Eviction Cleanouts in Texas: A Landlord's Guide

After an eviction in Texas, the tenant's belongings are removed under the supervision of the constable or sheriff who executes the writ of possession, and they are placed outside the rental unit, nearby, in a spot that keeps the sidewalk and street clear. Once that writ has been properly executed, Texas law places no storage duty on the landlord for whatever gets left behind, unless the landlord chooses to hire a warehouseman to store it. In plain terms, the court process decides when the unit is yours again, and the cleanout is what stands between you and the next rent check.

Greg Hart runs County Line Junk Disposal out of Trinity, and rental property cleanouts are a core part of what we do for landlords and property managers around Huntsville, Livingston, and Lufkin. Before we talk trailers and pricing, the legal part comes first, and one thing needs saying plainly: this guide is general information only, and nothing in it should be taken as legal advice. For your specific situation, talk to a Texas attorney, or start with the free resources at TexasLawHelp.org and the Texas State Law Library's landlord-tenant guide.

When a landlord wins an eviction case and the court issues a writ of possession, a constable or sheriff executes it. Under Texas Property Code Section 24.0061, the tenant's property is removed under that officer's supervision and placed outside the rental unit, nearby, in a spot that leaves the sidewalk, passageway, and street clear.

The statute has one more condition worth knowing: the removal cannot happen while it is raining, sleeting, or snowing. The officer waits for the weather, and so do you.

That supervision is the whole point. A landlord who follows the writ process is protected. A landlord who changes the locks early, hauls property before the officer executes the writ, or disposes of belongings outside the process the lease and the Property Code lay out is exposed to a claim, and those claims get expensive fast. Wait for the officer, follow the writ, and let the process do its job.

After a writ of possession has been properly executed, Texas law sets no storage requirement for the landlord. The one exception is a choice you can make: under Section 24.0062, a landlord may hire a warehouseman to remove and store the property, and the tenant then has 30 days to redeem it from the warehouseman by paying the moving and storage charges.

You will hear confident numbers from other landlords about how many days you supposedly must hold things or wait before hauling. Texas statute sets no such period after a properly executed writ, and your county's practices, your lease, and the facts on the ground can all matter. Confirm your situation on TexasLawHelp.org or with your attorney before the trailer shows up.

Whatever route you take, document it. Photograph the set-out pile, note the date and the officer's name, and keep copies of every notice you send. Paper beats memory when a former tenant comes back with questions.

Abandonment without an eviction runs on a different track, and your lease governs it. Standard Texas lease forms define exactly what counts as abandonment and require the landlord to give notice before disposing of anything left behind. Read your abandonment clause first, follow its notice steps to the letter, and keep proof of every step.

In practice that means photographing the unit exactly as you found it, sending the notice the lease calls for in the way the lease calls for it, and keeping a dated inventory of what was left. If your lease is silent on abandonment, or it is a homegrown document you are unsure about, that is an attorney call before anything leaves the property. Once the lease's process is complete and the property is lawfully yours to discard, the hauling part gets easy.

We price by how much of the trailer your load fills: a single item is $95, a quarter load is $175, a half load is $325, a three-quarter load is $475, and a full load is $650. A fridge or freezer with freon adds $35, each mattress adds $30, and tires are priced per item. Most single-unit turnovers land somewhere between a half load and a full load; a packed unit can run more, and we count the loads with you as we go.

Travel is free within 25 miles of Trinity, which covers Huntsville at about 24 miles out. Livingston and Lufkin sit past that line, so a small trip fee of about $2 per mile past the 25-mile mark applies, always quoted upfront before we roll. Heavy debris like concrete or roofing gets priced by weight on a quote. The full breakdown lives in our Trinity County junk removal cost guide, and our post on what a junk removal price includes covers the labor, loading, hauling, and dump fees already baked into those numbers. First job with us is 15% off, which is a decent way for a property manager to test whether we are worth keeping in the phone.

A rental earns nothing while it sits full of the last tenant's belongings, and in this corner of East Texas the calendar is unforgiving. Huntsville runs on Sam Houston State's schedule, with about 21,000 students and leases that roll over in May and August. A student rental that misses its turnover window can sit empty until the next semester wave, which turns a few days of cleanout delay into months of lost rent.

Around Lake Livingston it is cabins and short-term rentals, where a unit full of leftovers is a listing you cannot book and a season you cannot get back. Lufkin is steady year-round single-family and small multifamily stock, where every vacant week comes straight out of the year's return. We cover all three: Huntsville sits inside our free-travel zone, and Livingston and Lufkin are a quoted trip fee away.

Text photos of the unit or the set-out pile to (936) 259-3200 and we text back a ballpark the same day. When we show up, we walk the job and give you one firm number before we lift anything, and you are free to walk if you do not like it. Then we load the Big Tex hydraulic dump trailer, sweep the unit broom-clean of the junk we hauled, and you pay when the job is done, by cash, check, or Cash App.

We work 7 days a week, 8 AM to 6 PM, and we answer our own phone, which matters when a constable's office gives you a writ execution date and you need the cleanout scheduled around it. Some units come back rough; if the last tenant left a floor-to-ceiling mess, our hoarder house cleanout guide covers how we work the heavy ones. Two honest limits: we do not do biohazard cleanup, so a unit that needs remediation gets that crew first and us after, and we haul only what is lawfully yours to discard. The writ or your lease decides when it becomes junk. After that, it is our problem.

If you have a writ on the calendar or a unit full of what a former tenant left behind, get a free quote today. Text photos to (936) 259-3200 for a same-day ballpark, ask about the 15% first-job discount, and if you manage student rentals in Huntsville, get on our schedule before the May and August rush does it for you.