We have been doing house clearance in Towcester and the villages round it for a long time now, and the work almost never starts with a van. It starts with a list, or a set of photographs, or a phone call from somebody who has a date to meet and a house full of forty years to get through. This one started with a mattress.
A boxed mattress, still in its cover — a home might yet be found for it. That was one line out of about forty messages before a van ever turned a wheel. A farmhouse out in the villages north of Towcester, and the couple who owned it were living over the border in Oxfordshire, so they could only get across now and then. Rather than leave it to guesswork they walked the house with a camera and wrote the whole thing down for us, room by room. One bedroom was to be emptied first and kept back as the storing room, because, as they put it, it had the least in it to shift.
Wardrobes mostly bare. Three trunks, a bed frame and a boxed mattress, all new. A desk, a chair and a small set of drawers to be carried into that storage room rather than loaded. Everything else out, carpet and light shades included. Half the boxes in the place had nothing in them at all, and they asked for those to be flattened for recycling instead of going in whole.
We'd have done that anyway, but writing it down saved an argument on the day.
We ran that clearance over two days in the week before Christmas, the 19th and the 21st. It had first been pencilled for the 15th and 19th and got moved once, and we'd told them we'd ring if a cancellation freed up the 16th. Masks were asked for indoors and everyone on the team who wasn't exempt wore one. Outbuildings were deliberately left out of the job — they wanted to pick through those themselves and come back to us about them later. Between booking and the day, both fridges went off to neighbours, which took the white goods off the list entirely. Two loads, a mattress, a television set, and a clean afterwards.
Nearly two years on we went back and did a shorter day at the same farm. The barns are still on the list, as far as we know.
The tip run, and what avoids it
Anything still usable is offered on before it's binned — furniture in one piece, unopened bedding, tools, crockery. Some of it goes through reuse schemes, some of it goes to a charity shop that can shift it. That mattress in its wrapper was exactly the sort of thing we'd rather see slept on than crushed. What can't be passed on is sorted at a permitted transfer station, weighed in and recorded, so there's a paper trail behind every load that leaves a Northamptonshire address. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and it's worth checking that number against anyone you're thinking of using. An outfit with no licence behind it tends to end up as your fly-tipped sofa in a lay-by off the A5, with your post office receipt still down the back of it. If it's a van-load of odds and ends rather than a house, that's house rubbish removal and we do that too.
Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture each have to travel their own route, and that isn't us being awkward. Sofas, armchairs, padded stools and the like fall under the POPs rules, so the foam has to be destroyed separately and can't simply be tipped in with the general load. Fridges and freezers have to be degassed. One customer asked us in advance whether they could pull the cushions out of a sofa themselves before we came — a sensible question, and an honest one to ask. The answer is that the rules follow the foam wherever it goes, not the frame. The teams report back what they actually loaded and where it went, and you can ask for the disposal paperwork; people sorting out an estate often do, and they're right to.
Executors, solicitors and houses waiting on a sale
A good share of the house clearance Towcester work comes through people settling an estate rather than moving house. Probate clearances have their own rhythm to them. The grant takes as long as it takes, the buyer starts asking about keys, and the person holding the whole thing together is often two counties away with a job of their own to do. Our probate house clearance page sets out how that side of it works; what follows is one of the jobs behind it.
That one didn't come from the family at all. A property firm was acting for them and dealt with us throughout, which is common enough — we've cleared houses where we never once spoke to a relative. The first attempt at quoting it never happened: our team were on another job that overran, the agents holding the keys shut at one o'clock on the Saturday, and by the time anyone got there the branch was dark. The message that came back about it was decent about the whole thing — "I'm so sorry this happened!
The agents never told me about their closing times." So we estimated off photographs instead. Fifty-odd of them arrived in one go, with an apology for the duplicates, and a team walked the house properly a few days later. The loft was empty, which is rarer than you'd think. The garden had things in it that were going, but nothing needed cutting back, and the instruction on that was short: "I garden clean is not required, just the items to be removed."
The instruction that mattered most, though, was about what had to stay. "I've just received confirmation that the medical aids at the property are to remain, the family are liaising with the health care provider to have these items removed from the property in due course." A mechanical bed, walking aids, wheelchairs — none of it belonged to the household and none of it was ours to move. That kind of note is worth more to us than any amount of description, because a team who don't know can only guess, and a guess in either direction is wrong. It went as a one-day job in the end, two loads and a mattress out, and the house was left empty apart from the bed and the aids standing in the corner waiting for somebody else's van.
There was a loose end afterwards, and it's the reason we still remember the job. An agent reported a week on that the bottom lock on the front door was jamming, and the question came to us: "Would you possibly be able to find out from your team who completed the property clearance, if they were faced with this issue with the front door?" They had, as it happens. The door had been dodgy on the quoting visit and dodgy again on the day, and the team had got in and out of it both times without forcing anything. We said so, and that was the end of it. Ask us a question like that and you'll get the answer the team gives us, not a polished version of it.
