Estate Cleanout Checklist for a Roanoke Valley Home

An estate cleanout is not a junk job. Somebody lived in that house for forty or fifty years, and the family working through it is usually tired and sad and short on time. We have done a lot of these in the Roanoke Valley since 2012, and the ones that go well all share the same shape: slow at the start, methodical in the middle, and a container that shows up when the family is ready for it rather than on day one.

This is the sequence we recommend. Call (540) 685-0739 whenever you want to talk through timing. There is no form on this site. Just a phone number and somebody who has done this before.

Do nothing for the first week

The most common mistake is starting too fast. Somebody rents a container the day after the funeral, and three weeks later a sister is asking where the photograph albums went. Once material leaves in a box it is gone.

Before anything moves, three things need to be settled. Who has legal authority to dispose of the contents. Whether the estate is in probate and whether the personal representative has been qualified by the circuit court. And whether anything in the house has been specifically bequeathed. A Virginia estate lawyer or the clerk of court can answer the procedural side in one conversation.

The practical version is simpler. Do not throw anything away until someone with authority says you can, and do not start with the paperwork. Start with the photographs.

Find the paper and the small things first

Walk the whole house once with a box under your arm and take only these categories.

• Photographs, negatives, slides and albums.
• Documents: deeds, titles, insurance policies, military records, savings bonds, tax files, correspondence.
• Jewelry, coins, watches and anything in a small box in a drawer.
• Keys of unknown purpose. They usually open something that matters.
• Medications, which go to a pharmacy take-back, not into a container.
• Firearms. Do not move them yourself if you are not comfortable. Get help.

In an older Roanoke house the paper is rarely in one place. Look in the attic, in the back of closet shelves, in cedar chests, in the drawer of a sewing machine cabinet, taped under drawers, and inside books. Savings bonds turn up in Bibles more often than you would think.

Then work the house in a fixed order

Once the small valuable things are out, sequence the house. The order matters because it keeps you from carrying things twice.

Attic first

The City of Roanoke says more than half its housing was built before 1960, and describes its stock as foursquares, craftsman bungalows and folk Victorians. Those houses have real attics, and a lifetime of storage goes up and never comes back down. Start there while you still have energy, and get help carrying, because attic stairs in a 1920s house are steep and narrow.

What comes down: boxes, luggage, holiday decorations, curtain rods, old bedding, magazines, a crib, a rolled rug. Watch for old blown insulation and for wiring you should not touch.

Bedrooms and closets

Clothing, linens, shoes, hangers, small furniture. This is where donation volume is highest. Bag clothing by category rather than by room, because that is how a donation center wants it.

Kitchen and dining

Slow going, high volume, low value. Dishes, small appliances, decades of pantry stock, and a chest freezer that has to be defrosted before it goes anywhere. Check every canister and coffee can. Older people in this valley kept cash in kitchens.

Living areas

Furniture, books, electronics, framed pictures. Books are heavy. A single wall of books will weigh more than the sofa next to it, so keep them low in the container.

Basement and crawlspace

Crawlspaces are common here, and plenty of older city houses have basements. This is where the difficult material is: paint, solvents, motor oil, a car battery, a lawnmower with fuel still in it, garden chemicals, rusted tools, damp cardboard. It is also where damp storage has been quietly ruining boxes for years. Our guide to crawlspace and basement cleanouts goes into what comes out of each and what it weighs.

Garage, shed and outbuildings last

Mowers, fuel cans, tires, fertilizer, scrap lumber, a stack of storm windows. Save it for last because it is mostly disposal decisions rather than family decisions.

Four piles, not two

Sorting into keep and trash is what makes estate cleanouts take three months. Use four.

Give the fourth pile permission to be large. In an average estate the container pile is most of the house by volume, and treating that as a failure just slows everyone down.

What cannot ride in the container

Virginia is unusual in how few materials are actually banned from disposal, and that surprises people who have moved here from other states. The state solid waste regulation, 9VAC20-81, regulates facilities rather than materials, and there is no long list of prohibited items. But the exceptions that do exist matter, and so does the fact that some things simply have no local program behind them.

