How to Get Rid of a Couch in Arlington: Donate, Curb or Haul

Before choosing between donating, selling, the curb and a crew, spend five minutes with the couch itself. Condition decides whether anyone else will want it. Weight decides whether the city crew will lift it. Skipping both is how people learn the answer at the door of a donation center, or from a tag left on the couch at the curb.

For condition, look at it the way a stranger would. Sit in every seat, lift one corner to see whether the frame twists or creaks, unzip a cushion, and smell the fabric up close. Look along the seams and under the deck for any sign of bed bugs. Anything you would have to explain away is a reason a charity will turn it down.

For weight, the useful line is 50 pounds, because that is Arlington's limit for each bulky item at the curb. Many full-size sofas weigh more than that, and a sleeper sofa, with its steel bed mechanism, is far past it. A sectional is several pieces held together with brackets, and taking it apart changes both what each piece weighs and how it gets through a door.

Trinity Habitat for Humanity runs a ReStore at 905 W. Mayfield Rd. in Arlington. Its terms for upholstered furniture are short: good condition, and not from a household with pets or smokers. Pickup is free once a donation's value reaches the minimum on its donate page; anything below that, you drop off yourself.

Mission Arlington, a local nonprofit, schedules pickups of reusable household items, furniture included, from Arlington homes Monday through Saturday. Its page asks you to call 817-277-6620, preferably several days ahead, so a couch you decide to part with on a Saturday morning will not be gone by that afternoon.

Donations can also go to the Salvation Army's thrift store and donation center at 1301 East Abram St., which takes them Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; for pickups, its regional page sends donors to satruck.org. Whichever you choose, whoever receives the couch makes the final call, and one refused at the door comes back home with you. The checklist above is how to avoid that trip.

A couch in good shape often moves faster through Facebook Marketplace, Nextdoor or a local Buy Nothing group than through a charity, because the buyer brings the truck. The listing does most of the work: daylight photos from the front and side, the fabric and any flaws stated up front, and the three measurements people actually need, which are width, depth and height.

Price it to move rather than to recover what it cost. A low price, or a free listing that says "you carry, by Sunday", filters out most of the people who would not have shown up anyway. Ask for a phone number before giving out your address, have someone else at home for the pickup, and do not leave the couch on a porch or at the curb overnight waiting for a buyer, where the weather may decide the question for you.

Set a deadline. If nobody has collected it by then, move on to the curb or a crew rather than letting the listing drift into a third week while the couch takes up the garage.