Most house clearance work in Stratford begins with a question about the stairs rather than the rooms. The two of them carried the lot down, and that is what the customer remembered afterwards. It's what she wrote in to say.
Her flat over in E15 was a first-floor clearance with an XXL load in it. Up to a tonne — a fridge freezer, a mattress, the usual heavy furniture, all of it to come down a staircase rather than out of a ground-floor door. The kind of day where the stairs, not the room count, set the pace. The one snag wasn't the load. It was the parking permit, which had been dated for the day before. She spotted it and sorted a fresh one herself rather than have the team turn up to a permit that wasn't valid yet. There was a small muddle over which day too. Wednesday or Thursday — and a payment her bank swore blind hadn't gone through until it had. All of it sorted with a couple of emails and no drama.
What she sent afterwards is the note you most want off a job:
*"They were quick, efficient and very polite. The whole process was painless — not sure your team would say the same after lugging all the heavy furniture down the stairs."*
The transfer gave her more grief than the house clearance did, as it happens. Her bank swore it hadn't left the account, then couldn't say why. Some problem with the details, they thought — and she offered to sort it another way first thing Monday if it still hadn't landed. It had. She apologised more than she needed to for a hiccup that wasn't hers, which tells you the sort of customer she was. The sort we're glad to work for.
She worked a short walk away, so she didn't have far to come. Most of our Stratford customers do have to think about the carry and the street before anything else.
A corner of London that's changed beyond recognition
Stratford is the old East End and the new Olympic city standing side by side. Settled Victorian terraces one street, a tower with a concierge and a service lift the next. Everything from a probate flat held forty years to a rental turned round between tenants. The clearances follow suit. A first-floor conversion up a period stair and a flat in a new block by the park are two very different days, so the useful things to tell us on the phone are the floor, the stairs or the lift. How a van gets near the door. No two house clearance Stratford jobs run to the same shape. We'd rather ask three dull questions first than guess.
The order of the day is much the same wherever we start. We're at the door for nine, we walk the property with you before anything moves. Room by room, what's going and what's staying — and the van is loaded from the top of the building down, because carrying up an empty stair is easier than carrying down a full one. Most flats are finished inside the day. A house with a loft, a shed and a garage behind it is the one that can run to two. We'll say so before we start rather than at four in the afternoon.
Bow, and the work that isn't a whole house
Not every job is a full property. Over in Bow — E3 — we did a booked block of hourly work with a two-person team: the right shape when it's a part-load, a single room, or a clear-and-go rather than an emptied house. Trade work, booked and done, and the line afterwards was short and to the point — *"thanks again for your swift and helpful work."* Sometimes that's all a review needs to be.
Another Bow job was billed by the hour outright. A two-person team, an hour and a half of clearing, the recycling handled, and that was the job. Not everything needs a full estimate and a two-day slot. Garage and loft clearance is the obvious case: nobody needs a whole-house quote to get a loft hatch emptied and a garage floor back. A garage and loft between them will still fill more of a van than people expect. If what you've got is a single room rather than a whole flat, a garage to empty, a loft nobody has been into since the boiler was changed, or a stubborn pile a skip won't take, an hourly team is usually the honest answer. Ring 0800 046 5555 and describe it and we'll tell you which shape it is.
We take the hourly work, the part-loads and the single awkward items as readily as the big ones — house rubbish removal included — and we'd rather book you an hour than talk you into a day you don't need.
Probate and the let-go flats
A good share of the E15 and E20 work is probate: a flat being wound up as an estate, held a long time, to be emptied before it sells, often arranged by a relative in another county or by a solicitor with the keys. Probate house clearance in Stratford is rarely organised by someone standing in the room. Executors are usually at a distance, and most of it gets settled by email and a set of photographs. We keep it plain: nothing to pay before the day, the invoice to the estate. We'll bill the solicitor, the executor or an attorney direct where that's easier, with them copied in from the start. Drawers, the backs of wardrobes and the tops of cupboards are gone through before anything is loaded. Papers and photographs are set aside for the family rather than bagged with the rest. There's more about how we handle probate house clearance on its own page.
