Cleanouts
Estate cleanout
A full house cleared after a move, a sale or a death in the family. We work at your pace, and nothing leaves until you say it leaves.
- Whole house
- Room by room
- Multiple loads
- Swept out at the end
The work
Somebody has to empty the house
Estate cleanouts come at bad times. A parent died. A house is going into probate. Somebody moved into assisted living and the family has thirty days to get the place cleared. On top of grief and paperwork, there is a house full of forty years of belongings and a deadline attached to it.
Our part is the simple part. We show up with the dump trailer, you tell us what goes, and we carry it out. Furniture, mattresses, appliances, closets, kitchen, garage, attic, the shed, the pile behind the shed. However many loads it takes.
What we will not do is rush you. If the family needs a week to go through the boxes first, take the week. If somebody needs to be there while we work, that is normal. And if you are not sure what is in the attic yet, we will find out together.
What we do
- Clear the house, garage, attic, shed and yard
- Carry everything out, including upstairs and down
- Break down beds, tables and shelving to load flat
- Take appliances, mattresses and furniture
- Run as many loads as the house takes
- Sweep the floors before we leave
What we do not do
- Appraise anything
- Buy the contents
- Run an estate sale or an auction
- Handle donation drop offs
- Deep clean or turn the house for a listing
- Decide for you what is worth keeping
If there is value in the house, get that handled first. We come after the decisions are made.
Before we load
Go through these first
Once it is on the trailer it is on its way to the landfill. This is the list of places money, papers and photographs actually turn up.
- Coat pockets, purses and shoe boxes
- Dresser drawers and under the liner paper
- Between mattress and box spring
- Books, envelopes taped behind picture frames
- The freezer, the flour tin and the toolbox
- Filing cabinets, safes and lock boxes
- Titles, deeds, tax records and insurance papers
- Prescription bottles and medical equipment
- Keys, spare keys and safe deposit keys
- Photo albums, negatives, slides and home video tapes
- Firearms and ammunition
- Anything with a serial number you may need later
Prescription medication goes to a pharmacy take back program. Firearms should go to a family member, a dealer or law enforcement before we walk in the door.
Sequence
How the job runs
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01
Walk the house
Room by room with whoever is handling the estate. You mark what stays, what gets donated and what goes. We take notes and give you a number for the job.
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02
Keep piles get protected
Anything staying with the family gets moved to one room, or the garage, and it does not get touched again.
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03
We load room by room
Furniture, mattresses, appliances, closets, dressers, kitchen, garage, attic, shed and yard. It gets carried out. You do not lift anything.
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04
More than one load if it needs it
A full house is usually several trailer loads. We keep running until the house is empty rather than filling one box and calling it done.
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05
Swept out
Floors broomed, closets empty, garage empty. What the realtor or the next tenant needs to see.
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06
Load goes to the landfill
The trailer gets tipped at the landfill. Two of the photos on this site were shot doing exactly that at the Guadalupe County landfill on FM 1150.
Documented
The load out, on camera
Straight answer on these photos: they are apartment turns and property manager cleanouts, not estate jobs. We do not have an estate house in the library yet and we are not going to label one that is not.
It is the same work in the same trailer. A trash enclosure in Kyle packed with a mattress, a dryer, a recliner and boxes, then that same trailer loaded with a washer, dryer, sectional and mattress on the way out. Two couches and a stack of mattresses cleared off a curb in San Marcos. A trailer of bagged household contents from an apartment turn. And the last one is where all of it ends up, tipping at the Guadalupe County landfill.
Pricing
What changes the price
Volume
How many trailer loads the house is. That is the biggest single factor and it is why a walkthrough or a video matters.
Weight
Disposal is charged by weight. Books, tile, tools and old console furniture are heavy for their size.
Stairs and carry
A second story, a walk up apartment or a long driveway all add time to every single item that leaves the house.
Heavy pieces
Upright pianos, gun safes, hide a bed sofas, chest freezers and full workshops take extra hands.
An estate sale that already happened cuts the volume a lot. So does family taking furniture first. Tell us what stage you are at and we will price what is actually left.
Related work
Part of the same house
Estate jobs pull in most of the rest of the list.
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Junk Removal
We load it, haul it and sweep the spot clean. Single items or a full trailer, house or jobsite.
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Furniture Removal
Couches, sectionals, recliners, desks, dressers. Out of the room, down the stairs, onto the trailer.
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Appliance Removal
Washers, dryers, refrigerators, ranges and water heaters carried out and hauled off.
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Garage Cleanout
Cleared back to the walls. Boxes, shelving, old furniture, bikes and years of stacked storage.
If a deck, a shed or a fence is coming out before the house lists, that is deck removal, shed removal and fence removal. Same crew, same trip.
Service area
Where we clear houses
San Marcos and about 35 miles out, in both directions along I-35.
Estate cleanout questions
Do you buy the contents or run an estate sale?
What should I pull out before you get there?
Can you work in stages?
Do you donate anything?
The house has to be empty by a closing date. Can you work to that?
What if I am out of state?
How much does an estate cleanout cost?
Is there anything you cannot take?
Talk it through
Tell us the address, roughly how big the house is and what your deadline looks like.
Elite Demo and Junk Removal. San Marcos, Texas, 35 mile radius.