Can you leave furniture on the curb in St. Louis?

The short answer

In the City of St. Louis, yes, but only during your designated monthly collection week, out by 6:00 am Monday, up to three items, nothing over 100 lbs, 6 ft long or 2 ft in diameter — and if your block has an alley, it goes in the alley, not the curb. In St. Louis County and the Metro East, your own city or trash district decides. Outside those rules it is dumping. A flat pickup avoids the question: sofa $126, dresser $126.

Alley first: how City collection actually works

City refuse runs on alley dumpsters in most older neighborhoods. Bulky items follow the same pattern. The City's rule is that alley residents put bulky items in the alley behind the home, and curbside residents put them at the curb.

So in Soulard, Benton Park, Bevo Mill, Tower Grove South, Carondelet, Dutchtown, The Hill and much of North City, the "curb" in the question is really the alley. Put a couch on the front sidewalk of a Lafayette Square townhouse and you have put it in the wrong place on top of everything else.

The service is not free in the sense of extra: it is part of the $14 per month per unit solid-waste fee, billed quarterly on the water bill. If you own a four-family flat, that is four units of fee, but the bulky rules are still per pickup, so a building turnover can outrun them fast.

The five rules that decide whether it gets taken

1. Right week. Bulky collection is monthly during your designated week. Find your week on the City's bulk item pickup page.
2. Right time. Out by 6:00 am on the Monday of that week. Not the Friday before.
3. Right count. Up to three items per pickup.
4. Right size. No piece over 100 lbs, 6 ft long or 2 ft in diameter.
5. Right prep. Refrigerator doors must be removed. Railroad ties are not accepted.

Break any one and the item may be left behind. Then it is a pile in the alley, and a neighbor will notice before the City does.

What usually fails

• Full-size sofas. Most run about 7 feet, and many top 100 lbs.
• Sleeper sofas and recliners. Steel mechanisms push them well over 100 lbs.
• Solid-wood dressers and armoires. Old hardwood pieces are heavy, and you cannot get the drawers to count as separate items to beat the weight.
• A whole room. Bed, dresser, nightstand and a chair is four items.
• Mattresses. Standard mattresses are 75 to 80 inches long. Ask the City before relying on it.

The real cost of waiting for your week

The City pickup is cheap, but it is slow, and the cost shows up in time and space. Say you are clearing a two-bedroom flat in Tower Grove South with ten pieces of furniture. At three items a month, that is four collection weeks, so the last piece leaves about four months after the first. Meanwhile the rest sits in the basement or the back porch, and anything over the size or weight limits never qualifies at all.

Leaving pieces out early has its own cost. A sofa set out on Friday for Monday's pickup spends a weekend in the weather, picks up rain, and can be pulled apart or added to by others. A wet couch is heavier and less likely to be taken. If the item is in the way of a closing, a lease end or a contractor's start date, the four-month route is not really an option.

Leaving it out for someone to take

Plenty of St. Louis furniture finds a second home through a free listing or a "free" sign. That works well for clean, light pieces on a block where people walk by. It works badly for a heavy sleeper sofa in a third-floor flat, because the person who wants it free usually does not want to carry it down three flights.

If you try it, keep the piece inside or on your own porch, post it with a clear deadline, and have a fallback date. A piece that is still there on the deadline is better picked up than moved to the alley outside your week. We try to donate usable items when local charities accept them, so good furniture still has a chance after a pickup.

St. Louis County and the Metro East

None of this applies outside the City limits. St. Louis County is split into dozens of municipalities plus unincorporated areas, each with its own hauler or trash district. Clayton, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, University City, Florissant and Chesterfield set their own rules; so do the contracted districts serving Oakville, Mehlville, Affton and Lemay.

West County subdivisions add another layer. HOA subdivisions in Chesterfield, Ballwin and Wildwood often have their own rules about curb piles. Across the river, Belleville, O'Fallon, Edwardsville and Granite City each run or franchise their own service. Check your own before setting anything out.

What happens if you get it wrong

Furniture left on property without the owner's consent can fall under Missouri's littering and dumping statute, RSMo 577.070. The base offense is a Class C misdemeanor, rising to Class A if it creates a substantial risk of injury or property damage or for repeat offenders. That is the extreme case. The common one is simpler: the City skips it, it rains, and now it is a soaked, heavier couch in a shared alley that you still have to deal with.

The pickup alternative

A bedroom that would be four bulky items — queen mattress, frame, dresser and a recliner — is $103 + $68 + $126 + $98 = $395, carried from wherever it sits, any floor, with nothing in the alley at all. Three items or fewer, under 100 lbs and 6 ft, and you can wait for your week? Use the City pickup; you are paying for it. More than three, too heavy, too long, or needed out this week? Price it from a photo at the instant quote page.

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