Spin off of PSA Declutter your House Thread - Estate clean out companies

[jaybirdsmommy]

So, I don't really want to hi-jack the original thread but I've been giving this some thought. For those of you that have dealt with disposing of a relatives belongings,, would an estate clean out service have been of value to you? I know some in the other thread mentioned 1800 got junk, but they aren't available in our area, and I'm thinking a bit more custom-tailored approach than the basic back up a dumpster and pitch it all companies. We would come in with a ton of totes and trash bags. Anything salvageable would go into the totes and into the back of the truck, furniture would be loaded up as well, trash would be disposed of at the local dump unless the neighborhood rules allow dumpsters. We'd haul it all back to our warehouse, sort it and arrange for local charities to pick it up from there. The goal would be to get in and out of the home as quickly and discretely as possible.

Let me preface this by saying my husband and I already own a cleaning company so licensing, insurance, equipment, etc are already in place. We own the warehouse. Our current rate is $25/man hour (i.e. if 2 people are working it comes out to $50/hr), I might bump this up to $30 plus any extra pass through costs like dumpster rental if needed so I can pay anyone we hire to help in the $20/hr range. I should also mention that this is a side hustle, not something we are looking to support ourselves with. Just something we do to make a little extra money. We have a reliable source of young people to help with heavy lifting.

I don't want it to be an estate-sale business - our target clientele would be the people who don't want anything from the house but maybe don't want it all sent to the landfill either and don't want to bother with the estate sale/yard sale process. In particular, those who are dealing with an estate that is several hours away from them and would have to travel/take off work, etc to do it themselves. I was thinking offering a variety of levels depending on what the family needs:

1. Simple clear out left in "floor swept" condition - we remove everything, dispose as we see fit, and sweep the floors on the way out.
2. Simple clear out with move out clean - we remove everything, dispose as we see fit, do what we consider a move-out clean where we basically wash every vertical and horizontal surface in the house, insides of appliances, windows, blinds, light fixtures, etc.
3. Clear out where the client wants things sorted/gone through/set aside or a missing item located or if they have items they want to go somewhere other than our regular, easy donation locations.

All these would be charged at the hourly rate plus pass through cost for dumpster rental or similar expenses if needed.

Possible add-on services:

4. nicotine or pet odor remediation
5. Simple repairs needed to freshen up the house to get it ready for sale (basically any small cosmetic items that don't need a licensed professional to do)
6. coordinate getting quotes from local contractors if larger repairs are needed / act as keyholder or local point of contact if needed
7. install a temporary security system (you hear so many horror stories about empty houses these days) and provide monitoring (DH's main source of income is his security company, he offers this service through that)
8. Yard clean out / mowing/ weed eating

Thoughts or suggestions? I know everyone has different comfort levels and this can be a touchy subject. If it's not for you, I totally understand but please don't flame me for the idea. We are coming up on football season which will keep us running ragged with the security business so this wouldn't even be considered until next year anyway. I'm just trying to work out the details and decide if it's something we want to pursue.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Also, if you have used a similar service and want to share what they did and what they charged that would be helpful as well.

 

[amcc]

I think your hourly rates are too low, at least in my area. Those are basic weekly cleaning person rates here and this is significantly more labor intensive. I would also consider partnering with one or several estate sale companies in your area where you would do what you propose but at the end of the estate sale process.

 

[LoveToDisney]

I like your idea. Wish I could sign up now for after my death so my stuff would not just go into a landfill and the good stuff would be recycled.

 

[barkley]

so you've already got the clean-up and security companies with all the associated insurances which would seem to cover most of the new ideas. what i would be concerned about are the 3 add-on's below b/c they seem to be entering into new areas where you might require other licensing and insurance.

