The photographs came through in six batches, because the sender's work email wouldn't carry them in one go. Kitchen first. Then the understairs cupboard, then the back room shot from both ends, then bedrooms one through four. A note came with them telling us to ignore the red toaster and the teabags on the worktop. Those had been brought up for the week and were going home again. That was a four-bedroom house at Brandon, DH7, a short run down the road from Stanley. The person organising it was living in Cambridgeshire and had already driven the length of the country twice to sort it out.
Two loads went that day. Mattresses, a television, black bags of clothing and textiles sorted in the third bedroom. A tin of paint from the cupboard that had to be handled separately. Then we cleaned through — four bedrooms rather than the usual three — and sent photos. Nobody had to drive up the A1 again to check. That is the shape of most of our work around Stanley: family two hundred miles off, a house standing empty for months, everything settled by email.
What a day in Stanley actually looks like
Stanley sits high. Anybody who has walked up from the bus station in a February wind knows it, and so do our lads. The wind gets into the back of the van every time you open it. The town has no railway station of its own. Hasn't had since the fifties — so we come in by road off the A693, either from Chester-le-Street and the A1(M) or over the tops from Consett. If somebody is meeting us and travelling by train, Chester-le-Street and Durham are the two stations on the East Coast Main Line that people use. Durham is the easier one for a taxi up.
Parking usually decides how long a Stanley house clearance takes. The terraced rows in South Moor, Craghead and Annfield Plain went up long before anybody owned a car, never mind a Luton van. The back lanes vary from perfectly usable to blocked by a wheelie bin nobody claims. On the newer estates towards Tanfield and Harelaw we pull onto the drive and work off the tailgate. Tell us which you've got when you ring and the estimate lands closer to the truth.
Garage and loft clearance in Stanley is the part people leave off the description. It is the part that decides whether a job is one van or two. Ladders, a decade of Christmas boxes, a mower nobody has started since the shed roof went. Say it on the phone rather than on the morning, and the figure you're given at the start is the figure that stands.
House clearance in Stanley when an agent books it and somebody still lives there
Not every house clearance is a family one. A good few are booked by somebody sitting in a lettings office who has never been inside the property at all and is working from a works order. A maintenance co-ordinator with a screenful of jobs open and ours somewhere down the list.
One of those took seven emails in September 2022 before a van moved. None of them were about the house. The co-ordinator had a billing address on the works order and wanted the invoice by email; we asked back whether a paper copy needed to go to the address stated on the order as well. Some offices still want one for the file. It didn't. What ate the week was the day itself, because there was somebody living in the property who had to agree to let us in. The office couldn't promise that from where it sat. The co-ordinator wrote:
"It would be easier for yourself to contact the tenant to ask just in case they say no and you can discuss alternative dates/times, if you have any issues contacting them, please do let me know."
Read that again, because it is managed-property work entire. The person who books the job cannot open the door. The person who can open it has been told about the job by a third party and may well have plans of their own that Tuesday. Chased through an office, that goes round twice and nothing gets booked.
So we ask for a number for whoever is in the property and ring them ourselves. Two or three dates offered, morning or afternoon, then a note back to the office confirming which one held. It sounds like extra work and it is, by about ten minutes, and it saves a wasted van. Same with what turns up on the day: if the team gets in and finds a loft that hadn't been mentioned, or a garage nobody could get the door of, they stop, ring you and tell you what they've found before carrying on. You decide, not them.
Around Stanley that shape of booking comes up most in the rented terraces. DH9 has a lot of them, and an end of tenancy clearance in Stanley is nearly always ordered by an agent or a landlord who lives somewhere else entirely. It is the same conversation each time: who has the key, who is still in. Which day suits the person actually in the house.
Bungalows, POP items and the questions worth asking
A lot of what we clear around Stanley and Chester-le-Street is single-storey: bungalows on the sheltered estates, ground-floor flats, the sort of home somebody moved into for the level floors. One of these, over in DH7, was booked by a relative who sent a long, careful list of questions before agreeing to anything. Whether the cooker could come out given the state of its supply, whether a washing machine could go at all, whether the three-piece suite and the ottoman counted as upholstered, whether she had to stand in the house all day or could walk round the estate and come back.
All fair questions, and worth answering here. Upholstered furniture — settees, armchairs, padded footstools, that ottoman — must be kept apart from general waste and sent down a separate treatment route because of the fire-retardant chemicals in the padding; that's law, not something we made up. It's why a settee has to be booked in as an item in its own right. Cookers and washing machines come out fine, gas ones disconnected first. And no, you don't have to be there all day. Plenty of people let the team in, point out the wardrobe that's staying. Come back at four to lock up.
