The gas fire was the thing that came back to us. A two-bedroom house out at Luxulyan, a few miles south of Bodmin in the PL30 district, cleared and cleaned in a single day at the end of May 2024 — and the next morning the law firm handling the estate wrote to us: "Good morning I have just been informed that a gas fire had been left out the front of property and also did the cleaning get done pictures I have been sent look like it hasn’t thank you". Fair enough. That is usually how a house clearance in Bodmin actually ends: not with a flourish, but with two or three small things to settle before the keys go back to the solicitor.
Our team leader had walked the house first and put it at two to three loads and one day on site. That is where it landed. Out went a washing machine and a tumble dryer, an upright fridge freezer and a smaller freezer, two mattresses, a television and a monitor, seven upholstered pieces that had to go down the POP route. The everyday contents of a house somebody had lived in for a long stretch. The cupboards, the drawers, the wardrobes, all of it. The instructions we were given were specific, and we work to them literally rather than using our judgement. The cooker and the wood burner were to stay.
Every outside building was to be left alone, so we did not touch them. On flooring the answer came back plainly: "no carpets to be cleared just a rug in the front room". The television bracketed to the wall stayed put, because that had been agreed in writing beforehand and we do not improvise on that sort of instruction. Two framed pictures were to be left in the property, and they were left. Somebody had also left a box of keys behind, so we reported it rather than tipping it into a load.
And in one room there were stains on the laminate that the cleaning pair could not lift, so we said so straight away instead of letting the client find out from a photograph.
The clean is worth a word, because it is where most misunderstandings on Cornish probate jobs start. The cleaning was added to that booking at the customer's request, on the day. Our standard clean is the house — floors, surfaces, sanitary ware, windows inside. It does not include the inside of white goods, the inside of ovens, or the insides of drawers and cupboards. If you want those done, say so when you book and we will put them on the list. Nobody enjoys that conversation after the event.
A probate house clearance in Bodmin town, PL31
The other one we can talk about is older and plainer: a house in the town itself, PL31, cleared in December 2019 for a solicitors' office that was administering the estate. It ran to several loads, and three mattresses and an under-counter fridge freezer came out with the rest. We do not have the correspondence from that job the way we have it for Luxulyan, so that is all we will claim about it. The invoice went straight to the solicitors, which is how most of that work goes here.
We take pictures of every room when we finish and email them the same day or the next. On the Luxulyan clearance nobody on the client side ever set foot in the property. Everything was done by email with a firm up-country, and one local contact met the team at the door at half past nine — so the photographs are the proof, and they go out whether the job went smoothly or not.
Getting the van near the house
Bodmin sits where the A30 and the A38 more or less meet, which makes the town itself easy for us and the outlying bits considerably less so. The town centre streets — around Fore Street, Mount Folly, the terraces climbing up towards the Beacon — are narrow, on a slope, and often only have kerbside parking. We would rather know in advance if the van will have to sit thirty yards off and the lads will be walking the sofa out. It does not usually change anything; it changes how we plan the day.
Then there are the lanes. Luxulyan, Lanivet, Nanstallon, Cardinham, Washaway, St Tudy, St Mabyn, Blisland and St Breward, and the farms out on the edge of Bodmin Moor — high hedges, single track, passing places and a granite corner that has taken paint off better vans than ours. Tell us if the last half mile is unmetalled, if there is a cattle grid, or if the turning circle at the top is really a gateway. We will still come; we will just bring the right vehicle. On the Luxulyan job we asked the question and got the short answer every crew wants — "There are no problems with parking at the property" — and it made the day straightforward. Yards, sheds, garages and lofts are all fair game as long as they are on the list when we look at the job.
Trains, if you are travelling down to meet us: Bodmin Parkway on the main line between Plymouth and Truro, about three and a half miles out of town near Lanhydrock, is the practical one. Plenty of executors have got the sleeper or the morning train from Paddington and met our team at nine. Bodmin General, up in the town, is the heritage line to Boscarne Junction, which is lovely but will not get you here from London.
What leaves, and where it goes
Anything still usable, we would sooner see it back in a house than in a skip, so serviceable furniture, crockery, books and clothing are offered to charity outlets and reuse projects around the district before anything else happens to them. Metal, wood, cardboard, electricals and green waste are split off and taken to the proper facilities. What is genuinely finished goes to a permitted transfer station and comes back to us as a weighbridge ticket, which is why we can tell you exactly what a load weighed and where it went. We hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 and we carry public liability cover; ask and we will send both across before the booking, not after.
