There is usually a van of ours somewhere in the SG postcodes. A good share of that week is house clearance Letchworth Garden City households have booked because somebody has died, gone into care, or finally exchanged on a sale. We have been doing this since 2007. What follows is one clearance told properly, from the instruction through to the last load, and then everything worth knowing about clearing a house in this town. The verges, the narrow stairs, the loft hatches, and what we are not allowed to put on the lorry.
A house clearance from start to finish
This one did not come from the family at all. It came from a managing agent acting at a distance. It sat on file a long while before anybody turned a key in the door. The instruction was raised in the February. The note on it said the personal representative wanted the works completed as soon as possible, which is the usual position in a probate matter. Then the authorisation took most of the year to work its way through. The works were finally due by the end of October and the job was invoiced in the November. We had a quote on the same property turned down earlier in the run, and a later one accepted. That happens more often than people expect when a house is being dealt with by somebody who has never stood inside it.
The option written on the file was "Clearance, clean and disposal - Sell and Recycle", which is exactly what it sounds like — clear the house, take anything with a life left in it out of the waste stream, tip only what has to be tipped, then clean the place afterwards.
Nobody was there to let us in or to hover. The line on the instruction was plain enough: "The occupier has not requested to be present when works are carried out." So the team worked to a written scope and photographed as they went, which is what we do on every job where the person paying is a long way off.
One load came out of the house. Three things in it could not simply be thrown on with the rest: a fridge freezer, a mattress. A piece of upholstered furniture, all of which have their own route and their own paperwork. Then there was a garden team on the same booking, and the instruction for that carried the only line in the whole file I would call an order rather than a note — "Garden cutback service, (please note we do not use weedkiller)". So nothing chemical went anywhere near it. Lawns cut, cuttings collected, bagged and carried out with everything else. After that a clean of a property up to three bedrooms, once the rooms were empty and there was something to clean. The confirmation that came back to us read "THIS QUOTE INCLUDES CLEARANCE, CLEAN AND GARDEN CUTBACK", and it did.
That is the sort of work we do around Letchworth Garden City and the SG postcodes generally. It is worth saying plainly: most of our jobs in this corner of Hertfordshire are not full houses. They are a garage and loft that nobody has opened in fifteen years, a bungalow half emptied by the family already, or a garden that has quietly grown a second shed.
Where we come to
Letchworth Garden City sits in North Hertfordshire, SG6, with Baldock a couple of miles east in SG7 with Ashwell and Astwick behind it. Hitchin the same distance west in SG5 with Breachwood Green and Apsley End out in the lanes. A flat clearance over the shops in the town centre is the same booking to us as a house on one of the garden-city avenues. The station is on the Cambridge line out of King's Cross. Letchworth Garden City itself, with Baldock and Hitchin either side of it and Royston on up the track in SG8. Trains matter to us more than you would think: a good share of the people who book us are travelling in from somewhere else entirely to meet a van for a day.
Beyond the immediate three we work Stevenage in SG1 and SG2 and Knebworth in SG3, Royston and the villages either side of it in SG8. Across the Bedfordshire boundary into Biggleswade, Langford and Arlesey in SG18 and SG15. We have run jobs down at Ware in SG12 as well. Three of those have pages of their own if you are reading from the wrong side of the county boundary: house clearance in Hitchin for SG4 and SG5, house clearance in Stevenage for the SG1 and SG2 estates, and house clearance in Royston for SG8 and the chalk villages out towards Cambridgeshire. All three are comfortably inside a working day from Letchworth Garden City. Is the only test we apply.
North Hertfordshire District Council handles bins and bulky collections in the town. Hertfordshire runs the household waste site off Blackhorse Road for anyone doing a boot-load at a time. We are not a substitute for either of those on a small job. If you can shift it yourself in three trips, do.
What the houses here are like
The early cottages off Norton Way and around the older greens were built as workers' housing in the first decade of the last century. They were built small: narrow stairs with a turn at the top, little box rooms, and loft hatches sized for a person rather than a wardrobe. Wide grass verges out front, though, which usually means a Luton can sit close without blocking anyone.
Then there are the between-the-wars semis on the Baldock Road side, the post-war Jackmans and Grange estates with garages in blocks set back from the houses. The odd big Arts and Crafts house with a cellar. Estate management rules still govern what you can change outside on a good number of these properties, which is nothing to do with us clearing the inside. It does mean people are careful about hedges, gates and verges. So are we. We do not park across a verge if there is any other option. We tell customers straight if we think the van will have to sit further down and the lads will be carrying.
The kinds of house clearance Letchworth Garden City asks for
Probate house clearance in Letchworth Garden City
Most of what we do here is probate work, whether anyone uses the word or not. A probate house clearance is usually booked months after the death, once the paperwork has caught up. It is normally booked by somebody who lives elsewhere. We can hold off on a room, set aside anything that looks like a document or a photograph. Go back a second time if the family wants another look first. Where a solicitor, trustee or executor is settling the estate, we invoice them direct. There is more on probate house clearance on its own page.