Out of a bungalow like that you get the objects of a long life rather than a full house of furniture: a nursing chair by the fire, a blanket box at the foot of the bed, a two-door utility wardrobe from the war years that four men still can't get down a hallway, an electric blanket never taken out of its box. Things worth using again we set aside and try to route to a charity shop or a reuse scheme in the area rather than a skip. The hospice and charity shops around Chester-le-Street and Consett will take furniture in decent condition, and there are reuse projects in the county that will collect it. A pram kept for grandchildren who grew up, a doll's house, a bird table off the back lawn: those go the same way if they're sound.
Probate, auctions and clearances run from an office
Probate work is the larger half of what we do in this part of County Durham. We're often instructed by somebody who has never been inside the property. A probate house clearance in Stanley usually starts the way the Brandon one did. Photographs by email, a room-by-room list, questions answered in writing before anybody commits to a date. A solicitor's office in Durham once sent us a link to an auction listing so we could quote from the photographs. A two-bed bungalow with a garage, out at Sacriston, DH7, carpets left down because the buyer wanted them. Perfectly normal way to work.
On probate jobs we can invoice the solicitor handling the estate, an attorney or the executors directly, so nothing has to leave anybody's own pocket before matters are settled. Payment can come from the estate. Nothing is asked for up front. A full walk-round set of photographs goes over at the end as the record that the house was emptied properly. Is what an executor at a distance actually needs for the file.
Timing is the other thing people ask about. You don't have to wait for probate to be granted to get an estimate. Plenty of families get the figure early so they know where they stand; the work itself normally waits until the paperwork is through and the house is being sold or handed back. If it is a probate clearance, say so when you ring. It changes who we send the invoice to and what we photograph, and it saves a second phone call.
Non-domestic work comes our way too. Last April we emptied a community building in DH5, over towards Houghton-le-Spring, meeting the caretaker at half past nine at the second entrance because the first one was for something else entirely. One load, everything documented. Whoever wrote afterwards put it as: "We are very happy with the service and your support through the process. Your staff were both professional and helpful."
Where the load goes
Everything that leaves the house is either passed on for reuse or weighed in at a permitted site. The paperwork coming back to us. Our waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679, and we'll email you the transfer note for your own file. Landlords and executors usually want it. Durham County Council's household waste centres are there for a car boot of garden rubbish; a house full of furniture needs a registered carrier, which is the bit fly-tippers skip.
A few things can't simply go in with the rest. Fridges and freezers hold gases and count as hazardous. They go for proper de-gassing rather than onto the van with everything else. Paint, thinners, gas canisters and fire extinguishers need declaring in advance rather than turning up in the shed at half four. Say so on the phone and we'll bring what's needed for them.
Around Stanley and the wider county
We're across County Durham most weeks, so a job in Stanley usually slots in beside others nearby. DH9 is home ground — Stanley, Annfield Plain, Dipton, Tantobie, the villages behind Beamish. From there we work out to house clearance in Consett and Leadgate in DH8, down through house clearance in Chester-le-Street in DH2 and DH3, and over the Derwent into Gateshead — Burnopfield and Rowlands Gill, NE16 and NE39.
Then house clearance in Durham and the pit villages in DH1, DH6 and DH7, then Spennymoor in DL16, Ferryhill in DL17 and Bishop Auckland in DL14, Shildon in DL4, Newton Aycliffe in DL5, Crook in DL15, and Barnard Castle and Teesdale in DL12, and Weardale in DL13. East coast side, we cover Seaham and Peterlee in SR7 and SR8. The Trimdon and Wingate villages on TS28 and TS29 down as far as TS21 and TS27.
Hoarded properties, houses left empty until they went damp, kitchens where the fridge stopped years ago. The crew turn up expecting them, masked and suited where it's needed, and nobody gets a lecture on the doorstep. A hoarder house clearance in Stanley is booked exactly like any other one, only with more days set aside for it. We've been doing this since 2007, which is long enough that very little in a County Durham house surprises anybody on the van.
For a price on a house clearance in Stanley, ring 0800 046 5555 and describe the place honestly: bedrooms, whether the loft is full, garage or shed. Whether a van can reach the door. You'll get a figure on the phone from that, in writing if you'd rather. The estimate is free and doesn't commit you to anything. There's a form on this page if photographs are easier than talking. Six batches if your email won't carry them in one, we've had worse. No deposit; you settle up once the house is empty and you've seen it. Insured throughout, and every load accounted for.
