House clearance in Wickford is a steady part of our week, and has been for a long time. The firm has been clearing houses since 2007, and SS11 and SS12 sit well inside the patch we can reach and finish in a day. Most of what people ring us for here is a whole property rather than a single room. So here is one of ours, done at the end of September 2020. The ordinary jobs tell you more about a firm than the dramatic ones do.
It was a full house clearance in SS11. The whole property, top to bottom, and it came out in one van load. Two mattresses kept apart from everything else. Mattresses do not go in with the general crush. They are separated out and taken to a site that can pull them apart, because the springs, the foam and the ticking all end up in three different places. That is not a preference of ours, it is how the material has to be handled. One load, one day, keys back at the end of it. Nothing about that job was remarkable and that is rather the point: most house clearance in Wickford is a house, a van, a crew and a tidy floor at the end.
When one load is not going to do it, we say so on the first day rather than at the end of it. A house lived in for forty years, where nothing has left the property in all that time, is not a one-load house and we would rather tell you that at nine in the morning than at four in the afternoon.
Here is one that went wrong at our end. It is worth telling because it is the sort of thing firms leave off their websites. We had already had to move the date once. Then on the rebooked morning the crew were running late. Somewhere between ten and half past, instead of nine. The customer had driven more than three hours and paid for a bed and breakfast the night before, twice, once for each date, to be stood at the door for nine o'clock. What came back to us was fair enough: "I am very disappointed with the service we are receiving." No arguing with that.
We took it on the chin and the clearance went through on the day it was finally booked for. The lesson stuck. If a nine o'clock start is the whole point of the day for you. You have travelled or you have a locksmith or a buyer's surveyor booked in behind us, say so when you book and we will flag it on the job rather than let you find out by text.
What a Wickford house gives up
Wickford houses tend to give up a particular sort of contents. A lot of the town started life as plotland. Bungalows and chalets put up between the wars on long thin plots, extended sideways and backwards ever since — so we are often working single storey with a loft hatch, a long garden and a shed at the end of it that has not been opened since the owner stopped bending down. Out of one of those you will get a sewing table with the pins still in the pincushion, a bookcase with glass doors that swings out at you halfway down the hall. A gas fire with a back boiler behind it that has to come out cold and capped by someone qualified before we touch the surround.
Storage heaters are the heavy ones — the old ones are packed with fire bricks and each brick has to come out by hand before the case will lift. Then the rest: a card table with green baize, a nest of stacking stools, a brass companion set and a coal scuttle off a hearth nobody has lit in twenty years, curtains and pelmets from every room. Down the garden a hose reel rusted onto its bracket and five watering cans, because there are always five.
Whatever still has a use in it we would sooner see going through a charity shop or a community reuse scheme in Essex than crushed. What cannot be re-homed goes to a permitted transfer station, weighed in and recorded. We will send you the waste transfer note for your file if you are an executor or an agent and need to show where it all went. Our registration as a waste carrier with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679. We are insured for the work and for the property while we are in it.
Fridges, freezers and fridge-freezers are classed as hazardous because of the gases in them. They come out of the house separately and go to a plant licensed to degas them. Upholstered sofas, armchairs and dining chairs with padded seats are handled apart from the rest too. Since the rules on persistent organic pollutants changed, that foam and fabric cannot be crushed in with a mixed load or sent for recycling, and has to go to a site permitted to burn it. Tins of half-set paint, patio gas cylinders, old solvents, car batteries and asbestos sheeting cannot travel in with the furniture at all; tell us what is there and we will tell you who takes it locally.
Getting a Luton near the door
Getting a Luton van near the property is usually the only real headache round here. The older streets off the High Street and the roads by the station fill with parked cars by half eight. Some of the plotland lanes towards Runwell and Shotgate are single width with a soft verge you do not want a loaded van on in February. If there is a driveway, say so and we will use it. If there is not, a cone or a neighbour's goodwill for two hours saves everybody an afternoon of walking wardrobes fifty yards. Wickford station itself is handy for us and for you. It is on the line between Liverpool Street, Shenfield and Southend Victoria, with the Crouch Valley branch heading off through Battlesbridge towards South Woodham Ferrers and Southminster — so if you are coming down from London for the day to hand over keys, you can be at the property before we have got the tailgate down.
This corner of Essex
We work the whole of this corner of Essex, not just the town. That is SS11 and SS12 across Wickford and Runwell, SS13, SS14, SS15, SS16 and SS17 through Basildon, Pitsea, Laindon, Vange and Stanford-le-Hope, SS7 over at Benfleet and Thundersley. CM11, CM12 and CM13 covering Billericay, Ramsden Heath and out towards the Brentwood side. Rettendon, Nevendon, Crays Hill, Battlesbridge — all the same trip for us. Bins and street collections are Basildon Borough Council's job; the household recycling centres are run by Essex County Council. They are fine for a car boot of cardboard but they will not take a house.
