Most of our house clearance work in Dudley starts the same way — a phone call from somebody who has been handed a set of keys and a problem. A house in the DY2 terraces below the town centre is the job most of the team still bring up, and by the time Dudley Council's adult social care people brought us in, it had gone well past an ordinary clearance. The downstairs rooms were packed to head height. Two of the upstairs bedrooms couldn't even be opened. This was a verminous, contaminated property — the kind that comes with pest treatment, not just a van and a couple of lads — and it belonged to an elderly resident who had lived there a long time on her own.
We started at the front. Kitchen, living room, hallway, and the small room off the kitchen came first, because until those were emptied you couldn't get a clear run at the stairs. Five loads came out over the first three days. The support worker on the case was in and out around funerals that week, and after one visit she emailed us. "I have been at a funeral so was not anticipating them finishing so early." When the team wrapped up a session and she wasn't there, they left the keys under the middle plant pot in the front garden, exactly where she'd asked. Sent photos through so she could see the state of things upstairs without having to walk into a house she already knew was contaminated.
It ran on for weeks. Netherton isn't a quick in-and-out patch for a property like that — you clear a layer, treat it, come back, clear the next. Along the way the lads smelt gas in the building, stopped, and flagged it so a gas engineer could be called out before anyone carried on.
The family had a short list of things they wanted saved if they could be saved: a rocking chair, a sewing box, and the framed pictures off the walls. Some of that survives a contaminated clearance and some of it doesn't, and we were straight with them about which was which rather than promising the lot. By the end the council's community support officer emailed to close it off. "can you send me a copy of all the invoices please to put on her notes" — because every load and every treatment had to go on the council's case file. That's how a lot of Dudley work reaches us: through the borough council, a solicitor, or a family member who can't face the house themselves.
That house was DY2, but Dudley's a scattered borough — Black Country, west side of the West Midlands and our patch here runs across the lot of it. We clear across DY2 and DY3 through Netherton, Kates Hill and up to Sedgley and Gornal, out to DY6 in Kingswinford, down into DY8 and DY9 around Stourbridge and Lye Brierley Hill sits right in the middle of that, in DY5. There's no mainline station in Dudley town itself. Dudley Port over in Tipton is the nearest for most people, with Stourbridge Junction covering the south of the borough. That has never mattered to us. We come in by road with the van and everything the day needs is already in it.
The same van goes over the borough line as often as not. If the property you're ringing about sits east of us there's house clearance in Birmingham on its own page, and down the DY8 end we cover house clearance in Stourbridge and house clearance in Halesowen the same way. One booking, one team, whichever side of the boundary the keys are on.
Access on Dudley streets
A word on access, because Dudley streets vary a lot. Some of the DY2 terraces are tight, with parking on one side and a school run that shuts the road at either end of the day; the older Sedgley and Gornal properties can sit up a bank with steps to the door. We'd rather know before the morning than find out on it. If there's a permit needed, a drive we can back onto, or a narrow entry the tipper won't fit down, tell us when you book and we'll plan the load around it. On that one it was a front-garden job with the keys left out; other days it's a fourth-floor flat with one lift and a warden watching the bays.
A flat clearance run for an executor at a distance
Here's a different sort of job, because not every house clearance is a three-month contaminated one. This was a flat clearance, booked in for a Wednesday morning in July 2023. The whole thing was arranged by the person winding up the estate, who lived a very long way from the property and dealt with every part of it by email.
Before a booking like that we send a short set of questions, and they matter more than people expect. The full postal address of the property. Whether anyone attending was isolating or showing symptoms — that was 2023, and it was still on the form. The date wanted, and the size of the property plus anything outside it — outbuilding, store, garage. Answer those honestly and the team turns up with the right number of hands. Fudge them and you get a second day you weren't planning on.
The answers came back the same day, tidy and numbered, with one line that told us exactly how the morning would run. "I will be at the flat on the day of the clearance - please let me know if you have any more questions". Confirmed for nine o'clock, team meeting him at the property, estimate confirmed on the morning before anyone lifted anything.
Where it got interesting was afterwards. Months later the email came back round. "just tidying up a few loose ends - I can't seem to find a copy of the invoice I paid - I need to send a copy to the probate solicitor - would you please email me a copy". That is the probate side in one sentence. The clearance takes a day; the estate takes a year, and the paperwork has to be produced again long after the van has gone. We keep our copies and we send them out again without a fuss, however late the ask comes in — and in that case he turned the original up himself a few minutes later anyway. Either way, nobody should be hunting through their own inbox to satisfy a solicitor.
House clearance Dudley: the other jobs we get called for
Not everything is an estate. Three other kinds of work come through the phone here week in, week out.
End of tenancy clearance in Dudley
Landlords and letting agents ring us for an end of tenancy clearance when somebody has gone and left the place half full — mattresses, a sofa nobody could shift down the stairs, a fridge, the contents of a kitchen. Usually the deadline is the check-out inspection or the next tenant's move-in date, so it's a fixed day and a swept-through property at the end of it, not an open-ended job.
