You turn the key on the unit and the smell hits first. Old food in a dead fridge, a cat box nobody emptied, carpet that stayed wet somewhere. The living room has a couch with the cushions gone, a mattress leaning against the wall, and about nine trash bags that were never going to make it to the curb. In the garage, paint cans, two tires, and a water heater somebody pulled out and left on the slab.
That’s a normal eviction cleanout in Rialto. Here’s how to work it, in order, from the free checks to the parts you should not touch yourself.
1. Document and check the utilities before you move anything
This is free and it takes twenty minutes. Photograph every room, every wall, and every abandoned item before a single bag leaves. If you’re pursuing anything against the deposit, the photos have to show the unit as you found it, with date stamps.
Then check the panel and the valves. Flip breakers back on one at a time, because tenants often trip a circuit with a space heater and leave it dead. Look at the water heater gas valve and the main shutoff behind the unit. In older Rialto rentals off Baseline and Riverside Avenue, the shutoff is usually a gate valve at the front hose bib side, and a corroded one that won’t turn is worth knowing about now instead of at 9 p.m. Note the fridge. If it was unplugged with food inside, that’s a two-day smell problem that gets worse every hour in September heat.
2. Pull the sealed bags and loose trash first
Bagged household trash is the cheapest volume in the whole job and the fastest to move. Get it out on day one so you can actually see the floor and the walls. A hard move-out usually leaves somewhere between 15 and 40 bags, which is roughly an eighth to a quarter of a truckload.
Wear nitrile gloves and don’t reach blindly into open bags. Broken glass and sharps show up. If a bag is leaking, double it rather than dragging it across carpet you’re trying to save. Your city bins will not absorb this volume, and stacking extra bags beside the cans is how you get a notice.
3. Sort the abandoned property that might have value
California has rules about abandoned tenant property, and your attorney or property manager should tell you the notice period and value threshold that apply to your situation. Practically, that means you need a staging spot. Set up a folding table and four boxes: documents, IDs and keys, electronics and tools, and photos.
Paperwork matters. Social Security cards, car titles, court notices, and prescription bottles turn up in kitchen drawers and under mattresses constantly. Photos and kids’ school papers matter to somebody even if they don’t matter to you. Two hours of sorting here beats the phone call later. Everything with real resale value gets its own pile and its own photo.
4. Handle the big furniture and the mattresses as their own line item
Couches, sectionals, box springs, and bed frames are what actually fill a truck. One queen mattress and box spring plus a three-seat sofa is already a quarter load, and they’re the two items most likely to get refused at the curb.
Mattresses are a separate category almost everywhere. They get charged individually, typically $30 to $60 each, because they have to go to a recycling program that strips the steel, foam, and fiber instead of the general tipping floor. The same logic applies to sofas with a sleeper mechanism, which weigh double and take two people through a doorway. If you want the short version of how that side of the job works, the breakdown on mattress disposal and haul-off across the valley covers the item-by-item pricing. Plan on per-item charges landing between $75 and $150 for large furniture, or less per piece if it rides along in a bigger load.
5. Separate the items a transfer station won’t take
This is where cleanouts go sideways. A load that’s 90 percent bags and furniture gets held up by 10 percent of items that need separate handling. Pull these out before the truck shows up:
- Paint, thinner, motor oil, pool chemicals, pesticides. These go to a county household hazardous waste collection facility, not a landfill and not a junk truck. San Bernardino County runs drop-off sites, and they take homeowner quantities only.
- Tires. Usually $10 to $25 each in disposal fees, and they need a separate tire recycler.
- Appliances with refrigerant. Refrigerators, freezers, window AC units, and dehumidifiers all need the refrigerant recovered by a certified tech before the shell can be scrapped. Expect a $25 to $75 surcharge per unit.
- TVs and monitors. E-waste. CRT sets carry leaded glass and often a $20 to $40 handling fee.
- Propane tanks, car batteries, fluorescent tubes. All restricted, all handled separately.
Everything else is fair game. A crew doing appliance removal and haul-off in Rialto can take the dead stove, the washer, the dryer, and the fridge in the same trip, as long as the refrigerant items are flagged when you book so the fees aren’t a surprise at the door.
6. What the job actually costs and how the pricing works
Junk removal is priced two ways, and it helps to know which one you’re being quoted.
