Last month we did an attic cleanout in Meridian and carried a box of wedding candles down the ladder. Well, what used to be candles. It had turned into one solid slab of wax stuck to the bottom of the box, with a few wicks poking out.

Honestly, that's pretty normal for an attic cleanout in Boise. Stuff goes up there "just for now," then sits through five or ten Treasure Valley summers. By the time someone opens the boxes, a lot of it isn't what they remember.

So here's what we actually find up there, what's usually worth saving, and what can go straight in the truck.

How hot does a Boise attic actually get?

Hotter than most people guess. On a 100-degree July day, a typical attic in Boise or Nampa sits somewhere around 130 to 150 degrees. A dark roof or bad ventilation pushes it higher.

Then winter flips it, and that same attic stays below freezing for weeks at a time.

Our dry climate does help in one way. You don't find the soggy, moldy boxes people deal with in humid parts of the country.

The trouble is that dry heat and big temperature swings are rough on anything made of plastic, glue, wax, film, or wood. Stuff doesn't rot up there. It warps, cracks, melts, and goes brittle.

What holds up in the heat and what doesn't

After enough attic jobs, you can pretty much guess what's in a box before you cut the tape. Here's the rough breakdown.

What's in the box	How it usually holds up	What we usually do with it
Metal and glass holiday decorations	Mostly fine, just dusty	Keep, or donate to Idaho Youth Ranch
Photos, slides, and old papers	Curled, faded, sometimes stuck together	Set aside for you to go through
Candles, crayons, VHS tapes, vinyl records	Melted or warped	Usually the landfill
Old electronics and battery toys	Batteries swollen or leaking	Pull the batteries, recycle the rest
Wood furniture and picture frames	Loose joints, peeling veneer	Depends on the piece

A few things surprise people. Plastic storage bins seem like the safe bet, but after years of heat a lot of them get so brittle they crack when you pick them up. Cardboard dries out and splits at the seams.

Clothes usually make it if they were sealed up, though they'll smell like attic for a while. Leather jackets, baseball gloves, and old purses tend to crack. Kids' artwork on construction paper can fade to almost nothing.

Sorting heat-damaged stuff during an attic cleanout

This is the part where people get stuck. You open a box of your mom's photos, they're curled up and fused together, and now you have to decide what to do with them.

Our advice? Don't sort anything in the attic. Nobody makes good decisions crouched under rafters in 120-degree air, which is a big reason we tell people to skip July for attic work if they can.

Bring it all down to the garage or driveway and sort it there. That's how we run every attic cleanout we do. Everything comes down, anything that looks personal goes in its own pile, and you look it over before a single box gets hauled off.

A simple way to split it up:

Keep for later: photos, letters, documents, anything with a name on it
Donate: holiday stuff, dishes, tools, and anything else still in decent shape
Recycle: metal, electronics, and clean cardboard
Toss: anything melted, warped, cracked, or chewed

If photos are stuck together, don't try to peel them apart dry. You'll tear the image. A photo restoration shop can often separate them, and it's worth a call if those pictures matter to you.

One more thing. If a box is chewed up or you spot droppings, put on gloves and a mask before you touch it. We wrote a whole post on mouse droppings in the attic because it changes how you handle everything in that box.

Heads up: Old aerosol cans and swollen batteries are the two things we watch for most in a hot attic. Don't puncture the cans, and don't toss puffy lithium batteries in your trash cart, because they can start fires in garbage trucks. Set them in a box away from anything flammable and drop them at Ada County's free household hazardous waste site.

Where everything from an attic cleanout goes

We get asked this a lot, and it's a fair thing to wonder. Most attic loads split up better than you'd expect.

Old box fans, lamp bases, and Christmas tree stands are mostly metal, so they go to Western Recycling. Decorations, small furniture, and household goods that still work head to Idaho Youth Ranch, and electronics get recycled.

Whatever's left is usually the melted, cracked, and filthy stuff. That goes to the Ada County landfill.

We don't donate things that are clearly ruined. Dropping a cracked bin of warped junk at a thrift store just hands them the job of throwing it away.

What's actually safe to put back up there?

Once the attic's clear, you'll probably want to use it again. Fair enough, it's free storage. Just be picky about what goes back up.

Metal and glass decorations, empty suitcases, extra tile, and spare lumber all handle the heat fine. Photos, important papers, candles, paint, wine, and anything with a battery shouldn't go up there at all.

Here's an easy test. If it would be ruined sitting in a parked car in August, it'll be ruined in your attic too. Same conditions, just for years instead of an afternoon.

Bottom line: your attic isn't a storage unit. It's more like an oven that turns into a freezer every winter, so most things that sat up there for years come down in worse shape than they went up.

That's okay. Save the personal stuff, donate what still works, and let the rest go.

If it's just a handful of boxes, you can probably knock it out yourself on a cool morning. Yes, we'd happily take the job, but you really don't need us for that.

A packed attic is a different story. Most of the ones we clear around Boise, Meridian, and Nampa run $300 to $800, depending on how much is up there and how tight the access is.

If you'd rather not spend a weekend on a ladder, give us a call at (208) 593-2877. We'll tell you straight what it'll take.