What to do with old furniture in Houston

The two-minute test

Before you list anything, photograph anything or call anyone, answer four questions about the piece.

• Has it been in floodwater? If yes, it is disposal. Every route ends there and it should.
• Has it spent a Houston summer out of conditioned air — in a garage, an attic, a back house, a room with the air off? If yes, smell it. Mildew in foam or fabric closes off selling and donating.
• Is it solid wood, or is it particleboard? Solid survives this climate. Particleboard that has swollen at the joints does not go back together and has no resale value.
• Does it work as intended? A recliner mechanism that sticks, a drawer that will not close, a sofa frame that has gone soft in the middle — those are disposal too.

Four yeses to the good answers and you have real options. One bad answer and you are choosing between free collection and a booked pickup.

If it is genuinely good: sell it

Mid-century solid wood, decent dining sets, real leather in good condition and anything from a recognized brand all move in this market. So do children's items and desks, continuously.

Price it to go and set a deadline. This metro is an hour wide in traffic and buyers do not cross it for a marginal piece, so the realistic buyer lives within a few miles of you. Insist the buyer carries it out themselves — every hour you spend helping strangers move furniture is an hour you did not plan for.

If it is good but not saleable: donate it

Charities in Houston do take furniture, and a working dresser or a solid dining set going to a household that needs one is the best outcome available.

Call before you plan anything around it, and ask two specific questions: are you taking upholstered furniture at the moment, and will you collect from a third-floor walk-up. The second question rules out most of the apartment stock in Gulfton, Sharpstown and the Medical Center belt, and it is better to know that on the phone than on the day.

Mattresses are usually declined outright in this city, for the same humidity reasons that apply to everything soft.

If it is metal: let a scrapper have it

Houston has a deep scrap economy and metal furniture has real value in it. Bed frames, filing cabinets, shelving, patio frames and exercise equipment left visibly at the front of a house frequently disappear within a day.

Check your own city's rules first — this metro is a patchwork of jurisdictions and some only want items out inside a collection window. And be realistic: the scrapper takes the metal and leaves everything else exactly where it was.

If none of that applies: the flat prices

Minimum $75 per visit. Carried out from any floor, disposal included, no stair charge.

The pieces this city produces most

Patio furniture, because everyone has an outdoor set and Gulf weather is hard on all of it — patio table $89, patio chairs $30 each, umbrella and base $53.

Garage furniture, because there are no basements here and the garage absorbs everything a basement would.

And ground-floor bedroom furniture along the bayou corridors, replaced on a cycle nobody chose. A standard dresser is $126 and a mattress with its box spring is $143, and those three items together are the most common flood-replacement list in the metro.

The real advice

Decide early. Furniture in Houston has a shelf life set by humidity, and every month a piece sits in a garage waiting for a decision, it loses options. The sofa you could have given away in March is a $126 pickup by September, and the difference was not price — it was smell.

If you already know the answer, book it. You will see the number before anyone drives out.

Frequently asked questions