Where an estate is involved we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Nobody has to put a house clearance on their own card and claim it back off the family afterwards, and payment can come out of the estate in the ordinary way. There is no deposit — the work is booked, the work is done, and the invoice follows it. If the sale hasn't completed yet, say so at the booking stage rather than after; that's a normal arrangement on probate work and we'd far rather agree it up front than chase it later.
Not every estate job is a whole farmhouse, either. A flat clearance in Towcester. One of the flats over the shops on the main street, or a purpose-built one out on the newer estates. Is usually a single day and a single load, and often the only awkward part is the stairs and where the van can stand. Garage and loft clearance in Towcester is a job in its own right too. The house is being sold with the family still living in it, and it's the garage and loft nobody has opened since about 2011 that's holding the sale up. End of tenancy work, landlords, a single item that two people can't shift on their own — same team, same van, same licence.
Getting a van to your door
Towcester sits on Watling Street, which is a blessing and a curse. The A5 runs straight through the middle, so we're never hunting for the place, but the older cottages on and behind the main street have no off-street parking to speak of and the pavements are narrow. If your bit of the road fills up by eight in the morning, say so when you book and we'll set off earlier. Race weekends at Silverstone are the other thing worth flagging — if the circuit's busy the lanes towards Whittlebury and Syresham can be slow, and there's no sense pretending otherwise when the team is due at nine.
There's no station in the town itself. Northampton is the nearest mainline stop, with Milton Keynes Central roughly the same distance the other way and Northampton the nearest station for the villages north of the A5. It matters more often than you'd think, because a lot of the people instructing us are arriving by train from somewhere else for the day, doing the handover and heading back. If you're on a tight window, tell us the return time and the team will work to it.
We cover the NN12 postcode district and the villages between the town and the county boundary. Silverstone, Whittlebury, Paulerspury, Greens Norton, Abthorpe and Blakesley among them, with Blisworth, Roade and Bugbrooke off to the north-east on the Northampton road. Over the boundary we do a lot of house clearance in Brackley to the south-west and a great deal of house clearance in Northampton up the A43. house clearance in Daventry is a straightforward run for us as well. Wellingborough and Kettering we reach without trouble. A house clearance Towcester booking and one in the surrounding villages are the same day's work to us either way. West Northamptonshire Council runs the household recycling centres locally, and they're fine for a car boot of odds and ends. They're not much use when there's a full house, a loft and a shed to shift and you're standing there with a set of keys and a completion date.
Houses that have got away from someone
Some of the properties we take on are packed to the ceiling. Rooms you can only get a foot inside, wardrobes that haven't opened in years, a kitchen where the table disappeared under paper some time in the last decade. We book those the same as any other house clearance in Towcester and the team gets on with it quietly. No lectures, no photographs passed around. What we do ask is that you're straight with us about what's in there, particularly anything verminous or decaying, because that changes the kit the team brings and the number of days we set aside. There's more on hoarder house clearance if that's what you're facing, and it's more common than people think.
There are a few things we simply can't put on a general load — tins of paint, gas bottles, chemicals, asbestos. Paint and gas bottles we can take away as separate items if you tell us in advance; asbestos needs a specialist and we'll say so rather than pretend. Ask about anything unusual before the day and you'll get a straight answer either way.
How to get a quote
We don't put figures on a web page, and anyone who does is guessing at your house. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk to somebody, or send photographs through the form on this page. Every room, plus the loft, garage and shed if they're going — and you'll get a figure back before anyone commits to anything. It's free and it doesn't tie you in. If the team find more once they're inside. Another shed's worth, a garage nobody could open — we ring and ask before touching it, the way we did on the farmhouse when the fridges went off to neighbours instead.
We're licensed, we carry full insurance, and we've been clearing houses in Towcester and across South Northamptonshire since 2007 — long enough to have the same customers ring back years later about the outbuildings. Send photographs, tell us the postcode and the date you need it done by, and we'll come back to you.
Questions we get asked
Do you do probate house clearance in Towcester? Yes, and a fair bit of it. Probate work is most of what we do in and around Towcester. We'll wait on the grant if we have to, we'll work to a completion date, and we'll deal with a solicitor, an executor or a family member — whoever is actually holding the keys.
Can you invoice the solicitor or the estate rather than me? Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate. There's no deposit to find beforehand — the invoice follows the work.
Do I have to be there on the day? No. Plenty of the time we're working from keys left with an agent or a neighbour, and the person instructing us is a long way off. Tell us where the keys are and who to ring if something turns up that wasn't in the photographs.
How much notice do you need? Usually a few days for a house clearance in Towcester, sometimes less if a date frees up. If you're tied to a completion, tell us that date when you first ring and we'll work back from it.
Is there anything you won't take? Asbestos needs a licensed specialist and we won't pretend otherwise. Paint tins, gas bottles and chemicals we can take away separately if we know in advance. Everything else — furniture, carpets, garden bits, a loft's worth of boxes — goes on the van in the ordinary way.
