Plenty of families start out planning to clear the house themselves. It feels more respectful, it looks cheaper, and it gives everyone something to do. Some finish. Many call us three weekends in with the garage untouched. Neither choice is wrong, but it helps to know what you are signing up for. This is the comparison we give families who ask about how we clear a deceased estate across Sydney.
How much is actually in a house
A lived-in three bedroom home with a garage is several truckloads of contents, even after the family has taken what it wants. Wardrobes, beds, lounges, a dining suite, whitegoods, the contents of every cupboard, the shed, and whatever is under the house. Carried one carload at a time to the tip, that is weeks of weekends. Our crew clears most homes in a day or two because there are several of us, we have trucks that take whole rooms, and we have done it a few thousand times.
The council clean-up
Most Sydney councils offer a free kerbside collection, and it is worth using for what it will take. The limits are the problem. It is usually a few cubic metres, booked weeks ahead, and it will not take e-waste, chemicals, paint, building materials, mattresses in some areas, or anything too heavy for two people. Everything has to be carried to the kerb by you. For a whole estate it clears a corner of the garage, not the house. Our Northern Beaches Council clean-up guide has the detail for that council.
Skip bins
A skip is the usual do-it-yourself plan. Be realistic about the maths. A full home is several bins, not one. A bin on the street needs a council permit. It sits half full for days while you fill it, and every item still has to be carried out and lifted over the side by you. Mixed loads attract the highest tip rate, and the hire company will charge extra for mattresses, tyres and anything on their prohibited list. We laid the numbers out in skip bins versus a truck crew. For an estate, the crew usually works out cheaper once your time is counted at all.
The part nobody budgets for
Clearing a parent's house is not like clearing a rental. Every drawer has a story in it. Families that do it themselves tell us the hard part was not the lifting, it was making four hundred small decisions about things that mattered to someone they loved, over and over, for weeks. It is tiring in a way that has nothing to do with muscles, and it often falls on one sibling. That is worth weighing against the cost of a crew.
What a crew is good for, and what it is not
A crew is good at volume, speed, heavy things, awkward access, sorting loads for recycling and charity, and doing the whole job in a day or two with the tip fees included in one price. For most Sydney homes that price is somewhere between $1,000 and $8,000. A crew is not good at deciding which photos to keep, and it should not be asked to. Anyone who tells you they will just take it all is telling you they will not look at what they load.
The hybrid approach most families take
The version that works for nearly everyone is this. The family takes the time it needs on the personal things: photographs, letters, jewellery, the pieces people want. Nobody rushes that. Anything worth selling goes to auction or a dealer. Then the crew comes in for the rest, sorts as it loads, sets aside anything important that turns up, drops usable pieces at charity, recycles what can be recycled, tips the remainder and sweeps the house for the agent. You keep the decisions that matter and hand over the lifting.
If you want to compare properly, get a written quote for the whole job and put it next to a realistic count of weekends, skip hire, permits, tip fees and fuel. We are happy to be one of the quotes. Our deceased estate clearance service gives one fixed figure for the house, garage, shed and garden, agreed before we start, with keepsakes set aside first.
Common questions
Can we do part of the house ourselves and have you do the rest?
Yes, and most families do. Take what you want to keep or sell, then tell us what is left. If the garage is done and the house is not, we price the house. If you get halfway and run out of steam, call us and we finish it.
How many people and trucks come?
Enough to clear the home in a day or two. A unit might be two of us and one truck. A large family home with a shed is a bigger crew and several loads. The crew is the same small team on every estate, led by Jack.
Do you take the stuff we have already piled up?
Yes. If you have sorted rooms into keep and go piles, that saves time and we price accordingly. Just make sure the keep pile is clearly separate or in a closed room so nothing is loaded by mistake.