House clearance in Bishop's Stortford is usually a three-bed with a garage, a loft hatch nobody has been through since the boiler was replaced. A shed at the bottom of the garden the family has quietly agreed not to open. We have been doing this work since 2007, and the town's own CM23 is the postcode district we are in most weeks. CM22 out through the villages towards the airport. Nearly every job starts the same way, here as anywhere: photographs on an email, then a phone call. Which is worth saying, because photographs and floorboards do not always tell the same story.
A house clearance that grew between the quote and the morning
One April a customer sent us pictures of a property that was, at that point, still full. They were hoping that by the day of the clearance a good deal of it would have gone. Family taking pieces, other things promised elsewhere. From what we could see in the photographs it looked like two van loads. We said one to two, allowing for the emptying that was expected to happen in between.
It did not happen. On the morning the team leader did his walk round before anything went near the van, which is the whole point of doing it, and what was actually in front of him was two to three loads, eighteen pieces of upholstered furniture, and the shed as well. The shed was in the instructions and it had not been touched. Twelve of those upholstered pieces were full-size, six were smaller. Two mattresses on top of that.
So he stopped and rang the office, instead of pressing on and explaining afterwards. We went through it on the phone with the customer: what was really there, what the day would now look like, whether the shed was still wanted. It was — and what would be left standing if it were not. Then the team went back to it, and the property came out in the one day. The upholstered furniture travelled separately from the general load. Since the POPs rules came in that is the only lawful way to move it, and the mattresses went their own way too. What the customer wrote afterwards was this: "Thank you for your patience and time on the phone just now."
Not a review, that. Just a line in an email. But it is the part of a job we would rather be judged on than the tidy version. An awkward half hour on the phone at nine in the morning is what stops an argument at four in the afternoon.
What actually comes out of a Hertfordshire house
Garage and loft clearance in Bishop's Stortford
Two things fill a van in this town more than anything else: garages and lofts. Garage and loft clearance is half the work we are asked for here. It is usually the half nobody costed for. Garages round here are where the interesting work is. Between Thorley, Hockerill and the villages out towards Stansted Mountfitchet, half the houses were built with one. Forty years later it holds a car battery charger, a dehumidifier nobody remembers buying, a rowing machine, and a wheelbarrow with the last of somebody's hardcore set hard in it.
Lofts are similar — board games with the boxes taped shut, a train set still screwed to its board, a folding gate-leg table stood on its end behind the water tank. Gardens throw up a swing frame with the seats long gone and a trampoline with the mat torn through. None of it is remarkable on its own. It's the volume that catches people out when they try to do it themselves with a car and a Saturday. Most of a house clearance in Bishop's Stortford is exactly that: ordinary, heavy. A good deal more of it than anybody remembered.
Where we go from here
The town's own postcode is CM23, and it's the one we work most. Around it we cover CM22 out through the villages towards the airport. Those two districts are house clearance Bishop's Stortford proper; everything after this is the wider round we drive from the same base. CM20 for Harlow is over the county line in Essex, as is the CM22 side towards the airport. SG12 for Ware, SG11 for the Hadham and Standon side, SG10 for Much Hadham, SG13 and SG14 in and around Hertford, SG9 up at Buntingford, SG1 and SG2 for Stevenage, SG3 for Knebworth, and AL6 towards Welwyn. All Hertfordshire, all East of England; the town sits in East Hertfordshire district. The county council running the household recycling side of things.
Sawbridgeworth, Much Hadham, Ware and Buntingford are the four we most often pair with a Bishop's Stortford day. They fit either side of one without anybody rushing.
Further round the county there are towns with their own pages and their own weeks. If you have landed here by mistake, house clearance in Hertford is the bigger of our near neighbours and covers the SG13 and SG14 side; house clearance in Hitchin and house clearance in Royston sit further west and north, and house clearance in Letchworth Garden City is the smaller one beside them. Any of those we would rather do properly on its own day than squeeze onto the end of this one.
Getting a van to the door
Bishop's Stortford is easier than most towns for access and harder than most in two or three specific places. The station sits just across the river from the town centre, on the Liverpool Street to Cambridge line, and the streets that climb away from it. The older terraces and the cottages up towards the church and Windhill — are narrow, mostly on-street, and busy from eight in the morning. A Luton or a tipper will get up there, but not always with the tailgate where we want it. On a couple of them we've carried a fair distance to the van. Ask us to look at the photographs first and we'll tell you honestly whether we need a bay putting aside.
The newer estates towards Thorley Park and Bishop's Park are the opposite — driveways, turning space, no drama. Out in Little Hadham, Farnham and the lanes towards Stansted it's a question of the last hundred yards rather than the road itself. Sawbridgeworth has its own station a few minutes down the line and behaves much like Bishop's Stortford does: fine on the newer roads, tight along the old town. The M11 at junction 8 puts the airport, Takeley and the Essex side inside twenty minutes. Is why we'll often pair a Bishop's Stortford morning with an afternoon over the county line.
