When a family home changes hands — Mercer Island, Madison Park, Laurelhurst, Bellevue — we clear it discreetly and carefully: fine furniture protected, usable pieces donated with a receipt for the estate, the whole home (basement to attic) priced flat as truck-fill from $325 a load and left realtor-ready.
Send photos or book a walkthrough — one flat price back
Upload Photos & Get Quote →An estate clear is a sensitive job: a downsizing, a probate sale, a home going to market. We handle it quietly and discreetly, protect the fine furniture, art, and antiques the family is keeping or selling, and route everything usable to donation. The whole home is priced flat as truck-fill — including the basement and attic, where an estate's decades of contents often live, carried up and out. We work on the executor's, family's, or realtor's timeline, staging over several days if needed, and handle the waterfront estates of Mercer Island, Madison Park, and Laurelhurst as well as the Eastside. When we're done the home is broom-clean and realtor-ready.
Send room-by-room photos, or book a quiet walkthrough with the executor or realtor. Either way you get one written flat number, per load, before anything is committed.
Family keeps, estate-sale lots and appraisal pieces get tagged or moved to one room. We work around them and never touch anything that isn't in scope.
Load by load, donation separated and receipted, floors and landscaping protected. Broom-clean and realtor-ready at the end, on your schedule.
Priced flat as truck-fill from photos or a walkthrough — the same published ladder we use everywhere, applied per load, with as many loads as the house actually takes. Loading, the stair-carry from the basement or attic, protection, sorting and disposal are all inside the number.
| Truck-fill (per load) | Flat price |
|---|---|
| 2/8 (a quarter) | $325 |
| 3/8 | $455 |
| 4/8 (a half) | $580 |
| 5/8 | $690 |
| 6/8 (three-quarters) | $790 |
| 7/8 | $890 |
| 8/8 (a full truck) | $985 |
$95 minimum order. The pieces that usually stall an estate clear — because most crews simply won't touch them — carry their own flat price, quoted from a photo like anything else:
| Specialty estate pieces | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Upright piano | $390 |
| Grand piano | $590 |
| Pool table | $812 |
| Safe — small / large | $135 / $273 |
| China cabinet | $215 |
| Curio cabinet | $128 |
| Wardrobe / armoire | $165 |
| Large dresser | $199 |
| Rolled carpet or rug | $92 |
Estates frequently come with a storage unit attached, and it's cleared in the same coordinated schedule at a flat price by size: 5×10 $485 · 10×10 $715 · 10×15 $1,075 · 10×20 $1,435 · 10×25 $1,790 · 10×30 $2,145.
For outside context: third-party cost trackers (Homeyou, Yelp Costs) put an average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253–$325, with a local rule-of-thumb full truck around $450–$700+. Published franchise ranges sit higher — about $700–$1,000 a full truck at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, on-site estimate only, and $600–$800+ at College HUNKS. Those are third-party figures; ours are the tables above, and an executor has them in writing before a truck is dispatched.
Washington does not apply its ~10.35% retail sales tax to this service. It applies a 3.6% state refuse tax to disposal, which appears as a line in the total — useful when the cost has to be reported to an estate rather than just paid.
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPU special-items pickup | $30 per item | Next garbage day, by appointment | Curbside only, per item — a whole house is hundreds of items staged at the street, and HOAs on the Eastside and Mercer Island forbid exactly that |
| Estate sale, then deal with the rest | Commission on what sells | Weeks | Sales clear the sellable 20% and leave the other 80% in place — the cleanout still has to happen after |
| Donation pickup only | Free | Books out days ahead | Charities take resellable goods only; the basement, the mattresses and the worn furniture stay behind |
| Self-haul to a transfer station | SPU ~$35 min/trip (≤420 lb), ~$165/ton as published · King County $40.25 min/load (≤320 lb), $243.38/ton, +$25 unsecured load | Same day, many days running | A whole house is dozens of trips, and the executor is doing the lifting |
| JunkRabbit | $325–$985 flat per load | Same week, multi-day if needed | None — written price up front, loaded from inside the home, donation receipted, broom-clean |
Not in any form an executor can use. Seattle Public Utilities runs a special-items pickup at $30 per item (seattle.gov/specialitems), booked by appointment, curbside only, and scheduled to the home's next regular garbage day. Set that against a whole house and it fails on three axes at once: the count (a lifetime of possessions is hundreds of items, not a handful), the timing (an estate runs against probate dates and listing dates, not a garbage calendar), and — the one that actually ends the conversation — the curb itself. Staging a family's furniture, mattresses and boxes on the street in Madison Park, Washington Park or on a Mercer Island lane is precisely what these clients will not do, and quite reasonably so. It is public, it is conspicuous, and on a street where houses trade around $2.3M and up it advertises to the whole neighborhood that a home is being emptied.
