Our booking form asks about hazardous or verminous contents — it is the most-asked question on our own paperwork, put to well over a hundred customers. Here is what sits behind it, and what you should tell us before the day.
Things that cannot travel with household waste
Paint, thinners, solvents. A tin of paint in a mixed load contaminates the load. Part-used tins are the usual find, in a shed or under a stair, and they go a separate route.
Anything pressurised. Gas bottles from a caravan or a barbecue, patio heater cylinders, fire extinguishers, aerosols in quantity. These do not go on the van at all.
Car batteries and vehicle fluids. Separate route, separate handling.
Asbestos. Old garage roofs, some 1960s and 70s outbuildings, occasionally artex and floor tiles. We do not remove asbestos. If we suspect it, we stop and tell you, and you need a licensed contractor. That is not us being cautious; it is the law and the reason the law exists.
Clinical and sharps waste. Occasionally found in a probate property where somebody was being cared for at home. Tell us and it is handled properly rather than being tipped in with bedding.
Things that go with us but separately
Fridges and freezers — the refrigerant is drawn off under permit before the shell is broken up.
Mattresses — counted individually, because the sites charge per item.
Upholstered seating — sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs, footstools, under the POPs rules since 2023.
Televisions, monitors and electricals — electrical waste has its own route.
Verminous contents
Droppings, nests, active infestation. It changes nothing about whether we do the job. It changes the kit the crew bring and sometimes the number of people. Where we find evidence after starting, you are told the same day with photographs, and pest control is a separate trade that the person instructing us needs to book.
Why we ask rather than find out
Because a load that cannot be tipped goes back on the van and comes back another day, and somebody pays for that journey. Two minutes on the phone beforehand is cheaper than a returned load.