Before an Estate Clean Out Starts: What to Find First
Nothing should leave the house until two things are settled. First, whoever is in charge of the estate has said the house can be cleared. If you're not sure who that is, ask the executor or the estate's attorney before you book. Second, somebody has gone through the house for the things a hauler should never see.
Look in the places people really hide things. Coat pockets. Shoe boxes on the closet shelf. Inside books. The freezer. Under the mattress. The top shelf of the kitchen cabinets. Taped to the underside of a drawer.
Take your time with this part. Once a house is empty, there's no going back through it.
- Papers: wills, deeds, car titles, tax returns, bank statements, insurance policies, military records
- Keys: house, car, safe deposit box, the padlock on the shed
- Jewelry, watches, coins and cash, including the envelope in the dresser
- Photo albums, slides, home movies, letters and family Bibles
- Medications and anything with a needle
- Firearms and ammunition
Sorting a Whole House: Keep, Family, Donate, Haul
A house full of someone's belongings is too much to hold in your head. Tags fix that. Buy a few colors of painter's tape or sticky dots and give each color one meaning.
The simplest version is one rule. If it has tape on it, it stays. If it doesn't, it goes.
Better yet, pick one room as the keep room. Move everything that's staying in there, shut the door and tape a note on it. We won't open it.
Give relatives a firm date to collect their things, and make it a few days before the pickup. Then walk the house one more time.
| Tag | What it means | Who handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Keep | Staying with you or going to your home | You, before pickup day |
| Family | Promised to a relative who hasn't picked it up yet | The relative, by a date you set |
| Sell | Going to an estate sale, a dealer or an online listing | You or the sale company |
| No tag | Donate or haul | Us. Usable items get separated for donation after pickup |
Estate Cleanouts in Waukegan IL: What We Carry Out
An estate job is every kind of pickup at once. Most houses have all of this in them.
We carry it from wherever it sits. Upstairs bedrooms, the basement and the attic are all normal, and there's no stairs fee. Clear the food out of the fridge and the cupboards before we come.
- Living room and bedroom furniture: sofas, recliners, dressers, china cabinets, bed frames
- Mattresses and box springs from every bedroom
- Kitchen contents, small appliances, dishes and cookware
- Fridges, freezers, ranges, washers and dryers
- TVs, stereos, computers and boxes of cords
- Closets full of clothes, linens and shoes
- Basement, attic and garage contents, including the workbench and the shelving
- Patio furniture, yard tools and whatever's in the shed
Booking an Estate Junk Removal Job, Even From Out of State
The person handling an estate often lives hours away. That works fine. You don't have to be at the house for the quote or the pickup.
For a smaller home or a partly cleared one, walk through with your phone and text a photo of each room to (224) 944-8652. We'll send one flat price back. For a full house we'd rather see it in person. The on-site look is free and takes about 15 minutes, and a neighbor, a realtor or a relative can let us in.
Once you approve the price, pick a slot. Same-day and next-day slots are often open, which helps when there's a closing date coming. Tell us how we get in, whether that's a lockbox, a neighbor or a key under the mat. Start an estate cleanout request here.
If the home was a rental and the landlord wants keys by the end of the month, our move-out junk hauling page covers that kind of deadline.
Pickup Day in a Full House: How the Carry-Out Goes
We start with a walk-through, in person or on the phone with you. We want to hear it from you: what the tags mean, which rooms are off limits and anything you're still looking for.
Then we work through the house one room at a time and load as we go. If there's something you haven't found yet, tell us what it looks like. We'll keep an eye out and set it aside if it turns up.
A full house often takes more than one truckload. That's expected, and the price you approved covers the whole job.
When the last room is empty we sweep the floors. The house is left clear and broom-swept, ready for the cleaners, the painter or the realtor's photos.
What an Estate Cleanout Is Priced On
Same as every job we do: volume. The price is how much truck space the contents fill. Labor, loading, sweep-up and disposal are in the number.
No hourly rate, so a careful pace doesn't cost you. No stairs fee for the second floor or the basement. No weight fee for the solid oak dresser or the boxes of books. No fuel surcharge. Here's how the truck sizes are priced.
You approve the price before work starts. For families splitting costs, that helps. Everybody sees the same figure up front and nobody gets a surprise later.
The best way to bring the price down is to take out what's leaving anyway. Every piece a relative picks up, sells or donates on their own is space you're not paying for.
Where Everything Goes: Donation First, Then Recycling
It's hard to watch a household get loaded onto a truck. It helps to know where it's headed.
Each truckload is sorted after pickup. Furniture, housewares and other items in usable shape go to donation. Metal is separated out for scrap recycling. Illinois and Wisconsin both ban electronics from landfills, so the TVs and computers are taken to an electronics recycler. Fridges and freezers have their refrigerant recovered before they're scrapped. Only what's left after all that goes to a licensed transfer station.
If there's a particular charity you want certain things to go to, the surest way is to deliver them yourself, or have that group pick up, before our visit.
What We Can't Take From an Estate
A few things found in almost any long-lived-in home can't ride on a junk truck.
In Wisconsin, your county's household hazardous waste collection is the place to ask about paint and chemicals. Asbestos is also on the list, so leave old pipe wrap and old floor tile alone.
| Item | Why it stays | Where to turn |
|---|---|---|
| Medications | They don't belong in a mixed load | Ask a pharmacy about drug take-back |
| Needles, lancets and other medical waste | Medical waste is on our can't-take list | Ask the pharmacy or the doctor's office about sharps disposal |
| Ammunition | Can't go on the truck | Call the local police non-emergency line and ask how to turn it in |
| Wet paint, solvents, motor oil, gasoline | Liquid chemicals need special handling | SWALCO household chemical waste collection, for Lake County residents |
| Propane tanks | Can't go on the truck | Ask a propane exchange or refill shop about returns |
Estate Junk Removal vs. Estate Sales, Movers and Cleaners
It helps to know what we do and don't do, so you can line up the right people in the right order.
The usual order goes like this. Family takes their things. The sale happens, if there is one. We clear the house. Cleaners come in. Then the listing photos.
Some homes are more than full. If rooms are packed floor to ceiling, read about our hoarded home cleanouts, which take more planning. And if there's also a rented unit full of furniture somewhere, we handle storage locker clear-outs the same way.
- We don't run estate sales or appraise anything. If the house has things worth selling, have the sale first. We clear what's left.
- We're not movers. Furniture going to a relative's house needs a mover or a pickup truck and a couple of cousins.
- We're not a cleaning service. We sweep up. Scrubbing kitchens, shampooing carpet and washing windows is a job for cleaners after we're done.
- We don't drop off dumpsters. Everything leaves on our truck.
- We don't tear down buildings. A shed, a playset or an above-ground pool is fine.
Estate Clean Out Service Across Lake County IL and Southeast Wisconsin
Waukegan is home, and we work every town in Lake County with no extra charge for distance.
That includes the small villages. Estate cleanouts in Bannockburn, next door to Deerfield, often mean a large home on a large lot, so plan on the free on-site look.
In the central part of the county, whole-house clearing in Round Lake follows the same steps: photos or a walk-through, one price, pick a day.
We also drive about 30 minutes past the Wisconsin line. For a family place on the water in Twin Lakes, out in western Kenosha County, send photos and we'll confirm the price by text before the truck leaves.
We run Monday through Saturday, 7am to 7pm, with Sunday pickups by appointment.
