The medical aids were the thing that had to be got right. Caernarfon, north Wales, under Snowdonia. They were still in the property when we walked it, an executor was handling the estate at a distance. The instruction came back plainly: leave them in the garden, someone else is collecting. So that's what happened. The team worked round them, and when the rest of the house was out they covered the smaller pieces with black bags so a fortnight of Welsh weather wouldn't ruin them before the collection turned up. Front door keys went back into the key safe. Other keys the lads turned up during the clearance. The ones that appear in a kitchen drawer and belong to nobody anyone can name — went into an envelope and through the letterbox.
That job ran to three loads over two days, carpets included. We'd said as much before we started, and we said the honest version of it too: nobody can see behind a wardrobe or into a loft hatch until things start moving, so an estimate is an estimate. If the team spots it turning into something bigger, the office rings before the second van is loaded, not after.
There was a snag on that one, and I'll write it down rather than pretend. The bathroom curtains were meant to come down and the team simply forgot them. Genuine oversight, apologised for. The lounge curtains were a different matter — the mechanism was bolted into the wall. Taking it out risked pulling plaster with it. We don't remove fixtures and fittings for exactly that reason. Better a hanging rail left behind than a hole in the wall for the next people to make good.
What Caernarfon houses are actually like to clear
Caernarfon sits in Gwynedd, at the mouth of the Seiont where it meets the Menai Strait. The housing stock tells you everything about how a clearance day will go. Inside the walls and along the streets running off Y Maes, the terraces are old, tall and narrow. Stairs turn tight at the half-landing. A three-seat sofa that came in through a window forty years ago is not coming out through the front door now. It comes apart on the landing instead. Parking is the other half of the problem: much of the town centre is permit or pay-and-display, the lanes behind the older terraces are barely a van wide. If you need a bay held for a Luton for the day, that's a conversation with Cyngor Gwynedd well before the morning of the job. We'd rather sort it a week out than have the crew circling Doc Fictoria looking for somewhere legal to stop.
Out towards Bontnewydd, Caeathro and Llanrug the picture changes completely. Detached bungalows, long drives, garages and sheds that have been filling since the seventies. Those are easier on the back and harder on the estimate, because the outbuildings usually hold more than anyone remembers.
Garage and loft clearance in Caernarfon
Half of what we do here is not really the house at all. A house clearance in Caernarfon very often turns into a garage and loft clearance with a house attached. The rooms are tidy, somebody has already been through the wardrobes, and then the hatch comes down and there are forty years of it up there. Same with the concrete-sectional garages on the LL55 estates and the stone outbuildings out in LL54: bench, tins, offcuts of timber, a lawnmower that last ran in about 2009, boxes that were only ever put there for a fortnight. Tell us the loft and the garage are in scope when you ring, even if you haven't looked in either. It changes the van, the crew and the day. It is much cheaper on everybody's temper to know in the morning than at half three.
Caernarfon has no mainline station — the branch closed in 1970 — so if you're coming to meet us, it's Bangor for trains, twenty minutes up the A487, or the Welsh Highland Railway from St Helen's Road if you're arriving from Porthmadog and Beddgelert way. Our vans come in by road regardless.
The postcodes and places we work across
Everything here is the LL area. From Caernarfon we run out to Y Felinheli and Bangor to the north-east, Bethel, Llanrug, Waunfawr and Rhostryfan inland. Down the A499 through Llanwnda and Clynnog Fawr to Pwllheli, and inland through Penygroes and Garndolbenmaen towards Criccieth and Porthmadog. South and east of that we cover Porthmadog, Penrhyndeudraeth, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Talsarnau, Harlech, Llanbedr, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Barmouth, Talybont, Arthog, Fairbourne, Llwyngwril, Tywyn, Aberdovey and Dolgellau, and inland to Bala. Anglesey across the bridge is routine for us as well. If you're in a corner of Gwynedd I haven't listed and you're wondering whether we'll come out that far, ring and ask. The distance is rarely the obstacle people expect it to be.
Some of the neighbours have pages of their own, and they're worth a look if the property isn't actually in town: house clearance in Bangor for anything the far side of Y Felinheli, house clearance in Criccieth for the Llŷn side, and house clearance in Llandudno if you've ended up dealing with a place over in Conwy instead.
Where it all goes afterwards
Anything still usable gets offered on before it gets tipped. Furniture in decent order, crockery, tools, books, bikes — Gwynedd has enough chapel halls, community shops and reuse projects that a good sideboard should never end up in a skip. We'd rather spend twenty minutes finding it a home. What's genuinely finished goes to a permitted transfer station and is weighed and the paperwork is raised there. Abacus holds waste carrier registration CBDU419679 with the Environment Agency, and we'll send the transfer notes across after the job. Usually three to five working days, since they come from the site rather than from us. Ask for the charity destinations too if you want them; that's a fair question and we answer it.
Upholstered furniture is its own regulated category now. divan bases — the treated foam and fabric contain persistent organic pollutants. Means they cannot be mixed in with general household waste and must be incinerated through a specific route. That's a per-item charge and it's on the quote, itemised, before anyone signs anything. Fridges and freezers are similar: gases have to be extracted under licence, so they're priced separately as well.
There are things we won't put in the van at all. Tins of paint, thinners, gas cylinders, car batteries, oils, asbestos sheeting from an old coal shed roof. None of that travels on a household clearance ticket. Sometimes it's worth building it into the job as a separate documented line. We've handled twenty-odd paint tins that way on a Welsh clearance before now — and sometimes the honest answer is that Cyngor Gwynedd's own household waste site is quicker and cheaper for you than paying us to do it.
