Most of the house clearance work we do in Newport is somebody else's paperwork. An executor, a son or daughter living out of the county, a managing agent with a set of keys. The property is here. The person deciding what happens to it very often is not, and that shapes the whole job — probate work especially.
That was the shape of a flat we cleared in NP20. It was arranged by a relative living over in Porthcawl who never saw the inside of it. One van load out through the door, and a mattress out with it — mattresses travel and are disposed of on their own rather than being squashed into the middle of a load, because that is what the rules on them require. We photographed the empty rooms afterwards and sent the pictures through, and the keys went back where we were told to put them.
That happens a lot here. The house is in Newport and the person sorting it out is in Bridgend, or Bristol, or further away than either. So the whole thing has to work by phone and email: a description first, then a date, then photographs at the end proving the place is empty. Nobody is standing in the hall watching us do it.
The postcodes we take in and around Newport
Newport itself runs across NP19 and NP20 in the middle and east, NP10 out to Rogerstone and Bassaleg, and NP18 at Caerleon, with NP11 up through Risca and Crosskeys. NP90 is the one that catches people out: it is a non-geographic code that turns up on correspondence rather than on anybody's front door, so if that is what is printed on your paperwork, ring and tell us where the property physically is. Pontypool, Cwmbran, Abergavenny, Monmouth and the towns at the top of the valleys are neighbours rather than our own districts, and each has a page of its own. Older paperwork in our files still says Gwent on the address line; the council you are dealing with now is Newport City Council, with its household waste site out at Docks Way. Rogerstone, Caerleon, Malpas, Bettws and Caldicot are all normal ground for us.
Work next door is the same day's driving. If the property you are ringing about is not in the city itself, we also do house clearance in Cardiff across the Levels to the west, house clearance in Chepstow down at the bridge, house clearance in Monmouth up the Wye, and house clearance in Abergavenny at the top of the A4042. Ring about the address you have got and we will tell you plainly whether it is a Newport team or one of the others that comes to you.
Getting here is not the problem it is in some places. Newport station sits on the South Wales Main Line with the M4 a couple of minutes away in either direction, and the Ebbw Valley line runs out through Rogerstone and Pye Corner for the valleys work. Our teams travel to the property and start at nine.
Flat clearance, and why we ask for the instructions in writing
The second job worth describing was a one-bedroom ground floor flat with parking available on site, which sounds like the easiest thing in the world until you read what the customer actually wanted done.
It was booked with the instructions written down beforehand, and they were specific. The flat was to be cleared and cleaned afterwards. Carpets were not a blanket instruction either way — the request was "only the carpet in the sitting room to be removed please", so the rest of the flooring stayed exactly where it was and the team knew that before the first man walked in. And there was a second line on the form that we treat as the important one on any clearance of this sort: "Any photographs, letters or personal paperwork to be put aside please".
That is the whole argument for putting your instructions in writing before the day. A team that knows in advance which carpet is coming up does not have to ring anybody from the landing, and a team that has been told to look for paperwork puts a box by the door and fills it as they go instead of finding an envelope at four in the afternoon and wondering. Ground floor and parking on site meant the load went straight out to the van with no stair carrying and no permit — the two things that most often turn a short day into a long one.
Anything obviously personal that turns up in a drawer during a house clearance — documents, jewellery, photograph albums, service books — is put aside and handed over or posted on, not binned. We do that whether or not anyone has asked.
Where the load actually goes
Anything still usable, we try to find a home for through reuse schemes and charity shops in the area rather than tipping it. Furniture that is sound, kitchenware, books, records. Records turn up far more often than people expect — boxes of seven-inch singles, the sort of thing that sat in every front room in the seventies, Tina Charles and ABBA and J. J. Barrie's "No Charge" — and none of that needs to go in a skip.
The rest is weighed in and booked out at a permitted transfer station, and the paperwork for it exists. We are a registered waste carrier with the Environment Agency under registration number CBDU419679, and if you want the transfer notes for your own file, ask and we will send them; they usually take a few working days to come back to us. One customer on a long clearance asked for the notes covering every day and half day we had worked, plus the addresses of the charity outlets we had used. Fair enough. She got both.
A word on the awkward categories. Upholstered seating — sofas, sofa beds, armchairs, dining and office chairs, footstools, seat cushions — has to be kept out of the general load and sent down its own disposal route under the POPs rules, which is why we ask about it on the phone. Fridges, freezers and chest freezers count as hazardous waste and are handled separately for the same reason. And there are things we simply cannot put in an ordinary load at all: tins of paint, gas cylinders, chemicals, asbestos. Tell us they are there when you book and we will tell you what can be done about them.