• Lead-acid batteries. This is the one genuine statewide disposal ban, under Va. Code § 10.1-1425.1, and each battery is a separate violation. The car battery on the basement shelf and the one in the riding mower both come out.
• Paint, solvents, thinners, pesticides and pool chemicals. Virginia has no producer-funded paint take-back program, so there is no retailer to drop leftover paint with. It goes to household hazardous waste.
• Motor oil, antifreeze and fuel. Same route. Drain the mower before it goes anywhere.
• Asbestos. We never accept it, in any container. In Virginia an asbestos project runs through a contractor licensed by the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, with notification to the Department of Labor and Industry, and the waste goes to a facility permitted to take it. Old wrapped duct insulation and nine-inch floor tile in a pre-1980s basement are worth a look before anyone touches them.
• Propane tanks, ammunition, medical sharps and pressurized cylinders. None of these go in a box.

Household hazardous waste here is appointment-based

This is the practical local answer, and it is worth writing on the fridge. Household hazardous waste in the Roanoke Valley is handled by the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority at the Tinker Creek Transfer Station on Hollins Road. A short list including latex paint, aerosol cans, lead-acid car batteries, used antifreeze and used motor oil is taken during normal operating hours. A wider list is accepted on a scheduled event basis, and those events require you to register ahead. It is free, but you cannot just turn up with a truckload on a Tuesday.

Check current hours, the accepted list and the registration rules with the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority before you load the car. Set the hazardous material aside in one corner of the garage as you find it, and make one trip at the end rather than five.

What the City and the County will and will not take

Four governments share this valley and they do not agree. The City of Roanoke is an independent city and is not part of Roanoke County. Salem is a separate independent city. Vinton is a town in the county.

The City of Roanoke runs curbside bulk collection with a limit of three bulk items a week, plus weekly brush collection with a pile limit and a three-inch maximum limb diameter. Furniture and mattresses count as bulk items. Construction, demolition and remodeling debris does not go out at the curb at all, and neither do rocks, dirt, brick or concrete.

Roanoke County collects bulk and brush on an alternating two-week schedule and, unlike the City, states that small amounts of debris from homeowner-generated small remodeling or repair work may be set out with bulk pickup. Same valley, adjacent governments, opposite answers.

None of that gets a house emptied on a schedule. Three bulk items a week against a full house is arithmetic that does not work. That is what the container is for. Whatever goes in it leaves the valley in an unusual way: the Resource Authority moves the region waste 33 miles by Norfolk Southern rail from the Tinker Creek Transfer Station out to the Smith Gap Landfill. In the city that built the Norfolk and Western, the trash still goes by train.

Picking the container and staging the work

For a full estate in an older city house, the 20-yard is the default and the 30-yard is the answer when the attic is genuinely full or there is an outbuilding involved. A 15 handles a small house or one unit of a rental turnover. Details are on our dumpster sizes page, and the specifics of how we run these jobs are on the estate cleanout dumpsters page.

Two things about timing. First, do not have the box delivered until the family pile and the sell pile are out of the house. A container on the driveway creates pressure to fill it, and pressure is how heirlooms get thrown away. Second, if the estate is going to run over weeks, ask for a swap rather than a longer rental. It is usually cheaper and it keeps the driveway clear between sessions.

Where the box goes on an old city lot

Older Roanoke neighborhoods have narrow lots, narrow streets and rear alleys. Many have mature canopy over the driveway, and a hoist arm needs 20 feet or more of clear air. Hillside driveways in South Roanoke, Garden City and Grandin Court add grade to the problem. If the drive will not take a container, a street placement in the City of Roanoke needs a permit from the Transportation Division, applied for at least 10 calendar days ahead, with $1 million per occurrence liability naming the City as an additional insured, cones and reflective tape at all times, and a 10-foot travel lane maintained. In Roanoke County the residential street is usually maintained by VDOT rather than the county, so a street placement there is a VDOT question.

If the house is being renovated or sold

Two dates decide what rules apply. If the initial building permit predates 1 January 1985 and a building permit is being pulled for renovation or demolition, Va. Code § 36-99.7 requires a certified asbestos inspection first. The statute says its provisions shall not apply to single-family dwellings or residential housing with four or fewer units, unless the renovation or demolition of such buildings is for commercial or public development purposes. Read that carefully rather than assuming it covers your situation.

If the house predates 1 January 1978, the federal lead Renovation, Repair and Painting rule applies to the work, administered by the EPA in Virginia. Window replacement and demolition are always covered. Roanoke has no local lead ordinance, so the federal rule is the whole of it.

If you are moving straight from an estate cleanout into a remodel, our home cleanout checklist picks up where this one leaves off. And when you want a box on the driveway, call (540) 685-0739. We will bring it when you are ready, not before.