Estate cleanout in Pasadena

Precise Junk Removal does estate cleanouts in Pasadena and across the San Gabriel Valley. The job is a whole house emptied after a death or a move into care. The caller is usually an executor, or an adult child going through a parent's rooms with a close date on the calendar. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118. On a regular pickup the pile is already decided. Here the sorting isn't finished. The family is still deciding, and the crew moves at that speed.

Precise Junk Removal has been in business since 2009. The crew prices the job off the photos and does the hauling. An estate job is a bigger pile than most. A single room has an end you can see from the doorway. A house has a garage at one end and an attic at the other, plus years of drawers in between. The guide to what goes on the truck covers anything you're not sure about.

The crew doesn't get ahead of the family. They'll stop and ask about a box instead of guessing, and anything still undecided stays where it sits. The Google rating is 4.9 stars from 171 reviews. The business is insured, which counts when the house isn't theirs and isn't yours either. The first stop for anything with life left in it is a donation center.

What goes on the truck

• Bed frames and dressers
• The living room couch
• Dining table and chairs
• Boxes of old paperwork
• Kitchen dishes and pans
• Garage shelving and tools
• Rolled-up rugs and curtains
• Mattresses from every bedroom

Text a photo of yours to (626) 590-3118.

From the full list of what goes on the truck: whole houses.

What comes out of the house, and who's calling

An estate cleanout is the whole house. The crew starts with the big furniture and works down to the drawers. Bed frames, the couch nobody has room for in a condo, the dresser, a dining set with eight chairs, filing boxes out of a closet, the shelving in the garage, the rugs, the hand tools behind the gate. On a garage job somebody points at a pile and it's gone. Here the caller is carrying two things at once, a close date and a family. An executor has siblings to answer to. An adult child is still working out what a parent's kitchen table is worth to them. So the team works the rooms in whatever order the family needs cleared first, and the pace is the family's.

Room by room, with the keep pile left alone

The crew moves through a house one room at a time. The front bedroom empties, then the hall closet, then the kitchen, and what the family set aside stays in its corner. If a box is unmarked, they ask what the family wants done with it. If the answer is "not yet," it stays, and the executor can text again once the family has talked it through. The bed frame goes out the front door, the mattress behind it. When a room is done the load goes out to the truck and the room is empty behind them. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118.

Where a parent's things actually go

The team looks for a donation center first. A dresser that still works, a lamp, a set of dishes, a box of books, those have life left in them and somebody else will use them, so they get dropped off instead of buried. Clothes off the closet rod and a box of linens go the same way. Around three quarters of what the crew hauls is recycled rather than dumped. What's left is real trash, and that goes to the landfill. "Recycling is his love language" is how the owner puts it. The house empties out and most of what was in it keeps going somewhere else.

What clearing a whole house costs

The minimum is $50, so nothing comes in under that. Past that, the crew prices off photos. Send a shot of each room and they come back with one number for the whole job, set by how much room the load takes on the truck. Stairs add about $50 a staircase. A steep slope starts at the same +$50, and where it lands depends on the carry, so it comes back with the price off the photo. Payment is cash, a check or online. The quote costs nothing. If you want to see how a photo turns into a number, the guide to what junk removal costs around Pasadena lays it out.

Stairs, hallways and the people holding the keys

The crew makes the plan at the door. A staircase, a hallway too narrow for a box spring, a side gate that only swings one way, an elevator the building manager has to reserve. They'd rather hear about it in the text than find it on the day. Everything goes into a white Isuzu NPR heavy duty with a 24 cubic yard dump bed. If the realtor is the one with the keys, say so in the text. The team works to a two-hour arrival window, and Precise Junk Removal is open 8 AM to 8 PM every day, so the person in charge of the house can text from three time zones away and hear back during those hours. Ask the crew when you text if anything needs to be out ahead of them.

Pasadena, and the valley houses around it

The team is based in Pasadena, and estate work takes them across the San Gabriel Valley, from Alhambra and San Gabriel to Monrovia, Duarte and Sierra Madre. The houses are not the same from town to town. Some sit level with the driveway and a dresser goes straight out the front door. Others stand above the street with a staircase up from the sidewalk, which is where the stairs add-on comes in at +$50 each, or on a slope steep enough that the carry sets the figure. That's what the crew is looking for in the photos, which is why a picture from the street helps them as much as the one of the living room. An executor handling this from out of state can check whether the house's town is on the list before sending anything.

How the price works

Text a photo of what needs to go to (626) 590-3118. Precise looks at how much room it takes on the truck and texts back one number for the whole job. No hourly rate. Jobs start at $50. The only add-ons: stairs +$50, steep slope +$50. More on how pricing works.

Where Precise does this

All of the San Gabriel Valley. In San Gabriel, vacant properties must be kept free of junk, trash and debris, and the crew can clear out a house being settled. See every town Precise covers for estate cleanout.