Garage and loft clearance in Letchworth Garden City
Garage and loft clearance is the single most common booking we take in SG6. It is nearly always bigger than the person on the phone thinks. A garage sounds like a small thing until the door goes up and thirty years of a house is stacked behind it. Tins, tiles, a dismantled bed, four bicycles, the boxes from every appliance ever bought. Lofts in the older cottages are worse, because the hatch will not pass anything wide and everything has to come down in armfuls. Tell us it is a garage and loft when you ring. We will send the right size of van and the right number of men.
Flat and bungalow clearance in SG6
Sheltered flats and bungalows are steady work in SG6, often through a warden or a scheme manager rather than the family. They are small jobs with awkward corridors, fire doors that will not stay open and a bin store that must be left as we found it. We book those in early so the van is out of the way before the afternoon.
End of tenancy clearance and rubbish removal
Landlords and managing agents ring us for end of tenancy clearance when a let has been handed back full. That is usually a single load, sometimes with a carpet lift, sometimes with a garden. Where there is no furniture to speak of and it is genuinely just waste, house rubbish removal is the simpler way round it, and we will say so rather than sell you a full clearance you do not need.
Hoarder house clearance
Houses that have got badly out of hand over the years are ordinary work for us; nobody comments and nobody makes a face. A hoarder house clearance takes longer, needs masks and more men, and sometimes needs the pest people in first. It is the one kind of job where we would rather come and look than quote off photographs.
What we do with what comes out
Anything still usable — furniture worth sitting on, crockery, books, tools, bikes — we look to pass on rather than tip. Charity depots and reuse schemes take a fair volume off us across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. The drivers know which ones will actually accept a sofa and which will turn one away at the gate. What cannot be reused goes to a permitted transfer station and is weighed and ticketed on the way in. There is a record of every load that leaves a house clearance in Letchworth Garden City. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679 and we are insured for the work.
Sofas, armchairs, footstools, headboards and padded seats are handled separately from general waste. Since the rules on persistent organic pollutants came in, upholstered seating cannot go into a mixed load at all. It has to be kept apart and sent for incineration, which is why those pieces are listed and handled on their own rather than disappearing into the middle of a load. Fridges and freezers are the same story for a different reason: degassing is a controlled process. They too are dealt with separately.
Some things we cannot put on the lorry under any circumstances. Tins of paint, thinners, gas cylinders, car batteries and anything similar need a hazardous route. We will take a reasonable number of paint tins by arrangement. On one job the team counted nineteen of them and dealt with the lot — but a garage full of solvent is a different conversation and we will tell you who to ring.
Executors, and clearing from a distance
A great many of our SG bookings are instructed by someone who does not live here. We have taken orders from Northamptonshire for a Bedfordshire bungalow and from the far side of the county for a Hertfordshire semi. It makes no odds to how the day runs. If you cannot be present we will collect a key from a neighbour, an agent or a keysafe, photograph the property when we arrive and again once it is empty. Email the set through to you. Anything of sentimental value that turns up can be set aside and posted on.
Booking a house clearance in Letchworth Garden City
Teams start at nine and the aim is always to finish the property that day. You will hear from us before anyone commits to a date. If the team sees on arrival that the scope was not what was described, they ring the office and you are told before the extra work is done, not after. Ring 0800 046 5555, or send a few photographs through the form on this page and we will come back to you.
You do not need to pack, bag or sort anything first. Cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, lofts, sheds, carpets and underlay — the team goes through the lot and brushes the place out at the end if you want that.
Questions we get asked
Do you cover the villages around Letchworth Garden City? Yes. Willian, Norton, Wilbury and the Jackmans and Grange estates are all everyday work for us. So are Baldock, Hitchin, Knebworth and the SG8 villages beyond Royston.
Can you invoice our solicitor or the executor? We can. Where a solicitor, trustee or executor is administering the estate we invoice them direct. The account can be settled from the estate rather than by a family member out of their own pocket.
Do we need to be there on the day? No. Plenty of our clearances are done on a key from an agent, a neighbour or a keysafe. Photographs before and after emailed through the same evening.
What will you not take? Paint, thinners, gas bottles, car batteries, asbestos and anything else classed as hazardous. Upholstered furniture and fridges we do take, but they travel and are disposed of separately under the rules.
How do I get a figure for a house clearance in Letchworth Garden City? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of each room through the form on this page. The quote is free, it puts you under no obligation. It is better than a guess made over the phone from a description.
If you want a quotation for a house, flat, bungalow, garage or loft in Letchworth Garden City, Hitchin, Baldock, Knebworth or Royston, ring us or send the photographs through and we will come back to you the same way.
