, a forum post, or what another landlord told you.

Two practical habits that protect you regardless of the process:

• Photograph everything before it moves. Wide shots of every room, then close-ups of anything that looks like it might matter. Timestamped. This resolves nearly every dispute that follows.
• Separate obvious valuables and documents and store them rather than disposing of them, even if you believe the notice period is satisfied.

Once the legal requirements are met, the removal itself is straightforward and fast.

The Jacksonville turnover calendar

Four predictable crunches. If your unit is in one of these, book ahead, because the good windows go first.

• Summer PCS season. Navy families rotating through Mayport and NAS Jax turn over in a tight window. Rentals along Mayport Road, in Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach, and out through Orange Park, Argyle and Oakleaf all move at once. Military tenants also sometimes leave at very short notice on orders, which is a different kind of turnover - fast, and with more left behind.
• Late spring. UNF and Jacksonville University students clear out and the complexes around them empty together.
• The last three days of any month. Standard lease-end, every month, everywhere.
• After a named storm. Units with water intrusion empty fast, and every removal crew in the region is booked at once for two weeks afterwards.

What actually gets left behind here

The list is consistent across Jacksonville, and three items on it are local:

• Beds. Mattresses and box springs, always. Nobody pays to move a used mattress.
• The sofa. Particularly from furnished or partly furnished rentals.
• Patio furniture. Sun-wrecked and, at the beaches, salt-corroded. Tenants leave it because it is not worth the truck space.
• The garage and shed. On single-family rentals this is often the largest part of the job. With no basements in Florida, the outbuildings absorb everything - and tenants routinely leave hurricane supplies, half-used lawn chemicals and the contents of a shelf.
• The second fridge. A garage fridge is $164 and a surprisingly common parting gift.
• Bagged trash. Which is why the junk pile lines exist: small $82, medium $129, large $208.

One category we cannot take: household hazardous waste. Fuel, propane cylinders, paint, solvents, pool chemicals, pesticides and car batteries go to a Duval drop-off facility instead. Check the city's current locations and hours - and note this is a very common leave-behind in Jacksonville garages.

The empty-unit humidity trap

The most expensive avoidable mistake Jacksonville landlords make, and it costs far more than any removal.

Turning the air conditioning off in a vacant unit to save on the bill does not work here. Air conditioning is what dehumidifies a Florida building. A unit closed up for six weeks in summer with the system off will grow mold on window frames, in closets, on any remaining soft furnishings, and through drywall if there is any moisture source at all. You then have a remediation job rather than a turn.

Two rules:

• Leave the system running with the thermostat set high rather than switching it off.
• Check the condensate line before a vacancy. A clogged AC drain line backing up into the air handler closet and the adjoining carpet is one of the most common causes of indoor water damage in Florida homes, and in an empty unit nobody notices for weeks.

If you have inherited a unit that sat closed all summer, expect the soft furnishings to be a total loss. A mildewed sofa is still $126 and a mattress set is still $143 - condition does not change our price - but the drywall and ductwork are a remediation contractor's problem, not ours.

Worked totals

Standard one-bedroom leftovers. Queen mattress and box spring set $143, sofa $126, TV 42 to 65 inch $68, medium junk pile $129. $143 + $126 + $68 + $129 = $466. A half truck is $431 - book that.

A light turn. Queen mattress $103 plus a small junk pile $82. $103 + $82 = $185.

Patio and garage on a single-family rental. Patio table $89, four patio chairs (4 × $30 = $120), lawn mower $65, ten bags of debris $132. $89 + $120 + $65 + $132 = $406. A half truck is $431 and a 3/8 is $338 - if it packs into a 3/8, book that.

Making it repeatable across a portfolio

If you run more than a handful of units, set this up once and stop thinking about it.

• Budget per unit type. Published prices mean a one-bedroom turn is a line item you can forecast, not a call you make each time.
• Standardise the handover photos. Same shots every unit, before anything moves.
• Keep a certificate of insurance on file with any association or building that requires one - common at the Southbank towers, oceanfront buildings and newer Brooklyn mid-rises. Ask us once and it is done.
• Book multiple units on one site together. The $75 minimum is per visit, so consecutive units on the same property in one window is cheaper than separate bookings.
• Give us the access details up front. Gate code, lockbox, which lot entrance gets a box truck closest. On a large Southside complex that saves twenty minutes of circling.

Frequently asked questions