You have carried that pile long enough.

For the on-site quote, yes, because we want to walk it with you and agree on the price face to face. For the pickup itself, plenty of customers leave everything in one place, the garage or by the side door, and we send photos when the job is done.

No. We carry everything out ourselves, from the basement, the attic, an upstairs bedroom or the back yard. We lay floor protection, carry rather than drag, and sweep up before we leave. You point, we lift. Nothing needs to be sorted or moved before we arrive, and nothing waits outside overnight.

Most days there is a same-day arrival window, seven days a week including evenings, at no extra charge. Text photos and your address in the morning and there is a good chance we are at your door that afternoon. The on-site quote is free, there is no deposit, and if you want to think about it we leave the written price with you and follow up once. That is it.

No, and we say so because it is the thing people apologise for most on the doorstep. Every crew has seen a garage nobody has opened in six years, a spare room that became storage, a house where someone was unwell. Nobody comments, nobody takes photos beyond what we need for the quote, and nobody will share information about your house afterwards. You do not have to tidy before we come.

Of course. Plenty of customers have a friend, a partner or a neighbour there for support. You can ask for a two-person crew, ask for the same friendly crew you had last time, or ask us for a woman on the crew and we are happy to arrange it where our schedule allows. You get the name and photo of who is coming before they arrive, and we text you when they are thirty minutes out.

Yes. If we spot something with real resale value, an antique, a decent appliance, tools, we tell you before it goes on the truck so you can decide. We are not in the business of quietly reselling your things, and we would rather you kept something than found out later what it was worth.

Say so and we stop. Pull something back off the truck, keep a piece of furniture you thought you were ready to lose, or pause the whole job for another day. With estate and downsizing work especially, people often need a moment, and there is no charge for changing your mind.

Same day, same window, every week or every other week. We take whatever is waiting in the garage or by the side door, giving back the space you used to store two weeks of bags. Plastic bottles, cans, paper and cardboard ride in the same truck and want to be clean and dry. The city side changed in January 2026, when its recycling services, the blue and black bins, came under Circular Materials, running Ontario Blue Box program.

Yes, and that is most of why people call. Since September 2024 the city takes three items every two weeks, counting a bag, a 140-litre bin or one bulky item as an item each, and leaves the rest at the curb. A weekly route takes your extra bags, bins and bulky items on top of whatever the city collects, so the limit stops being something you have to think about.

City yellow bags are $4.40 each, sold four at a time for $17.60, and only from client service centres, some community centres and a few hardware stores. Two extra bags a week already puts a household around $35 a month, before the driving and before storing waste for fourteen days. Weekly pickup is one flat monthly number quoted free at your door, with nothing to buy and nothing to carry.

Three items every two weeks, out after 6pm the night before and by 7am on the day. Garbage items are a bag up to 15 kilograms, a container up to 140 litres with two handles and a removable lid, or one bulky item. Past three, it goes in a city yellow bag. Curbside collection covers garbage, green bin and recycling, and the limit is on the garbage alone. Recycling collection runs on a weekly basis, alternating blue and black box.

City of Ottawa, three-item limit FAQ

A new curbside collection contract started 30 March 2026, and the city statement put it at about half of Ottawa households getting a new collection day. Every address got a letter. The transition period ran to 24 April, when affected households could set six garbage items at the curb on their scheduled garbage collection day. Some waited close to three weeks between pickups. That is over, the limit is three again, and there is no new contract to sign here.

City of Ottawa, collection day change

Yard waste must be set out separately from the green bin now, in brown paper bags or a reusable container labelled for it, and the city still runs it weekly. That split came in with the new garbage collection contract in March. If you would rather not store bags in the garage until the day, it goes on our run with everything else.

City of Ottawa, leaf and yard waste

A bulky item is furniture or anything too large for a bag or a bin, so a couch, a mattress or patio furniture, and one uses up one of your three. Appliances of any age are the exception, because the city does not take those at the curb. The Waste Explorer tool helps residents determine item disposal rules. For those, the environmental centre on Carp Road takes white goods once the refrigerant is removed and tagged.

City of Ottawa, Waste Explorer

Yes, but it is not ours. The Ottawa Collection Calendar is the city app, provided by ReCollect Systems Inc. Search your home address, select it, then view your garbage and recycling schedule and receive collection notifications at a time you choose, a helpful nudge ahead of your waste collection day. It keeps that at your fingertips on Apple and Android devices, and its store page lists the data the developer collects. The city website has the same collection schedule. With us, book by telephone, text a photo or email.

City of Ottawa, collection calendar

Not ours. When a statutory holiday lands mid-week the city shifts its routes and the waste collection calendar on your phone or computer stops matching the week you are having. This year is the example, with no collection on Good Friday, 3 April, or Easter Monday, 6 April, and the remainder of each week delayed by one day. Our route does not move, and neither does your pickup day.

You hear it from us before it happens, not after, and you are kept updated by text. A weekly run is only worth having if it is reliable, because a hot week of missed bags at the side door means odours and pests. The only people who come to your door are our own crew. Anything about the city route belongs with the city, where Andrea Gay-Farley is the program manager for waste collection.

Sorted by hand rather than tipped straight into landfill. Usable furniture, appliances, clothing, books and toys go to shelters and charities, and metal, electronics and cardboard are collected for recycling. What is left is disposed of at a licensed facility, managed by professionals rather than left in a field, and we keep the files. A converted house in Sandy Hill with five tenants is handled the same way as a bungalow.

We assist whoever is handling the estate, walk the property with them and write down one firm price. Either the entire house in a couple of days against a closing date, or a room at a time while the family sorts. You mark what stays. We box photographs, paperwork and anything with a name on it, leave those with you, then clear and sweep the rest. Foreclosure, eviction and hoarding cleanouts are handled the same way, discreetly.

Yes. A house with a basement apartment or a coach home gets three items for the whole household, because it pays one solid waste fee, and only a registered multi-unit property gets three for each unit. We run private collection for multi-unit buildings, townhome complexes, condo corporations and short-term rentals, with a fixed weekly window, and the same goes for a café, a salon or a small office. One flat monthly number, nothing to pay up front.