The paint was what turned that one into a three-day job. A three-bed house, August 2023, and after the team leader walked the whole property on the Monday morning, he rang the office with a straight answer: three days, six loads. Tins of paint under the stairs, more in the cupboard by the back door, a row of them along the shed wall. Some had gone solid years ago. The customer wanted the lot gone, so they had to be counted and run out on their own, because paint doesn't ride in with the sofas and the wardrobes.
There were POP items in there too — the sofa and the padded chairs — plus a mattress and an old television. The customer had arranged the parking suspension in advance, which is the single thing that most changes how a day goes in a street of terraces with permit bays. That week the tube strikes were on, so the crew came in by road and started at nine each morning regardless. On the third day the customer's solicitor sent word to stop, and the crew stopped mid-job and left the remainder where it stood. Afterwards the customer wrote: "The lads were great and really supportive"
That job is worth setting out in full because it covers most of what a house clearance Coulsdon job actually involves. A family house that's been lived in for decades, a garage and loft nobody's opened in years — a garage and loft clearance is a booking we take on its own as readily as with the house — a handful of items the tip won't take mixed in with ordinary furniture. Somebody trying to organise it all from another part of the country. We've been doing this work since 2007 and the shape of it hasn't changed much.
Where we do house clearance in Coulsdon and the ground around it
Coulsdon sits at the southern edge of the London Borough of Croydon, in the CR postcodes, where Greater London stops being streets and starts being chalk downland. Two stations, which surprises people who don't know it: Coulsdon South on the Brighton Main Line and Coulsdon Town a few minutes' walk off Brighton Road. Farthing Downs is at the top of the hill, the Cane Hill site is being built out below it, and the A23 runs the length of the place.
Our patch here covers the whole borough and the postcodes it shares a border with. Going north from Coulsdon that's Purley, Kenley, Sanderstead and Croham, then Waddon, Broad Green and Fairfield around central Croydon, then South Croydon, Addiscombe, Ashburton, Woodside, Selhurst and Thornton Heath. The same round carries on north and east into SE19 and SE20 at Crystal Palace and Penge, SE25 at South Norwood, SW16 through Norbury, CR4 at Mitcham and BR3 over at Beckenham. One van run covers all of it, which is why a house clearance in Coulsdon and a job two miles up the hill can usually be fitted into the same week.
Housing in Coulsdon is mostly interwar and post-war: semis with side access, thirties detached on the hill roads, a good number of purpose-built flats near both stations, and bungalows in Old Coulsdon. Side access matters more than people expect. Where there's a path down the side of the house we can carry the garage and loft contents out without walking every item through the hall, and the day runs shorter. Where there isn't, everything goes through the front door, and that's genuinely slower.
Parking, house clearance vans and the hill
Coulsdon's problem isn't usually permits — it's gradients and driveways. Half the roads off Marlpit Lane and Chipstead Valley Road climb hard, and a fully laden tipper on a steep, narrow road with cars both sides needs somewhere sensible to stand. If you can keep a driveway clear on the day, do. If the nearest legal standing is forty or fifty yards off, say so when you ring. It doesn't stop the job, it just means we send more hands, because every wardrobe is then a carry rather than a lift.
If the property is a flat near Coulsdon Town, tell us which floor it is and whether there's a lift, and tell us honestly. That one detail changes the size of the crew we send more than the number of rooms does. Third floor with no lift and a turn in the stairs is a different day from third floor with a lift big enough to take a mattress standing up. Same with lofts: a proper boarded loft with a fixed ladder empties quickly, a hatch with a folding ladder and no boards does not.
Small loads as well as a whole house clearance
Not everything is a full house. A flat clearance can be a single load done in a morning. Plenty of what we do is one room, a garage, a shed, or a garden's worth of things that simply won't go in a car. If that's what you've got, say so — we'd rather send the right van once than have you book a full house clearance you don't need.
One collection we handled was booked purely off a written list: an office-type clearing-out, agreed item by item, with a date set for the Thursday and a time frame confirmed the day before. Then, after the list had been settled, the customer emailed to say: "Please note that we also have 2 x 40 inch TV's to add to the list." That kind of late addition is welcome rather than a nuisance — but it does need saying before the van leaves, because televisions and monitors can't go out with ordinary furniture. They have to be logged and taken down their own disposal route, and a crew that arrives without knowing about two of them has to make a second arrangement. Tell us on the phone, or send a photograph of the pile. Nothing on a list surprises us; things that aren't on the list sometimes do.