Volume pricing is a fraction of a truckload. A standard dump-body truck holds about 15 to 20 cubic yards. Nationally, an eighth of a truck runs about $120 to $180, a quarter load $200 to $350, a half load $350 to $500, three-quarters $450 to $650, and a full truck $500 to $800. Pin Pon Junk Removal lists same-day service starting at $120, which lines up with the small-load end of that range.
Per-item pricing makes sense when you’ve only got three or four big things: a mattress, a fridge, and a sofa rather than a whole unit’s worth of debris.
| Load size | Rough cubic yards | Typical national range | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/8 truck | 2–3 yd³ | $120–$180 | Bags plus a couple of items |
| 1/4 truck | 4–5 yd³ | $200–$350 | One bedroom stripped out |
| 1/2 truck | 8–10 yd³ | $350–$500 | Small unit, light cleanout |
| Full truck | 15–20 yd³ | $500–$800 | Heavy 2-bedroom eviction |
Most hard move-outs on a two-bedroom Rialto rental land somewhere between a half load and a full load, so $400 to $900 all in, plus per-item fees on refrigerant appliances and mattresses. What drives it up: stairs on a second-floor unit, long carries from a back unit to street parking, and heavy debris like tile, dirt, or a water heater, which get charged by weight because tipping fees at San Bernardino County facilities run per ton. Get the quote after someone sees photos or the unit itself. A phone estimate on a described mess is a guess.
Time-wise, a crew of two or three clears a light one-bedroom in two to four hours. A packed two-bedroom with a garage runs a full day. If the unit crosses into hoarding-level accumulation, plan on two or three days and a different scope of work, because now you’re sorting floor to ceiling instead of hauling.
7. The parts to leave to licensed trades
A cleanout crew clears contents. It does not fix the reasons the unit smells.
Sewage backup is the clearest line. Standing waste in a tub or a floor drain means a blocked lateral, and that’s a plumber with a camera and a jetter, not a shop vac. Don’t send anyone into a unit with sewage on the floor without boots and gloves at minimum.
Gas is the same. If you smell gas near the range or the water heater, shut the gas at the meter, leave, and call the utility. Nobody hauls furniture out of a unit with a suspected leak.
Behind-wall damage needs a licensed contractor. Soft drywall at the base of a wall, a stain spreading across a ceiling, or mold growth past a couple of square feet is remediation work with containment and air scrubbers. Tenant-damaged wiring, a missing outlet cover with exposed conductors, a cut breaker, or a ceiling fan hanging by its wires all go to a licensed electrician. And the demo side of the turnover, the cabinets and flooring and drywall that come out, is its own load. That’s construction debris removal, priced by weight rather than volume, and it should be quoted separately from the household cleanout.
What can wait and what can’t
Can’t wait: a dead fridge with food in it, wet carpet, and anything with sewage. Food waste in a sealed box at 100 degrees becomes a fly and rodent problem in 48 hours, and September in the Inland Empire still runs hot enough to make that fast. Wet carpet and pad start growing inside 24 to 48 hours. Pull the pad, cut out the affected carpet, get air moving.
Can wait a few days: furniture, bagged trash in a closed unit, garage clutter, and yard debris. Uncomfortable, not urgent.
In the meantime, shut off the water at the unit supply if a toilet or angle stop is weeping, kill the breaker to any damaged circuit, and prop the fridge doors open once it’s emptied so it dries instead of souring. If the unit will sit empty a week, cap it properly: water off, gas off at the appliance, windows secured. Empty units in Rialto attract illegal dumping on the parkway, and that citation lands on the property owner, not the person who dropped the couch.
When to stop working it yourself
Call a crew the moment the job crosses one of these four lines. The load won’t fit in a pickup and two trailer runs. There’s a mattress, a fridge, or tires in the pile, meaning you’re now dealing with per-item fees and separate facilities. The turnover has a hard date and you’re losing rent for every day the unit sits. Or you’ve opened a door and realized the volume is three times what you estimated from the doorway.
At that point, take ten photos, count the mattresses and appliances, and get a free estimate by phone or email at (909) 341-1660 or pinponsjunkremoval25@gmail.com. Same-day pickup is often available depending on scheduling and location. Usable furniture and working appliances get routed to donation, metal and mattresses go to recycling, and what’s left goes to approved waste facilities with receipts, which is the part that keeps a hard move-out from turning into a code problem later.