Several of those neighbours have a page of their own, and if the property you are dealing with is not actually in the town, start there instead: house clearance in Basildon, house clearance in Billericay and house clearance in Thundersley. Same crew, same van, same week.
Probate work in the SS postcodes
Probate work makes up a good share of what we do here. A probate house clearance in Wickford usually starts with a phone call from somebody who lives nowhere near Essex, and we can invoice the executors, the estate's solicitor or the administrator of the estate directly. Nothing is asked for up front, the invoice follows the work, and it can be settled out of the estate. The quote itself is free and puts you under no obligation. There is no need to bag or box anything beforehand. The crew empties wardrobes, drawers and cupboards as they find them, lifts carpets and underlay, takes up gripper rods where they will come without wrecking the floor beneath, and brushes through at the end.
If you cannot be there, we will collect a key from an agent or a neighbour, photograph the property empty and email the pictures the same evening, and anything obviously personal. Photographs, letters, a jewellery box — is put aside rather than binned, and posted on if you would rather not travel. There is more detail on how probate clearances run on our probate house clearance page.
Other kinds of house clearance in Wickford
Not every job is a whole house, and not every house is empty of people.
Flat clearance in SS11 and SS12
A flat clearance is a different animal to a bungalow with a driveway. Wickford has a good number of purpose-built blocks and sheltered schemes near the centre. Flat clearance there is mostly a question of the walk: how far to the door from where the van can legally stand, whether the lift is big enough for a three-seater or whether it is coming down the stairs on its end, and whether the block has rules about the front door being propped. Tell us the floor and the lift when you ring and we will bring the right number of lads.
Garage and loft clearance in Wickford
Garage and loft clearance is half the work in a plotland town. The loft hatch here is often the original narrow one with a drop-down ladder that has seen better decades. What is above it is forty years of boxes, water tanks that have been disconnected, cases of magazines and a Christmas tree from every year the loft was not emptied. Garages round here are frequently detached, at the end of the plot. A door that has not opened since the last car fitted through it. We clear both as part of a full house clearance in Wickford or on their own. Say on the phone whether the loft, the garage and the shed are in the count, because they change the day more than the house does.
Hoarder house clearance in Wickford
Full houses do not bother us. If rooms are packed to the picture rail and doors only open partway, that is a question of how many loads and how many days, nothing more. The crew will just get on with it — no comment, no faces pulled. A hoarder house clearance needs masks, a route out and somebody sorting rather than shovelling. The post and the paperwork that matter are usually in there somewhere. See the hoarder house clearance page for how we approach those.
End of tenancy clearance and single items
Landlords and managing agents ring us for end of tenancy clearance when a tenant has left the flat furnished with things nobody wants. We can turn a property round between lettings, carpets up if you want them up. If it is one wardrobe, one sofa or a garage full of bags rather than a whole house, that is house rubbish removal and it is the same phone call.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Wickford
How much does a house clearance in Wickford cost?
We do not put figures on a web page. The honest answer depends on what is in the house and how much of it there is. Ring 0800 046 5555 with the postcode and the number of bedrooms, or send photographs through the form on this page. You will get a quote before anything is booked. It is free and it commits you to nothing.
Can you invoice the solicitor or the executor?
Yes. For probate work we invoice the executor, the administrator or the estate's solicitor directly. It can be paid out of the estate. Nothing is asked for up front.
Do I need to be there on the day?
No. We collect keys from an agent, a neighbour or a key safe. We photograph the property empty and email the pictures the same evening so an executor two counties away can see the floor.
Do I have to sort or bag anything first?
No. The crew empties cupboards, wardrobes and drawers as they find them. If there are things you want kept, tell us on the day or leave a note on them. Anything obviously personal is put to one side rather than binned.
What will you not take?
Asbestos sheeting, gas cylinders, car batteries, solvents and half-set paint cannot go in the van with the furniture. Fridges and freezers and upholstered furniture come out separately because the law requires them to be handled on their own. Tell us what is there and nothing will surprise anybody on the day.
Do you take the carpets up?
Usually, yes, along with the underlay and the gripper rods where they will come without taking the floor with them. If the carpets are to stay, say so when you book and they stay.
Ring 0800 046 5555 with the postcode, the number of bedrooms, and whether there is a loft, garage or shed in the mix. Photographs on your phone help more than a description, and the form on this page takes them. You will get a number before the van is booked. That number does not change on the doorstep unless you add to what is coming out.