The walk round, and the order of a house clearance day
Crews start at nine. The first thing that happens on any Coulsdon clearance is that the team leader walks the whole property. Every room, the loft hatch, the garage, the shed, behind the shed — before a single item is loaded. That walk round is where the plan is made: how many loads it will take, which items have to be handled separately, and whether it's honestly a one-day job or not. If it's more than a day, you're told that on the day rather than after it, and nothing carries on without your instruction.
Items with their own handling route are the ones the law treats differently: fridges and freezers, mattresses, televisions and monitors, gas bottles, paint and similar chemicals, and upholstered furniture. Sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs and cushions fall under the POP rules, and their filling has to go down a controlled disposal route on its own. It can't be tipped in with ordinary household waste, and no yard will accept it if it is. Mattresses go a separate way again. None of this is a problem; it just has to be known in advance so the right vehicle and the right paperwork turn up.
The tip run, and what avoids it
Furniture, tools, crockery and clothing that somebody else could still use go to a reuse outlet or a charity depot wherever there's one taking that kind of stock that week. What's left is taken to a licensed transfer station and weighed in under our own account, and the paperwork comes back to us afterwards. Customers do ask for it — on the three-day job above we were asked for copies of the waste transfer notes. They went over as soon as the site issued them, which can take a week or so. We hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 and we're fully insured. Croydon's own household centre at Purley Oaks is fine for a car boot of garden waste; a six-load house clearance is not what it's there for.
Probate house clearance in Coulsdon, and who pays
A lot of Coulsdon work comes through executors, and often the executor lives nowhere near CR5 — sometimes nowhere near London at all. Probate clearances are the largest single part of what we do here, and they're organised to be run at a distance. We can collect a key from an agent, a neighbour or a key safe, work the property with nobody present. Email photographs of every room before and after, so an executor two hundred miles away can see the state the house was left in.
On payment, probate work is straightforward: where a solicitor is administering the estate we invoice the firm directly, and where there isn't one we invoice the executor or the estate. The bill can be settled out of the estate rather than out of anyone's own pocket, which is what most executors want and what the probate timetable usually needs. No deposit is taken and nothing is asked for up front — the invoice comes after the work, by email. Nothing is decided by a salesman standing on your doorstep, either.
If there are papers, photographs or small items of sentimental value that need to be kept back, list them for us in writing and the team will set them aside rather than guess. Instructions like "the contents of the desk stay" or "don't touch the shed" are followed to the letter, and it saves everyone the conversation afterwards.
Houses that have filled up over thirty or forty years are ordinary work for us, not a special case. Full lofts — boxes of Christmas decorations, an artificial tree in its own box, a card table with green baize nobody has unfolded in years. Garages you can't open the door of, a shed with a leaf blower, a garden shredder and eleven flowerpots in front of it. We work out how many loads it takes and get on with it.
Questions we get asked
How do I find out what it will come to? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and describe the property, or send photographs of the rooms, the loft and the garage. You'll get a figure from that. Nobody needs to drive out to CR5 first, and nothing is quoted from a doorstep.
Do I have to be there? No. Key from an agent, a neighbour or a key safe is normal, particularly on probate jobs, and we send photographs of every room before and after.
How much notice do you need? Usually days rather than weeks. Coulsdon is on a round we run constantly, so a house clearance Coulsdon booking can often be slotted in the same week, and small collections sooner.
What won't go in the van? Nothing, in practice — but fridges, freezers, mattresses, televisions, monitors, gas bottles, paint, chemicals and upholstered furniture all take separate disposal routes, so tell us they're there when you book.
Can you do just the garage and loft? Yes. A garage and loft on their own, one room, a shed or a flat clearance are all normal bookings.
Who is the invoice made out to on a probate clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate, whichever you tell us. Payment can come from the estate, and there's no deposit.
Are you licensed? Waste carrier licence CBDU419679, fully insured, trading since 2007.
Booking a house clearance in Coulsdon
Tell us the postcode, the type of property, how many bedrooms, whether there's a loft, garage, shed or garden to include, what floor a flat is on, and anything needing separate handling. Fridge, mattress, sofa, television, paint, gas bottle. That's enough for a real answer over the phone. Crews start at nine in the morning and most single-day Coulsdon clearances are finished and swept through by mid-afternoon.
