The maths on a rental turnover is unforgiving. A unit renting at $2,200 a month costs you about $73 a day to leave empty. Lose a week and you have lost five hundred dollars in rent to save two hundred on a cleanout.
That is the entire argument, and it is why almost all our landlord and property manager work happens on a Friday-to-Monday clock.
Where the week actually goes
Landlords rarely lose time on the clearing itself. A two-bedroom unit can be emptied and swept in a few hours. The time goes on the gaps between steps:
- Two days deciding whether to clear it yourself
- Three days waiting on a bulk pickup schedule
- A day discovering bulk will not take the mattress or the fridge
- Two days waiting on a painter who cannot start until the unit is empty
- Another day before the photographer can get in
Nothing there is a disaster on its own. Together it is nine days of lost rent on a job the clearing took four hours to do.
The order that works
Day one: inspect and document, before anything moves
Walk the unit and photograph everything, including what was left behind. If there is any prospect of a security deposit dispute, that photo set is the only version of events that will hold up.
Florida has specific requirements around deposit claims and notice periods, and they are worth knowing precisely — that is a conversation for your attorney or property manager rather than your junk removal company. What we can tell you is that "I remember it being bad" is not evidence and a timestamped photo is.
Also worth doing on day one: check for anything that looks genuinely valuable or personal. Abandoned property rules exist for a reason and it is far better to pause and ask than to have thrown out something you should not have.
Day one, same afternoon: book the clearing
Not day three. The clearing gates everything else — paint, repairs, cleaning, photography, showings. Every one of those trades is waiting on an empty room.
Call it in as soon as you have documented the unit. If you catch us before noon we can often be there the same afternoon, and a standard two-bedroom is comfortably a single-day job.
Day two: clear, then trades
Everything out, floors swept. From that point your painter, your handyman and your cleaner can all work, and several of them can work simultaneously.
This is the step that compresses the timeline more than any other. An empty unit can take three trades at once. A half-full one can take none of them.
Day three: photograph and list
Listing photos of an empty, clean, freshly painted unit outperform photos of a unit with somebody's abandoned sofa in the corner by a margin that is almost comical. Get the photos, get it listed.
What tenants leave behind, ranked by how much of a problem it is
Furniture. Very common, rarely difficult. Sofas, mattresses, bed frames, dressers, the desk that was too heavy to be worth taking.
Mattresses. Their own category because Broward curbside rules make them genuinely awkward. Almost every turnover has at least one.
Appliances. Usually a washer, dryer or a second fridge in the garage. If it is a refrigerator or an AC unit, that cannot go out with bulk waste at all — the refrigerant has to be recovered by a licensed processor first.
General household waste. Bags, boxes, half-empty cleaning products, food. Unpleasant, quick.
Garage and patio. The one landlords forget to check before quoting the job to themselves. Tenants leave a remarkable amount in garages.
Paint and chemicals. The problem items. We cannot take these, and neither can bulk pickup. They go to a Broward County household hazardous waste drop-off, and we will tell you where the next one is.
What it costs
Priced by volume, like everything we do:
- Light turnover — a few pieces of furniture and some bagged waste: $99–$250
- Standard two-bedroom left furnished: $250–$450
- Heavy turnover, or a unit with a full garage: $450–$599 per truckload
Against $73 a day in lost rent, that is usually a two-to-four-day payback. Which is why this is one of the few jobs where the cost genuinely is not the interesting number.
If you manage several properties
A few things we do for the property managers we work with regularly:
- Access without you there. Lockbox code or a key handover, and we send photos when it is done. Most of our turnover work happens without the landlord on site.
- Before-and-after documentation as standard, which is useful for both deposit claims and owner reporting.
- Standing slots. If you turn units regularly, we can hold a recurring day so you are not negotiating scheduling every time.
- One number for the job, given on site before we start, so it goes into your cost sheet cleanly.
The one thing worth doing yourself
Check the unit before you quote the job to anyone — including to yourself. Open the garage. Open the shed. Look in the attic if there is access. Landlords who quote from memory of the last inspection are the ones who get surprised, and the surprise is always in the garage.
Call (954) 536-8189 with the address and a rough description. We cover Coral Springs, Margate, Tamarac, Sunrise, Lauderhill, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of Broward County, and there is no travel surcharge for being further out.
Need this done rather than read about?
Free quote, firm price given on site before anything moves, and same-day service across Coral Springs and all of Broward County. Licensed and insured — and we do every bit of the lifting.
