Emptying a home after someone dies, or after a parent moves into long term care, is one of the hardest jobs a family takes on. It’s physically big: decades of furniture, boxes, tools, clothes and paperwork in every room, the basement and the garage. It’s emotionally heavy too, because every drawer has a decision in it. And it usually comes with a deadline, like a closing date, a landlord’s hand-back or a property that’s costing money every month it sits. And it’s a job most families only face once or twice, so nobody has done it before.
Moving Co. does estate cleanouts in Toronto, the GTA and across Ontario. You and your family decide what’s kept, what goes to relatives, what’s donated and what’s sold. We handle the rest: we move the keepsakes where they need to go, store what isn’t decided yet, and clear the home room by room, including the attic, basement and garage, until it’s empty and swept.
Call 905-752-7787 or request a free quote. Tell us about the home, the timeline and where the family is, and we’ll plan it with you.
What an estate cleanout includes
An estate cleanout is more than junk removal. It’s usually several jobs at once:
- Clearing everything that isn’t being kept. Furniture, appliances, beds, clothes, kitchenware, books, tools, garden equipment and the general contents of every room.
- The hidden spaces. Attics, crawl spaces, basement storage rooms, garages, sheds and condo storage lockers.
- Moving what the family keeps. A dining table going to one daughter in Oakville, a dresser going to a grandson in Ottawa, boxes of photos going to a son’s basement.
- Storing what isn’t decided yet. Pieces nobody can decide on today, or things waiting for the estate to be settled.
- Getting the home ready to hand over. Empty, swept and ready for a realtor, a cleaner, a contractor or the new owners.
Because we’re a moving company as well as a junk removal company, all of that can be done by one crew, under one plan, instead of three different companies trying to share a driveway.
Start with what stays
The most important part of an estate cleanout happens before we arrive. Once the crew starts loading, things go quickly, so the family needs to have made the big decisions first. A few things help:
- Look for paperwork and valuables first. Wills, deeds, bank and investment statements, tax records, passports, keys, jewellery, cash, photos and anything with sentimental value. People keep important things in unexpected places: books, coat pockets, shoe boxes, envelopes taped under drawers. Go through the home carefully before anything leaves.
- Use a simple marking system. Coloured tape or sticky notes work well. One colour for each family member, one for donate, one for sell, and everything unmarked goes. Tell us the system and the crew will follow it.
- Talk to the estate’s lawyer before disposing of anything valuable. If you’re the executor or estate trustee, check what needs to be kept, valued or sold before you clear it. We’re movers, not lawyers, but it’s an easy step to skip and a hard one to undo.
- Agree on the hard items as a family. The piano, the china cabinet, the tools in the garage. Decisions made in advance are kinder than decisions made with a truck in the driveway.
If you can’t be there for the whole job, that’s fine. Tell us what’s staying and how it’s marked, and we’ll check with you on anything that isn’t clear before it goes.
Room by room: what to expect
Every home is different, but long lived-in homes tend to follow a pattern, and knowing it helps you plan the days:
- The kitchen. Dishes, pots, small appliances, a pantry and a fridge and freezer that need emptying. Deal with food first, before anything else, so nothing spoils while the rest of the house is sorted.
- Bedrooms and closets. Clothing, linens, shoes and the boxes on the closet shelves. Closets are where a lot of paperwork and keepsakes end up, so go through them slowly.
- The living room and dining room. The big furniture, the electronics, the books and the display cabinets. This is usually where the family’s hardest decisions are.
- The basement. Decades of storage: boxes, old furniture, holiday decorations, and usually a shelf of paint cans and chemicals that need separate disposal.
- The garage and shed. Tools, lawn equipment, bikes, ladders, old tires and the odd mystery container.
- The attic and crawl spaces. Often forgotten until the end, and sometimes the most full.
Plan to do the sorting in that order: food first, then the rooms with the most important papers and keepsakes, then the storage spaces. It keeps the urgent things from getting buried under the big ones.
Clothes, books and photographs
Clothing is one of the biggest volumes in most estates, and much of it is reusable. Textile donation bins and charity drop-offs take wearable clothes, shoes and linens, and many municipalities run textile programs at their recycling centres. If a family member wants to pick out a few pieces to keep, do that before the closets are emptied.
Books can go to libraries, schools, used book stores or charities, though not every organization takes every book. Photographs and letters are different. They’re often the things families value most later, so keep them aside even if nobody has time to look through them now. Many families scan them and share copies.
Outside the house
Estates often include things outside the walls of the home: a shed full of tools, patio furniture, a barbecue, planters, a garden that’s been tended for years. We clear sheds and yards as part of the cleanout. Barbecues go once the propane tank has been removed, since tanks need separate disposal.
