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

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 refrigerant appliances.

Nothing goes into a fifth "decide later" pile, because the decide-later pile grows until it swallows the project.

⚠️ Paperwork specific to this county

This is the section most national checklists have no idea about, and out here it can matter a great deal.

Look specifically for:

• Farmland deeds and legal descriptions. Ground in Hale, Floyd, Swisher, Lamb, Castro, Briscoe and Crosby counties is frequently owned by people who do not farm it themselves, held across generations and leased out.
• Cash rent and crop-share lease agreements. Often the only copy, often loose in a filing cabinet rather than with a lawyer.
• ⚠️ Water and irrigation records. Well registrations, pump records, groundwater district paperwork and any agreements about irrigation rights. On the High Plains, water documentation attaches to land that has real value.
• Mineral and wind lease agreements. Both are common on this ground, and both produce income that somebody needs to keep receiving.
• Grain elevator, gin and co-op records, including any equity or patronage held.
• Equipment titles and serial numbers.
• Brand registrations where there is livestock.

None of that looks important in a drawer. All of it is worth checking before a box goes in a container.

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.
• 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.
• Farm and implement literature. Manuals, dealer signage and parts catalogues have a real collector market in this part of the state.
• Quilts and needlework. Often handmade, often by someone in the family, and routinely bagged for the charity shop without anyone asking.
• Branding irons, spurs and tack. Frequently older than anyone remembers.

What cannot go in a container

• Paint, solvents, fuel and garden chemicals — never a container and never a drain
• ⚠️ Pesticides, herbicides and agricultural chemicals — and on a property with any ground there may be a great deal, some of it decades old
• Batteries of every kind, including those inside power tools and mobility scooters
• Propane, welding and pressurised cylinders, including "empty" ones
• Refrigerant appliances — there is nearly always a second fridge or a chest freezer in the garage or an outbuilding
• ⚠️ Tires — and the landfill limit is ten per person per day
• Medications. Pharmacy take-back
• Firearms and ammunition. Contact the sheriff's office for guidance — do not transport them to a container
• ⚠️ Asbestos. Never a container
• Confidential documents. Shred rather than dumpster

Mattresses and furniture are fine in a container — and if the house is inside the city limits on a City water bill, they are exempt at the landfill anyway.

⚠️ Start with the garage and outbuildings

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

⚠️ Note that basements are rare here — the caliche makes them expensive, so unlike a lot of the country the accumulated decades are not underground. They are in the garage, the shop, the shed and, on any property with ground, the machine shed. That is where almost every prohibited item on the list above will be.

Do it first, and in this order:

1. Chemicals, fuel and unlabelled containers out before anything else moves. Once boxes are stacked in front of a shelf, the shelf gets forgotten and a fuel can ends up loaded.
2. Count the tires. Ten per person per day at the landfill, so thirty tires is a plan rather than an afternoon.
3. Find every refrigerant appliance. The kitchen fridge is obvious; the chest freezer in the garage is the one that gets missed.
4. ⚠️ Look at old furnace, stove and pipe insulation before anyone touches it. In a pre-1980 building it may contain asbestos, and a clear-out is exactly when it gets torn out without a second thought.
5. Pull the scrap metal. Implement iron, pipe, wire, radiators and tanks have genuine value and take serious weight out of the container.
6. Then start on the volume.

Where the local routes fit

• The City's weekly collection — only for ordinary household volume. A clear-out is not that.
• ⚠️ The landfill exemption — furniture, appliances, brush and yard waste, free, but only on a City of Plainview water bill and only if you haul it yourself. Most estate properties in this service area are outside the city limits.
• The cardboard route — Mondays and Thursdays, and a clearance produces a lot of it.
• The Recycling Center — 1018 E. Fourth Street, no glass, plus used oil and antifreeze.
• Scrap metal — real value, separate route.
• The container for everything else, which on an estate clearance is usually most of it.

Sizing, and coming in from out of town

• Small house or apartment: 15 yard
• Two to three bedroom house, garage not included: 20 yard
• Three bedroom with garage and shop: 30 yard, or a 20 with a swap
• Long-held family home, everything going: 30 yard, and plan for a second
• Farmstead with outbuildings: 30 yard with swaps, plus a separate small container for metal and heavy material
• Older town house: 15 yard with swaps — dense material, shorter drive
• Anything with caliche, soil 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.

A common situation here: families put down roots, the children leave for work elsewhere, and 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 drive 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; check whether the house is inside the city limits, because it decides which free routes are open; take the chemicals and tires to their proper route on day one while you still have a vehicle; and avoid scheduling right after a hailstorm if you possibly can, because every container in the county will be spoken for.