A unit that sits empty is the most expensive thing on a property manager’s spreadsheet. At $1,600 a month, every day of vacancy costs about $53 — which means a cleanout that takes four days instead of one costs you more than the cleanout does.
This page is written for the people who deal with turnovers for a living: property managers, leasing offices, landlords with a handful of doors, and the attorneys and constables who handle the eviction end of it. If that’s you, here’s how we work.
The three jobs, and why they’re different
Standard turnover
The tenant left, and left things behind. Furniture, a mattress, half a garage. We come, we clear it, we broom-sweep, and the unit is ready for paint and carpet the same day. This is the fastest and cheapest of the three and it’s usually a one-crew, half-day job.
Eviction / sheriff’s lockout
A different animal, because the clock and the rules are set by the county, not by you. This is not a job to improvise. Maryland counties differ meaningfully on what happens to the tenant’s property and how long it has to sit before you can dispose of it — Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Harford, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s each handle it differently, and getting it wrong exposes the owner, not the mover.
We don’t quote an eviction over the phone. We look at it, we confirm the county’s requirements for that specific address, and then we price it. Anyone who gives you a firm number for a lockout sight-unseen is either guessing or planning to change it.
Heavy cleanout / hoarding
Also site-visit-first, and for a different reason: severity and biohazard. A unit that’s been packed to the ceiling for years may involve rodents, mold, needles, or fluids. That changes the crew size, the PPE, the disposal route, and the price. Nobody should quote that from a photo, and we won’t.
What we bring to a turnover that a day-labor crew doesn’t
- Same-day and next-day availability. The whole point is the unit going back on the market. A cleanout you have to book eleven days out isn’t solving your problem.
- Certificate of insurance to your requirements, before we show up. Most property management companies need to be named as an additional insured. We handle that as part of onboarding, not as a scramble on the morning of.
- One vendor for the whole thing. Clear the unit, haul the debris, move the good furniture to storage if the owner wants it kept, and put the new tenant in three weeks later. That’s one call and one invoice instead of four.
- Documentation. Photos before and after, and an itemized manifest when the situation calls for one. On an eviction that record protects the owner.
- Crews that have done rowhomes. Third-floor Baltimore walk-ups with a turn in the stairs are their own skill. It’s most of what we do.
How to actually cut your turnover time
Four things, in order of how much they save you:
- Book the cleanout before the lockout, not after. The single biggest source of dead days is calling around for a vendor on the morning the unit becomes available. Have the crew scheduled for the afternoon of the lockout.
- Get the COI on file once, not per job. If your process requires a fresh certificate for every unit, that’s two to three days of lag per turnover, every turnover.
- Sequence it: clear, then clean, then paint, then floors. Obvious, and constantly done out of order because vendors get booked as they become available instead of in sequence.
- Standing schedule for portfolios. If you turn six or more units a month, put us on a recurring day. We hold the capacity, you stop making calls.
What it costs
Standard turnovers and cleanouts price by the load and by the hour depending on what’s in the unit. Labor-only clearing runs $165/hour with a three-hour minimum; full clearing with haul-away and disposal is quoted per job, because the dump fees vary by county and by what’s in the pile.
For portfolios we’ll set standing per-unit pricing so your budget is predictable and you’re not getting a fresh quote every time somebody skips out on a lease.
The compliance note, because it matters to you more than to us
An eviction cleanout done wrong is an owner liability, and the rules genuinely differ across the counties we work in. We confirm the requirements for the specific jurisdiction before we touch anything, and we’d rather lose an afternoon to a site visit than hand you a problem. If a vendor is willing to skip that step for you, that should worry you rather than reassure you.
Let’s set up an account
Call 443-622-4869 or email info@mosbymovers.com, 8 AM to 6 PM, seven days a week. Send us your COI requirements and we’ll have them met before the first job.
Mosby Movers has been serving Maryland since 2016, based in Abingdon, Maryland, and covering Harford County, Baltimore City and County, Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Washington DC.