Flat clearance above the shops and in the blocks
A flat clearance is its own animal. Lifts that are out, a bin store the caretaker wants everything kept away from, loading bays with a twenty-minute limit, stairwells too narrow to turn a wardrobe on. We plan those around where the van can legally sit, and we carry rather than drag, because the communal carpet is somebody else's to answer for.
Garage and loft clearance in the borough
Plenty of calls here aren't the house at all, it's the garage and loft. Sixty years of tins, a workbench, bicycle frames, boxes of paperwork gone damp, a loft with boards halfway across and nothing but joists past that. We'll go up, and we'll say straight away if the boarding won't take a man and a load — that's a ladder-and-two-people job, not a hero job.
What a day costs
There's no set answer to this over the phone before we know what's in there, and we don't invent one on the doorstep to get ourselves in. Send a few photos through the form on this page, or ring 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, and you get a straight answer and a date. A room that looks full can hide half a load or two full ones, so we talk in loads and days. The way we did on that job in Netherton, where the first estimate for the remaining upstairs was three to four days and five to six loads. We said plainly it could move once the team started shifting things and could see what was underneath. For probate and estate clearances we invoice the solicitor or the executor directly, and it can be settled from the estate once everything's done. No deposit taken to start, and the quote doesn't tie you to anything.
The hoarded and contaminated houses don't put us off — if you're wondering whether we'll take one on, we will. It was as bad as they come, three months of loads and treatments, and nobody on the team blinked at it. We've been into worse and never repeated a word of it outside the van. What matters is doing it in the right order: clear, treat, ventilate, clear again, and keep the family and the social worker in the picture the whole way. If there are things worth keeping, we set them aside first — the rocking chair before the rubbish, not after.
What can't ride in a general load
Not everything can ride in a general load, mind. Tins of paint, gas canisters, solvents and the other flammable odds and ends have to go through their own routes, so flag them and we'll sort the right disposal rather than sling them on the tipper. Fridges and freezers are handled separately too, by law. By law those items have to be kept separate from the general waste and sent for incineration, so they're logged and priced on their own, not buried in the general waste.
What comes out of a Dudley house doesn't just go to a hole in the ground either. A sound dining table, a washing machine that still runs, tools, crockery, a wardrobe with nothing wrong with it — those get kept back on the van and offered on to reuse projects and charity shops around the borough before anything else happens to them. Some weeks that's half a load saved. The rest goes through a licensed transfer station where every load is weighed and documented, which is what you want on a council or probate job where the paperwork has to stand up. We carry waste under Environment Agency registration CBDU419679, and we're fully insured, so the transfer notes and the cover are there if anyone asks for them.
People weigh us up against a skip, and for a small tidy-up a skip can be fine. But a skip needs a permit on most of these DY2 and DY3 streets, it sits outside for days, and you're the one filling it, carrying every box down the stairs and out the door yourself. On a house like that one that isn't an option — nobody's hand-balling contaminated waste into a skip on a residential road. We turn up, do the lifting, load the van and take it away in a day's work per visit, and the street's clear again by the time we leave.
Estate and probate work in the borough
A lot of what we clear in the borough is estate and probate work. A parent's house in Sedgley that's stood full since the funeral, a bungalow in Kingswinford under offer with a completion date bearing down, a Halesowen semi where the family live too far off to deal with it. We work to your date, keep the paperwork clean for the solicitor or the executor, and hand back an empty property swept through. If there's a garden gone wild, a garage you can't get the door open on, or a loft nobody's been into for years, that's normal and we've got the kit for it. We've been doing this since 2007, and the probate jobs are the ones where being reachable a year later counts for as much as the day itself.
Dudley's own household recycling centres and the council's bulky-waste collections are there for a few items and the odd run to the tip, and if that's all you've got, use them. But when it's a full house, a hoarded one, or a contaminated clearance that needs pest work and documented disposal. The sort Adult Social Care or a family calls a firm in for — that's the work we do properly, week in and week out, across DY1, DY2, DY3, DY6, DY9, B62 and B63.
Got a clearance coming up in Dudley, Netherton, Sedgley, Kingswinford, Stourbridge or over towards Halesowen? Send a few photos through the form on this page, or ring 0800 046 5555 and we'll give you a straight answer and a date. That one took us three months and never once fazed the team — most house clearance jobs here are a single day, and either way you'll get the same honest answer before we start.
Common questions about house clearance in Dudley
Who is invoiced on a probate house clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Payment can come out of the estate once probate allows it, and there is no deposit.
Can you clear the house if nobody can be there? Yes. Keys come from an agent, a neighbour or a relative, and photographs of every empty room go back the same day.
Do we need to sort or bag anything first? No. The team empties wardrobes, drawers and cupboards themselves. Tell us what must stay and it is set aside.
Are the garage and loft part of a house clearance in Dudley? They are if you say so when you book. Both are worth mentioning on the phone — a full garage can hold more than a bedroom.
What can't go on the van? Paint, thinners, garden chemicals, gas bottles and anything that looks like asbestos. Fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture travel, but each on its own controlled route.
How long does a house clearance in Dudley take? Most three-bedroom houses are done in a day. A very full property, or one with the loft, garage and garden as well, can run into a second.