On the Eastside the rule isn't discretion, it's policy. HOA and condo associations in downtown Bellevue towers, on Mercer Island and across Sammamish restrict curbside staging outright and require vendor check-in — sometimes a certificate of insurance, sometimes a scheduled window, often both. In the gated pockets of Broadmoor and Washington Park there's a gatehouse protocol to clear before a truck ever reaches the driveway. We work inside all of that: we check in, we file what needs filing, and we load from inside the home, so nothing an estate contains is ever displayed at the street.
The self-haul comparison is worth having on the record because executors are often asked to justify the cost. Inside city limits, SPU's stations run roughly $35 minimum per trip for up to 420 lb and about $165 a ton as published; on the Eastside, King County Solid Waste's 2026 rates are $40.25 minimum per load up to 320 lb, then $243.38 a ton, plus a $25 unsecured-load fee. Reasonable per trip — but a whole home is dozens of trips, spread over weeks, with the executor lifting every piece twice. The flat truck-fill number exists to convert that into one scheduled, documented line item.
On an estate, this is not a green talking point — it is often the single most valuable thing the cleanout crew does. A lifetime of possessions is mostly still usable: dining sets, dressers, lamps, china, linens, tools, books, unopened household goods, clothing. Sending that to a transfer station costs the estate money at roughly $243 a ton and returns nothing. Routing it to donation costs the estate nothing, keeps the weight off the scale, and produces a receipt the estate can actually use.
We work with the organizations that take this volume in King County: Evergreen Goodwill, the Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat for Humanity ReStore — which is the right destination for cabinetry, fixtures, doors and building materials from an older home — and St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County. All of them accept resellable furniture and household goods, and all run free home pickup for qualifying pieces, which we'll coordinate rather than duplicate where it makes sense. We keep a record of what went where so the estate has documentation for its own file.
Everything else is separated by material rather than swept into one load. Metal — bed frames, filing cabinets, tools, appliances — goes to a scrap recycler. Televisions, monitors, computers and laptops are banned from Washington garbage and recycled free through the state's E-Cycle program. Yard waste and clean wood from the garage and grounds tip at roughly $115 a ton against about $243 for garbage. Because diverted material isn't disposed material, none of it enters the 3.6% refuse-tax base either — so the sorting shows up in the estate's final number, not just in a brochure.
Where these homes are shapes how the work is done. Madison Park and Madison Valley hold Tudors and Lake Washington waterfront estates, with Broadmoor and Washington Park adding gatehouse check-in before a vehicle reaches the property; median sales in the area run $2.3M and up. Laurelhurst and Mercer Island bring long private driveways and waterfront lots where landscape protection matters as much as floor protection. Magnolia adds bluff estates with steep, narrow approaches.
Across the lake, the Eastside "Gold Coast" is its own category: Medina (98039) and Clyde Hill, Hunts Point and Yarrow Point (98004) — tiny single-family municipalities that hold the #1 and #2 per-capita incomes in Washington, with a median age in Hunts Point around 61, which is to say these are exactly the households where generational downsizing and estate settlement happen. What they want is not a discount. It is discretion first: unmarked arrival, a crew that doesn't discuss the job, no photographs of the home or its contents, runners on the floors and protection on the landscaping, and NDA-grade privacy where the family asks for it. Several of these clears run multi-day on an executor's calendar, with pauses while heirs fly in or an appraiser finishes a pass — and that pacing is part of the service, not an inconvenience.
Practically, that means we plan the approach before the day: where the truck parks so it isn't visible from the street, which door we use, whether the association needs a certificate of insurance and a check-in time, and how the load is covered before it leaves. And the physical work is still the physical work — Seattle's older homes have full basements and finished attics, so a great deal of an estate arrives at the truck by hand, up a narrow flight of stairs, one careful piece at a time.
