Do you need to clear out your house?  Moving? Dealing with a deceased relative’s property?

In our experience as organizers, we’ve found there is no one way to clear a house. Often a variety of solutions are used.

In general, there are 3 ways a house gets cleared: selling items, donating items, hauling items.

Selling: estate sale (in-house or online), garage sale, auction, consignment, private (craigslist or eBay for example).

Donating: charities, family and friends, free postings on craigslist, neighborhood groups, Facebook.

Hauling: city-provided bulky waste pickups, independent haulers, rent a dumpster. Some independent haulers also provide options to handle recycling and donations. 

The combination of solutions that are best for your situation depends mostly on your time frame. Urgency is the X factor that determines the course forward.

Being in a hurry limits the options. Which of these scenarios is at play?

• The house needs to get put on the market in time for the high season (June to August) 
• The executor or heirs are demanding a fast turnaround
• You want to get construction started before the rainy season 
• Have you procrastinated to the point where now it’s an emergency?

Sometimes charity pick-ups schedule out 2-weeks.  Estate sale folks may not be available for up to a month to orchestrate an on-site sale. 

Budget – do you need to get as much money as possible out of the possessions?

Is there saleable furniture or collections that have value? In this case, you could choose an estate sale, liquidators to buy you out, auction, consignment. You could even do your own yard sale. These options have benefits and limitations. Can you pay money up-front for organizers to sort and organize your items? Some helpers work with the realtor where the costs come out of the closing costs from the sale of the house.

Accessibility of the property – is the property easy to get in and out of? 

Are there lots of stairs?  Is the property way out of town or not in an area where you could get the best price for items? Is the house in good-enough condition to risk buyers coming in for a public sale? These factors affect the possibility of having an on-site estate sale.

Physical ability or even geographical proximity – could you manage the physical effort it would take to deal with the stuff in the space? 

If you can’t do any of the heavy lifting, you would need to get help by organizers, haulers and movers. All this has a cost, but your process would be informed by this factor.  Even charity pick-ups often require that you get the donated items to the curb.  Not so easy when there are thousands of books or oversized furniture. There are some move managers, liquidators and estate sale specialists who manage the project to clear your house and leave it “broom clean.”

Timeline is usually the main driving factor that affects your clear-out options; right behind that is Budget. Some specifics to be aware of:

• Even if you call a hauler, they generally don’t pack things.
• Some estate sellers leave the house broom clean, some charge a minimum to clear the leftovers.
• Donations need to be packed up.
• Charity pick-ups can be unreliable, but if you bring stuff to donation they are less picky.
• If you have the manpower and car space, it can be simpler to pack stuff yourself and make regular drop-offs rather than banking on one giant pick up.
• Sorting is critical.  Charities don’t like to pick up large amounts of mixed up stuff.
• Plan for hazardous waste removal.  There are companies that transport this waste, but it’s expensive.

Be forewarned: it’s not inexpensive to clear a house.  It’s hard to avoid costs. Even if you do it yourself, how will you get stuff to the dump?  There’s always a certain amount of stuff that is straight garbage.  You may need to hire labor to get junk out to the curb even if you’re getting a free pickup.

It always helps to plan ahead and give yourself permission to ask for help!