When Gary Berman’s mother died in January, at age 81, leaving behind the two-story house in Forest Hills, Queens, where she had lived for more than 60 years, he and his sister divided the items with sentimental value, then decided they wanted to sell the knickknacks and the big-ticket items, mostly a collection of midcentury modern dining room furniture.

A cardiologist by profession, Dr. Berman, 60, knew what he wanted to get rid of, but had no idea of how to find someone to do it. So he did what all of us do these days: He went on Google and searched until he came across a company called Lucky Rabbit Estate Sales, which happened to be based nearby in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

“I literally picked the phone up and said, ‘Can you help me?’ ” Dr. Berman said recently. Lucky Rabbit could and did: Within days of the call, Paul J. Dunn, one of the company’s owners, was consulting with Dr. Berman about how to hire a cleanup crew, how to price a matching buffet-table set and how to protect against theft when the estate sale actually took place.

“I didn’t have a clue at first that there were so many things involved,” Dr. Berman said. “It was definitely an education, but even more, it was almost like another form of grieving.”