We have been clearing houses since 2007, and in an ordinary week there is a Luton van of ours somewhere in CV21, CV22 or CV23. A terrace near the town centre, a semi out at Bilton, a village place nobody has opened up since the funeral. House clearance in Rugby always takes much the same shape by the end of the day. The houses themselves never do.
The inventory landed in our inbox before we had even given a figure. Six dining chairs and the table they belonged to. A piano stool with no piano anywhere near it. Two settees, a bookcase about three foot tall and three foot wide, a corner display stand on a light metal frame, a second display stand, a coffee table, and a small table the customer had gone to the trouble of measuring at roughly eighteen inches square. A television with its stand and its box. In the hallway another bookcase and a set of drawers listed as "3 or 4 (not sure)", which is about as honest as an inventory gets.
That was a house out at Kilsby, CV23, cleared on the twenty-fifth of July 2022. The man dealing with it lived a long way north, several hours up the motorway, and he had prepared better than most people manage. Photographs of the front and the rear of the property. A line drawing showing how a van could get onto the frontage. And a straight answer to the thing we always ask about, which he put like this: "to my knowledge there are no parking restriction although the house does is on a busy road." He was right on both counts. Kilsby sits where the old Watling Street corridor meets the traffic coming off the M1 at junction 18, and the through road carries more than a village lane ought to. The team worked with the tailgate tucked in and one man watching the kerb.
He was also clear about what stayed, which saves an enormous amount of standing about on the day. "The only items to remain are the fitted kitchen items, cooker, hob, fridge and dishwasher." Everything else went. The main bedroom gave up a double bed, two bedside cabinets, a dresser with a mirror, a tall set of drawers and a large wardrobe. The en-suite had a cupboard, a laundry basket and a small television. The second bedroom had another double bed, a dresser with a mirror, a bedside cabinet, two wardrobes, two drawer units, a laundry box and a chair. The little office at the back had a desk and chair and a two-drawer filing cabinet. He wrote beforehand, "I will be around during the clearance to clarify anything", and he was, which on any house clearance is worth more than a morning of emails.
The ending was arranged halfway through, in one line: "Thanks. Just one slight alteration, I have asked that the key be returned by post to me.." That is a common enough finish for a house clearance in Rugby when the family live at the other end of the country. The house empties, the photographs go over by email, the key goes in the post, and nobody has to drive down the M1 twice.
The town centre jobs
Rugby town itself throws up a different sort of work. One CV21 job was a flat rather than a house: a single load, one mattress, and two small under-counter fridge freezers, done and away the same morning. The paperwork went to an address barely a mile off, still inside CV21. That happens a lot round here. Somebody moves out to Bilton or Hillmorton, the old flat has to be empty by the end of the month, and a relative round the corner takes the arrangements on.
Flat clearance in the older parts of town is usually decided by the stairs and the front door rather than by how much is in the rooms. A three-storey conversion with a half landing and a tight turn at the top will take longer than a bungalow with twice the furniture in it, and it is the sort of thing worth telling us on the phone. Tell us the floor, whether there is a lift, and how close a van can get, and the estimate we give you will hold.
What we cover, and how we get there
Rugby is our anchor for a wide patch of east Warwickshire and the ground either side of it. The postcode districts we work in from here are CV21, CV22 and CV23, across the town and the villages around it. The town centre, New Bilton and Brownsover sit in CV21; Bilton, Hillmorton, Overslade and Cawston in CV22; and CV23 takes in Dunchurch, Newbold-on-Avon, Long Lawford, Brinklow, Wolston, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Clifton upon Dunsmore and Kilsby. Rugby Borough Council covers the bins and the parking side of things in the town; the household waste sites are run by the county.
Some of the neighbouring towns have pages of their own, and it is worth reading the right one before you ring. There is house clearance in Coventry for the city side, and house clearance in Leamington Spa, which is the bigger Warwickshire town over to the south-west. Smaller places near us are covered separately too, house clearance in Kenilworth for CV8 and house clearance in Southam down the A423. If your property sits between two of them, ring and we will tell you which team is nearest that week.
Access is nearly always about parking, and Rugby has two flavours of it. The Victorian and Edwardian terraces near Rugby railway station, which is the West Coast Main Line stop, have no off-street anything, and a Luton van blocks the road while it loads. The interwar semis out towards Bilton and the newer estates on the Dunchurch side usually have a driveway, and the day goes quicker for it. Either way we would rather know in advance than find out at nine in the morning.
