The instructions for our Newmarket clearance arrived from the other side of the world. The customer was living in Australia, hours ahead of us, unable to come over, and asked that everything be done by email — no phone calls, no messages left with a neighbour. We held the date open for a day while the answers came back, then confirmed it: a Wednesday in June, team at the property for nine in the morning, a house on the racecourse side of town in CB8. A house clearance in Newmarket often begins exactly like that — a key, a set of written answers, and nobody from the family in the country.
It ran to two loads. The first was the ordinary weight of a lived-in house — wardrobes, the contents of every drawer and cupboard, the boxes off the top of the airing cupboard that nobody had opened in years. Then a mattress and an old television, both of which have to be handled apart from the general load. The team walked the whole property before anything went on the van and told the customer what they thought it would take, which matters when the person responsible is half a day ahead of you and asleep. Photographs of the empty rooms went out by email that evening.
That is fairly typical of how Newmarket work reaches us. Half the houses we clear here belong to somebody who lives somewhere else — a son in Norfolk, an executor in London, a landlord between tenants. We are used to working off a key and a set of written instructions, and to sending photographs afterwards so the person responsible can see the state the place was left in. We have been doing this since 2007.
What we ask before we come
The list is short and it saves arguments later. The full address and postcode. The size of the place and what outside areas are included — loft, garage, shed, garden. Whether anything hazardous or verminous is in there. Whether there is a stairlift to dismantle or a piano on the ground floor. What stays and what goes. Carpets? Curtains? White goods, and if there is a fridge or freezer, whether it is under-counter, upright or a chest. Any parking restriction that would stop a Luton or a tipper sitting outside. And a name and address for the invoice, which is often a solicitor or an executor rather than the person we speak to.
Nothing needs boxing or bagging beforehand. The team empties cupboards, wardrobes and drawers themselves, lifts carpets and underlay if you want them gone, and sweeps through at the end.
Around the town and out to the fen edge
Newmarket sits at the far western edge of Suffolk, near enough the Cambridgeshire boundary that its post goes CB rather than IP — CB8 for the town, the villages of Exning, Kentford, Moulton, Cheveley, Ashley, Dalham and Brinkley hanging off it. The station is on the Cambridge to Ipswich line, a stop along from Dullingham one way and Kennett the other, and we have picked keys up from there more than once when somebody has come across for the day.
We work the whole of this corner. Burwell, Soham and Fordham towards the fen; Ely and the villages under it; Mildenhall and Brandon up in IP country, where the district lines get vague and the roads get straight. Cambridge is twenty minutes down the A14 in the other direction. South of us the bigger of our near neighbours is Haverhill, and house clearance in Haverhill is a regular week's work; north past Brandon, house clearance in Thetford and house clearance in Attleborough sit inside the same day's driving. The town itself is a mix that keeps the job interesting — Victorian terraces behind the High Street built for stable staff, big detached places out along the training grounds, the estates at Studlands Park, and bungalows scattered through the villages. Access varies accordingly. A terrace off the High Street means a long carry and a van left where it will not block the road; a village bungalow usually means the tipper can back onto the drive.
Two things affect timing here that do not affect most of where we go: strings crossing the roads in the morning, and race days. Neither is a problem if you know about them — we plan the run so the van is not sitting in either.
Another house clearance, and the one item that travelled on its own
Not every job is a week's story. One house clearance we handled came to a single load: team in, property emptied, everything off the floor and out of the cupboards, done inside the day. The one item that needed anything special was a mattress. Mattresses do not go into the mixed load — they are kept aside, put on the transfer note in their own right and sent on to the operator who takes them, and a crew that has not planned for that ends up arguing about it at the gate. It sounds like a small thing. It is the sort of small thing that decides whether a one-load job finishes at four o'clock or at six.
Reuse first, tipping last
Anything still usable we try to route to a reuse project or a charity shop nearby rather than tip it — furniture with wear left, unopened tins, decent crockery, tools. It is not a favour to us; a van with less on it is quicker to empty.
The rest goes to a permitted transfer station, weighed in and ticketed, and we keep the paperwork for every load. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and we carry insurance for the work and for the property we are working in. Worth saying plainly: a county recycling centre will not take a house clearance from a contractor anyway, because that is trade waste, so anyone offering to run your stuff to the local tip in a transit is either not disposing of it where they say or not disposing of it at all.
There are things we will not put on the van. Solvents, chemicals, gas cylinders and asbestos need their own arrangements and their own carrier. Paint we can take, but it leaves us by a separate route because it cannot go into a mixed load. Fridges and freezers have to have their gas removed under supervision. And upholstered furniture — sofas, armchairs, padded seats, headboards, footstools — is kept apart from the general load and destroyed by a controlled route, because the POPs rules have required exactly that since 2023.
