The Office Cleanout Checklist
An office clearance fails for one of three reasons: the building would not let the crew in, the data question was not settled, or nobody counted the paper.
Call (972) 093-0938
Start with the building, not the furniture
In a multi-tenant office the building controls the clearance more than the tenant does. There will be a nominated service lift, a dock that has to be booked into a slot, protection requirements for lobbies and corridors, insurance certificates the contractor has to provide, and permitted hours that usually exclude the working day.
Every one of those is arrangeable and none of them can be improvised at seven in the evening with a truck outside. Getting the building's requirements in writing before scoping the job is the single most useful thing a facilities contact can do.
The practical result is that most office clearances happen in the evening or across a weekend, which also means they take more elapsed days than the volume alone suggests.
The sequence
- 1
Get the building requirements in writing
Lift, dock booking, hours, protection, insurance. Before anything else.
- 2
Settle the data question
Computers, servers and copiers hold data. Wipe or remove drives, or engage a certified destruction vendor. This is the step most often left too late.
- 3
Decide what is donated
Serviceable chairs, desks and filing have a real donation route. It has to be separated before the strip-out debris buries it.
- 4
Count the paper honestly
Filing cabinets and storage walls get emptied in principle and not in practice. Archive, shred or dispose — decide before the day.
- 5
Mark what stays
On a partial clearance, tag the surplus or map it. A crew working in the evening cannot tell a surplus desk from an occupied one.
- 6
Schedule against the handback
Backwards from the landlord walk-through with margin, not forwards from today.
The data question, specifically
Computers and servers are obvious. Copiers and multifunction devices are the ones that get missed — almost all modern machines store scanned and printed documents on an internal drive, and a copier leaving a building with that drive intact is a data incident waiting to be discovered.
This branch does not provide certified data destruction and does not claim to. For a regulated business the clean arrangement is a certified vendor for the media and us for the hardware, furniture and everything else. Media is a small fraction of the volume, so that split costs far less than it sounds.
- Computers and laptops — wiped or drives removed
- Servers and storage — certified destruction if regulated
- Copiers and MFDs — the most commonly missed device
- Networking gear — configs often hold credentials
What comes out of a suite
- Desks, benching and workstations
- Task, meeting and executive seating
- Filing cabinets and storage walls
- Conference and reception furniture
- Break room tables, seating and appliances
- Monitors, printers, copiers and IT
- Server racks, UPS units and cabling
- Archive boxes and loose paper
- Whiteboards, screens and partitions
- Plants, artwork and signage
Handing back a suite?
Send a floor plan and the building's access rules together. Quoting without the second one quotes the wrong job.
FAQ
Related questions
- What gets missed most often in an office clearance?
- The copier's hard drive and the volume of paper. Filing cabinets are emptied in principle and not in practice, and copiers store documents on an internal drive that almost nobody accounts for.
- Do you provide certified data destruction?
- No. Wipe or remove drives before collection, or engage a certified vendor for the media and use us for the hardware and furniture. Media is a small share of the volume, so that split is cheaper than it sounds.
- Can serviceable office furniture be donated?
- Often, yes — chairs, desks and filing in reasonable condition have a route. It has to be separated before a strip-out buries it, which is why the two phases are usually cleared separately.
- How far ahead should we book?
- As soon as the handback date is known. Out-of-hours-only access means a floor takes more elapsed days than the volume suggests, and the dock slots go to whoever booked them first.
Ready when you are
You point. We haul. That is the whole arrangement.
Choose a window from the live Arlington calendar, or send a few photographs and get the number first. Homes or businesses, one item or a whole property.
Or call (972) 093-0938
The Arlington branch
Junk Koala Arlington
1140 W Pioneer Pkwy, Ste 1144E
Arlington, TX 76013