House clearance in Medway usually means stairs. The towns are built up the sides of the valley, half the flats we empty have no lift in the building, and the lanes out on the peninsula narrow the further you go. We have been doing this work since 2007, we are licensed waste carriers, we are insured for it, and a house clearance Medway booking is normally one crew, one Luton van and one day. Two of ours, below, and what they actually involved.
The three-seat sofa had to come out in two halves. That was the one thing everybody agreed on before we even booked the day — a maisonette on the third and fourth floors of a council block in Rainham, ME8, stairwell access only, no lift anywhere in the building. Three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room, a balcony, and a little boiler cupboard next to one of the bedrooms with more in it than anyone expected. The person organising it had already done half the hard work themselves, and said so plainly when they wrote in: "I think the work can all be done in one day if there are a whole team. As mentioned, I have already cleaned a lot of the flat already (all white appliances etc cooker, beds, mattresses) have all gone. Its just the remaining items and clutter."
They were right, as it happened. One day, one team, a Friday in May. The white goods were gone before we arrived so the weight was mostly soft stuff and boxes, which is a mercy when every single item has to go down four flights on foot. The big chest of drawers that doubled as an entertainment unit came apart on the landing rather than going down whole. The sofa went out through the door in two pieces, as promised, because there is no other way with those blocks — the stairwells were built narrow and the turns are tight.
The two-day one at Cuxton
Different sort of job entirely, over in ME2. A three-bedroom house with a kitchen extension, plus an attic and a garage, and a garden that we left open to discuss on the day because nobody could get back to the property with a camera beforehand. Fair enough. We took it as it came.
It ran to two days and a second van. Partway through, the instructions changed. A relative had arranged for a charity to collect some of the furniture, so the sofas and one double bed stayed put, along with a dresser, two small cabinets and the paintings in the dining room, a cabinet in the master bedroom, the drawers in the upstairs cupboard, the drawers in the downstairs bathroom. The TV cabinets in the living room. That kind of mid-job change is normal and it doesn't throw us. By the second morning what was actually left was the attic and the garage, which is where the real volume was hiding. A train set built on a board that had to be lifted out flat, a doll's house, board games with the boxes taped shut years ago, a rowing machine, and an exercise bike that had spent a decade as a clothes horse. Carpets stayed down, curtains stayed up, and the upright fridge freezer went as a separate hazardous item.
Where we go in Medway
ME1 for Rochester, ME2 for Strood, Frindsbury, Cuxton and Halling, ME3 out across the Hoo peninsula to Cliffe, Cliffe Woods, Hoo St Werburgh and the Isle of Grain, ME4 for Chatham, ME5 for Walderslade and Lordswood, and ME8 for Rainham, Twydall and Wigmore. All of it sits in Kent, under Medway Council as a unitary authority rather than a district council, which matters mainly because the tips and the bulky-waste rules here are Medway's own rather than county ones.
We come down the M2 and pick up jobs by postcode rather than by town line, so a house near Rochester station and a bungalow out past Cliffe get the same van and the same crew. Rainham station, Chatham and Strood are the usual landmarks people give us for directions; Cuxton on the Medway Valley line is the one we get asked about most, because the lanes around it narrow quickly and a Luton needs thinking about. If parking's going to be a problem, tell us when you book — a suspended bay or even a neighbour's driveway saves an hour of carrying.
The same crew works outside the Medway towns as well, and the neighbouring places have pages of their own. Down the M20 there's house clearance in Maidstone, the county town and the biggest thing near us; east along the A2 into Swale there's house clearance in Sittingbourne. Closer in, ME7 is covered on the house clearance in Gillingham page, and ME1 in more detail on the house clearance in Rochester page. Anything that sits between them, ring and ask.
Flat clearance, garage and loft clearance
Not every booking is a whole house. Flat clearance in the blocks around Chatham and Gillingham is planned around the stair and the parking rather than the contents — communal front door, no lift in the older blocks, a bay that fills early. A garage and loft clearance on its own is just as normal a booking: the loft nobody has opened since the roof was done, the garage on the newer estates that has not had a car in it for years. Say which of them are in scope when you ring.
What a day actually looks like
The team lands at nine in the morning as a rule, three of them and a Luton furniture van, and most standard houses are emptied by the end of that day. If the place turns out fuller than expected we keep going and add a load rather than walking off and rebooking you. If a property genuinely needs a second day we'd say so before we started rather than at four in the afternoon with half a landing still stacked. Most house clearance Medway jobs never get that far.
