The paraffin was what held that one up. May 2022, a full clearance in Torquay, booked by someone who wasn't in Devon and couldn't be there on the day. Three bedrooms, the loft still full, a garage and a shed at the bottom of the garden. The sale was already moving, so the keys came to us from the estate agent handling it and went straight back to the same office once the team had finished and locked up. Tins of paint were confirmed for removal in an email the night before. The paraffin took another phone call, because that one isn't a yes-or-no on the doorstep — a carboy of fuel doesn't travel in with the wardrobes and the bedding, and we had to sort out where it was going before the van left.
The rest came to us written down, line by line, which is how we prefer it. The shed had a question mark over it: "Key to padlock on shed appears to be lost so it may need cutting open (boltcutters?)". So boltcutters went on the van, and nobody stood in a garden at half nine wondering what to do. The water was off at the mains for insurance and had to go back off again at the end of the day. And the list of things to leave finished with a line I still think about: "All keys except the one for the clock in the dining room". A whole house going out through the front door, and one key staying behind for a clock.
That job set the pattern for most of what we do around Torbay. Someone in London, or Hertfordshire, or further, has become responsible for a property down here. They've been down once, maybe twice. They can't keep driving four hours to stand in a hallway. So the arrangements get made by email and phone, the keys sit with an agent or in a key safe. We send photographs of every room before we start and after we're done, so the person responsible can see what actually happened to a house they weren't standing in. We have been clearing properties this way since 2007, and the away-instruction jobs are now most of the diary.
A flat clearance in Torquay, booked from the Hampshire coast
Not every house clearance in Torquay is a house. This one was a flat in a purpose-built block in TQ2, on the side of town where the roads start climbing away from the sea, and the person instructing us was a couple of hundred miles along the coast in Hampshire. They weren't travelling down for it, and didn't need to.
It went in a day, but not a quiet one. The first van filled and went out, a second went out behind it, and a further load left the same day before the team stopped. Three loads off one flat, which is a good deal more than the outside of a block like that ever suggests. A mattress went separately, as mattresses have to. Then the flat was cleaned through once it was empty, floors and surfaces and the kitchen, so it could be handed over rather than simply emptied.
What holds true for flats generally in TQ1 and TQ2: the carry is the job. Purpose-built blocks in Torquay mostly go up rather than out, and a lift, where there is one, is usually too small to stand a wardrobe in. Where there isn't one it's a communal stair with a turn on every landing and other people's doors either side. We keep the stair clear, we don't prop fire doors open and wander off, and we allow for the carry when we say how long the day will take. Tell us the floor number when you ring. It changes the plan more than the number of rooms does.
Houses that have got away from the people living in them are ordinary work here, not an event. Nobody in the team comments, nobody pulls a face, and the photographs stay in the job file for quality checking and nowhere else. If a property has filled up over years. Front room to the ceiling, landing you have to walk sideways down — say so when you ring and we'll book the right number of people and the right number of loads instead of turning up short-handed and making a bad day worse.
Where we work in Torbay and around it
Torquay proper, so all of the TQ1 and TQ2 side: Babbacombe, St Marychurch, Wellswood, Ellacombe, Chelston, Shiphay, Watcombe, down through Cockington, with Goodrington round the bay. Torre, Plainmoor, Hele and Barton as well, where the terraces sit tight together and the vans need thinking about. Paignton and Brixham are the same working area for us — the bay is one run — so house clearance in Paignton and house clearance in Brixham each have a page of their own. Inland the next town has a page of its own: house clearance in Newton Abbot, with house clearance in Exeter the bigger city up the A380.
We come down the A38 and the A380. If someone's travelling to meet us, Newton Abbot is the main-line station and the Riviera Line branch runs from there through Torre and Torquay to Paignton, which is usually the easier plan than driving and then trying to park.
Parking is the honest complication in Torquay. The Victorian terraces on the hills above the harbour were built for horses, not for a caged tipper, and half of them have no off-street space at all. Some of the roads above the seafront are steep enough that we'll walk them before we commit the van. If your street is permit-only or narrow, tell us at the booking stage. Occasionally it means a bay suspension arranged in advance, and more often it just means we allow the extra time for a longer carry rather than turning up and discovering it.
What people ring us about in Torquay
Probate house clearance in Torquay
A good half of what we do here is probate work, and a fair bit of it starts with a solicitor rather than a family. A probate house clearance in Torquay tends to run to the same shape: the property has been shut up for months, there are papers to find before anything moves, and the person responsible for it lives somewhere else entirely. We can hold back documents, photographs, anything that looks like a bank statement or an insurance policy — one box, left where you tell us, and the team looks for it as they go rather than at the end. Say so at the booking stage. The paperwork afterwards can be addressed to the solicitor, the appointed administrator or the executor acting, whichever is easiest, and there's more on how these jobs run on our probate house clearance page.
