It's Haul Good: Estate Clean-Outs, with Sam Richardson

0:01 Welcome to the Executorium podcast. I'm Bill Gross. We get together with a new episode every week where we interview vendors and people can help estates executors, personal representatives fulfill their responsibilities more efficiently. we've talked to attorneys and state sale companies. Today we're excited to have a company that in my experience is needed almost every time there's real estate involved at some point in the process, usually towards the end, which is what do you do with all the stuff that's left over after you've taken out the valuables, after taking out the sentimental items, what do you do with the rest of it? And so here to help answer that question from Fairfax County, Virginia is Sam Richardson of It's Haul Good. Sam, thanks for joining us today. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me today, Bill. And I know that we got you just off of a client emergency, but that's really the nature of your business, isn't it? You really have to respond to customers needs on a short-term response basis, don't you? Absolutely. It's not something many people plan for. How did you end up in the hauling business? Actually, through the same experience of working with an estate. my father got diagnosed with cancer in 2012 2011 2012 and I ended up inevitably passing away in 2014 and at that experience I was living here in Fairfax and had to move back to Kentucky where I grew up and then inevitably me and my sister both in our early 20s at that point in time with my 80-year-old grandfather we ended up downsizing my dad's estate for the better part of a year. Wow. So it took you a year so you realize the enormity of the project personally. Absolutely. I mean in a very you know it's it's it's very overwhelming to begin with mostly because on top of having to understand a whole new world of things you never even knew were existed. You know you also have to deal with the grief right. So yeah slower moving and trying to figure stuff out as you go. So, I know your business has a number of different applications or scenarios, but specifically thinking about clients here in Executorium who are executors of an estate, mom or dad passed away, left the house, there's

2:04 Some valuables to deal with, there's some sentimental items, and then there's the rest. Where do you fit in? What's that look like? That's a really good question. And to be honest with you know, we've kind of entered into the space where we do work with mostly estates. And what I find is a lot of people who are in my industry across the country, you know, and this is one of the things people should be really keen on understanding when you're working or approaching a hauling company, not all of them understand the intricacies of when they should actually get involved. So, as you mentioned, sometimes there's a lot of value and often times the family who's approaching or end up being my clients, right? The adult child, whether it's a son or a daughter, sometimes it's an uncle or a brother, you know, they don't necessarily even know what their what their family member had in the estate. if it's somebody who's passed. So in the in these situations, you know, having a very high integrity hauling company makes a massive difference because it is very common that we come across gold, silver, you know, precious metals as well as sometimes bonds, life insurance policies, all of these things. And so often when we get involved, we try we first kind of go through a checklist to make sure, have you approached, you know, the attorney as somebody who's dealing with the estate? are they, you know, are they taking care of, you know, itemizing the things that maybe they need to be, you know, for an executor to keep track of. I mean, there's a lot of things that may or may not have happened. And so, we just try to make sure that they're already engaged with, you know, a real estate professional, oftent times definitely somebody in the estate world, estate law, family law, and then, you know, other times we need to get, if there's a lot of value of the things we're taking away, we'll get estate sales companies involved or maybe a professional organizer to help them go through the paperwork and documents.

3:38 There's a lot of things that I don't think that we're necessarily qualified to do that we try to make sure other professionals because they could that they get involved because they can truly take care of the client's interest in a much better way than we can. And that's a point of Executorium is that we can get together as directory and find other professionals in our area and hopefully start to work with them regularly so that and I think that's the key. It's not just that you can find somebody is you can find somebody that you've worked with that works well with you over and over again. And the more you do that the better team you become. Like anything in sports, the more the team works together, practices together, the stronger they become. So, I'm sure I know as a real estate agent in the probate space in particular, I've come across some amazing stories of things we find under piles, you know, piles and piles of trash. You find cash, piles of piles of trash, you find coins. give me a story of something that you found that would be of interest to our listeners today. yeah, sure. I mean, there's always the, you know, there's always money, the money side of it or gold. I mean, we found gold, silver in pretty significant quantities, but maybe one of the more fun ones. We were working with actually a surviving widowed husband who was cleaning out his wife's estate and they had a little bit more on the hoarding tendency and they she collected a lot of items. So, as we were kind of unpacking things and kind of learning some of the norms with what how she stored things and kind of her mentality between how she categorized things and where she kept them, we started realizing she loved to pack containers.

