JunkBossPro Blog — Crew App

Running a Garage, Estate or Storage Cleanout From the Crew App

A single-item pickup is ten minutes and two photos. A cleanout is a different animal. A packed garage, a parent's house after they moved to assisted living, a storage unit nobody has opened in years: these jobs can fill the truck more than once, take all day, and involve a family that cares a lot about what goes and what stays. The crew app has to carry more information on a cleanout, and the crew has to use it more carefully.

Bigger Jobs, Same App

Running every role from one phone as an owner-operator is covered in The Owner-Operator's Junk Removal App: Hauling, Routing and Billing From One Phone. Cleanouts are where a one-truck owner often brings in extra help, and where the job card matters most.

A cleanout runs through the same crew app as any other job: navigation, the card, Start, photos, Complete. What changes is how much is on the card and how carefully the crew reads it.

Load Size for Big Jobs

Cleanouts are where the bigger load sizes come in. Beyond Full Load, JunkBossPro has 1.5, 2 and 3 loads on the job. A card that says “2 loads” tells the crew at the curb that this job includes at least one trip to the dump in the middle, and maybe that the office has already planned to keep the afternoon clear.

Big cleanouts often start with an on-site estimate visit. Those are just jobs on the schedule, and whoever does the walk-through writes down what they see, so the crew that comes back to do the work has it on the card.

What Stays Is the Whole Job

On a cleanout, the what's-going description matters more than anywhere else, because “everything” rarely means everything. Good cleanout descriptions say what stays as clearly as what goes:

• “Everything in the garage except the two blue bins marked KEEP and the tool chest.”
• “Whole house except the dining table and anything with a green sticker. Family has taken what they want.”
• “Storage unit, all of it. Customer will meet us to check the boxes in the back.”

When families are involved, ask them to mark what stays, with tape or stickers, before the crew arrives. It makes the description easy to follow and easy to check against. If something unmarked looks like it might matter, like a box of photos or papers, set it aside and ask before it goes on the truck.

Access for Empty Houses and Storage Units

Estate cleanouts and storage units often happen with nobody there. The access notes need to cover that:

• “Lockbox on the front door. Realtor has the combo on file.”
• “Storage facility gate code in notes, unit 88 is on the second row.”
• “Power is off in the house. Bring headlamps for the basement.”

For realtors and property managers who send cleanouts every month, those notes and the past notes from earlier jobs build up into a playbook for their properties. Access notes are covered in Access Notes for Junk Crews: Gate Codes, Garages, Stairs and Where to Park the Truck.

Room-by-Room Photos

On a cleanout, take before-and-after photos room by room, or wall by wall in a garage. Stand in the doorway, same spot both times. Those photos are what the family sees when they ask whether the job is done, and what the office looks at if anyone asks later about a box that went missing.

For a realtor or property manager, the after photos of each room are often exactly what they need to show their seller or owner.

Splitting the Load

Cleanouts produce mixed loads: furniture that could be donated, appliances and metal, and general junk. If you sort, the what's-going note can say so, and each job names where its load is hauled to with a Go button for the drive. What a donation center or recycler will take is up to them, so check their rules. Load the truck so the first stop's items come off first.

Billing a Big Job

Cleanouts are priced from your service list, whether that is a flat estate cleanout price or multiple truck loads. Dump tickets for each run can be entered so overage over the included weight is billed. Realtors and property managers set to Monthly get one statement covering every address. To see how cleanouts fit with the rest of the crew's tools, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal app page.