Garage and loft clearance in Torquay
The two parts of a property people forget when they describe it on the phone, and the two that most often turn one day into two. Garage and loft clearance in Torquay is its own piece of work: lofts around here are often half-boarded or not boarded at all, the hatch is small, and everything comes down a ladder by hand. Suitcases, a cot, decorations, forty years of paperwork in carrier bags. Garages on the hill streets are frequently detached and sit down a lane behind the terrace, which means a long carry rather than a tailgate drop. Tell us whether the loft is full and whether the garage door still opens. Both go into the estimate honestly, and neither is a reason for anyone to pull a face.
Hoarded properties, end of tenancy and single rooms
Landlords and managing agents ring us at the end of a tenancy, usually with a date they can't move. Those are straightforward: everything goes, the property is left swept, and photographs follow the same day. Heavily hoarded properties are a different animal and want more people, more loads and sometimes protective kit — that work has its own page, hoarder house clearance, and it is worth reading before you ring so you know what to expect. And if it's one room, a garage or a garden's worth of bags rather than a whole property, that's house rubbish removal, a smaller job with a smaller van.
Fridges, mattresses and the things that need their own paperwork
Fridges and freezers are the clearest example of why house clearance in Torquay isn't only a van and a strong back. Anything with a cooling circuit has to go to a facility set up to degas it, so those come off the property and travel on their own route — under-counter fridges, the chest freezer in the garage, the lot. Mattresses are handled apart from the general load as well. Sofas, armchairs and other soft furnishings have been on a separate permitted route since the POPs rules landed in 2023, because the treated foam inside them can't lawfully go through a general waste stream. It is slower, and there is no way round it, so we plan for it rather than discover it on the day.
Anything still usable we try to move on rather than tip — furniture, crockery, tools, books, whatever a reuse project or a charity shop around the bay will actually take, and they're picky now, which is fair enough. The rest is weighed in at a permitted transfer station and comes back as a ticket for the file. We're registered as an upper-tier waste carrier with the Environment Agency, licence CBDU419679, and we're insured for the work. Ask for the transfer notes and you'll get them.
Paint, paraffin, gas cylinders, solvents and asbestos are the things a normal load can't carry. Say the words when you ring and we'll tell you what we can take and what needs a specialist run, before anyone's standing in your garage guessing.
What it costs and how to get a figure
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and walk us through the rooms — how many bedrooms, whether the loft and the garage are full, whether there's a piano in the front room, which floor you're on, what the parking is like outside. Or send photographs through the form on this page. A dozen pictures taken on a phone from the doorway of each room tell us more than a page of description ever will, and you'll get a figure back and have it confirmed in writing.
A clearance day starts at nine and we aim to have the property done by the evening where the size allows. Where it plainly won't go in a day, we say two days at the estimate stage rather than discovering it at four in the afternoon. And if the team finds a great deal more than we were told about — the loft nobody had opened, the garage behind the terrace — you hear from us before anything extra goes on the van.
Common questions about house clearance in Torquay
Do you cover all of Torquay, or just the centre?
All of it: TQ1 and TQ2, harbourside to Watcombe, Babbacombe to Cockington, and out to Paignton and Brixham on the same run. Flats, terraces, bungalows, the lot.
I live hundreds of miles away. Can you do it without me there?
Yes, and most weeks we do. Keys come from an agent, a neighbour or a key safe, and go back the same way. You get photographs of every room before we start and after we finish, and anything of sentimental value that you flag beforehand is set aside rather than loaded.
Can you invoice the solicitor, and can it be paid from the estate?
Yes to both. Where an estate is being settled we invoice the solicitor, the administrator or the executor acting — tell us at the booking stage who it should be addressed to and we'll do it that way. Payment can come out of the estate once probate allows it, and there is no deposit.
What won't you take?
Paint, paraffin, solvents, gas bottles and asbestos need a specialist route, so they can't go in with a general load. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture we do take, but each is handled separately by law. Tell us what's in the garage and the shed when you ring and nothing gets left standing on the drive.
Do you clear the loft and the outbuildings too?
Yes — loft, garage, shed, greenhouse, whatever's in the garden. It just needs to be on the list before the day so the right van and the right number of hands turn up.
How long does a house clearance in Torquay take?
Most properties are a single day, nine until it's done. A large house, a full loft, or a steep street with a long carry can make it two. We'd rather tell you that at the estimate stage than at teatime on the day.
