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, and the order matters.

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: a great many houses across Moline and Rock Island have been in the same family since they were built, and plenty of properties out toward Geneseo and Orion have been held for generations. That means original purchase paperwork, decades of tax records, farm documents and sometimes the original deed are still in the house. Do not clear a filing cabinet or a desk without someone reading it first.

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.
• Photographs, slides and negatives. Once gone, gone.
• Military records. Discharge papers, medals and service records matter to somebody, always — and with the Arsenal here there are a great many families holding them.
• Farm implement and factory memorabilia. Worth flagging specifically. This area built farm machinery for well over a century, and service pins, plant newsletters, tool catalogues, union records, badges and photographs from those works are genuinely collected. It looks exactly like clutter in a basement and it is not.
• Land and farm paperwork on rural property out east.
• Costume jewellery. Frequently sorted into disposal by people looking for real gold. Some of it has real collector value.
• Tools. Hand tools and workshop equipment are collected seriously, and a well-kept mid-century workbench often holds decades of quality.
• Anything in the freezer or a coffee tin. Older people of a certain generation did not always trust banks.

What cannot go in a container

• Paint, solvents, fuel and garden chemicals — the Scott Area Landfill in Davenport, Iowa. Paint is free.
• Fridges, freezers, washers, dryers and ranges — barred by Illinois law. Free Rock Island County collection, up to 4 a year, 877-934-5378
• Tires — same free county collection, up to 10 a year
• Electronics — televisions, monitors and computers go to the Scott Area facilities
• Batteries of every kind, including those inside power tools and mobility scooters
• Propane cylinders and aerosols, including "empty" ones
• Anything containing free liquids — drain the water heater first
• Medications. Pharmacy take-back
• Firearms and ammunition. Contact the police for guidance — do not transport them to a container
• Asbestos — the landfill accepts it under proper handling, but never in a container
• Confidential documents. Shred rather than dumpster

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 basement

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

Nearly every house across the Quad Cities has a full basement, and on a home held by one family for decades it holds more than the rest of the house combined. It is also where every prohibited item lives.

A typical basement here holds paint from four decades of redecorating, fuel for the mower, motor oil, solvents and adhesives on a workbench, batteries in tools nobody has used since the nineties, fluorescent tubes, the chest freezer, and very often a second fridge.

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 in the container.
2. Book the free county appliance and tire pickup early — it is scheduled rather than on-demand, and the freezer and second fridge cannot go in a container at all.
3. Plan one trip across the river for the paint and electronics rather than three.
4. Check for damp damage. River-city basements take water, and anything that sat wet is heavier and may need different handling.
5. Watch for old boiler and furnace insulation. In a pre-1980 house it may contain asbestos and it is exactly what gets torn out without a second thought.
6. Then start on the volume.

Getting it up the stairs is the real work. Place the container as close to the door you will actually use as we can get it — fifteen extra feet of carry, repeated three hundred times, is the whole job.

Where the local routes fit

• Free appliance and tire pickup — Rock Island County only, 877-934-5378. Not Henry County, not Iowa.
• Free paint disposal and electronics — Scott Area facilities, Davenport, Iowa. The full bi-state picture is here.
• Curbside bulky pickup for genuine household bulk, prepared to the City's rules — carpet cut to 3-foot widths, nails hammered down.
• Yard waste and bundled brush in season, with the free sticker windows.
• Scrap metal — real value here, and a 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, basement not included: 20 yard
• Three bedroom with a full basement: 30 yard, or a 20 with a swap
• Long-held family home, everything going: 30 yard, and plan for a second
• Rural property with a barn or machine shed: 30 yard with a swap on standby
• Older street or a narrow river-village lot: 15 yard with swaps — access decides it, not volume
• Anything involving concrete or plaster: a separate small container

Household contents are bulky and light, so these jobs generally size up — and the basement is what pushes them up a size. 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, because families spread out 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.
• Book the free appliance pickup before you travel too — it is scheduled, and a week is not much notice.
• Check which city and county the house is in. It decides which free routes you have, and whether the house is even in Illinois.
• Allow for winter. A January visit can lose days to snow, and ice changes what we can safely do on a sloped drive.

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.