How do you get rid of a couch in a walk-up with no elevator?

If you try to sell or give away a couch and you live in a walk-up, your options are limited. You can either have the taker haul it down, cut apart the furniture yourself, or you can hire a crew like The Junkluggers to take care of the work for you.

If you have an old couch that you’re trying to get rid of, that can be very hard to do if you live in a walk-up. It was probably hard to get it up there in the first place and it’s equally hard to get it out of there. And when it comes time to do that, your options are limited. You can either move it down yourself, try to get someone to buy the couch and do it for you, or you can hire a crew to take care of the work.

When people buy furniture through Facebook Marketplace or other secondhand markets, it’s not uncommon for deals to fall through specifically because of the stairs. Charity pickups work the same way. A lot of them only take what’s already at ground level and you need to figure out how to make that happen. But even if you do figure out how to move the couch, leaving it on the sidewalk can lead to a sanitation ticket.

Old walk-ups make this problem even trickier. The stairwells are narrow and the landings are tight. You might have to make a hard turn at the half-landing and you may have a very hard time getting a sectional to clear a doorframe. That’s why the couch often has to come apart.

The Junkluggers carries furniture down from any floor and will break the couch down if it won't come out whole. That prep is billed hourly and set at the estimate. If the couch survives in one piece and is still good, it can go to a local charity, and you may get a donation receipt for accepted items.

Ready to get the couch out? Schedule your pickup online. The Junkluggers of New York City serves Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.