How long does a dumped mattress actually sit on an Oakland corner?

The 311 data says the median is nine days. In Sobrante Park it's fourteen. "Closed" doesn't mean clean.

Marcus Johnson · Aug 30, 2026 · 4 min read

How long does a dumped mattress actually sit on an Oakland corner? The 311 data says the median is nine days. In Sobrante Park, it's been fourteen.

The city counts 389,334 dumping reports since tracking started. The number that matters is smaller: how many of those reports ended with the pile actually gone. The closure codes say 68% of dumping cases close as "abated" — that's the code for "removed." The other 32% close as "closed" with no abatement code at all.

Here's the part the headline number hides: "closed" does not mean clean. A report closes when someone logs it, not when the pile disappears. The dataset keeps both timestamps — created and closed — and the gap between them is the real response time. The abatement code is the only field that confirms removal, and a third of closed cases never get one.

District 6 files the most dumping reports and has the worst closure rate on them. District 3 is close behind on volume. Neither is a surprise to anyone who lives there — but now it's in writing, with the dataset ID under it, so the council can't unsee it.

What you can do about it: file with the address and a photo, keep the case number, and if the case closes without an abatement code, re-file with the old case number in the notes. A pile reported twice with a case trail is harder to close quietly than a pile reported once.