How to get rid of a mattress in Cincinnati

The short answer

Inside the City of Cincinnati you can book a free bulk appointment and leave the mattress at the curb the night before. In Newport and other Rumpke areas it has to be wrapped and sealed in plastic first. If you want it carried out of the bedroom instead, JunkRabbit takes a queen for $103, a king for $114 and a mattress and box spring set for $143.

Option 1: the City of Cincinnati bulk appointment

The City runs bulk pickup by appointment only. You schedule it online or through 311, and a claw truck comes to your curb on the scheduled day. Mattresses and box springs are on the list of things it takes, so for a lot of city households this is the obvious first stop. The catch is the format. Each appointment covers up to five items, and the mattress has to be at the curb, reachable by the claw, which means not under wires, not wedged between parked cars and not tucked under a tree. You can only set items out the night before, not days ahead. Nobody comes inside, so you are carrying the mattress down from the bedroom yourself. In a Clifton Heights walk-up or a Mount Adams house with a stack of front steps, that is the hard part of the whole job. If you have a helper, a dry forecast and a curb the claw can reach, the appointment is a perfectly good answer.

Option 2: Northern Kentucky and other Rumpke areas

Across the river the rules change. Newport's trash is collected by Rumpke, and bulky items are handled by calling Rumpke at least 24 hours before your trash day. Rumpke's residential bulk rules say a mattress and box spring count as one item and must be wrapped and sealed in plastic. Newport also asks that mattresses or upholstered pieces with any bedbug risk be encased in plastic before they go out. Carts and set-outs there go out from 5 pm the day before. Covington, Fort Thomas, Florence and the other Kentucky cities each have their own arrangements, so check your city or your hauler's page rather than assuming Newport's rules apply. The wrapping step is where most people stall. A queen mattress bag has to be pulled over the mattress somewhere with room to work, which usually means the bedroom floor. Then the sealed mattress still has to get down the stairs and out to the curb.

Option 3: drive it to the landfill yourself

Rumpke Sanitary Landfill on Struble Road in Colerain Township accepts mattresses, along with furniture and appliances. Its hours, small-load policy and tipping fees are not published, so call before you load anything. A queen will not fit in a sedan and a box spring does not fold, so this is a pickup truck or a borrowed van job. Strap it flat and tie it down at both ends. A mattress that lifts off a truck bed on I-75 or the Norwood Lateral is dangerous to everyone behind you. From the east side or Northern Kentucky the drive is a real chunk of a morning, so add the fuel, the time and the gate fee before deciding it is the cheap route. For someone who already lives out near Colerain and owns a truck, though, it can make sense.

Option 4: give it away or sell it

A clean, newer mattress can go to a friend, a family member or a neighbor setting up a first apartment near campus. Plenty of people post them on local marketplaces, but used mattresses move slowly and buyers are cautious about anything with stains or a smell. Many charities do not take used mattresses at all, so call before you drive one over. Be honest about age and condition, and do not pass along a mattress that has had bedbugs. If nobody bites within a week or two, move to one of the other options rather than letting it lean against a wall in the hallway. At JunkRabbit we try to donate usable items when local charities accept them, and we recycle whatever we can, but a mattress that is worn out is simply disposal.

Option 5: book a flat-price pickup

The crew carries it out from wherever it is, any floor, with no stairs fee. There is no wrapping requirement and no waiting for a curb day. A queen and box spring priced separately would be $103 + $92 = $195, so the set price of $143 is the one to pick when both are going. A whole bed, set plus frame, is $143 + $68 = $211. The order minimum is $100, so a single twin at $82 is billed at the minimum; pairing it with another item makes more sense. You see the price before you book and it only changes if you approve.

Which route fits which Cincinnati home

If you live in a city single-family house in Westwood or Northside with a flat curb and a strong friend, book the City appointment. If you are in a third-floor unit in Over-the-Rhine with a narrow rowhouse staircase, the curb is the easy part and the stairs are the job, so a carry-out pickup is usually worth it. In Newport or a Rumpke subscription area, decide whether wrapping and sealing it yourself is worth saving the money. If you are moving out on a tight date, an appointment-only program may not line up with your lease end. Students in the Heights often have a mattress, a desk and a dresser all leaving on the same day, which quickly passes five items. Out in West Chester or Mason, your HOA may have its own rules about what sits at the curb. Match the route to the access, not just to the price.

A few habits that save trouble

Never put a mattress out days before pickup. Cincinnati weather turns fast, and a mattress that sits through a rain shower doubles in weight and gets refused. In winter, freezing rain on hillside steps makes carrying anything risky, so plan the move for a dry morning. Strip the bedding and keep the mattress upright on its edge to get it through doorways and stairwell turns. Measure the tightest turn in your staircase before you buy a new mattress, too. If you have any reason to suspect bedbugs, bag it in the room before moving it through the house. And if you are booking a pickup, a photo of the mattress where it sits is enough to get a flat quote online in a couple of minutes.

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