5. Simple repairs needed to freshen up the house to get it ready for sale (basically any small cosmetic items that don't need a licensed professional to do)
6. coordinate getting quotes from local contractors if larger repairs are needed / act as keyholder or local point of contact if needed

in my neck of the woods doing even the small non licensed repairs would still require you to have some sort of buisness licensing as a 'handy man'. if you actualy co-ordinate the quotes from other contractors then here you would be acting as the 'general contractor' and be responsible/liable for ensuring all the other companies have the proper L&I licensing, insurance...and are ultimatly responsible for anything that goes wrong/customer is unsatisfied with. it comes with some HEFTY insurance requirements (and i believe some extensive knowledge/licensing). being the 'key holder' would concern me re. liability as a de facto 'property manager' and becoming liable for anything that could happen to a vacant home.

8. Yard clean out / mowing/ weed eating

does your current clean-up bsns insurance cover your employees/you for these types of services? i would be hesitant as a homeowner to hire someone who is not insured for it but that might be b/c (a) i don't want someone injured on my property and having liability for it, and (b) i had an excellent company come out to a former home to do mowing and trimming, heard a small 'ping'-then hours on end of crackle, crackle, crackle (shatter proof glass)......one tiny pebble the caught up by the mower and flown into a double sliding door. that company was out a significant chunk of change for the replacement and installation.

I like your idea. Wish I could sign up now for after my death so my stuff would not just go into a landfill and the good stuff would be recycled.

you know-this might be a niche audience to market to. those of us who have good intentions about clearing stuff out, probably have stuff we are totaly willing to rid ourselves of. call in a company that starts pulling the stuff out of the sheds/garage/basement/rooms-asks if you want to keep/toss/donate (just like they do on 'hoarders'). allot of people have the best intentions and absolutly no mental or emotional blocks about ridding themselves of stuff and actualy WANT to do it-it's just time consuming and physicaly demanding if you are doing it on your own (and i think having an uninterested 3rd party help do it would keep from the prolonged 'ah don't throw that away, i remember.....' conversations between family members).

sign me up!!!!

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

so you've already got the clean-up and security companies with all the associated insurances which would seem to cover most of the new ideas. what i would be concerned about are the 3 add-on's below b/c they seem to be entering into new areas where you might require other licensing and insurance.



in my neck of the woods doing even the small non licensed repairs would still require you to have some sort of buisness licensing as a 'handy man'. if you actualy co-ordinate the quotes from other contractors then here you would be acting as the 'general contractor' and be responsible/liable for ensuring all the other companies have the proper L&I licensing, insurance...and are ultimatly responsible for anything that goes wrong/customer is unsatisfied with. it comes with some HEFTY insurance requirements (and i believe some extensive knowledge/licensing). being the 'key holder' would concern me re. liability as a de facto 'property manager' and becoming liable for anything that could happen to a vacant home.



does your current clean-up bsns insurance cover your employees/you for these types of services? i would be hesitant as a homeowner to hire someone who is not insured for it but that might be b/c (a) i don't want someone injured on my property and having liability for it, and (b) i had an excellent company come out to a former home to do mowing and trimming, heard a small 'ping'-then hours on end of crackle, crackle, crackle (shatter proof glass)......one tiny pebble the caught up by the mower and flown into a double sliding door. that company was out a significant chunk of change for the replacement and installation.




you know-this might be a niche audience to market to. those of us who have good intentions about clearing stuff out, probably have stuff we are totaly willing to rid ourselves of. call in a company that starts pulling the stuff out of the sheds/garage/basement/rooms-asks if you want to keep/toss/donate (just like they do on 'hoarders'). allot of people have the best intentions and absolutly no mental or emotional blocks about ridding themselves of stuff and actualy WANT to do it-it's just time consuming and physicaly demanding if you are doing it on your own (and i think having an uninterested 3rd party help do it would keep from the prolonged 'ah don't throw that away, i remember.....' conversations between family members).

sign me up!!!!

Thanks, we will definitely make sure we are covered insurance wise for whatever we offer. Both companies have workers comp, employee coverage already.

I'll look into the legal issues for the contractor thing, definitely don't want any involvement beyond opening the door for someone to come in and give a quote. If it's not doable I'll drop that idea. No handy man license is required in our state so I think we're ok there.