5:02 And so in this process, we felt a vase that had a plant in it. Seemed a little bit heavier than just a plant, pulled out the top of the plant. It was a fake plant, and underneath it actually had $10,000 crammed into ziplockc bags that was shoved inside the vase. and so we were able to turn that back over to the husband. And of course, he was just flooring. So I always say if you work with a good junk removal company, they'll pay for their own service. Well, it's true. And I've had that same thing happen either in cash or coins or collectibles where because it's a vendor that we've created a relationship with. it's difficult and I know I don't about you, but companies hire, you know, staff and sometimes that staff are committed employees. Other times they're just part- timerrs. The part- timerrs are probably going to put in their pocket. You know, $10,000 is a lot of temptation for people. And yet for families that could be a lot of money, make be a differencemaker in the experience. And that's why we work with companies that we can trust. what are some of the things that you do as a hauling company that you see that perhaps some of the other companies don't do? Yeah, it's a really good question. You know, I always say that 90% of junk removal, I think a lot of people could do and there's certain things that we just understand that there's better price points out there, but one of the things that we do the best, the absolute best, is we try to do we, again, with my experience and my background of having to go through downsizing the state, I know firsthand what it feels like to either downsize as a living survivor, right? like as somebody who's just trying to downsize and be proactive and prepare for the fact that I don't want my kids to have to deal with that stuff. And I also understand from the other side as an adult child who had to clean up an estate what that feels like as well. So we try to be very conscientious of both communication breakdowns because again these are folks who are typically out of state or out of town. They've got full-time jobs. They've got families and if you're in that situation and you're an executor it just falls into your lap. You know you still have to work. You still have to make money. You still have to have a life that goes on.

6:50 So, we try to be very communicative, which is very we're very strong on the communication piece. And we also have a lot of questions that we ask that maybe other people don't don't know to ask. which of course includes, you know, is there any things that we're hunting down? Is there any items that you aren't sure that maybe the family is looking for? Are there any heirlooms? And even in the hauling process itself, a lot of times we're in communication, lockstep communication with, hey, I know you didn't say you wanted to keep these things, but we found these photo albums. Is this something you want to keep? Is this something you want to save? as well as staying in communication with other professionals involved. So, if there's a real estate agent who needs to stay privy to how we're doing in progress, we will keep in communication with the agent as we're making progress in the house to try to take a little bit of a load off of the adult heirs or the estate handlers, the executors. keep them privy. Yes. And then we also document very well, but also just because again it we try to make it as simple and seamless as possible. This is a this is more of a nuance, but it's something that we end up finding makes a huge difference to our clients as well. We try to treat things with dignity. So even if it is junk, a lot of times it still has a lot of meaning to the families we work with and it's really tough to watch somebody throw your mom's stuff into a truck like it's trash. So we actually train our teams to be a little bit more delicate in how they handle items even in the way that they put stuff in the vehicles even if it is ultimately going to be trash because we understand how difficult of an experience that can be.

8:08 So for those watching this is the Executorium podcast. we get together with professionals like It's Haul Good to share tools, tips and vendors who can help you. it turns out in this case that Sam's company is located in Fairfax County, Virginia. but we have you know people all across the country. This is the podcast. We have a Facebook group. If you have questions you can go in there and look for referrals other areas. And this Executorium website Executorium.com is the website. It's scrolling down below and it has four different features. One is the directory of state providers. One is directory of government resources if you're filing documents for the government. Here's a place to find your state and your county government documents. And then there's articles and learning that can help you be more effective. If you go to the directory and click on it actually put in your county. And if you put in Fairfax County, Virginia, this who pops up. I'm curious by chance. Sam, have you looked at this? Are any of these people here people refer you business? I would imagine estate auction companies might be a good source of referral for you in your business or estate sale companies as well. Yeah, absolutely. I've got a great relationship with at least one on here that I know was the carrying transitions team I've worked with before and I know that they're great. yeah, and very familiar with them. but yeah, there's a there's a lot of folks in the estate cleanout right there. Obviously, we're listed. And then there's also another up there a little bit higher.

