Guides · landlords
Eviction Cleanouts in NYC: What Happens After the Marshal Leaves
Updated July 2026
The eviction gives you the unit — not carte blanche
A city marshal executing a warrant restores legal possession of the apartment to you. It does not automatically make everything inside yours to discard: the handling of a evicted tenant's belongings has legal requirements that your attorney will spell out for your specific case, and marshals themselves follow procedures about how the eviction is executed. The clean approach: treat possession day and disposal day as two separate decisions, with counsel signing off on the second. Every horror story in this space is a landlord who treated them as one.
Document the unit the hour you get it back
Evicted tenants are the likeliest of all former tenants to bring claims, and the unit's condition at repossession is your defense on multiple fronts: what belongings were present (photograph everything, room by room), what damage predated your crew (separate the tenant's holes-in-walls from anything that happens during cleanout), and what was plainly abandoned trash versus arguably personal property. An hour with a phone camera and a written inventory, done before any crew enters, is the difference between a nuisance claim and a real one.
The cleanout: heavier than a normal turnover, priced accordingly
Post-eviction units run heavier than voluntary move-outs — evicted tenants rarely leave broom-clean, and full-apartment abandonments with furniture, clothing, and food waste are normal. Expect $700–$2,000 for a loaded 1-bedroom depending on volume and floor, more for larger units. A crew experienced with evictions works differently: they photograph as they clear, separate flagged personal items per your attorney's instructions, handle the biohazard-adjacent surprises (spoiled food, pests) without drama, and deliver broom-clean with a documentation packet. That packet is part of what you're paying for.
From cleared to collecting rent
After an eviction the unit usually needs more than paint: locks changed same-day (non-negotiable), often deeper repairs, sometimes extermination before trades will work. Run the standard turnover sequence but budget extra days and dollars for the unknowns — evictions hide surprises behind furniture. The strategic point for portfolio owners: evictions cluster with economic cycles, and having a standing cleanout arrangement (fixed rates, priority scheduling, known documentation standards) means the worst weeks of your year run on process instead of scrambling. The vacancy clock on an evicted unit started months ago in lost rent — the cleanout week is the one part of the timeline you fully control.