Contents & reconstruction
Contents pack-out and inventory in Woodside, NY
Moving everything you own out of a building that's about to be opened up, dried or cleaned — in a way that means you can still find it all afterwards. The inventory earns that trust; the promise doesn't.
A pack-out means strangers carrying everything you own out of your home, often on the worst day of your year, and it's reasonable to find that unsettling. The honest answer isn't reassurance — reassurance is free to give and impossible to check — it's a document you're holding before the truck leaves.
So every item is written down and photographed before it's boxed: what it is, roughly what condition it was in, and which numbered box it went into. You get your copy of that list on the day, not one reconstructed later from memory.
What actually gets written down
Room by room, before anything is touched. A photograph on every line, a box number against every item, and a note of anything already damaged before we arrived — because the list has to be right about the starting condition.
Packers work from that list, not around it. Nothing goes into a box that isn't first on the page, and the same numbering follows the item from your living room to the shelf it ends up on.
Packing out is not the same decision as restoring
A room gets packed out because the building needs it empty, not because everything in it will be cleaned or kept. That decision comes later, on a bench, once a piece has actually been looked at.
So the inventory and the salvage assessment are different documents. The first tells you what left the house. The second — which we won't skip or charge for — tells you honestly what is worth restoring.
What you sign, and what you don't
The pack-out authorisation covers what's being moved and what it costs — not an open-ended authority to bill whatever the wider job becomes, which is exactly where broad scopes get slipped into paperwork like this.
We don't use it that way, and we'd rather you read the page than trust us because the crew seems decent. A form handing over more than the pack-out itself is worth noticing before you sign it.
Emergency measures fit on one page. The paper we ask you to sign in the first hour authorises emergency work only — extraction, drying equipment, board-up — with the scope and the rate on the same page, and it ends when the emergency does. It is not an open-ended authority to bill whatever the job becomes, and it is not an assignment of your insurance benefits. We do not use assignment-of-benefits agreements at all. If somebody hands you a form at midnight that signs your claim over to them, or that authorises unspecified work at unspecified prices, do not sign it — not ours, and not anybody's. Read it in the morning. Anything that genuinely cannot wait until morning is an emergency measure that fits on one page.
Included as standard
What the job actually includes
A room-by-room inventory
Every item logged and photographed before it's boxed and tagged.
Your copy of the list
Handed to you on the day, never reconstructed later from memory.
Packing matched to the item
Textiles boxed differently from china, electronics differently again.
Transport and shelving
Logged again at the store against the same numbers used at home.
The first month of storage
Included in the price; billed monthly after, at an advised rate.
Visiting and collecting
Come to the store during office hours and collect anything on your list.
A scoped authorisation
What's being packed and what it costs — not an open-ended billing authority.
When to call us
Signs this is the job you need
- A room has to be gutted and everything in it needs to be out before work can start
- Drying equipment needs floor space that furniture is currently standing on
- You've been told to vacate for more than a few days and don't want belongings left in an open building
- There are valuables or documents you'd rather have counted than guessed at later
- Items need to reach a bench before a cleaning or recovery decision can be made
- You want a dated record of what you owned before the loss
Contents pack-out and inventory — what it costs
- By volume, including the first month of storage and the inventory you keep a copy of.$1,800 – $9,000
This is the range this job actually lands in, not a headline figure. The low end is a straightforward version of the work; the high end is one with a hard access problem, an old service, or something that has to be opened up before anybody can be certain. We tell you which one you have after we have looked, and the written quote says where the price could still move and why.
Questions we are actually asked
Pack-out & inventory — frequently asked
What happens if something goes missing?
Every item is checked against the list at both ends — boxed at home, shelved at the store — so a discrepancy is rare and gets caught fast. If something can't be found, we tell you immediately; it's a claim against our own insurance, not an argument.
Do I have to use your storage, or can family hold some of it instead?
Either way, and you get the same inventory regardless. A relative's garage won't offer the same continuity of custody or climate control the store has, which matters more for paper and electronics than for most else.
Does packing something out mean it will be restored?
No. Packing a room out is a decision about the building, not a verdict on any object. What comes out is assessed on a bench at the store, and some things on the list won't be worth restoring.
Related work
Often needed alongside this
Documents & electronics
Wet paper and soaked equipment are both time-critical and both often recoverable — for a while.
$600 – $7,500
Textiles & rugs
Off-site washing for the pieces worth washing, and a straight answer about the ones that are not.
$180 – $2,400
Contents cleaning
Cleaning what came out of the building, on a bench, with the ones that will not clean set aside and listed.
$1,200 – $9,000
Reconstruction
Putting the building back — drywall, trim, paint, kitchens and baths — under one contract with the drying.
$12,000 – $95,000Somebody who does the work will come and look
Book a visit
Telephone and you will get somebody on this crew rather than a call centre, at any hour. The emergency assessment is free inside our service area and you keep the written findings whether or not you use us. If what you describe will keep until the morning, we will tell you that instead of sending a van.