Two things we cannot simply throw on the van. Sofas, armchairs, padded stools and the like fall under the persistent organic pollutant rules, so the padding has to travel and be destroyed in its own controlled stream. That is why the seven upholstered pieces at Luxulyan were counted separately from everything else on the van. And anything hazardous — paint tins, thinners, propane and butane cylinders, old chemicals in the shed, asbestos sheeting on a garage roof — needs its own arrangement, because a mixed household load is not licensed to carry it. Cornwall Council's household waste sites will take small quantities of some of it from a resident. For the rest, tell us what is there and we will sort out a proper route.
What we get asked for most, and the houses nobody wants to talk about
Probate house clearance in Bodmin
Most of our work here comes through executors and solicitors rather than through the people who lived in the house. That means instructions arrive in writing, often from someone who has never seen the place, and it means the paperwork matters as much as the lifting. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate — there is no deposit and nothing is asked for before the work. If there is cash, jewellery or paperwork in among the contents, our lads set it aside and hand it over; documents, photographs and the deeds box turn up more often than you would think. If you want the wider picture of how we handle probate house clearance work, that page goes through it properly.
Garage and loft clearance in Bodmin
Half the volume in a Cornish property is nowhere near the living rooms. Garage and loft clearance in Bodmin is a job in its own right. The loft hatch that has not been opened since the roof was done, the garage with a workbench, a mower, twenty years of tins and a car that has not moved. Tell us at the outset whether the outbuildings are in or out. At Luxulyan they were expressly out, and that instruction was worth having in writing. If the team opens a loft hatch and finds another two loads up there, you are told that morning, with the options, and the decision is yours.
Hoarder house clearance and the houses nobody wants to talk about
Some of the houses we clear in this part of Cornwall are packed to the ceiling — one route through, curtains shut for years, the back bedroom unopened since somebody stopped coping. That is a normal booking for us, not a story we tell afterwards. Same on the granite farmhouses where three generations of possessions have simply accumulated. If that is the situation, say so on the phone; it changes the crew and the day, not our willingness. There is a full hoarder house clearance page if you would rather read before you ring.
Flat clearance, and a single load rather than a full house clearance
A flat clearance is its own sort of day — one staircase, no lift in most of the blocks here, and a van that has to sit where it does not block the neighbours. Not every job is a whole property. A garage emptied, a bedroom after a move, a garden's worth of broken furniture — house rubbish removal on its own is fine, and so is an end of tenancy clean-out where the tenant has left half the flat behind.
How you get a figure
Photographs of every room through the form on this page, or a phone call where you describe the place honestly, and we will give you a figure before anyone sets off. That is the whole answer on cost. We will not guess at it in writing on a web page, because two houses of the same size in the same street rarely come out the same.
Where we work from here
From a Bodmin base — house clearance in Wadebridge and out to Padstow, Lostwithiel, Fowey and Par, house clearance in Liskeard and Looe, Saltash and Torpoint, Callington, Calstock and Gunnislake, house clearance in Launceston, Camelford, Delabole, Tintagel and Boscastle. Up to Bude on the EX side. Westwards into the TR area we work St Columb, Newquay and house clearance in Truro. Cornwall is one unitary council, so the tipping rules are the same wherever in the county the house is.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Bodmin
Do you cover the villages as well as the town? Yes. PL31 is the town, PL30 is everything around it — Luxulyan, Lanivet, Nanstallon, Cardinham, Blisland, St Breward and the rest of the moor edge. Both are our own patch and we are out there most weeks.
Can you invoice the solicitor for a probate house clearance? Yes, and we do it constantly. The invoice goes to the solicitor, the executor or the estate, payment can be made out of the estate, and there is no deposit — nothing is asked for up front.
How do I find out what it will cost? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of each room through the form on this page. You get a figure back before anything is booked. We do not put numbers on the page because they would be wrong for your house.
Will you do the garage and loft as well? Yes, if they are named at the outset. Garage and loft clearance is where the surprises live, so it is better in the notes than discovered at nine in the morning.
What will you not take? Gas cylinders, asbestos, paint and solvents, and anything else classed as hazardous cannot travel on a mixed household load. Upholstered furniture can go but is handled under the POP rules in its own stream. Tell us what is there and we will arrange the right route.
Do we have to be there on the day? No. Plenty of our Bodmin work is done with a key from a neighbour or an agent and the executor two hundred miles away. You get room-by-room photographs when we finish.
Ring us on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode, the number of bedrooms, and whether there is a loft, a garage or a garden full of it. We have been doing this since 2007, and we will give you a date and a figure in the same conversation.
