City of Salem · Virginia
Four miles from Roanoke, and the instructions are the exact opposite.
Salem bought automated leaf trucks and runs a real loose-leaf vacuum program with them, free, from October into the new year. No bags to buy, no dated windows to hit — you rake to the street and the truck takes it. Roanoke City, four miles east, can bill you for the same pile. If you moved across that line, this is the habit to un-learn.
What Salem does with your leaves
Loose-leaf vacuum, curbside, no charge · 2025–26 season dates
It is a route program rather than a set number of passes. Through the main season crews work loose leaves curbside on their normal weekday runs, and the city publishes a live progress map so you can see roughly where they have got to. After the main season it drops to an as-needed basis you phone in, handled on Fridays. Then it stops for the year and loose leaves have to be bagged or boxed. Credit where it is due: this is an unusually good service for a city this size, and it costs residents nothing.
- Main season 2025–26 ran October 20 through January 2, with crews collecting on their normal weekday runs.
- From January 5 to March 6 it moved to as-needed only: call 540-375-3039 and pickups happen on Fridays.
- After March 6, loose leaves are not collected at all. They have to be bagged or boxed.
- Salem publishes no per-neighborhood pass count, so there is no guaranteed number of visits to your street.
- The trucks cannot handle sticks, branches, twigs, stumps, lumber or garbage. The city is emphatic — piles with other material mixed in are not collected.
- Keep brush, garbage and leaf piles separate from one another.
- Do not cover your water meter with leaves. It can be damaged during collection.
- Alleys are largely impractical for the automated trucks, so an alley-side pile is a problem.
The city takes the pile. Getting it there is the job.
Salem's half of the deal is disposal, and it is a good half — free, no bags, no dated windows. Your half is every leaf that is not yet at the street: the beds, the fence lines, around the foundation, the whole back yard. That is the weekend we take off your hands.
Your address and about a minute for a real price. Or call and talk to the person who does the work.
Questions we get in Salem
- If the city vacuums them free, why hire anyone?
- Because the truck only takes what reaches the street. Salem collects the pile at the curb; it does not clear beds, fence lines, the ground around the foundation, or the back yard, and in most Salem lots that is where the bulk of it sits. The city gives you free disposal. The raking, dragging and hauling out front is still yours.
- Why was my pile skipped?
- Almost always something in it. The automated trucks cannot take sticks, branches or garbage, and the city states flatly that it will not collect leaf piles with other material mixed in. Alley placement is the other common reason — the trucks struggle in Salem's tight alleyways.
- Are the 2026–27 dates published?
- Not yet. As of early September 2026 the city page still carries the 2025–26 dates above. Salem's own rate schedule describes the program generically — curbside October through December, as-needed January through mid-March, nothing after mid-March — and that is the shape you can plan around.
- I just moved from Roanoke City. What changes?
- Essentially everything about leaves. Roanoke takes bagged paper only, never loose, and can bill you $100 plus contractor costs for leaves left in the right-of-way. Salem asks you to put loose leaves at the street and vacuums them at no charge. Same valley, opposite instructions.
- What would you charge to just get it all to the curb?
- That is the common Salem job and it prices off the yard — how much is down, how far it has to travel, whether we are hauling it away as well or leaving it for the city truck. Put your address in for a price online, or call if the lot is steep, wooded or alley-backed and you would rather describe it.
Nearby, with different rules
Roanoke City
Bagged only — paper, never plastic
Rake leaves into a Roanoke street and the city can bill you $100 plus the contractor's cost. Here are the bag rules, the four collection windows, and what to do instead.
Roanoke County
Biweekly bulk & brush, A/B week rotation
Roanoke County collects bulk and brush biweekly, but not materials from paid contractors. That one line decides how leaf cleanup works in Cave Spring, Hollins and Glenvar.
Botetourt County
No county curbside — private haulers and paid drop-off
Nothing in Botetourt is free: trash is a private subscription near $24 a month, and drop-off runs $65 a ton or $10 a pickup load. Here is the real arithmetic on a leaf cleanup.
What do you need done?
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