What an estate cleanout costs in Houston

The short answer

Estate work prices by volume. Quarter truck $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full truck $732.

A small apartment or a house where the family has already taken what they want: often half to five-eighths. A full single-story house with an attic and a two-car garage still loaded: a full truck, then another. You will get both numbers before the first one is booked, not discovered halfway through.

The Houston house this usually is

Single story, slab or pier and beam, three bedrooms, built somewhere between the late forties and the early seventies. Oak Forest, Garden Oaks, Meyerland, Sharpstown, Westbury, the older parts of Spring Branch, the streets off Bellaire Boulevard. A two-car garage at the back or the side, a pull-down attic ladder in the hallway, and a floored section of attic that somebody added in 1983.

Everything is at ground level, which is genuinely easier than a walk-up. What is not easier is the attic. Houston attics in summer are brutal — they run far hotter than the house and the humidity comes with the heat — and the boxes up there have been baking for decades. Crews work those in the morning for a reason.

What the climate has already decided for you

Families arrive hoping to sort and sell. In this city a lot of the sorting has been done for you by the air. Paper stored in a garage or attic goes soft and foxed. Photographs stick together. Upholstered furniture that has sat in an unconditioned room since the air conditioning was turned off picks up mildew within weeks, not years. Particleboard swells at every joint.

Solid wood furniture usually survives, and it is worth a second look. Anything in the garage or the attic that is fabric, foam, cardboard or chipboard usually has not. Knowing that before you start saves a great deal of standing around.

Flood history matters more here than almost anywhere

Ask early whether the house ever took water, and how high. In parts of this metro the answer is yes and more than once. If there is a line on the garage wall or the bottom of a door frame, anything porous that sat below it is not salvageable no matter how well it has dried since, and a buyer's inspector will say the same thing.

Where it matters most is the paperwork. Deeds, insurance policies, service records and photographs are the things families most want to recover and the things most often stored in a low cabinet or a garage box. Look for those first, while the house is still full and you still know where everything is.

Item prices for the big pieces

A dining room on its own: table, six chairs and the china hutch — $163 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $160 = $593. At that point the three-quarter truck at $587 is the better buy, and that is the number we would put in front of you.

The out-of-state heir

Houston's job market has scattered families across the country for two generations, and a large share of estate calls here come from someone in another state working against a closing date. That job is different: you are not walking the house, you are trusting photographs.

So we quote from photographs, agree the price before anyone is dispatched, and send pictures of the empty rooms afterwards. We will also work around an estate sale company, a realtor's stager or a probate timetable — the sequence is normally sale first, then whatever did not sell, then the deep clear.

How to keep the cost down without rushing anyone

Two things move the number. First, decide the keep pile before the crew arrives and physically separate it — one room, door closed, or a taped square on the garage floor. Second, do it in one booked visit rather than four half-hearted weekends, because volume is volume and a single full truck at $732 beats four quarter trucks.

What does not move the number: stairs, distance to the curb, how heavy the piano is, or whether it is a same-day booking. None of those carry a surcharge.

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