 

[tvguy]

Such a company would certainly be helpful. The current Estate Liquidators here really won't get involved with disposal of every day things unless you have some high end items mixed in. They make their money on selling $25,000 painting, or silver or a coin collection or a high end collector car.
Dealing with this with my daughter's house. She is moving overseas and getting rid of everything that won't fit in one large suitcase. Most stuff is almost valueless.

 

[mjkacmom]

I believe 1800 got junk does put aside things they think they can sell. I think this is new. I know this because we are dealing with my husband’s parent’s house at the moment. That’s our next call. I used a family company for my parent’s house. They had enough really nice paintings, furniture, silver etc. to get an estate sale company to out on an estate sale, so the junk needed to be removed first so they could stage the sale.

 

[jo-jo]

I believe 1800 got junk does put aside things they think they can sell. I think this is new. I know this because we are dealing with my husband’s parent’s house at the moment. That’s our next call. I used a family company for my parent’s house. They had enough really nice paintings, furniture, silver etc. to get an estate sale company to out on an estate sale, so the junk needed to be removed first so they could stage the sale.

This is ten years ago,but when we used1800 junk, they did say they try to keep as much as they can ,out of landfills.

 

[barkley]

Such a company would certainly be helpful. The current Estate Liquidators here really won't get involved with disposal of every day things unless you have some high end items mixed in. They make their money on selling $25,000 painting, or silver or a coin collection or a high end collector car.
Dealing with this with my daughter's house. She is moving overseas and getting rid of everything that won't fit in one large suitcase. Most stuff is almost valueless.

if she's not looking at making money on anything you have 2 potential resources in your neck of the woods (we used them when we moved from the area)-

the vietnam veterans of america (VVA) will accept any and all usable household goods-and they pickup, their site says it does curbside pickup but we arranged to have the items in the room closest to the door (and in the garage).

'the airman's attic'. we hooked up with the one at Travis AFB and told them the items we had that they could choose from. They arranged for volunteers to come and pick up the items. this is a neat organization that operates on multiple military bases and provides loan outs of household items for service members and their families who have been recently reclocated and are still awaiting their personal household items to arrive.

 

[tvguy]

if she's not looking at making money on anything you have 2 potential resources in your neck of the woods (we used them when we moved from the area)-

the vietnam veterans of america (VVA) will accept any and all usable household goods-and they pickup, their site says it does curbside pickup but we arranged to have the items in the room closest to the door (and in the garage).

'the airman's attic'. we hooked up with the one at Travis AFB and told them the items we had that they could choose from. They arranged for volunteers to come and pick up the items. this is a neat organization that operates on multiple military bases and provides loan outs of household items for service members and their families who have been recently reclocated and are still awaiting their personal household items to arrive.

Looked up VVA, I will call but seems they don't take beds and large furniture, not sure how they define large furniture.
Travis is over 50 miles away, but I can check too. Thanks.

 

[mjkacmom]

if she's not looking at making money on anything you have 2 potential resources in your neck of the woods (we used them when we moved from the area)-

the vietnam veterans of america (VVA) will accept any and all usable household goods-and they pickup, their site says it does curbside pickup but we arranged to have the items in the room closest to the door (and in the garage).

'the airman's attic'. we hooked up with the one at Travis AFB and told them the items we had that they could choose from. They arranged for volunteers to come and pick up the items. this is a neat organization that operates on multiple military bases and provides loan outs of household items for service members and their families who have been recently reclocated and are still awaiting their personal household items to arrive.

I have the VETS here for pickup every other month or do, I schedule a pickup so I’m forced to purge.

 

[HopperFan]

We have lots of estate companies around here that do a variety of services.

Had a friend whose mother had a decent sized home, but she had dementia and didn't take care of it and didn't let the kids help her. They finally had to move her out but ran in to some issues with selling the home, including her refusing. She still was lucid enough to refuse. The house sat with all her "stuff" for a couple years. It appeared the home had been used by local kids too so damage throughout. They asked us about estate companies and we gave them a name of a reputable one to see what they said.

