Landscaping & Exterior Services in Boston, MA
Casablanca Services is a BPDA-approved City of Boston vendor for mattress pickup and recycling — a credential the city awards only after auditing the operation behind it.
That contract is the shortest way to explain who we are in Boston. A city does not hand its mattress waste stream to a contractor with a truck and a website. It audits you. It checks that your recycling is real, that your insurance is current, that your crews show up on the day they said they would, and that the material you collect actually ends up dismantled and recycled to Massachusetts state standards rather than dumped in a transfer station. We passed that review, and we have kept passing it.
The same crews that hold that contract also mow lawns in West Roxbury, rebuild frost-heaved brick walkways in the South End, and plow the parking lots of triple-deckers in Dorchester at four in the morning. Boston is a hard city to do exterior work in — narrow streets, permit parking, historic districts with real rules, and a freeze-thaw cycle that finds every shortcut a contractor ever took. We have been working in it since 2005.
The BPDA Contract — What It Actually Means for You
When you book a mattress pickup with us in Boston, you are not hiring a junk hauler who will drive your mattress to a landfill and charge you for the privilege. You are hiring the vendor the city itself vetted for that job.
Massachusetts banned mattresses from disposal in November 2022. That is not a guideline — it is a waste ban, and it is why a mattress left on a Boston curb without a scheduled recycling pickup can become the property owner's problem rather than the city's. We handle the compliant path end to end: scheduled collection, transport, and dismantling to state standards, with the steel, foam, fiber and timber separated for recycling.
- Standard pickup: $79.95 per item, collected in 48 hours or more
- Expedited next-business-day pickup: $119.95 per item
- One item = one mattress or one box spring — a set is two items
- Every unit recycled to Massachusetts state standards — never landfilled
Working Within Boston’s Constraints
Most of what makes Boston difficult for exterior contractors has nothing to do with plants. It is logistics. A crew that shows up to a Back Bay brownstone with a full-size dump trailer and no plan for where to put it will spend an hour circling and then block a lane for the rest of the day. We size the truck to the street, not to the job.
Resident permit parking is the constant. For larger jobs we pull the parking permits and post the signs in advance through the city's process, because the alternative is a crew arriving to find nowhere legal to stage. In the historic districts — Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the South End landmark areas — exterior changes that are visible from a public way can require review before work begins. We would rather tell you that during the estimate than after a stop-work order.
Boston also has more shade than most of Metro West. Between the tree canopy, tall buildings and narrow lot lines, a large share of city lawns get less than four hours of direct sun. Sun-loving turf sold as a generic New England blend will thin out and die there. Fine fescues will not. Getting the seed right for the specific yard is most of the reason a Boston lawn either works or does not.
What We Do in Boston
One crew, every season — which for a city property owner mostly means one number to call instead of five.
- Mattress pickup and recycling under the City of Boston contract, residential and commercial
- Spring and fall cleanups sized for city lots, with all debris hauled out rather than bagged at the curb
- Weekly and bi-weekly mowing programs for homes, multi-family buildings and small commercial properties
- Paver and brick walkways, patios and steps rebuilt on bases that survive the freeze-thaw cycle
- Retaining walls, including the short structural walls that hold back Boston's many sloped lots
- Fencing — wood, vinyl, chain-link and ornamental — with permits handled where the city requires them
- Commercial snow plowing, sanding and ice management with 24/7 storm response
- Property management support for landlords and management companies running multiple addresses
Snow in the City
Boston snow removal is a different trade from suburban plowing. There is nowhere to put the snow. A suburban driveway has a lawn beside it; a Southie lot has a property line and a sidewalk and a hydrant, and every cubic yard you push has to end up somewhere legal. Stacking snow into a spot you were supposed to keep clear is how a property ends up with a citation, or worse, a claim.
The city requires property owners to clear abutting sidewalks within a set window after snowfall ends, and the clock runs whether or not anyone is around to notice. For commercial clients we plan the pile locations before the season starts, not during the storm, and we handle sidewalk clearing as part of the contract rather than as an afterthought. We are a SIMA member, which matters mostly because it means our ice management follows documented practice — the kind of record that is useful if a slip-and-fall claim ever lands on your desk.
Where We Work in Boston
What We Do in Boston
Boston — Common Questions
Are you really the City of Boston’s mattress recycling vendor?
Yes. Casablanca Services is an approved City of Boston BPDA vendor for mattress pickup and recycling. It is the credential we are best known for: it means the city vetted our recycling process, insurance and reliability before approving us for the work.
Can I just leave my mattress on the curb in Boston?
Not safely. Massachusetts has banned mattresses from disposal since November 2022, so an unscheduled mattress on the curb is not guaranteed to be collected and can leave the property owner responsible. Book a scheduled pickup instead — put the mattress out the night before your date and we handle the rest, including the recycling documentation.
Do you handle parking permits for work in Back Bay or the South End?
For jobs that need street space, yes — we pull the parking permits and post signage in advance through the city's process. For work in a historic or landmark district, we will also tell you during the estimate if what you are asking for is likely to need design review before we start, so nothing gets halted mid-job.
My Boston yard is mostly shade. Can anything actually grow there?
Usually yes, but not the grass most contractors default to. Between the canopy and the buildings, a lot of city yards see under four hours of sun, which sun-loving blends cannot survive. Fine fescues handle it. If a yard genuinely gets almost no light, we will say so and suggest a planted bed or hardscape rather than sell you sod that will be dead by August.
Serving Boston Since 2005
Free on-site estimate anywhere in Boston. Call (508) 271-5655 or request one online.