"Downsizing my mom's house on Mercer Island — discreet, careful with the good furniture, donated most of it. One fair flat price, realtor-ready. Highly recommend."
"Whole home including the basement and attic, cleared over three days. Careful with the antiques, donation-routed. Professional and quiet."
"Probate sale, tight timeline. Whole home cleared on schedule, flat truck-fill price. Nothing left behind."
How much does it cost in Seattle?
Truck-fill per load: $325 (2/8), $455, $580, $690, $790, $890, $985 (full), as many loads as the home takes. Specialty pieces flat — upright piano $390, grand $590, pool table $812, china cabinet $215, safes $135/$273. $95 minimum. No ~10.35% sales tax on the service; the 3.6% WA refuse tax on disposal shows in the total.
Are you discreet?
Yes — unmarked on request, no photos of the home or contents, loaded from inside so nothing is staged at the curb, floors and landscaping protected.
Can't the city just take it?
SPU's program is $30 per item, curbside only, on the next garbage day. A whole house is hundreds of items, and Eastside and Mercer Island HOAs forbid curbside staging anyway.
Do we get a donation tax receipt?
Yes. Usable goods go to Evergreen Goodwill, Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat ReStore or St. Vincent de Paul, and we record what went where for the estate's file.
Piano, pool table, safe?
All on the list: $390 upright, $590 grand, $812 pool table, $135/$273 safes.
There's a storage unit too.
Cleared in the same schedule — $485 for a 5×10 up to $2,145 for a 10×30.
Cheaper than a franchise?
Third-party ranges put a franchise full truck at roughly $700–$1,000 (on-site quote only) and $600–$800+ at College HUNKS. Ours is $985 full, agreed in writing before dispatch.
Can you work across several days?
Yes — multi-day is normal, scheduled around probate dates, family sorting, appraisals and the listing date.
Yes — estate clears in Madison Park, Washington Park, Laurelhurst, on Mercer Island and across the Eastside Gold Coast are handled quietly. Unmarked arrival where you want it, floor runners and door-jamb protection, landscape protection on long driveways, and no photographs of the home or its contents. We protect the fine furniture and art the family is keeping or selling, route usable pieces to donation, and leave the home realtor-ready, basement to attic.
Not realistically. Seattle Public Utilities' special-items program is $30 per item, booked by appointment, curbside only, and scheduled to the next regular garbage day (seattle.gov/specialitems). A whole house is hundreds of items, and staging a lifetime of furniture at the curb of a Madison Park or Mercer Island street is exactly what these families will not do. HOA and condo associations on the Eastside, Mercer Island and in Sammamish restrict curbside staging outright and require vendor check-in. We load from inside the home, so nothing is ever displayed at the street.
Yes, and on an estate it's usually the most valuable part of the job. Resellable furniture, housewares, clothing, books, tools and linens are routed to Evergreen Goodwill, the Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK), Habitat for Humanity ReStore or St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County, all of which accept usable goods and can issue a receipt for the donated portion. We inventory what went where so the estate has documentation for its records.
Yes, each at a flat price: upright piano $390, grand piano $590, pool table $812, small safe $135, large safe $273. These are the pieces that usually stall an estate clear because no ordinary crew will touch them, and they're quoted from a photo like anything else.
Yes, and it's common on estates. Storage units are priced flat by size: 5x10 $485, 10x10 $715, 10x15 $1,075, 10x20 $1,435, 10x25 $1,790, 10x30 $2,145. We can clear the unit and the house in one coordinated schedule so the estate closes both at once.
Third-party sources put an average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253 to $325, with local rule-of-thumb full-truck pricing around $450 to $700-plus. Published franchise ranges run higher — about $700 to $1,000 a full truck at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which quotes on site only, and $600 to $800-plus at College HUNKS. Our full truck is $985 and the number is agreed before anyone arrives, which matters when an executor has to report costs rather than discover them.
Yes. Most whole-home estates run as multiple loads across more than one day, often with a pause in the middle while family members take what they're keeping and an estate-sale or appraisal firm does its pass. We schedule around probate dates, listing dates and out-of-state heirs flying in, and we can coordinate with the realtor so the last load lands before staging.