Free furniture won’t cost you a dime if you’re in the right city at the right time. That’s the actual finding from a study by lighting brand Pooky, and it’s more useful than it sounds.

Pooky’s researchers pulled landfill tonnage data, renter population percentages, and search volumes for terms like “cheap furniture,” “furniture disposal,” and “bulk trash pickup” across 25 of the most populous U.S. cities. The point was to identify where budget-conscious people have the best realistic shot at furnishing a home for $0. The methodology is solid enough to take seriously.

The top ten cities, ranked in order: Las Vegas, Nevada; Denver, Colorado; Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Houston, Texas; San Jose, California; Nashville, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; and Columbus, Ohio.

That’s a specific list. Worth keeping on your phone.

What ties these cities together isn’t just population size. It’s churn. Las Vegas runs on tourism and short-term rentals. Boston, Columbus, and Nashville all host major universities where student housing cycles reset every May. Denver and Seattle have both absorbed years of transplant workers who arrived, tried the city, and relocated again when remote work made everywhere feel optional. High turnover populations move fast, and bulky Furnishing doesn’t travel well. A solid oak dresser becomes a sidewalk item when someone’s catching a 6 a.m. flight and can’t be bothered to rent a truck.

Pooky describes the university-driven pattern as “a predictable, seasonal spike in free furniture availability.” That spike concentrates in May and June, when students leaving for summer internships or moving back to their parents’ houses in places like Ohio or Texas or California abandon sofas, desks, lamps, and bed frames rather than pay for storage. It’s not random generosity. It’s logistics. The math doesn’t favor hauling a bookshelf across three states when a new one costs $40 at a discount store.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates back up the scale of what gets discarded nationally. Furniture and furnishings represent a significant share of municipal solid waste, which means there’s real volume out there before any of it reaches landfills.

The Family Handyman analysis of Pooky’s data noted that the same seasonal pattern that drives curbside finds also feeds online platforms. Freecycle listings and Facebook Marketplace posts tagged at $0 tend to surge during the same late-spring window. If you don’t live near a top-ten city, those platforms close the gap considerably. Check them weekly. Set alerts if the app allows it.

Some practical notes before you start loading up a hatchback.

Hard furniture is your friend. Tables, chairs, dressers, shelving units and bookcases carry low risk and clean up fast. A little soap, some new hardware from a hardware store bin, and you’ve got something usable. Upholstered pieces are trickier. Sofas and mattresses can hide mold or pests that won’t reveal themselves until they’re already inside your house. Inspect the seams, check the underside, and trust your nose. That’s not a reason to never take a free couch. It’s a reason to look before you load.

Municipalities in cities like Houston and San Jose often publish bulk trash pickup schedules in advance on their city websites. Knowing those dates lets you map a route through target neighborhoods before the truck arrives and takes everything. Timing matters more than most people realize.

The home décor trends that drive people to replace functioning furniture every few years also work in a curb-shopper’s favor. Someone in Nashville decides their living room needs a refresh before the holidays, and a perfectly solid console table ends up on the sidewalk in October. Their trend cycle is your free furniture cycle.

“They shared consistent patterns of high residential turnover combined with large student populations,” said a spokesperson for Pooky, describing what the top-ranked cities had in common.

The window opening right now, heading into May and June, is the best stretch of the year to be paying attention to curbs, apps, and bulk pickup calendars near any of the 25 cities in the study. That’s true whether you’re setting up a first apartment or furnishing a basement room you’ve been ignoring for two years. Either way, it won’t cost you anything but time.