What leaves the house, and where to
Anything still usable is offered on before it goes anywhere near a skip lorry. Furniture in decent order, unopened kitchen bits, tools — reuse projects and charity shops in the borough will take a fair amount of it, and we would sooner carry a wardrobe up their steps than send it for disposal. What cannot be reused is weighed in at a permitted transfer station and the paperwork comes back with it, so there is a written trail for every load that leaves a Rugby address. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679 and we will put a transfer note in writing for anyone who wants one — executors and managing agents usually do.
A few things are handled apart from the general load because the law treats them separately. Fridges and freezers count as hazardous waste on account of the gas in the circuit, so they go to a site set up to degas them rather than into the back of the van with everything else. Sofas, armchairs and padded stools are POP items — persistent organic pollutants, meaning the flame retardants worked into the foam — and the regulations now require that foam to be destroyed under its own controlled process instead of being mixed in with household waste. Mattresses go off separately as well. Tins of paint, propane cylinders, solvents and any asbestos sheeting fall outside what our licence permits on a household load, and we will point you at who does take them rather than quietly leaving the lot in the garage.
Garage and loft clearance in Rugby
A garage and loft clearance on its own is a normal booking here. The loft with the ladder missing, the garage on the newer estates that has not had a car in it for years, the shed at the bottom of a village garden. Name all three when you ring — they are what decides whether the day is one load or two.
The one that went wrong
On a village clearance in CV23 back in 2019 the team took the fridge out of the kitchen and left it in the garden, still full of food, and the kitchen was not wiped down as it should have been. By the time the managing company inspected it a few days later the neighbours had every right to be annoyed, and they were. We went back, removed the fridge properly and cleaned the kitchen out. It was our mistake and it should not have needed a complaint to fix it. The lesson stuck: the team leader now photographs the property on completion, room by room, before the van pulls away.
Probate house clearance in Rugby, and the day itself
A good share of the house clearance work around Rugby comes through probate, and the paperwork side of it is well worn by now. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whichever suits, and payment can come out of the estate rather than out of anybody's own pocket. There is no deposit. Nothing is asked for before the day and nothing has to be settled at the door.
A probate house clearance in Rugby is not a different service from any other clearance, only a slower start: the grant takes as long as it takes, the executor is often two counties away, and the house sits waiting. We can hold a date and move it if the paperwork drags. On probate work we can also send photographs of every room once the property is empty, which is what most executors want for their own file, and the waste transfer note goes with them. Properties that have got badly overcrowded over the years are ordinary work for this team, not a spectacle, and they are booked in the same way as anything else.
The team arrives at nine and clears the property that day wherever it can be done. If a house is packed to the ceiling and needs a second day, we say so on the phone rather than discovering it at teatime. There is no need to bag anything up beforehand. Take out what you want to keep, and the team will do the cupboards, the wardrobes, the drawers, the loft, the shed and the garage. Carpets, underlay and gripper rods come up too, though we leave rods that have been pinned over tiles because pulling them wrecks the floor underneath.
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and describe the property, or send photographs of each room through the form on this page, and you will have a figure back for that particular house.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Rugby
How much is a house clearance in Rugby?
It depends entirely on the house, so we will not pretend to answer it here. Ring 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send a few photographs of each room through the form on this page, and you will get a figure for that property.
Can you invoice a solicitor or an executor on a probate clearance?
Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit to find beforehand.
Do you clear the villages as well as Rugby town?
Yes. CV23 is most of the villages — Dunchurch, Long Lawford, Brinklow, Wolston, Clifton upon Dunsmore, Kilsby — and we are out there as often as we are in CV21 and CV22.
What will you not take away?
Paint, solvents, gas cylinders and asbestos sheeting, which sit outside our waste carrier licence on a household load. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture we do take, but they are handled under their own rules rather than going out with the general load.
The executor lives at the other end of the country. Does that matter?
Not at all, it is half our probate work. We can take the keys from an agent or a neighbour, send photographs of every room at the end, and post the keys back afterwards if that is what suits.
How much notice do you need?
Usually one or two working days, though a Rugby house clearance booked for a particular date in the diary is easier for everyone if you ring a week or so ahead.
Rugby, Dunchurch, Kilsby, Wolston, Kenilworth, Hinckley or Lutterworth: tell us the postcode district and the state of the property, and you will have a figure before anyone sets foot in the place.
