Most of our house clearance work in Gloucester is city work — Victorian terraces with no side access, thirties semis with a garage the width of an Austin, and the newer estates spreading out towards the ring road. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and a van is somewhere in GL1, GL2, GL3 or GL4 most weeks of the year, with the villages of GL19 out to the north-west on the same run. What follows is two of our own Gloucester jobs, then the practical part. What goes in the van, what legally cannot, who gets the invoice on a probate property, and how to get a figure out of us.
The GL1 house clearance nobody local booked
Early December 2019, a terraced house in GL1, a few streets back from the centre. The person instructing us was not in Gloucestershire at all. They were over the bridge in south Wales, better than two hours away by road, and they were not at the property while we were in it. Address, date, go-ahead — all of it settled at a distance. The house went out in a single visit, one Luton van, no second day and no return trip.
A house clearance in Gloucester booked from another county is one of the commonest jobs we do, and there was nothing unusual about that one.
What makes those work is dull and it is always the same two things: a written list and a phone that gets answered. If the instruction says the cooker stays and the wardrobes go, that is what the team leader works from. If something on the list is not where it was said to be, he rings before anything moves, not afterwards. When somebody rings half-apologising because the place is not sorted out yet, the answer we have been giving for years is the one that goes out in writing too: "There is no need to box or bag anything up". Take out what you are keeping, or put it to one side and say so on the day, and the crew works the cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, lifts carpets and underlay, and sweeps through behind itself.
Sorting, reuse and the transfer station
Everything that comes out of a Gloucestershire property has to be accounted for somewhere. Sound furniture, working white goods, tools, garden kit — where a piece still has a use in it, we would sooner it went on to a reuse scheme or a county charity shop than be tipped. What cannot be passed on is weighed in at a permitted transfer station, and the transfer notes are kept on file; ask and we will email you a copy. The permitted sites on the industrial edge of the city take a good deal of what leaves it. Our waste carrier licence is CBDU419679, and the firm is insured for the work we do.
A few things travel on their own ticket. Sofas and armchairs have counted as POPs waste since 2023: persistent organic pollutants, the flame retardants in the foam. Upholstered seating cannot be tipped with general household rubbish and goes down its own regulated route. Fridges and freezers are hazardous because of the gas in the circuit and go to a separate stream. Paint tins, gas canisters, aerosols and old car tyres will not ride in a mixed load either; they are dealt with on their own. Better to hear that on the phone than to find it out on the driveway.
A day on the job, then and now
Go back to November 2018 and there is a single-load house clearance out at Churchdown, in GL3 on the Barnwood side of the city — one Luton van filled and away. The shape of the day has not shifted much since. We are outside for nine in the morning, three staff on the team, and the intention is always to finish the property that same day. One or two working days' notice is usually enough to get booked in. If a particular date matters — a completion, a tenancy ending, a solicitor's deadline — say so early, because August and the run-up to Christmas fill first.
Churchdown is a good example of why we ask about the outside as well as the inside. Half those houses have a garage that has not been opened properly in years, and a shed behind it that the family forgot to mention because nobody had looked in it since the last funeral. Tell us on the phone and the right van comes.
What sort of house clearance in Gloucester we get called out to
Probate house clearance in Gloucester
The bulk of it. A probate house clearance is rarely urgent in the way a tenancy is. It is nearly always run by somebody who does not live here: a son in Bristol, a daughter in the Midlands, a solicitor with the file. We can work to a written list, hold back anything the family still wants looked out for, and send the waste transfer paperwork on afterwards for the estate file. If the grant has not come through yet and nothing can be moved, say so; we will book the date and wait for your word.
End of tenancy clearance in Gloucester
Landlords and letting agents around Tredworth, Barton and the student side of the city ring us for an end of tenancy clearance more often than anyone else. Usually with the same problem: a property handed back part-furnished with somebody else's sofa in it. We can clear it and sweep through, and we can do it between one let and the next rather than on a Saturday, which is what most agents actually want.
Garage and loft clearance in Gloucester
A garage and loft clearance is its own job and we would rather price it as one. On the thirties semis in Longlevens and the post-war stock in Matson and Tuffley, the loft is boarded and the hatch is small. The garage holds forty years of tins, timber and a lawnmower that has not run since the nineties. We carry a ladder and we go up; we just need to know before the van is loaded, not at four in the afternoon.
