A house clearance in Arnold usually starts with a phone call and a handful of photographs, and it finishes with the keys going back to whoever handed them over. Arnold is an NG5 town, the biggest in the borough of Gedling, sitting up the hill north-east of Nottingham with Daybrook below it and Woodthorpe, Redhill and Killisick around it. We have been clearing houses since 2007. What follows is one of our clearances told properly, and then the parts of the job people actually ring up about — access, parking, what we cannot take, where everything ends up.
The house clearance that started with a telephone call and a form
It came in by phone in the spring, and the office followed the call with an email: how we work, and the list of questions that have to be answered before anybody can put a figure on a house. The customer came back the same way.
> Many thanks for speaking to me on the telephone, and for your follow-up email. > Please may I proceed with a booking.
The photographs had to wait a few weeks. He could not get to the property until the middle of May and wanted to take them himself, room by room, which is the right instinct. We would far rather wait for pictures of everything than guess from a description, and nobody is in a hurry on our side.
When the booking form came back it told us most of what a crew needs to know. A three-bedroom house — in his own words, a "3 bed house (third bedroom is a loft extension) with garage". A loft extension changes the shape of a day more than people expect. The stairs up to it are steeper and narrower than the main flight, there is usually a turn at the top with no room to swing anything. Whatever is up there has to come down before the ground floor is broken up. Get that order wrong and you spend the afternoon carrying wardrobes past a pile you made yourself.
Under special requirements he had put one line: "2 very large wooden cabinets to be cleared from the lounge". Two of them. Cabinets of that sort — built in the years when furniture was made to stay exactly where it was put — rarely come apart, and the question is never the weight. It is whether they will turn through the lounge door and then the front door. Sometimes the back panel comes off. Sometimes they go out through patio doors instead. Either way it is far better told to us at the booking stage than on the morning, and he told us.
The list of what was to stay was as useful as the list of what was to go. Curtains, blinds and light fittings were to be left. So was the fitted furniture in the bedrooms, and the built-in appliances, washing machine and fridge freezer included. The wheelie bin and the recycling containers in the garage stayed too — those belong to the property, and a bin taken away by mistake is a small disaster for whoever moves in next. He gave a contact name and a telephone number for the team on the day, and the clearance went in on a Monday in June, on the date he had asked for.
Nothing dramatic happened, and that is rather the point. Most clearances are like that one. A house, a garage, a loft room, a family who have taken out what they want to keep, and a crew who have done it often enough to know which order to work in.
Kinds of house clearance we do in and around Arnold
Probate house clearance in Arnold
A fair share of the probate work we do around Arnold is arranged by somebody who does not live anywhere near it. That is the normal case, not the awkward one. We collect the key from an estate agent, a neighbour or a relative, clear the house, photograph the empty rooms and send the pictures over the same evening, then hand the key back where it came from. Our team leaders take a walk-round set of photographs when they arrive and another when they finish, so an executor who has never seen the property has a record of both states. If the file needs the waste transfer notes, say so and we will send them.
Payment on a probate house clearance is worth stating plainly, because people ask before they ring: we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. The bill can be settled out of the estate rather than out of anybody's own pocket, and there is no deposit — the invoice follows the work, not the booking. More on probate house clearance generally, though for anything in NG5 it is quicker to ring.
Flat clearance in NG5 and the city postcodes
Flats are their own animal. A first-floor flat with a shared stair means everything goes down by hand and the van cannot sit outside forever, so the crew plans the carry before they lift anything. In the city postcodes — NG1, NG7, NG2 — parking is the whole problem and a suspension is sometimes worth arranging. Tell us on the phone which floor, whether there is a lift, and how far the front door is from where a Luton can legally stop.
Garage and loft clearance in Arnold
Plenty of Arnold jobs are not a house clearance at all, just the garage, or just the loft. Garages here give up camping gear, fence posts, tins of things nobody can identify and a lawnmower that has not started since the last dry summer. Lofts are the part families consistently underestimate, because people remember rooms and forget forty years of boxes over the hatch. If the loft is boarded and the ladder is sound, say so; if it is neither, say that too.
End of tenancy clearance in Arnold
Landlords and letting managers ring us when a tenancy ends and the property has been left part-furnished, or left as it stood. We clear what is there, sweep through, and photograph the rooms so there is no argument later about what condition it was handed back in. Same for a rubbish removal where the house itself is fine and it is only the garden heap and the pile down the side of the garage that need to go.
Hoarder house clearance in Arnold
A hoarder house clearance takes longer and takes more loads, and that is all it takes. The crew works in from the door, sifts rather than shovels where there is any chance of documents, photographs or money in among it, and sets aside anything that looks like paperwork for the family to look at. We have found bank books, war medals and a wedding ring in the last few years, so nothing goes off the property unlooked-at. There is more on hoarder house clearance if that is what you are facing.
