Cleanouts

An Estate Cleanout Checklist That Respects the Family

Clearing a family home is not a logistics problem with feelings attached. It is an emotional process with logistics attached, and the order you do things in matters.

Before anything leaves the house

The most important rule of an estate cleanout is that nothing leaves the property until the legal side is settled. If the estate is going through probate, or if there is any disagreement among heirs, talk to the attorney before the container arrives rather than after.

Before you start:

• Confirm who has legal authority to dispose of the contents
• Locate the will, deeds, titles, insurance policies and financial records
• Photograph every room before anything moves
• Agree among the family who wants what, in writing if there is any tension
• Check whether anything is specifically bequeathed
• Have anything potentially valuable appraised rather than guessed at

The four-pile method

1. Keep. Family members are taking it. Label it with a name.
2. Sell or donate. Set a deadline — if it has not gone by then, it moves to disposal.
3. Dispose. Into the container.
4. Special handling. Documents to shred, medications, firearms, chemicals, electronics, refrigerant appliances.

Nothing goes into a fifth "decide later" pile, because the decide-later pile grows until it swallows the project.

Things people throw away and regret

• Paperwork not checked. Savings bonds, share certificates, insurance policies, deeds and cash turn up inside books, tins and drawers with genuine regularity.
• Mill and mine pension paperwork. Specific to here and worth real money. Careers at Bethlehem Steel, Cambria Iron and the Berwind-White mines left pension, union and benefit records — and in some cases black lung benefit documentation — that can still matter enormously to a surviving spouse. Box it for the attorney rather than binning it.
• Photographs and negatives. Once gone, gone. In this valley they also frequently include flood photographs that local historical societies actively want.
• Military records. Discharge papers, medals and service records matter to somebody, always.
• Cast iron cookware. Frequently the most valuable thing in the kitchen.
• Old tools. Pre-1970 hand tools have both value and demand, and a mill-town cellar workshop usually holds a great many of them.
• Hunting gear. Older rifles, shotguns and gear are taken seriously in this part of Pennsylvania and are routinely undervalued in a clear-out.
• Anything in the freezer or a coffee tin. Older people of a certain generation did not always trust banks.

What cannot go in a container

• Televisions, computers and monitors. Pennsylvania law — haulers cannot accept them and they are banned from landfills. There is usually at least one old television in a house of this age, so plan the electronics route at the start.
• Refrigerators, freezers and window AC units unless the refrigerant has been professionally evacuated. There is nearly always a spare freezer in a cellar here. The County runs appliance pickup dates, which is often simpler.
• Propane cylinders. Grill tanks are in most garages.
• Medications. Pharmacy take-back.
• Firearms and ammunition. Common in this region. Contact the Johnstown Police Department for guidance.
• Paint, solvents and chemicals. Dried-out latex with the lid off is acceptable; liquid and oil-based go to a County hazardous waste collection. Used motor oil the City takes free at the Highway Garage.
• Coal or wood ash that is not stone cold. Days, not hours.
• Confidential documents. Shred rather than dumpster.

Room by room, in the right order

1. Garage and shed

Almost entirely disposal, very little emotional weight, and it clears space to stage from the rest of the house. Watch for chemicals, fuel cans, old paint, propane and the spare freezer.

2. Kitchen

High volume, quick decisions. Check for cast iron before anything goes in.

3. Bathrooms and utility

Fast. Medications to one side.

4. Spare bedrooms and closets

Textiles donate well. This is where paperwork hides.

5. Living areas

Furniture decisions, and the first genuinely emotional room for most families.

6. Main bedroom and personal effects

Slowest. Do not schedule anything else for this day.

7. Attic

Often unfloored in houses of this age. Take the time to lay a safe path and work it in the cool of the morning in summer.

The coal cellar is the real job

Worth its own section, because in this valley it is almost always the largest part of the work and it is consistently underestimated.

A great many houses here were built with a coal cellar for a coal-fired furnace, and when the furnace was converted the cellar simply became storage. Fifty years later it holds the workshop, the laundry, the canning jars, the holiday decorations, the furniture that was replaced but not discarded, and quite often the residue of the coal itself.

Three practical points. Everything comes up the stairs, and those stairs are frequently steep and narrow — that governs how long you need the container far more than the volume does. The material is dense, because it is old. And if the cellar has ever taken water — and in a valley that flooded in 1889, 1936 and 1977, plenty have — the material is far heavier than it looks and we size for weight rather than volume.

Sizing the container

• Small apartment or half-double: 15 yard
• Two to three bedroom house, no cellar clear-out: 20 yard
• Three bedroom with a full cellar and attic: 20 yard plus a swap, or a 30
• Long-held family home, everything going: 30 yard, and plan for a second

Two local cautions. Older housing here holds solid hardwood furniture, cast iron and tools substantially heavier than modern flat-pack. And the driveway may cap the size before the contents do — on the valley borough streets a 15 yard with a planned swap is often the only workable shape, regardless of how much there is.

We schedule estate work with longer rental windows as standard.

When to bring in help

Consider professional help when the property has been hoarded, when there is mould or pest activity, when biohazard is involved, when the family cannot face it, or when nobody is local. There is no failure in that. An estate liquidator will often recover value that pays for a good part of their fee — and in a region with this much genuinely old furniture, tooling and hunting gear in circulation, that is more often true than not.

Call and tell us what the situation is and we will schedule it in a way that gives the family room to breathe.