How a clearance is costed
Cubic capacity, essentially. We charge per van load and per day, with the awkward regulated items counted individually on top. Hours don't come into it, and neither does what the furniture might once have been worth. A two-bed cottage that's already half empty is one load; a house where the loft, the garage and the shed are all full is three loads across two days and we'll say so on the phone rather than discovering it at four o'clock on the Friday.
You get the figure before we book. It's a spoken quote, then a written breakdown, and the invoice at the end should match it item for item. If it doesn't, tell us — we've reissued invoices before when the arithmetic was wrong on our side. Voided the first one properly so there's no confusion about which is payable.
Probate, executors and clearances run from a distance
A lot of Gwynedd work comes through solicitors and executors, and a fair share of that is organised by people who live a long way from the property. Inherited family houses on this coast often belong to someone in the Midlands, in London, or overseas. We're used to it. Keys via a neighbour or a key safe, photographs of every room before and after, a written list of anything set aside. If you've asked for letters, photograph albums, jewellery or old cine film to be kept back, the team puts it to one side and it either waits for you or goes back by recorded delivery. That has happened more than once and it will happen again. If you want the whole of it in one place, there's a probate house clearance page as well as this one, but the answer for a probate house clearance in Caernarfon is the same as anywhere: we deal with whoever is actually holding the file.
Who gets the invoice is worth saying plainly, because people ask and are shy about asking. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whichever you prefer. The invoice does not have to go to a family member personally. Payment can come out of the estate. There is no deposit, nothing is asked for up front, and the invoice follows the work rather than preceding it. Solicitors frequently can't settle until probate completes or a policy pays out, and we'll wait. One estate we cleared sat unpaid for weeks while funds came through, and there was no chasing beyond a polite email.
Some of that work never involves the family at all. One clearance in May was arranged entirely by phone and email with a professional acting over the property, who never went near the house himself: we talked the estimate through, he confirmed it in writing. The work went in for a single day. It came to two loads, the second one taken the same day rather than dragged into a second morning. A mattress, a tin of paint that had to go the regulated route rather than into the general waste, and one item that falls under the POPs rules and therefore can't be tipped with household furniture.
The loft was in scope and came out with everything else. Photographs of the cleared rooms went across afterwards, and here's the honest part: the team emptied the loft and then forgot to photograph it. That one picture was missing and we said so rather than hoping nobody counted. Keys went back to the estate agents at the end of the day. The invoice went out by email, and the reply came back before we'd finished the paperwork: "I am working remotely so are you able to email me a pdf version which I can submit today for payment , otherwise I can deal with invoice when back at desk on Tuesday." He got the PDF the same morning.
That is the whole shape of a clearance run at a distance. Nobody on site who owns anything, and everything settled in writing.
Bad ones, and what happens then
Some houses have gone a long way past cluttered. Vermin, decayed food, floors you can't see. We price those differently, we come in with the right kit. The crew doesn't make a performance out of it. A hoarder house clearance in Caernarfon isn't a different firm and isn't a different crew — it's the same lads, with masks, gloves, more bags and a longer day booked out. Say on the phone what you've actually got, including the bits you'd rather not describe. It changes what we bring; it doesn't change whether we come.
Cleaning and garden work can go on the same booking. A scrub-through after the house is empty, or brambles and a shed cleared so the place photographs decently for sale.
Common questions about house clearance in Caernarfon
Which areas does your house clearance in Caernarfon actually cover?
LL55 for the town itself, the streets inside the walls, Twthill, Peblig, Seiont, Bontnewydd, Caeathro, Bethel, Llanrug and Waunfawr. LL54 out through Llanwnda, Rhostryfan, Penygroes, Talysarn, Nantlle and Clynnog Fawr. Y Felinheli and Bangor are a short run north-east and we're there constantly.
Can you invoice a solicitor or executor for a probate house clearance?
Yes, and it's the normal arrangement here. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, payment can be made from the estate once probate completes, and there's no deposit. The invoice comes after the work is done. If the firm handling the estate wants the paperwork in a particular format, say so and it goes out that way.
How long does a house clearance in Caernarfon take?
Most are a single day, starting around nine. A terrace with a full loft, or a bungalow with a garage and shed behind it, can run to two. The honest limits are the stairs and the parking, not the number of rooms. A tight town-centre terrace with nowhere to stand the van takes longer than a bigger house with a drive.
Do we need to be there on the day?
No. Plenty of our Gwynedd work is done with keys from a neighbour, an agent or a key safe. Photographs of every room sent afterwards. If anything is to be kept back — papers, albums, a specific piece of furniture — put it in writing beforehand and it gets set aside rather than loaded.
What won't you take?
Paint, thinners, oils, gas cylinders, car batteries and any asbestos sheeting. Fridges, freezers and POPs-regulated upholstery all travel, but by their own licensed routes rather than on a general load. Fixtures bolted into walls stay put, because pulling them usually takes the plaster with them.
Can you clear just a garage, a loft or a single item?
Yes. Garage and loft clearance on its own is common out in the villages, and single-item collections. A piano, a wardrobe, one mattress — are worth ringing about rather than assuming we only do whole houses.
How to book us
Ring or email with the postcode, the number of bedrooms, whether there's a loft, garage, shed or garden in scope, anything heavy or awkward, and what's staying. Tell us about the parking honestly, because that decides how long the day takes on a Caernarfon terrace more than the furniture does. We'll give you a real figure, a date, and a crew that turns up when it said it would. Fully insured, working since 2007, and we'll put the answer in writing before you commit to anything. For house clearance Caernarfon and the LL54 and LL55 villages around it, ring 0800 046 5555 or send the details through the form on this page. A quote costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
