FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — Several men wordlessly carry out furniture, broken computers and boxes of garbage from a large blue house on a quiet upstate street on a brisk autumn morning. Rusting bikes and an old grill lay discarded in the overgrown backyard, which is spotted with empty beer cans and crushed milk cartons. The mood is oddly serene as the men unload the remnants of what was once someone's home.

Todd Drake, manager of Empire Real Estate Management in Latham, N.Y., is overseeing yet another eviction. The home's former owner has long gone, leaving just debris and an old phone number in his stead. After a county sheriff's deputy checks to make sure no one is inside, crews head in to change the locks and clean out the refuse — also known as a "trashout." Drake is stoic as he watches his crew.

"These evictions are the last resort," he explained. "I'm not here to judge that — the circumstances or the lifestyle."

The nation's housing bust and economic downturn have greatly increased the number of homes being foreclosed and seized by banks. The bank typically hires a real-estate agent to resell it, but someone has to come in and clean up after the last residents. That's led to a boom in a new type of startup business — cleaning up foreclosures, also known as "real-estate owned" or REOs.

Web sites aimed at wannabe entrepreneurs — such as www.explorestartups.com — frequently suggest starting up a foreclosure cleanup business as moneymaker. Entrepreneur Magazine even picked a foreclosure cleanup business called Cyprexx for its 2008 "Hot 100 Fastest Growing Businesses" list.

CLEANING UP CAN PAY

Real-estate firms have also taken on this side of the business, handling eviction lockout and property management services such as repairs and cleaning out the houses. Sometimes the firms hire another service to do the messy work, but others, like Drake's firm, do it all.

"It's just becoming a way of life. It's sad. we try not to have too many opinions out on the field, to be honest," said Linda Hall of All REO Preservation in Riverside, Calif.

On the street where's Drake's crew was cleaning up, neighbors said they weren't too worried about whether the foreclosure would hurt their home values.

"I think they just got into trouble financially," said William Trackey, who lives across the street. He said there was a man, his girlfriend and a couple of children living there.

BEHIND ON PAYMENTS

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, more than 4 million homeowners were at least one month behind on their loans at the end of June according to the latest statistics, and almost 500,000 had started the foreclosure process. An estimated 2.8 million U.S. households will face foreclosure, turn over their homes to their lender or sell the properties for less than their mortgage's value by the end of next year, predicts Moody's www.Economy.com.

Hall was working in the bookkeeping business in 2007 when a client got her then-boyfriend involved with foreclosure cleanup. In February, she launched her own business, All REO Preservation.

"We've been butt-kicking busy," said Hall. "I work in the field as much as I work in the office."

So busy that Hall is even working on putting together a nationwide plan to give work to other contractors, and currently has crews and subcontractors in several other states. Her business also offers its own training program for startups.

"Some of the homes are in pretty good shape, and it's just a matter of changing the locks, cutting the grass, etc.," said Hall. "If it's a big, heavy trashout, those homes have either never been maintained or people are angry when they move out and do a little damage."

As foreclosure rates have risen, so, too, have the number of trashouts. While people typically take their valuables when they move out, sometimes they'll leave things behind like photographs and kids' pictures, and even family pets. Hall said she recently found two dogs that had been left behind when their owners left, a boxer and a pit bull puppy.

As for the stuff that's left behind, most counties require all personal property to be put in storage for 30 days to give previous owners a chance to reclaim it. Most of the time, they don't.

"Every house and situation is different," said Hall. "Every circumstance for people losing their house is different, too. Sometimes you see medical equipment left behind, and you sometimes can assume they lost someone and just couldn't keep up with the medical bills."