Mattress removal in Tampa Bay

Your options depend on whether your address is inside a city or in an unincorporated area. As of October 2026:

• City of Tampa: mattresses can go out with your once-a-year SWEEP pickup, or residents with an active account can drop them off free at the McKay Bay Scalehouse (SWEEP (opens in a new tab), McKay Bay (opens in a new tab))
• Unincorporated Hillsborough: a mattress is $30 at the curb, booked by calling (813) 272-5680 before you set it out; county customers can also take it to a solid waste facility with a state photo ID and their property tax bill (hcfl.gov (opens in a new tab))
• Apartments in Hillsborough: multi-family residents pay standard fees to dispose of a mattress at a county facility (same source)
• Pinellas and Pasco: each city sets its own bulk rules, and in unincorporated areas your private hauler does

Whatever the program, getting the mattress to the curb or the facility is up to you. Look up your city in our bulk trash pickup guide.

A queen mattress flops in every direction, a king is wider than most hallways at the turn, and neither fits in a car. Box springs are rigid and catch on stair rails and ceiling lights. In Florida's humidity, a mattress that sat in a garage or on a lanai can be damp and much heavier than it looks.

That's why most mattress jobs come down to the carry: down a stairwell, out of a second-floor apartment, through a narrow condo hallway to the freight elevator. We take the frame apart so the pieces travel flat, and we keep walls and banisters in mind on the way out. If your building has move-out rules, such as elevator reservations or loading-dock windows, tell us when you book so we can plan around them.

Rarely, in practice. Most donation centers won't take a used mattress, and in Hillsborough County's donation program the Goodwill partner doesn't accept them at all, as of October 2026 (hcfl.gov (opens in a new tab)). The county's own mattress page doesn't list a recycling option either; for a mattress that's still in good shape, it suggests giving it away or selling it through Facebook Marketplace, Freecycle, OfferUp or a Buy Nothing group (hcfl.gov (opens in a new tab)).

If yours is clean and nearly new, try that first; someone furnishing a first apartment may take it off your hands. If not, we take it to the proper disposal facility. Metal bed frames get separated for recycling when we load, and a solid wood headboard or dresser in decent condition goes to donation when we reasonably can.

Mattress pickups often come right after a new one is delivered and the store wouldn't take the old one, or the week before a move. Either way, it's rarely just the mattress: there's a frame, a box spring, a nightstand and maybe a dresser that won't fit in the new place.

Because we price by truck space, adding the rest of the bedroom to a mattress pickup is usually worth it. If you're emptying several rooms ahead of a move, see furniture and appliance removal. Prefer to load it yourself over a weekend? Book a 10-yard dump trailer online for a day or a weekend; mattresses and box springs aren't on our list of items prohibited in rental trailers, and you pay when we deliver.