The basement was the whole job. From the pavement it was an ordinary DA12 house and an ordinary day booked in, and then the cellar door came open and there was a room stacked to shoulder height with only one narrow staircase in or out. Carpet, mostly. Rolls of the stuff, old and damp, the kind that puts on half its weight again in a cellar and has to go up a tread at a time between two men. What we could not see from the top of the stairs was everything underneath the piles. That is house clearance in Gravesend rather more often than people expect.
We had gone in expecting a single day. By the middle of the morning the team leader was on the phone to the office to say the main basement on its own would take three loads. A great deal of carpet, very heavy, and a lot more stuff under all the piles that nobody could see until the clearing started. Two more televisions turned up behind a stack while he was talking, which made nine down there altogether. Nine. Some of them the deep old sets that take two people to lift, and not one of them travels in a mixed load, because a screen has a disposal route of its own.
Then there was the sofa. Big thing, wedged at the bottom of those stairs, and no angle we tried would get it back up.
It must have been brought in years earlier through one of the rear entrances, and those had long since been built over or blocked off. We are not in the business of taking a doorframe out of somebody's house without asking, so it stayed where it was, and it went into the correspondence that morning in those words: "One of the sofas is too big to be taken out up the stairs and will have to remain in the basement." The person instructing us was working from an office rather than the doorstep, so every decision that day went by telephone and email before a thing was moved: two loads out of the main basement rather than three, five pieces of upholstered furniture — another sofa, pouffes, an office chair, padded dining chairs — mattresses, the nine televisions, and an American-style fridge freezer that took two of the team and a stair-climber to shift.
That job is the reason we talk about basements first when somebody in Gravesend rings up. The older housing here — the Victorian and Edwardian terraces off the town centre, the tall places around Windmill Hill and the streets running down towards the river — has cellars, and cellars are where forty years of a household quietly ends up. Half the time nobody arranging the clearance has ever been down there. That is fine, and it is normal. We would rather walk it, or look at your photographs, and tell you where it stands than turn up with a figure built on a guess.
What a Gravesend day usually looks like
Most days are quieter than that one. Another DA12 house, an ordinary family place, and the booking came from a relative living a few streets away in the same postcode district — the paperwork went to one address in DA12 and the team went to another. One load. A fridge freezer, a small under-counter fridge freezer, and six mattresses. Six, out of one household. Beds are the thing nobody ever takes to the tip themselves, so they go up into the loft or into the spare room and they sit there, and then one morning they all come out at once.
The order of the day is much the same wherever we are working. The team is at the door for nine. Nothing has to be boxed or bagged beforehand — cupboards, wardrobes and drawers are emptied by us, carpets and underlay come up if you want them up, and the place is swept through at the end. If something is staying, say so at the start and mark it, or shut it in one room and tell us that room is not ours. People worry about that far more than they need to.
And you do not have to be there while it happens. Plenty of people find they would rather not be, particularly on a family house, and we send photographs and a walk-round video at the end instead. If you are managing the property from another county — or from another country, which happens here more than you would think, given how many Gravesend families have people abroad — that is the usual arrangement rather than the unusual one.
Where we go around Gravesend
Gravesend and Northfleet are DA11 and DA12. South of the A2 we work Meopham, Shorne, Higham and Southfleet, Istead Rise, Sole Street, Vigo and Culverstone in DA13, along with Riverview Park, Singlewell, Perry Street and Chalk on the town's own edges. Gravesham Borough Council covers the town and Meopham, and its household waste site is up at Pepper Hill. Gravesend station is a ten-minute walk from most of the town-centre work we do, and the high-speed line puts St Pancras twenty-five minutes away — that is how most people managing a Kent property from London get down for the walk-round. Sole Street and Meopham serve the DA13 villages.
We work outwards from here as well, and the neighbouring towns have their own pages: house clearance in Maidstone for the county town, and closer in towards London, house clearance in Bexleyheath and house clearance in Sidcup. If your property sits between two of those, ring the office and we will tell you which team is nearest on the day you want.