And the heavily overfilled ones come our way too. Hoarder house clearance is a different day again: a couple of questions first. Anything hazardous, any vermin, any food gone off — and then it's a room at a time, the soft things bagged apart from the rest, and the paper gone through slowly, because in a flat that full the pension book, the passport and an envelope of notes are usually somewhere in it. Nothing about it shocks us and none of it gets discussed on the doorstep. If the state of a place has put you off calling, don't let it — read hoarder house clearance, or just ring and describe the rooms.
What we take, and where it goes
Furniture, beds and mattresses, carpets and underlay, white goods, the contents of cupboards and lofts. And on the trade jobs the ripped-out fittings and packaging too. Some jobs are a single load; some run to an XXL load up to a tonne, like that one, or a same-day second load when a flat turns out fuller than it looked.
Upholstered things are their own category now — sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs and the like fall under the POPs rules, persistent organic pollutants. Means they can't be mixed in with the general load and have to go down a separate regulated route. We flag those at the quote so nothing comes as a surprise on the day.
Where it all ends up matters to people more than they expect. East London makes that side easier than some places. Sound furniture, working white goods and anything else with wear left in it goes to the reuse projects and charity warehouses around the Lea Valley instead of onto a tip run. We'll ring ahead on the morning if there's a wardrobe or a dining set worth saving. What is genuinely finished is weighed in at a permitted site under our carrier's registration. The paperwork comes back to you if you want a copy for the file. We're registered waste carriers, licence CBDU419679, and fully insured.
Some things can't travel in an ordinary load at all. Paint and thinners, gas bottles, car batteries, asbestos sheeting off an old garage roof. Flag them when you call and we'll tell you who does take them and what's involved. A piano is the same story for different reasons: piano removal is its own job with its own kit.
Parking and access around Stratford
Getting a van to an east London door takes planning, and the permit is often the hard part. That E15 job is proof of it. Much of E15 and the streets around it are permit-controlled. A full day can mean a suspended bay from Newham, or from Tower Hamlets over in Bow, or Hackney to the west, arranged a few days ahead. On the newer blocks by the park there's a loading bay, a concierge to sign in with and often a booking window to keep. Some buildings will only allow the service lift between set hours, so it's worth asking the building manager before we fix a date. None of that is a problem when we know in advance. Tell us the floor, the lift and how deliveries are meant to work. We plan the day round it rather than lose the morning to it.
The east London streets we cover
A flat clearance in one of the newer blocks is the commonest booking we take here. Stratford is E15, around the station and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. E20 for the park itself and E9 for Hackney Wick just west across the Lea. West and south we're regularly across E3 for Bow Common and Bromley-by-Bow, E2 for Bethnal Green and Cambridge Heath, E5 for Clapton and E8 for Hackney and Dalston — house clearance in Hackney has a page to itself — and out to E7 for Forest Gate, E6 for East Ham, E12 for Manor Park, E13 for Plaistow and E16 for Canning Town, Custom House and Beckton, with E10 for Leyton on the Waltham Forest side and N4, N15 and N16 up towards Finsbury Park, West Green and Stoke Newington, where house clearance in West Green is covered separately. East of us it's IG11 for Barking and Barking Riverside, with house clearance in Ilford just beyond that.
Stratford station is about as busy as an interchange gets. The Elizabeth line, the Jubilee, the Central, the DLR, the Overground and the main line out of Liverpool Street all meeting at once — so the whole area is forever on the move, and a flat or a house needs clearing somewhere across it most weeks.
Stratford house clearance — the questions we get
Why should I use you? We've been clearing flats and houses across Stratford and east London since 2007, private homes and trade jobs alike, we're licensed and fully insured, and. As that customer found — you get a team that's quick, careful and civil about the heavy end of it. A straight answer on the phone, not a doorstep pitch.
How much does it cost? Ring 0800 046 5555 or send a few photographs through the form on this page and we'll tell you where you stand in the same conversation. The quote is free and puts you under no obligation.
How and when do I pay? After the work's done, never before — no deposit. On probate work we invoice the estate and can send it to the solicitor, the attorney or the executor direct; trade and agent work goes to your agreed order.
To get house clearance in Stratford booked, ring 0800 046 5555 or send photographs through the form on this page. The floor, the lift and the parking are the three things worth mentioning first. The rest we can work out from there.