Company said the condition was not something they could safely have a sale and most the stuff wouldn't sell anyway after sitting there. They made her an offer that they would haul everything away, dispose of most of it and what they could sell would be their fee. I mean they are sellers. No out of pocket for friend. They already had what they wanted from house and emotionally the arrangement worked to keep them from having to do it.

I think there could be a market for this ~ many don't want to or simply can't do the big purge, get the dumpsters, take to donation and deal with it all. I imagine most estate companies just want to do the big sales for their cut and don't get too involved with a full clean out. And if you did a full service style it saves those who are in charge from working with multiple contractors.

 

[disykat]

I like your idea and we would have liked to use it - BUT....

We ended up going the estate sale route, which was hard because we had to think about people coming into the family home and rummaging through our parent's stuff - donating it all would have been a preferable option had it been affordable. We felt obligated to preserve as much of their estate as possible since they were both entering memory care. We didn't want to spend money. (We're many years in to paying for their care from their estate now and probably have quite a few more to go. Fortunately, they had a good chunk of investments because we long ago surpassed what we got from their estate sale and the sale of their home- which like above had already sat empty for a few years while they still had opinions about keeping it.) The hard part for you will be the reality that your service will cost money, while the estate sale people sold everything and gave us a percentage. We would have been very happy just coming out close to even and knowing charities benefited. We just simply didn't feel right spending money on clean up by just flat out paying someone to do it.

Could you maybe partner with someone who will sell larger value items for you so your clients could have some cash? Maybe coordinating X resale person to come through and purchase some of the more valuable items, and after their take the clients could then use the remaining cash to cover some or all of the cost of your company to sort and donate the rest?

 

[_19disnA]

An 'estate sale' to me is entirely different from those 1-800 got junk places. An estate is where there are individual items of significant value that others would want to buy and worth the time/effort to hold some sort of open house to bring in bids. If it is just regular household items, you are probably better off holding a garage sale to get what you can and also get rid of the bulkier items while perhaps raising a few dollars. What is left over after that is where you call one of those places who haul away unwanted items. I have no idea what those haul away companies do with the items and assume most end up in a landfill. At least you are paying them to do that where it probably wouldn't be practical to do on your own. If the object is to get rid of unwanted items, I am not sure it really matters what they do with it once it is gone from your property. Most personal items have no other value and clearly not something other people would want.

Whether you can make an ongoing business doing either of these things probably depends on where you live and the volume of people who would contract for your services.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Since you already own a cleaning company maybe your best bet is to ask your current and upcoming clients in the interests in expanding what you're offering.

I'm not sure I would hire a cleaning company to go through and dispose (which may mean donate, trash, sell, etc) of property but that's because I wouldn't necessarily associate their expertise as that. I would think they would be the people to hire to come after the other stuff has been done. However, if you have a built-in clientele already you might be able to just expand your offerings as it comes up and have referrals of current/past clients rather than try to do too much of an add on business. Also that way if it doesn't pan out as being worth the hassle (either too much work or not enough client interests) you've not necessarily harmed your present clientele list.

 

[LuvOrlando]

This would be an amazing business.

 

[tvguy]

An 'estate sale' to me is entirely different from those 1-800 got junk places. An estate is where there are individual items of significant value that others would want to buy and worth the time/effort to hold some sort of open house to bring in bids. If it is just regular household items, you are probably better off holding a garage sale to get what you can and also get rid of the bulkier items while perhaps raising a few dollars. What is left over after that is where you call one of those places who haul away unwanted items. I have no idea what those haul away companies do with the items and assume most end up in a landfill. At least you are paying them to do that where it probably wouldn't be practical to do on your own. If the object is to get rid of unwanted items, I am not sure it really matters what they do with it once it is gone from your property. Most personal items have no other value and clearly not something other people would want.

Whether you can make an ongoing business doing either of these things probably depends on where you live and the volume of people who would contract for your services.