Tires and vehicles are separate. Old tires usually go back to a tire retailer or a provincial tire collection site, and many municipal recycling centres don’t accept them. Vehicles are their own process with the estate and the province, and they aren’t part of a cleanout.
Getting family pieces where they need to go
Most estates have furniture and boxes going to several different people in several different places. Moving those is regular moving work for us. We wrap and carry the pieces properly, load them in the order they’ll be delivered, and drop them at each address. A sideboard to Mississauga, a bedroom set to Barrie and a few boxes to a condo downtown can all happen on the same day if the timing works.
For family members further away, we move across Ontario and across Canada. On long distance moves, the same crew always loads the truck, drives it and unloads at the other end. See our long distance moving page for how that works.
Storage while the estate is settled
Estates rarely wrap up as quickly as the house needs to be emptied. The home may be sold or the lease may end months before the family has decided who gets what, or before the estate can be distributed. Storage solves that.
We have our own storage, so the crew that clears the home can store what’s being kept. Storage is climate controlled, monitored and inventoried, and it’s priced on the space you use and the months you need it. When you’re ready, family members can come to storage to get an item, or we can deliver it to them. It’s a common way to empty a home on time without forcing rushed decisions.
Donation, resale and recycling
A lot of what’s in a long lived-in home is still useful to someone. Where it’s realistic, we sort the load: furniture and household goods in good condition go to charities and reuse programs, metal and electronics go to recycling, and only what’s truly finished is disposed of. We won’t promise you a green result we can’t deliver, but reuse and recycling come first.
If the family wants to sell some pieces, do that before the cleanout, or tell us which items are being held for a buyer. If you’re working with an estate sale company or an auction house, we can come in after the sale and clear whatever is left. And if a buyer needs a piece delivered, that’s a single item move we can handle too.
Working with executors, realtors and property managers
Estate cleanouts usually involve more people than the family. We work directly with whoever is coordinating:
- Executors and estate trustees, often managing the house from another city. We can usually arrange access in advance and keep you updated as rooms are cleared, so you don’t need to travel just to open the door.
- Realtors who need the home empty, or partly empty, before photos, staging or showings. Tell us the listing date and we’ll work back from it.
- Property managers and landlords who need a rental unit returned by a specific date. We can provide a certificate of insurance ahead of time if the building needs one.
- Retirement residences and long term care homes, where a suite has to be cleared on the residence’s timeline, often within a set number of days. If a parent is moving into one, our senior moving services page covers the move itself.
Getting the house ready to sell
If the home is being sold, the cleanout is usually the first step before the listing. An empty home photographs better than a full one, and buyers want to see the basement, the garage and the condition of the floors and walls without forty years of storage in front of them.
Talk to your realtor before the cleanout about what should stay. Some realtors want a few pieces left for staging, or bring in a staging company after the house is empty. We work with staging companies regularly, so if staging furniture is coming in after the clear-out, we can plan around it. Once the house is empty, it’s also the easiest time for painters, cleaners and contractors to do their work.
Doing this without burning out
Families often try to empty a parent’s home over a few weekends, on top of jobs, children and their own grief. It usually takes longer than anyone expects. A few things make it more manageable:
- Split the job. The family does the sorting and the decisions. The crew does the lifting, the loading, the driving and the clearing.
- Set a date and work back from it. Pick the day the house needs to be empty, then schedule sorting days before it.
- Don’t decide everything now. Anything the family can’t agree on can go to storage for a while.
- Keep a few things. Everyone in the family should have the chance to choose something before the house is cleared.
Condo and retirement residence suites
Clearing a condo or a retirement residence suite comes with building rules: a booked service elevator, a loading area, a time window and often a certificate of insurance. Usually the family or executor books the elevator with the building, and we help with what to ask for and talk to the building if there are questions. We send the certificate of insurance before the date, protect the elevator and hallways, and keep the job inside the booked window.
Don’t forget the storage locker and the parking spot. Condo lockers often hold years of things nobody remembers, and they have to be emptied too. Ask the property manager for the locker number and the key or fob before the cleanout day.
When there’s more than usual
Some homes hold far more than a normal cleanout, and there’s usually a reason that has nothing to do with the person who lived there being careless. These jobs need more time, more people and more care, with both the home and the family.
We don’t rush decisions, and we don’t comment on what we find. If a family member or a support worker is coordinating, we work with them directly. If items need careful sorting instead of wholesale removal, we slow down and check before things leave. Tell us honestly what the situation is when you book. It changes the crew size and the time we allow, and it means we arrive prepared.