Flat clearance in GL1 and GL2
Flat clearance in the older blocks near the docks and the centre is a different animal to a house: narrow stairwells, a communal door that will not stay propped, and residents' bays the van cannot legally sit in. Where there is a marked space or a car park the van can use, tell us when you book — it changes the number of men we send and the length of the day.
Hoarder house clearance in Gloucester
Overfilled houses are ordinary work here, not an exception. Rooms you can only enter sideways, forty years of newspapers, a kitchen nobody has cooked in for a decade. A hoarder house clearance takes longer and it takes more of us, and nobody on the crew will say a word about it to you or to anyone else. If you would like items looked out for as we go, write the list down: keys, jewellery, photographs, documents, anything with a family meaning to it. That works far better than hoping we will guess.
The patch we cover round here
Gloucester's own districts run GL1 to GL4, with GL19 out on the north-west side. GL1 is the centre, the Docks and Kingsholm, with Barton and Tredworth behind them. GL2 takes in Hempsted, Quedgeley, the Kingsway estates, Longlevens and Highnam, and reaches out to Hardwicke and Frampton on Severn. GL3 is Hucclecote, Barnwood, Churchdown, Innsworth and Brockworth under the hill. GL4 covers Abbeydale, Abbeymead, Matson, Tuffley and Upton St Leonards, up to Birdlip and Cranham on the escarpment. GL19 is the rural strip — Hartpury, Ashleworth, Corse, Coombe Hill, Apperley and Deerhurst — where a farmhouse job means a yard, a barn and something with a flat tyre in it.
We cover the rest of the county from the same yard. House clearance in Cheltenham is six miles up the road, then house clearance in Tewkesbury north of us in GL20, and house clearance in Stroud and the valleys to the south. Newent, Painswick, Dursley, Cinderford and the Forest villages are the same call. Trains into Gloucester station and Cheltenham Spa bring a fair few executors down from Birmingham and up from Bristol for a morning at a house they have inherited, and Ashchurch for Tewkesbury covers the north of the county. If you are coming in for the day, tell us your train time and we will have the van there ahead of you.
The city's own housing makes for varied work. Victorian terraces off Barton Street and Stroud Road, where the only way to the back yard is through the house. Thirties semis in Longlevens. Post-war stock in Matson and Podsmead. Newer boxes at Kingsway and Quedgeley where the van can get within ten feet of the front door, which we appreciate more than you would think. Gloucester City Council runs the bin collections. The county council's household recycling centre at Hempsted takes a resident's carload, but a household centre will not take a whole house and it will not take trade loads, which is where we come in.
What it costs and what we won't flinch at
One answer, and it is the honest one: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the size of the property, what is staying and where the van can stand, or send photographs through the form on this page. You will get a figure back, it costs nothing and it commits you to nothing. Guessing at it in a paragraph on a website helps nobody.
On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly — that is normal for us and it is what most firms handling a probate file expect. Payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit, and the invoice follows the work rather than coming before it.
To get a figure for house clearance in Gloucester, Churchdown, Quedgeley, Hucclecote, Abbeymead or anywhere else in GL1 to GL4 and GL19, tell us the property, the access and the date you have in mind. Photographs help. So does telling us who has the keys, because on a house nobody local is going to attend, that is very often the only detail that really matters.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Gloucester
Can you invoice the solicitor on a probate house clearance?
Yes. We invoice solicitors, executors and estates directly, and payment can come from the estate rather than out of anybody's own pocket. No deposit is taken, the invoice goes out after the clearance, and we can send the waste transfer note with it for the probate file.
How much notice do you need?
One or two working days is usually enough for a house clearance in Gloucester. Fixed dates — a completion, a tenancy ending, a hearing — are worth booking further out, and August and December go first.
Do we have to be there on the day?
No. A great many Gloucester clearances are run at a distance by an executor in another county. We work from a written list of what stays and what goes, keep you posted through the day, and hand the keys back or put them where you tell us.
Will you do the garage and loft as well as the house?
Yes, and we would rather know in advance. A garage and loft clearance adds time and sometimes a second pair of hands, so mention it when you ring rather than on the morning.
What won't you take?
Gas canisters, aerosols, paint, chemicals and car tyres cannot go in a mixed load, and fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture go down their own regulated routes. Nothing there is a problem — it just has to be handled separately, so tell us it is in the shed before the day.
Do you clear flats and single rooms as well as whole houses?
We do. Flat clearance in the centre, a single room, a garage on its own, one item two people cannot lift. All of it is work we do around Gloucester, and it is worth a phone call either way.
