Estate cleaning happens most often after the loss of a loved one. If you are the next of kin to them and/or are listed in their will, cleaning their property will most likely become your responsibility. Whether it’s been empty briefly or for a long time, having it cleaned out sooner rather than later is highly recommended, especially when trying to sell it.
But handling an estate cleaning by yourself can be an overwhelming challenge. If there’s no other family or friends around, where can you get help?
Estate Cleaning Services
The cleaning professionals at ServiceMaster DRR provide both hoarding and estate cleaning in San Francisco, CA and the surrounding areas to help families clear out homes effectively and efficiently. They can also provide caring support when handling your loved one’s belongings as well as restore any property damage, such as mold or water damage that occurred over time.
Professional estate cleaning is actually best in situations involving the loss of a loved one, particularly because nobody is ever prepared to deal with these challenges. After losing them, addressing the task of cleaning out the home can feel like a defeat if not emotionally overwhelming.
A professional cleaning team can help you each step of the way, from sorting out the small items to heavy lifting. Our estate cleaning services will efficiently and effectively prepare your loved one’s home to be put on the market, so you have one less giant task to worry about.
Here are 10 reasons why estate cleaning is best left to the professionals.
A plan is developed.
There’s never a clear-cut way to clear out a home. But an experienced professional can shed some light on where to start and what to expect throughout the process. After a detailed inspection, they will develop a unique plan that addresses the needs of the specific property.
Preparing to put the home on the market.
If you’re planning to sell the home, prepping it to go on the market is a huge job. But despite this daunting task, you have a team of professionals on your side who are ready to help. They will take care of the planning, sorting, heavy lifting, and final touches on the home to get it ready for those market pictures.
Little to a Lot of Involvement
When cleaning out a home after the loss of a loved one, allowing a team to go through their belongings can be stressful for some. But there’s other tasks they can help with such as moving out furniture or providing a deep cleaning.
Other families may not fuss over the details and may even prefer the work be left to the professionals, or they may just want to pick out a few things to hold on to from their loved ones and let the cleaning team handle the rest. Either way, an estate cleaning team can be involved as much or as little as desired by the family.
Ability to Focus on Other Matters
Most often for families who want the estate cleaning team to handle the majority of the work, there’s a lot of details that don’t involve sorting or discarding the items. Chores like dusting, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, etc. can add up to hours of cleaning that families do not want to handle.
An estate cleaning can handle all of these tasks for you, which can be especially beneficial for homes with 4+ bedrooms. In the end, this will save tons of time, allowing you to focus on other tasks.
Take Care of Unexpected Issues
Especially with large homes, there will be a lot of issues that arise throughout the cleaning process. Some tasks can even be overwhelming for one person to handle, such as a pet-stained carpet, basement mold, or pest infestations. Certainly, these are too much to handle for a stressed family member, but for an estate cleaning team, they’re only minor bumps in the road.
Help with Sorting
Especially in the case of hoarding, deceased loved ones may have left a lot behind that can be a headache for families to sort out. But an experienced team of professionals won’t only help with the sorting process, they can provide recommendations in terms of what to keep and discard.
They will also provide extra hands for packing and delivering items to be donated as well as thrown away. Depending on the final destination of the contents, the team of experts will be there to help.
Assistance with Heavy Lifting
As an experienced estate cleaning team, ServiceMaster DRR has moved numerous furniture pieces weighing over 200 lbs. Many homes containing older furniture are also heavier than modern pieces, making them impossible to lift with one person alone.
But an estate cleaning professional will disassemble and/or move heavy furniture out or around the home to help prepare it to be put on the market. Any furniture that must be donated or thrown away will also be handled by our team of experts, all while preventing any scratches, scuff marks, or breaks in the process.
Hoarding Cleaning
Our team is no stranger to working in homes affected by hoarding. Not only are these situations overwhelming, but the environment can also be dangerous if the affected individual has allowed excessive clutter buildup to occur. Our certified cleaning team will work with you to clear out the entire home as well as provide a deep cleaning to restore it to a safe and healthy living condition.
Connections to a Professional Network
In addition to restoration and cleaning, an estate cleaning service offers referrals to a network of contractors to repair any faulty wiring or plumbing issues. In fact, ServiceMaster DRR often works alongside these contractors to accelerate the cleaning process.
De-Stress with Flexible Scheduling
Our team knows that families are busy, which is why we offer flexible scheduling, working at times that are most convenient for you. We also understand that these cleaning processes take longer than expected as unexpected challenges arise along the way.
We will accommodate your needs and schedule to ensure that the home is cleaned properly to your satisfaction.
Work with ServiceMaster DRR
There are a number of estate cleaning services throughout the San Francisco, CA area, but of course all of them are different. When working with ServiceMaster DRR, you can expect to work with licensed, trained, and experienced professionals who offer a number of resources that can aid in the cleaning process, like mold removal, hoarding cleanup, biohazard cleanup, and much more.
We also work with a number of contractors who can handle issues outside of our work, such as electrical work, carpentry, and plumbing. When working with our professionals, you can expect us to do it all or help out here and there, just as long as you have peace of mind that the home will be cleaned effectively.
Free Estimate
For a free estimate on our estate cleaning services in San Francisco, CA or the surrounding areas, contact ServiceMaster DRR at (800) 439-8833.
Steve VanDenBerg is the owner of ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration and Recovery. He has over 30 years of experience working within the restoration industry and successfully leading start-ups, turnarounds, acquisitions and mergers, and rapidly growing companies.
Steve earned his BS in Business & Accounting from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI and began working for DSI Holdings as their Chief Financial Officer. When Steve began with DSI Holdings, they were running an underperforming ServiceMaster Restore franchise with one location. Steve implemented new policies and procedures for accounting and finance as well as a professional sales plan that increased profits eightfold over his time as the CFO. He was then promoted to President and CEO and in this time, he expanded the company from two locations with $4M in sales to 12 locations and $45M in sales. DSI Holdings became one of the largest disaster restoration companies in the U.S. and helped with major restoration projects throughout the U.S. and around the world.
Steve purchased ServiceMaster DRR in 2015 when the business was in decline. Drawing on his years of experience in turning around struggling ServiceMaster franchises, Steve overhauled our operations, including finance, sales, and marketing, which led to a quick turnaround. Within Steve’s first 24 months, sales increased by 60 percent. Steve also helped greatly improve our operating margins and established a relationship with California’s largest residential insurance company. Under Steve’s leadership, we have become one of the largest disaster restoration providers in California.
Steve has found great success in turning around struggling and stagnant restoration franchises by changing the business model and strategy, greatly increasing sales and profits. Many of the changes he has implemented have even been adopted by the franchisor into their operating model.