With my mom's house she had fairly new appliances, refrigerator, washer and dryer. Nobody bought them at the garage sale. The local used appliance stores weren't interested because they are looking to pay bottom dollar for newish top of the line appliances. Everything mom had was entry level Kenmore. I'm talking sub $200 washers and dryers. Every 15 or 20 years when something acted up, she just would got buy a new one instead of having it fixed. I ended up calling a junk hauler, cost me $250 to have it hauled away. But, the owner saw the stuff was all operational and in new condition and said it would be going to a local charity he had an arrangement with instead of the dump.

 

[robinb]

Personally, I would need more from a company than just a clean-out. I know a little about this.

I used an estate company on my mother's hoardy-house in Chicago after she died. They worked with me to keep some things for our family, they donated what they could and threw out the rest. They did not rent a dumpster because people help themselves to your dumpster to throw out their own big stuff at your expense. We put some things, like metal in the alley so the metal pickers could take it. The rest of the garbage went in the back of their panel truck and to the dump. It was very, very expensive ... about $15,000 over 10 years ago.

I am currently helping a friend to clear out her house. She had a stroke 3 years ago and can never return to her home because it is over 100 years old and not able to be adapted to her needs. We will be hiring a company called Moving Forward which calls itself "Senior Move Managers". They will separate things into 5 different categories: (1) keep, (2) give to family/friends, (3) sell, (4) donate and (5) junk. They will take care of everything, including moving the first 2 categories into my friend's assisted living home and a storage locker. They prepared us that the items would sell for about 20% of the used price for that item. So, the company buying things would pay about $40 for a table they would sell for $200. They charge about $100 per person per hour and it'll be about $15,000.

I think there is a need for these services but I think you are limiting yourself by only offering the removal of items after all the hard work of sorting is done.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Thanks for your input everyone, lots of things to think about.

I guess I should make it clear I am not interested in being an estate-sale broker or in being the person to tell people what has value vs what's junk. Way too much liability and personal involvement for my taste. I would have no problem hauling items from a basement/attic/etc and helping someone sort through them, but that's about as much involvement as I'd want. I just want to make it disappear and clean up afterwards.

We have lots of estate companies around here that do a variety of services.

Had a friend whose mother had a decent sized home, but she had dementia and didn't take care of it and didn't let the kids help her. They finally had to move her out but ran in to some issues with selling the home, including her refusing. She still was lucid enough to refuse. The house sat with all her "stuff" for a couple years. It appeared the home had been used by local kids too so damage throughout. They asked us about estate companies and we gave them a name of a reputable one to see what they said.

Company said the condition was not something they could safely have a sale and most the stuff wouldn't sell anyway after sitting there. They made her an offer that they would haul everything away, dispose of most of it and what they could sell would be their fee. I mean they are sellers. No out of pocket for friend. They already had what they wanted from house and emotionally the arrangement worked to keep them from having to do it.

I think there could be a market for this ~ many don't want to or simply can't do the big purge, get the dumpsters, take to donation and deal with it all. I imagine most estate companies just want to do the big sales for their cut and don't get too involved with a full clean out. And if you did a full service style it saves those who are in charge from working with multiple contractors.

This, right here is what I'm thinking. Not everyone has a house full of estate-sale worthy items or they may not want strangers traipsing through the property. Sometimes people just want it gone so they can sell the property and move on, especially if they aren't local or weren't close to the homeowner.

Personally, I would need more from a company than just a clean-out. I know a little about this.

I used an estate company on my mother's hoardy-house in Chicago after she died. They worked with me to keep some things for our family, they donated what they could and threw out the rest. They did not rent a dumpster because people help themselves to your dumpster to throw out their own big stuff at your expense. We put some things, like metal in the alley so the metal pickers could take it. The rest of the garbage went in the back of their panel truck and to the dump. It was very, very expensive ... about $15,000 over 10 years ago.

I hear you on the dumpster. There are places around here the same thing would happen. I also think I may need to re-evaluate my prices