Junk removal and hauling in Ventura, CA

Ventura homes, by the numbers

Ventura has about 41,900 lived-in homes and close to 110,000 people, by the Census Bureau’s latest five-year survey (Census Reporter, Ventura). About 63 percent of the homes were built before 1980 and only about 16 percent in 2000 or later, and a little over half are owned by the people living in them.

Older houses mean older garages, sheds and remodels. A lot of Ventura junk removal is decades of storage coming out of a garage, kitchens and baths being redone, and rentals being turned over between tenants, which is close to half the homes in town.

Brush clearance in Ventura is the city’s program

The city of Ventura is one of three cities outside Ventura County Fire’s program (Ventura County Fire). The Ventura Fire Department runs its own Fire Hazard Reduction Program, which requires owners in High and Very High fire hazard zones to finish brush management by June 1 each year (City of Ventura FHRP).

That mostly means the hillside streets and the canyons, where brush runs up to back fences. We clear to the city’s rules and haul everything cut, and our guide to Ventura County’s brush clearance rules explains the zones.

Bulky items, mattresses and hazardous waste in Ventura

Ventura residents can have four bulky items picked up in two pickups a year at no charge through E.J. Harrison, the city’s trash hauler (City of Ventura bulky item collection). The city says not to set mattresses, furniture or appliances at the curb with the bins, and that Gold Coast Recycling and Transfer Station recycles one mattress set per year free for city residents.

Household hazardous waste goes to the City of Ventura’s own program on Colt Street, open by appointment on the third Saturday of each month except December, for city residents only (Ventura County e-waste and HHW list). Gold Coast also takes e-waste from Ventura, Camarillo and Ojai, and it is one of the county’s three sorting facilities for construction debris.

When the free pickups are used up, the pile is more than four items, or it can’t wait for a pickup date, junk removal takes it all in one visit.