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.

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 in 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, deed, 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

A local note worth adding: families here are often large and frequently spread across several states, so agreeing who takes what usually takes longer than the physical clearance does. Start that conversation before you book anything.

Paperwork that matters and turns up in Utah houses specifically: water shares and irrigation rights, which attach to property and have real value; mineral rights documents; and genealogical and family history material, which in this part of the world is often decades of original research that exists nowhere else.

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, or to the appropriate local route.
4. Special handling. Documents to shred, medications, firearms and ammunition, chemicals, electronics, batteries, tires and 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.
• Water shares and irrigation rights. Worth flagging specifically here — they attach to the property, they have real value, and the documentation is often loose in a filing cabinet.
• Family history and genealogical research. Frequently decades of original work that exists in no other copy.
• Photographs, slides and negatives. Once gone, gone.
• Military records. Discharge papers, medals and service records matter to somebody, always.
• Tools. Hand tools and workshop equipment are collected seriously, and a well-kept mid-century workbench often holds decades of quality.
• Home food storage shelving and equipment. Common in houses here, genuinely useful, and routinely skipped past.
• Quilts and needlework. Often handmade, often by someone in the family, and routinely bagged for the charity shop without anyone asking.

What cannot go in a container

• Paint, solvents, fuel and garden chemicals — county Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center, free for Salt Lake County residents
• Batteries of every kind, including those inside power tools and mobility scooters
• Propane cylinders and aerosols, including "empty" ones
• Refrigerant appliances that have not been professionally evacuated
• Tires
• Medications. Pharmacy take-back
• Firearms and ammunition. Contact the police for guidance — do not transport them to a container
• ⚠️ Asbestos. Never a container
• Confidential documents. Shred rather than dumpster
• Glass is better at the free City Hall drop-off than paid for by weight

Mattresses and furniture are fine in a container, and on a full house clearance that is usually the realistic route for them.

⚠️ Start with the garage and the shed

The single most important piece of local advice on this page.

A long-held Utah house typically has a deep garage, a garden shed and very often a cold storage room or a food storage area under the porch. Between them they hold almost every prohibited item on the list above.

Expect: paint from four decades of redecorating, fuel for the mower and the snowblower, motor oil, solvents and adhesives on a workbench, pesticides and herbicides in quantity — gardens here need a lot of chemistry — pool chemicals, batteries in tools nobody has used in years, fluorescent tubes, and a stack of old electronics.

Do it first, and in this order:

1. Chemicals, fuel and tires out before anything else moves. Once boxes are stacked in front of a shelf, the shelf gets forgotten and the fuel can ends up loaded.
2. Set the electronics aside and think about them. Trans-Jordan's e-waste recycling program is suspended, so they are accepted as regular waste by weight — check for a retailer take-back first.
3. Set the appliances aside for their own route.
4. ⚠️ Look at old furnace and boiler insulation before anyone touches it. In a pre-1980 house it may contain asbestos, and a clear-out is exactly when it gets torn out without a second thought.
5. Pull the scrap metal. Old boilers, radiators and pipework have genuine value and take serious weight out of the container.
6. Then start on the volume.

Where the local routes fit

• The City cans — only for ordinary household volume. A clear-out is not that, and nothing set beside the can is collected.
• The county Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center — free for Salt Lake County residents. ⚠️ Part of our service area is in Utah County, which has its own arrangements.
• Glass drop-off at Draper City Hall on Pioneer Road, 24/7, and at IKEA. Free, and glass is heavy.
• The Sandy Transfer Station takes a range of recyclables free for residents.
• Scrap metal — real value, separate route.
• The container for everything else — which on an estate clearance is usually most of it.

Sizing the container

• Apartment or small unit: 15 yard
• Two to three bedroom house, garage not included: 20 yard
• Three bedroom with a full garage and shed: 30 yard, or a 20 with a swap
• Long-held family home, everything going: 30 yard, and plan for a second
• Bench property with mature landscaping: 30 yard plus a separate small container for green waste and rock
• Older narrow street in Midvale: 15 yard with swaps — access decides it
• ⚠️ Steep bench driveway: a smaller container, or a flatter placement with a longer carry
• In deep winter: one size down with a swap, because of the snow banks
• Anything involving soil, rock or concrete: a separate small container

Household contents are bulky and light, so these jobs generally size up. We schedule estate work with longer rental windows as standard, because they do not run to a tidy timetable.

Coming in from out of town

A common situation here, because families spread out across several states while the house stays.

If you are travelling in to clear a parent's house in a single week, tell us the dates when you book. We will have the container on the driveway the day you arrive rather than three days into a week you cannot extend, and we will schedule the swap before you need it rather than after.

Four practical notes for a compressed visit:

• Book before you travel, not once you arrive.
• Check which city and which county the house is in. It decides which hazardous waste facility is open to you.
• ⚠️ A winter visit to a bench property is genuinely harder. Ice on a steep drive changes what we can safely do, and a container can freeze down. If you have no choice, build slack in.
• Take the chemicals to the county facility on day one, while you still have time and a vehicle.

Consider professional help when the property has been hoarded, when there is pest activity, when biohazard is involved, or when nobody in the family is local. There is no failure in that.