You don't need to bag anything up or sort anything into piles. Take out what you're keeping, put it in one room or one corner, and the crew empties everything else — cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, the lot. Carpets, underlay and gripper rods come up too if you want them gone, though we'll leave rods that have been nailed over tiles rather than floorboards, because pulling those wrecks the floor underneath. We sweep through at the end.
Pricing, and how you find out the number
There's one way to find out, and it's to tell us what's in there. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and describe it room by room, or send photographs through the form on this page, loft hatch and garage included. You get the figure before anything is booked, over the phone or by email, it's free and it doesn't commit you to a date, and it doesn't change on the doorstep unless the load itself turns out bigger than what was described.
A few things have to be handled apart from a mixed household load because the regulations say so. Fridges, freezers and chest freezers are classed as hazardous waste and go out on their own route. Mattresses have their own disposal stream. Sofas, armchairs and anything else upholstered fall under the POPs rules, which since 2023 has meant they can't be tipped with general waste at all and have to go for incineration under permit.
Some things we simply can't put in a mixed household load: tins of paint, gas cylinders, solvents, car batteries. Say what's there and we'll tell you what can travel with us and what needs a separate route.
Overfilled, verminous, and the ones nobody wants to look at
One of the biggest we've done in Medway was out at Cliffe Woods, ME3, booked by a property management group rather than a family. It went down as a verminous clearance, which is the official category once there's decaying food, animal mess or anything similar in the property. Two loads on the day, a chest freezer, a small fridge freezer, mattresses, a TV, paint tins, and regulated disposal on the paperwork for the whole lot. Nobody on the crew made a face about it. Hoarder and verminous houses are a proper part of house clearance in Medway, not an exception, and we'd rather you described the state of it honestly than warned us at the door.
Probate house clearance in Medway: executors and estates
Probate house clearance in Medway is a steady part of the diary. A fair share of what we do in Chatham and Rochester is estate work, and quite often the person instructing us is a solicitor in ME4 rather than a family member. That's fine. We bill the solicitor, the trustee or the executor direct, the cost can be met from the estate, and there's no deposit — the invoice follows the work. We've waited while a client account was topped up before now, and taken part payment with the balance to follow once probate came through. We'll issue whatever documentation an executor needs to claim it back from the estate. Invoices go out by email with the bank details on them; card payment can be arranged if that's easier.
What we do with what comes out
Reusable furniture and household goods get offered to charity shops and reuse projects in the area before anything else happens to them, and a decent amount of every house leaves that way. What's genuinely waste goes to permitted recycling and transfer stations, and we can hand you waste transfer notes for it whenever you want them. Our registration as a waste carrier with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679, and we're insured for the work.
When we get it wrong
Worth saying, since it happened here. On a clearance at Frindsbury in ME2 — first load, a mattress, a fridge freezer and a full clean of a three-bed afterwards — the crew left a quantity of items in the cupboards, and the person overseeing the job on the customer's behalf ended up loading their own car with them. That's our fault, nobody else's. We put it right with the customer rather than argue the toss about it. The reply we got afterwards was more generous than we deserved that week: "I was very happy with the clearance otherwise. I would happily recommend you as a very reliable firm who deal promptly with bookings from start to finish."
What we need from you to book
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or email, and tell us the postcode, roughly what's in there, what floor it's on and whether a van can get near the door. Photos help but they never show the attic. We'll give you a load size and a quote, hold a date, and confirm the arrival window the day before. One or two working days' notice is usually all we need anywhere in Medway, from Rochester and Strood out to the Hoo peninsula, and that goes for every house clearance Medway job in between.
Common questions about house clearance in Medway
Who do you invoice on a probate house clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Payment can come out of the estate once probate allows it, and no deposit is taken.
Can you work if nobody can be at the property? Yes. We collect a key from an agent, a neighbour or a relative, clear the house, and email photographs of the empty rooms afterwards.
Do we have to pack anything up first? No. The team empties wardrobes, drawers and cupboards. Tell us what must stay and it is set aside.
Which parts of Medway do you cover? ME1 through ME8 — Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, Strood, the Hoo peninsula and the villages behind them.
What won't you take? Paint, solvents, garden chemicals, gas bottles and anything that looks like asbestos. Fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture go, but on their own routes.