Executors, solicitors and estates
Probate house clearance in Bishop's Stortford
A good share of the house clearance work we do in Bishop's Stortford comes through people who never lived in the house. Probate is most of it. A solicitor or an executor instructs us, we clear the property, take up carpets if that's wanted and sweep through afterwards so it can go on the market. We invoice the solicitor, the attorney or the executor direct rather than leaving a family member to chase it round. Payment can come from the estate. Probate house clearance is slower to arrange than an ordinary one and quicker to carry out, because by the time it's booked somebody has usually decided what is staying. Which room the furniture goes from, which of it the family are taking, whether the garage and loft are in or out.
Where somebody is abroad or simply too far to attend, we'll take keys from a neighbour or an agent, photograph the property before we start and again when it's empty. Post on anything of sentimental value that turns up. If there's a list of things to look for, give it to us in writing before the day. Cash and jewellery hidden in a house are found by somebody eventually. It may as well be us handing them back to you at the end of the afternoon. Executors sitting a long way off — another county, sometimes another country — are half our probate diary. None of them have ever had to stand in the hall to make it work.
The dull but necessary bits
We're a licensed waste carrier — registration CBDU419679 — and everything that leaves a house clearance in Bishop's Stortford leaves under it. Furniture and household goods that are still worth having are offered on to reuse projects and charity outlets before anything else happens to them; a chesterfield gone soft in the middle or a recliner with the footrest jammed out is no use to anybody. That goes for proper disposal instead. Sofas and armchairs are handled apart from the general load because the flame retardants in the padding count as POPs waste. Persistent organic pollutants — and have to be incinerated separately, and fridges and freezers likewise. Loads are weighed in and receipted at the sites we use. We'll show you the paperwork if you want it. On a probate clearance the waste transfer note goes in with the invoice as a matter of course. Sooner or later somebody asks for it for the estate file.
Some things we simply can't put in a mixed van: gas cylinders, fire extinguishers, solvents. Old tins of paint, which are counted and taken out through a separate route. Tell us they're there and we'll come with the right vehicle and the right paperwork. Don't tell us, and we'll still deal with them, but the shape of the day changes.
As for what it costs, there is one honest answer and this is it: ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs through the form on this page. You'll get a figure for the work that's actually in front of us. We don't publish numbers and we don't agree one on a doorstep. The quote is free and commits you to nothing.
Houses that have got badly on top of somebody are not a problem and not a conversation. Hoarder house clearance is a normal part of the week. We've done four-day jobs where the floor wasn't visible on the first morning and the property was swept and ready by the fourth afternoon. There's no lecture in it.
Booking it
Ring or email with the postcode, roughly how many rooms and what's in the loft, garage and garden. Whether there's anywhere for a large van to stand. Photographs help more than descriptions do. We'll come back with a figure, a date and the size of team. If we think you need two days rather than one we'll say so before you commit rather than halfway through the first. The number is 0800 046 5555, for the town and for the villages either side of it.
Common questions about house clearance in Bishop's Stortford
Which areas do you actually cover? CM23 for the town. The centre, Windhill, Hockerill, Thorley, Thorley Park and Bishop's Park — and CM22 out through Little Hadham, Farnham and the lanes towards Stansted Mountfitchet. From the same base we also work Sawbridgeworth, Ware, Much Hadham, Hertford, Buntingford, Knebworth, Stevenage and across to Harlow.
How long does a clearance take? A three-bed with a loft and a garage is normally one day, starting at nine. If the walk round on the morning says otherwise, we tell you then and there rather than at the end. Bigger or heavily cluttered properties run to two days, sometimes four.
Can you invoice a solicitor or an executor? Yes. We invoice solicitors, attorneys and executors direct, payment can be made from the estate. We're used to the paperwork that goes with probate work, including waste transfer notes for the file.
Do you clear the garage and loft as well as the house? Yes. It's worth saying so when you first get in touch. Garage and loft clearance changes the size of the team and sometimes the number of days. It's the one thing we'd rather know about at the quote than find on the morning.
What if nobody can be at the property? We collect keys from a neighbour, a relative or the agent, photograph the rooms before we start and once they're empty, and email the pictures over. Anything of sentimental value on your list gets set aside and posted on. This is the usual shape of a probate clearance where the executor lives at a distance.
Do you take fridges, mattresses and sofas? Yes, all three, though each has to travel separately from the general load. Fridges and freezers as hazardous waste, upholstered seating under the POPs rules, mattresses to their own processing route. Tell us how many there are when you get in touch.
How do I find out what my clearance would cost? Ring 0800 046 5555 or send photographs through the form on this page. Photographs of every room, plus the loft, garage, shed and garden, get you a far more accurate answer than a description does.