What actually comes out of a house round here
Arnold housing runs from the older terraces near Front Street and Daybrook through the interwar semis and then the big postwar estates up towards Killisick and Redhill, and the contents follow the same pattern. Out of a semi of that vintage you'll get a corner display cabinet that four men can barely turn on the stairs, a hostess trolley that hasn't been plugged in since the last family Christmas of the eighties, a Lloyd Loom linen basket in a bedroom corner. From the box room, more often than not, an Amstrad word processor and a fax machine sitting under a dust sheet, and a filing cabinet full of bank statements going back decades. We shred nothing ourselves, so if there's paperwork the family want destroyed rather than tipped, tell us on the day and it stays with you. Garages give up camping gear, a frame tent still in its bag, fence posts stacked along the fence they were meant to replace, a coil of chicken wire.
Anything still usable, we'd rather see going to a Nottinghamshire charity shop or a furniture reuse project than into a skip, and a good proportion of a typical house does. What's left is weighed in and documented at a licensed transfer station, and we'll send the transfer notes over if an executor needs them for the file. Our waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679, and we're insured for the work.
A few things we can't just put in with the rest. Tins of paint, bottled gas, solvents and old chemicals from the shed sit outside what an ordinary household load is allowed to contain, so they're either handled separately or you take them to the county recycling centre yourself. Fridges and freezers are classed as hazardous because of the gas in them and go to a dedicated processor. Mattresses and other upholstered furniture are treated under the persistent organic pollutants rules, which means separate handling and separate disposal — that's why they leave the property on their own and not buried in the middle of a load.
Quotes, and what we cover around Arnold
On what a job will come to, we say one thing and we say it early. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs of every room through the form on this page, and we will come back to you in writing. Photographs of the loft, the garage and the shed as well, if you can get them — those are the three that change an estimate, and we would sooner know at the start.
Arnold sits in Gedling borough, and we work the whole spread of Nottingham postcodes around it. NG5 for Arnold, Daybrook, Woodthorpe, Sherwood and Bestwood, NG3 for Mapperley and St Ann's, NG4 for Carlton and Netherfield, NG1 and NG7 for the city centre and the Park, NG2 for West Bridgford and Sneinton, NG6 up through Bulwell and Bestwood Village, NG15 for Hucknall, NG8 for Aspley and Bilborough, NG9 for Beeston and Chilwell, NG11 down towards Clifton. Calverton, Lambley, Burton Joyce and Gedling village all get the same vans. Several of those places have a page of their own. house clearance in Nottingham for the city itself, house clearance in West Bridgford across the river in NG2, house clearance in Beeston out in NG9. house clearance in Ashfield to the north-west, which is the district Hucknall belongs to.
There's no station in Arnold. The line went years ago — so the crews come in by road off the A60 or across from Carlton and Netherfield stations on the Nottingham to Lincoln line. With Nottingham station and the tram at Hucknall the other reference points people give us. Parking is the real variable. On the older streets near the Market Place a Luton has to go on the road and the walk to the front door adds time. On the estates there's usually a drive, and if there's a dropped kerb say so when you book.
Overfilled houses are a normal week for us. If the hallway is single file and the back bedroom hasn't been opened in years, that's a longer job and more loads, not a reason to turn it down, and the crew won't make remarks about it.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Arnold
How much does a house clearance in Arnold cost?
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of the rooms through the form on this page, and we will come back with a figure in writing before anyone turns up. We would rather look at pictures than take a description over the phone.
Do I have to be there on the day?
No. We can collect the key from an estate agent, a neighbour or a relative, clear the property, and email you photographs of the empty rooms when the team has finished. The key goes back wherever you tell us.
Who do you deal with on a probate house clearance in Arnold?
Whoever is acting — the executor, a solicitor's office, or a family member handling it for everyone else. One point of contact makes it easier, and we will copy the photographs and the paperwork to anyone you ask us to. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, so the bill can be settled out of the estate rather than by whoever happened to ring us, and there is no deposit to find up front. The invoice comes after the work is done.
Do I need to empty the cupboards or bag things up first?
No. The crew clears cupboards, wardrobes and drawers as they go, takes up carpets and underlay where you want that, and sweeps through at the end. What you do need to do is take out anything you are keeping, or mark it clearly and tell the team leader on arrival.
How long does an Arnold house clearance take?
Most houses are a single day, arriving from nine. Bigger properties, or ones where the loft and garage are as full as the rooms, can run into a second day. We would rather tell you two days at the start than surprise you at four in the afternoon.
What won't you take?
Paint, solvents, bottled gas and garden chemicals cannot travel in a household load. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture can go, but they are handled and disposed of separately under the rules that apply to them. Anything you want left — light fittings, blinds, fitted units, the wheelie bin — tell us before the day and it stays exactly where it is.
Ring us on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of the rooms through the form on this page, and we'll come back with a written figure and a date.