9:30 I think the Quinn's auction house for auction stuff items. Those are also really great as well. And I think for all the vendors, there's a chance for you to reach out and find other people in the area, promote their business, and get them on this list to make it more valuable for our individual executors. And if you click on the actual listing, you will see it's all good. And it has here a listing with a map, their address, their phone number, the website, their social media, and this idea of that makes the idea of looking for hopefully vetted vendors in your area who are committed to working with executors vibrate too. So that's the service. It's Executorium.com and again has four different tiles. It has the service directory, it has a government directory and then the learning articles and individual pieces on how to be better at your at your job. so last question Sam, you know obviously this is a business that isn't slowing down as more people are passing as a population gets older. what do you see changing in your business if anything upcoming future? Well, I don't think that we're necessarily going to be impacted as much by artificial intelligence. So, I will tell you that much, hauling's not going anywhere, but I will say that especially over the next 25 years or so as the baby boomer generation continues to downsize and we have this huge transfer of not just wealth, but also of stuff, that there's there's really not a great solution for a lot of these things because older furniture, older items, a lot of these things, they don't really have any market value anymore. So unless something comes back for the armoires or the old china cabinets, then you know, a lot of these things need to be disposed of and repurposed. So I'm hoping that there's a shift towards sustainability, maybe we can find some better options than just disposing of things. But I got to tell you, I feel very fortunate.

11:12 Fairfax County is great. They recycle a ton of stuff. In other parts of the country, not as much of the case. But I do see a huge shift towards sustainability and people trying to keep these things out of the landfill. And we got a lot of it coming for the next 20 to 25 years. So I don't think hauling is going anywhere. I think that's the biggest misconception of executors and estate administrators is the val the re the value at retail of these items that yes, if you go to a garage sale and you want to buy something, the one piece you want to buy, you might have to pay 20 bucks for, but the person at the end ends up disposing of 90% of it. And so the problem is 90% of the stuff is going to be disposed of or recycled hopefully or dealt with in an appropriate way or donated. And sometimes the donation they can refurbish items and make them more valuable. and also I know some of the people who do the refurbishing are using you know people who have other disadvantages and getting them kind of purposely involved in our economy. And while they're not really making money refurbishing an armoire, they're helping rehabilitate somebody and they're using the money from the armoire as just some pocket change in the process, but we're helping do good in society. So knowing those good companies to donate to and I know is there any particular donation company that you would want to tout in Virginia that you that you like to send stuff to? Yeah, absolutely. We're huge fans of Habitat for Humanity and we donate a lot to them. They've got an incredible organization. They help build houses here in the area for people who otherwise could not afford housing and they're helping develop generational wealth for people who quite frankly would never, you know, would never have had the opportunity and it's it's a cause we can really get behind. So, Habitat for Humanity and I think you'll find that it's hard. We all have in our mind the charity we want to give stuff to, but many of them don't get involved in recycling or repurposing material. And so, the professionals in your area like Sam, it's all good will have good recommendations. I'm sure you have a couple other ones that you aren't as high on that you might give a customer choice on where to send stuff to. So, that's why we use professionals.

13:09 Sam, thank you for being on the call today and look forward to seeing you again on Executorium. Thank you, Bill. And for the rest of you, I'm Bill Gross. This is the Executorium Podcast. We do this every week. We interview top professionals in the business to help you as the executor administrator of an estate be more effective and get your job done. You can go into our Facebook group and leave comments, questions, and look for referrals there as well. Love to have you do that. And then again, Executorium is Executorium.com for the directory government resources as well as learning as information. I'm Bill Gross out Bill Gross Probate. As always, make today your best day ever. Thank you so much.