What we can’t take
Like any hauler, we can’t take hazardous materials: paint, solvents, fuel, motor oil, propane tanks, pesticides, pool chemicals, car batteries or asbestos. Older homes often have a shelf of these in the basement or garage. Most municipalities take household hazardous waste for free at their depots; in Toronto, the City also offers the Toxic Taxi pickup through 311. Medications and needles need special disposal as well, so ask a pharmacy.
If we come across something hazardous during the cleanout, we set it aside and tell you where it should go.
How estate cleanouts are priced
An estate cleanout often combines different kinds of work, so the price reflects each part:
- Clearing and removal is priced like our other junk removal: by volume, meaning how much of the truck the load fills, plus access and disposal.
- Moving the pieces the family keeps is moving work, billed on our normal moving rates. See the pricing page.
- Storage is priced on the space and the months you need.
We go through the home with you from photos or a quick video walkthrough, and give you a clear estimate before we start. The price we agree is the price you pay. If the scope changes, for example if the family decides to clear the garage too, you hear the new number before we do the extra work.
How an estate cleanout usually runs
- First call. Tell us about the home, the timeline, the people involved and any building rules. Call 905-752-7787.
- Walkthrough and plan. We go through the home with you by video or photos, room by room, and agree on what’s being moved, stored, donated and cleared, and in what order.
- Family pieces first. Kept items are wrapped and moved or stored before the clearing starts, so nothing gets mixed up.
- Room by room clearing. We work through the home methodically, checking with you on anything unclear.
- The hidden spaces. Attic, basement, garage, shed and storage locker.
- Swept and handed back. The home is left empty and swept, ready for the next step.
Our crews are insured and in house, not subcontracted, so the people who show up work for us, not for someone hired that morning.
Areas we cover
We do estate cleanouts across Toronto, including North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke and East York, and across the GTA in Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Burlington, Pickering, Ajax and Whitby. We also work in Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa and every other city in Ontario, and we can deliver family pieces anywhere in Canada.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an estate cleanout cost?
It depends on the size of the home, how much is in it, the access, and how much of the work is clearing versus moving pieces to family. Clearing is priced by volume, moving is billed on our normal rates, and storage is priced by space and month. We give you a clear estimate after a walkthrough, and the agreed price is the price you pay.
How long does an estate cleanout take?
A small condo can often be done in a day. A large house with a full basement, garage and attic may take longer, especially if pieces are being delivered to several family members. We’ll give you a realistic timeline at the walkthrough and plan around any closing or hand-back date.
Do I need to be there?
It helps to join the walkthrough, which we can do by video. After that, many families aren’t there for the cleanout itself. We can usually arrange access in advance and keep you updated.
Can you deliver furniture to family members?
Yes. Moving is our main business. We can deliver kept pieces to several addresses across the GTA, across Ontario, or across Canada.
Can you store things while the estate is settled?
Yes. We have our own climate controlled, monitored storage, priced by space and month. Family members can come to get items, or we can deliver them when the time comes.
Do you donate usable items?
Where it’s realistic, yes. Usable furniture and household goods go to charities and reuse programs, and metal and electronics go to recycling. Tell us about specific items you’d like donated.
Can you clear a home with a lot more in it than usual?
Yes. Homes with heavy accumulation need more people, more time and more patience, and we plan for that when you tell us honestly what the situation is. We work with family members or support workers directly, and we slow down and check before things leave when items need sorting.
What if the family can’t agree on some items?
Put them in storage. It lets the home be emptied on time without forcing anyone into a decision they’ll regret. When the family is ready, items can be picked up from storage or delivered.
Can you work with our realtor or the estate lawyer?
Yes. We can schedule around listing photos, showings and closing dates, and we’ll follow whatever instructions the executor gives us about items that need to be kept or valued.
Do you take old tires?
Tires are handled separately from a regular cleanout load. They usually go back to a tire retailer or a provincial tire collection site, and many municipal recycling centres don’t take them. Tell us if there are tires in the garage and we’ll talk through the options.
Do you clear retirement residence suites?
Yes. Residences usually set a deadline for the suite to be cleared and have rules for the elevator and loading area. Tell us the timeline and the residence’s requirements when you book.
What happens to paperwork we haven’t found?
Search the home carefully for documents and valuables before the cleanout starts. If our crew comes across papers, envelopes, jewellery or anything that looks important while clearing, we set it aside and check with you rather than throwing it out.
Tell us about the home and the timeline, and we’ll plan the cleanout with care. Request your free quote or call 905-752-7787.