The kinds of house clearance Newport asks us for
Garage and loft clearance in Newport
Half the phone calls we take underestimate the property by exactly two rooms, and they are always the same two. Garage and loft clearance is its own job: the loft because everything in it has to come down a hatch by hand before it can go anywhere, the garage because the door often has not been opened in years and there is a lawnmower, a chest freezer and forty years of paint tins behind it. Rogerstone and Bassaleg semis nearly all have a garage; the older terraces in NP19 mostly do not, and what would have been in a garage is in the back bedroom instead. When you ring, walk us through the loft and the garage as well as the rooms — it is the single thing that changes an estimate most.
End of tenancy and flat clearance in NP19 and NP20
Landlords and agents ring us between tenancies, usually with a date they cannot move. Flats in the city centre and along the eastern side are the bulk of it: one or two bedrooms, communal front door, a lift that may or may not be working. If it is a managed or sheltered block, tell us about the doors and the entry code before the day. That is most of what makes a flat clearance go smoothly or badly — whether anyone has worked out, in advance, how three men and a Luton van actually get through the front door.
Hoarded and soiled house clearance
Overfull houses, houses where a room has been shut for years, houses that need masks and a proper wash-down afterwards — we do those, and there is a separate page on hoarder house clearance explaining how the days are organised. They take longer, they take more kit and a different disposal route, and you are told what you are looking at before we start rather than after. No commentary, no faces pulled at the door.
Single loads and part clearances
Not every job is a whole house. Sometimes it is a garage, sometimes it is a front room's worth of furniture, sometimes it is the shed and nothing else. If that is all you need, say so — house rubbish removal covers the smaller loads without the rest of the clearance attached.
Probate house clearance in Newport, executors and letting agents
A good share of our house clearance Newport work comes through executors, attorneys and managing agents rather than the person who lived in the property. Probate clearances have their own rhythm: the house has usually been standing empty for months, the family is often scattered, and nobody wants to make a decision that the others have not agreed to. We are used to that and we do not push it.
On the money side, the part we will state plainly is who we invoice. On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and the bill can be settled out of the estate once funds are released rather than by a family member out of their own pocket. There is no deposit — nothing is asked for up front, and the invoice follows the work. More on the process is on the probate house clearance page.
We will collect keys from an agent or a neighbour if nobody wants the drive over, and we send photographs of every room once it is done so the executor has something for the file. If a valuation or a solicitor's inventory has to happen before anything moves, tell us and we will work around it.
Getting a figure for your house clearance in Newport
There is one honest answer to what it costs, and it is that we need to see the place first. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode and a description, or send photographs through the form on this page — room by room, plus the loft, the garage, the shed and any outside space. We will come back to you with a figure and a date. The estimate is free and it does not commit you to anything.
If the property turns out to be bigger than the description suggested, the team leader tells you on the morning and waits for your answer before anything moves. Nothing is decided behind your back and nothing is assumed.
Questions we get asked
Can a probate house clearance be invoiced to the solicitor and paid from the estate? Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate when funds are released. There is no deposit and no payment before the work.
Which areas of Newport do you cover? NP19 and NP20 in the centre and east, NP10 out at Rogerstone and Bassaleg, NP18 at Caerleon, and NP11 up through Risca and Crosskeys. Malpas, Bettws and Caldicot are routine for us as well.
Do I have to be there on the day? No. A great many of our Newport clearances are run by somebody in another county entirely. We take instructions in writing beforehand, collect keys from an agent or a neighbour, and send photographs of every room at the end.
Can you take the carpets, or leave them? Either — just tell us which. We have done flats where one room's carpet came up and the rest stayed down. It only goes wrong when nobody says.
What can't go in the van? Paint, chemicals, gas cylinders and asbestos. Fridges, freezers and upholstered seating can go, but they are separated out and sent down their own legally required disposal routes rather than into the general load.
Will I get proof of where it went? Yes, if you ask. We are a registered waste carrier, CBDU419679, and we can send the waste transfer notes for the job; they take a few working days to come back to us.
Booking a date
Ring or email with the postcode, the size of the property, what outside spaces are included, and the sort of date you have in mind, and we will come back with a figure and an available morning. We are fully insured, we have been doing this since 2007, and the licence number above is real and checkable on the register.
If it is a flat in a sheltered scheme, tell us about the doors. We have learnt.
