Shed cleanout: years of storage, one load

Junk stored under a shed: a plastic bin of foam floor mats, a lamp shade, a dog bed, cardboard boxes and garden tools. Nothing here is remarkable, and that is the point. This is what almost every shed and garage in Hays County looks like on the inside.

Sheds fill the same way garages do. Something is too good to throw out and too awkward to keep in the house, so it goes in the shed. Five years later the shed is full, and the mower that is supposed to live in it is parked outside in the weather.

The work is sorting, carrying and hauling, in that order. You point at what stays. Everything else gets carried out and loaded, and the floor gets swept. If the shed itself is going too, that is shed removal, and the cleanout is the first step of it.

Walk it first

Before anything moves you say what stays. Tools, holiday boxes, the good ladder. Those get set aside, not loaded.

Out in armloads, not by the bin

Shed doors are narrow and the floor is usually plywood over skids. Things come out by hand, which is slower than it looks and the reason a shed takes longer than a room of the same size.

Watch for what cannot be hauled

Sheds are where paint, fuel cans, pesticide, pool chemicals and old propane bottles end up. Those are handled separately and are not taken as regular junk. Point them out on the walk through. See the landfill run for where the rest of the load goes.

Floor swept

You get an empty shed, not an emptier one.