A few things leave a house on their own route because the law says they must, not because anybody fancies making a fuss about them. Fridges and freezers have to be degassed. Mattresses are handled separately. Televisions and monitors are electrical waste. And since the POPs rules came in, upholstered furniture — sofas, padded dining chairs, pouffes, office chairs — cannot be tipped in with general household waste, because the treated foam has to be kept apart and destroyed on its own route. That is why five pieces were listed separately out of that basement in DA12. Old paint tins are different again: hazardous rather than household, with a route of their own.
The tip run, and what avoids it
Furniture with plenty of use left in it gets offered on first. Charity shops and reuse projects around Gravesham and the Meopham villages take a good deal of what comes out of a clearance, and the team will hold something back on the van if there is a taker for it. The rest is sorted at a licensed transfer station and the paperwork comes back to us as a waste transfer note, which you are welcome to have a copy of — executors often need one for the file. We hold an upper-tier waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency, CBDU419679, and we are insured for the work. Nothing goes to a field, and nothing gets left at the end of the drive for the council to argue about.
There are a few things we cannot lift into a general load: old paint tins, gas cylinders, car batteries, anything asbestos-adjacent. None of them go to a council site. Tell us at the enquiry stage and we will route it properly, or point you at the Pepper Hill site, rather than have the team discover a shed full of it at half past nine.
Full houses, and executors
A fair share of what we do in Gravesend is a house nobody has been able to face for a while. Overfilled rooms, a loft that has not been opened since the seventies, a garage you cannot get the door up on. It is routine work for the team and nobody passes remarks about it — they clear, they photograph, they go. Executors are usually juggling an agent's completion date at the same time, so tell us the date that actually matters and we will work backwards from it.
Probate house clearance in Gravesend
Most of the estate work we do here is probate house clearance, and it runs to its own rhythm: the house sits for a while, then everything has to happen in one week. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, so nobody has to put a family clearance on their own card, and payment can come out of the estate when probate releases. There is no deposit. If you are one of several executors and the others are scattered, we will copy them all in on the photographs and the waste transfer note. More on how probate house clearance works is on its own page, but the short version is that we can wait, and we are used to waiting.
Garage and loft clearance in Gravesend
Plenty of enquiries are not a whole house at all. A garage and loft clearance in Gravesend is a common half-day: the garage that has not had a car in it since the nineties, and the loft above it, and that is the lot. Lofts here are usually the old boarded kind with a drop-down ladder, and the team brings the loft down themselves — you are not expected to be passing boxes through a hatch. Sheds, side returns and the space under the stairs go the same way. Say what is up there if you know, and say if you do not know, which is a perfectly good answer.
Hoarder house clearance in Gravesend
Where a house has filled up over years rather than months, the work is slower and the sorting matters more, because paperwork, jewellery and photographs turn up halfway down a pile. That is its own kind of job and it has its own page, hoarder house clearance. Same team, same licence, more days.
Common questions about house clearance in Gravesend
Do you handle probate house clearance, and who do you invoice?
Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate rather than from anybody's own pocket. There is no deposit, and we can hold off until probate is granted if that is where things stand.
How do I find out what a house clearance in Gravesend will cost?
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and tell us the size of the property, or send photographs through the form on this page — room by room is ideal, and the basement, garage and loft if there are any. We will come back to you with a figure.
Do I have to be at the property on the day?
No. A great many Gravesend clearances are arranged entirely by telephone and email with somebody who is nowhere near the house. We send photographs and a walk-round video at the end so you can see the state it was left in.
Which areas around Gravesend do you cover?
DA11 and DA12 for Gravesend and Northfleet, and DA13 for Meopham, Istead Rise, Sole Street, Vigo and Culverstone. Beyond that we cover Maidstone, Bexleyheath and Sidcup, each of which has its own page.
What will you not take away?
Old paint tins, gas cylinders, car batteries and anything asbestos-adjacent cannot go in a general load. Tell us at the enquiry stage and we will arrange the right route for them.
How long does a house clearance in Gravesend take?
Most family houses are a single day, from nine in the morning. A cellar or a full loft can turn one day into two, and if that looks likely you will hear it from the team leader while the work is going on, not afterwards.
If you have a property in Gravesend, Northfleet or the DA13 villages, ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the size of it, what is staying, and whether there is anywhere to put a van. Or send photographs through the form on this page. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and we will tell you what we think it takes before anyone sets off.