The kinds of house clearance we handle in Newmarket
Probate house clearance in Newmarket
A good deal of what we do in CB8 is probate work of one kind or another, and a probate house clearance runs to a different rhythm from an ordinary one. The house stands empty for months while the grant comes through. The executor is often two counties away, sometimes further. Then the agent wants the place empty for photographs the week after the paperwork lands, and everything happens at once. We are used to working to a solicitor's timetable and to written instructions rather than a conversation at the door. If anything is to be valued, or kept back for the family, say so before the day and mark it plainly — once the team starts, cupboards come out fast. There is more on the probate house clearance page, and the question we are asked most often — who is actually invoiced — is answered below.
End of tenancy clearance in Newmarket
Landlords and managing agents are a fair slice of the Newmarket work. The yards bring people into the town and move them on again, and a lot of the terraces and the flats at Studlands Park are let. An end of tenancy clearance is usually short and sharp: whatever the outgoing tenant left behind, the carpets if they are past it, the white goods if they are not staying, the shed and the bin store. Agents normally want it between the check-out and the next viewing, so we book tight and we confirm in writing which day the keys have to be back.
Garage and loft clearance in Newmarket
Plenty of calls here are not for the house at all. Garage and loft clearance is its own job in this part of Suffolk — the lofts in the older terraces are boarded and full, and the garages out at Exning, Moulton and Cheveley have been holding tins, timber offcuts, garden chairs and bicycle frames since the eighties. Tell us on the phone whether the loft is boarded and whether there is a fitted ladder; if there is not, the team brings one. Worth mentioning a garage door that has not opened in a decade, too, because the first ten minutes can go on the door rather than on what is behind it.
Rubbish removal and single items
Not every call is a whole house. If it is one wardrobe, a bed and a sofa, that is house rubbish removal rather than a clearance — smaller van, shorter visit, same licence and the same transfer notes at the end.
What it costs, and who we invoice
We do not print figures, and we would be wary of anybody who did without seeing the house first. What a clearance takes depends on what comes out of the building and how far it has to be carried, so there are two ways to get a number: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photographs of the fuller rooms through the form on this page. Either way you get a figure for your house before anybody commits to a date, and asking for one does not oblige you to book.
On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the administrator of the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate rather than out of your own pocket. There is no deposit, and the invoice follows the work rather than coming before it. Landlords and managing agents are billed the same way, against the property reference, which saves the person on site having to arrange anything.
The difficult ones, and the odd ones
Houses that have filled up over decades — rooms you can only get a foot into, a kitchen nobody has cooked in for a long time — are a normal booking for us, not a talking point. The team turns up, works through it and passes no remarks. We would rather know in advance so we bring enough hands and enough vans, that is all. There is more about how those days are run on the hoarder house clearance page.
Not everything we clear is a house, either. We emptied a self-storage unit on an industrial park over towards Cambridge for an organisation that had outgrown it — one load, in and out. The only special request was a slightly later start: "Is there any chance it could be 9.30am due to Cambridge traffic?" Reasonable enough. The team met their contact there instead of nine.
Booking a date
Ring 0800 046 5555, or fill in the form on this page with the postcode, the size of the property and a rough idea of what is in it, and we will give you a figure to work from before anybody commits to a date. If you can send photographs of the fuller rooms, better still. Newmarket, Exning, Burwell, Soham, Kentford, Mildenhall, Brandon, Ely, Cambridge — it is all within a normal working day for us, and West Suffolk addresses are somewhere our vans go every week rather than once a season.
Common questions about house clearance in Newmarket
Can you invoice the solicitor on a probate house clearance?
Yes. On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the administrator of the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate rather than from you personally. There is no deposit, and the invoice follows the work.
How much does a house clearance in Newmarket cost?
We will not guess at it in print. Ring 0800 046 5555, or send photographs of the fuller rooms through the form on this page, and you will get a figure for your house rather than an average of somebody else's.
Do we need to be there on the day?
No. A good share of our Newmarket clearances are done on a key — left with an agent, a neighbour or in a keysafe — with instructions by email and photographs of the empty rooms afterwards. Say in advance what is to stay behind, and mark it clearly.
Do the cupboards have to be emptied first?
Nothing needs boxing or bagging. The team empties wardrobes, drawers and cupboards, lifts carpets and underlay if you want them gone, and sweeps through at the end.
Which areas around Newmarket do you cover?
CB8 and the villages on it — Exning, Kentford, Moulton, Cheveley — then out to Burwell, Soham, Fordham, Mildenhall, Brandon and Ely, with Cambridge twenty minutes down the A14. Haverhill, Thetford and Attleborough are covered from here as well.
Are you licensed to take the waste away?
Yes. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, we are insured for the work and for the property we are working in, and every load goes to a permitted transfer station and is ticketed. Ask for the transfer note and you will get it.
