Estate Cleanouts on the South Shore, South Coast and Cape

When a parent dies or moves into care, the house still has to be emptied, usually on a deadline you didn't choose: a closing, a listing date, the end of a lease. That's what an estate cleanout on the South Shore is for. Your family takes what matters, and we carry out, sort and haul the rest, from the attic hatch to the bulkhead door. Count On Me! is a family-owned junk removal business based in Assonet. Call or text us, send a photo, and you'll have a firm price before anything is lifted.

What an estate cleanout from Count On Me! covers

Everything the family isn't keeping. Furniture, beds and mattresses, the kitchen, clothing and linens, books and papers you've already gone through, the workbench and tools in the garage, the lawn mower, the boxes in the attic and the shelving in the basement. We do the lifting and the stairs. You don't have to drag anything to the driveway or the curb first.

You decide what stays. Before we start, walk the house with us and mark what's being kept, sold or picked up by a relative: tape, sticky notes, or a whole room we leave alone. Go through drawers, pockets and boxes ahead of time if you can, because cash, jewelry and paperwork turn up in odd places. If there's something the family is still looking for, tell us and we'll keep an eye out while we work.

What goes on the truck gets sorted, not dumped in one pile. Usable furniture and household goods go toward donation where a charity will take them, metal goes to scrap, mattresses and textiles go to recycling because Massachusetts bans them from the trash, and what's left goes to a licensed disposal facility. That's what we mean by eco-friendly disposal: recycled, donated, or disposed of properly.

What we don't do: hazardous waste (oil-based paint, solvents, pesticides, propane tanks, gasoline), anything that may contain asbestos, structural demolition, or dumpster rental. Your town's household hazardous waste day takes the chemicals, a licensed asbestos contractor handles suspect pipe wrap or floor tile, and a dumpster company rents bins. We'll tell you plainly if something on the list belongs with one of them.

What this covers

• Full-house cleanouts before a sale or a rental turnover
• Partial cleanouts after the family has taken what it wants
• Cleanouts when a parent moves to assisted living or a smaller home
• Apartment and in-law unit cleanouts in two- and three-family houses
• Attic, basement, garage and shed cleanouts on an estate property
• Cleanouts for family who live out of state, priced from photos

What’s included

• A free estimate from photos or on site, with the price before any work starts
• All the lifting, carrying and loading, stairs and basements included
• Sorting for donation, recycling and disposal
• One price covering the labor, the hauling and the disposal
• A broom sweep of the cleared rooms

Why estate cleanouts here come down to probate, old houses and state waste rules

Check who has the say before anything leaves the house. In Massachusetts, the personal representative appointed by the Probate and Family Court (what used to be called the executor) must prepare an inventory of the estate's property within three months of appointment, valued as of the date of death. If the house and its contents are part of a probate estate, talk to the personal representative or the estate's attorney first, and have any appraiser or estate-sale company in before we come. We haul; we don't give legal advice.

The houses are old and the carry is long. In Fall River, more than 4,000 of the city's roughly 17,700 buildings are triple-deckers, and about half of New Bedford's homes were built before 1940. That means narrow stairs, a steep cellar with a bulkhead door, an attic reached through a pull-down hatch, and decades of belongings on every floor. Tell us the floors and the access in your first message so the price is right the first time.

Massachusetts won't let most of a house go to the dump. MassDEP's waste bans cover mattresses and box springs, textiles such as clothing, bedding, towels and curtains, large appliances like refrigerators, washers and water heaters, old tube TVs and monitors, metal, clean wood and more. Disposal facilities are told to pull mattresses, appliances, tube TVs, whole tires and car batteries out of a load in any quantity. That's why an estate load has to be sorted before it's dropped off, and why we sort it for you.

Rhode Island runs its own system. Mattresses there go through the state's Bye Bye Mattress program, paid for by a recycling fee charged when a mattress is sold in the state, so an estate in Rhode Island is sorted to Rhode Island's rules, not Massachusetts'.

How it works

1. 1

   Call, text or send photos

   Tell us the town, the number of floors, what's staying and any deadline: a closing date, a lease end, a listing. A photo of each room is enough to start.

2. 2

   Get a free estimate

   We price it from your photos or walk the house with you for a free, no-obligation on-site estimate. You get the price before any work begins.

3. 3

   Mark what stays

   Tag or set aside everything being kept, sold or picked up. Check drawers, pockets and boxes for papers, cash and jewelry before the day.

4. 4

   We clear the house

   Our crew does all the lifting, room by room, loads the truck and sweeps the rooms as they empty.

5. 5

   Sort and haul

   Usable items go toward donation, metal and the state-banned items to recycling, and the rest to a licensed facility.

Estate Cleanouts questions

Sources (11)

1. mass.gov/guides/massdep-waste-disposal-bans
2. mass.gov/doc/frequently-asked-questions-mattress-textile-waste-ban/download
3. mass.gov/doc/waste-ban-guidance-for-operators-of-solid-waste-facilities-october-2021/downl
4. mass.gov/info-details/safely-manage-household-hazardous-products
5. mass.gov/info-details/mass-general-laws-c190b-ss-3-706
6. mass.gov/info-details/mupc-estate-administration-procedural-guide-inventorying-accounting-
7. mass.gov/info-details/mupc-estate-administration-procedural-guide-voluntary-administration
8. newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/rise-fall-rebirth-new-england-triple-decker/
9. neighborhoodscout.com/ma/new-bedford/real-estate
10. mattressrecyclingcouncil.org/ocean-state-waves-hello/
11. byebyemattress.com/rirrc-commercial/