Clean out your closets and cupboards, and invariably you are confronted with a pile of possessions in need of a new home. They have to go somewhere, ideally somewhere special, because otherwise you have to face the uncomfortable truth that all this stuff is headed for a landfill.

Perhaps, as part of your urge to purge, you try to foist these rejected items on unwitting loved ones. But you know what? Your friends, relatives and neighbors do not want that little black dress you’ve owned for over a decade but have worn only twice. They don’t want your tattered copy of “Ulysses.” Or your vinyl records, even the David Bowie ones.

Strangers on Craigslist probably don’t want these things, either.

“People just think a Pink Floyd album is going to be worth money someday,” but it’s not, said Zach Cohen, the owner of the Junkluggers franchise serving Brooklyn and Manhattan, which hauls about 250 truckloads of unwanted possessions every month. “Vinyls are not worth money — no matter who it is, somebody is selling it on eBay for $2.”

So you move on to your next option: charity. You toss the broken blender into a bag with that little black dress, your worn-out sheets and a dozen other random items, and haul everything down to Housing Works. But charities are not merely empty vessels eager to take your junk. They have standards, and would appreciate it if donors put a little thought into what they passed along, and how they did it. Those standards vary, and you have to do a bit of homework about who accepts what.