House clearance in Farnborough is most of what this crew does in the north-east corner of Hampshire, and one booking last February reads about as ordinary as they come: Wednesday 15th February, nine o'clock, a house in GU14. The team met the customer at the door on time and started in the back bedroom. Nothing had needed boxing or bagging up first — we tell everybody that when they ring and about half of them sort the kitchen cupboards anyway, bless them — because the lads empty cupboards, wardrobes and drawers as they work through. By the time the second van was being filled it was plain the place held a good deal more than anyone had reckoned on.
Not a little more. Half again. The customer put the day better than we would have: "Thanks again for all your help and the team for a job well done. It was bigger than expected by half and the guys worked like troopers!! Much appreciated." It was still finished that same day, which is the whole reason we start at nine rather than half ten.
Two things did not leave with us. They were sitting in the garage, and by late afternoon the vans were carrying as much as we are lawfully allowed to carry. Which is a smaller number than the amount that will physically fit, and it is the number that puts operators in front of a magistrate when they ignore it. The team said so to the customer's face at the time rather than shuffling the pair of them behind the door for somebody to discover a fortnight later. Every room got photographed once it was bare and the pictures went over the same evening, ahead of the paperwork. We picked that habit up on probate work, where whoever is dealing with the estate is often three counties away and has no way of seeing what an empty house looks like, and we have carried on doing it for everything.
What actually comes out of a Farnborough house
Farnborough is not one kind of housing and a house clearance here is never one kind of job. The Victorian and Edwardian terraces near the station give you narrow hallways, steep straight stairs and a loft hatch the width of a shoulder. Cove and Southwood are largely thirties and fifties semis, which means garages built for a much smaller car and now holding forty years of tins, offcuts and a lawnmower that last ran under a different monarch. Garage and loft clearance is half the work in that part of town and often the half nobody has looked at properly before ringing us. A garage and loft go on holding things long after the house itself has been thinned out.
The postwar estates towards Hawley Lane and the newer blocks around Queensmead bring flats, lifts that sometimes work, and communal bin stores nobody wants a house's worth of furniture appearing in. A flat clearance is a different day's work from a terrace. Everything goes out through one door and one stairwell, the flat clearance has to be done without blocking a fire escape or wedging the lift, and the neighbours are ten feet away the whole time. Then there are the ex-service properties over towards North Camp and the Aldershot boundary, sparse in the rooms and dense in the sheds.
So the load is never predictable from the floor plan. Three-bed semis have run us to a single Luton and finished by two. Others have gone to two loads and a return. Because The loft was boarded and full, or because the garage door had not opened since the handle rusted and behind it stood a workbench, two bikes, a chest freezer and about ninety feet of stacked timber. That is why we would rather see photographs of the garage and the loft hatch than take your word for it that there is "not much out there". Nobody means to undersell their own house. It just happens.
Aldershot, and paying from a distance
A fair share of the enquiries that reach this desk come from somebody who has never stood in the property — a son in Yorkshire, a managing agent two counties over, a solicitor handling a probate file. Aldershot sits directly over the border and has its own page: house clearance in Aldershot is written up there rather than here.
If you are an executor somewhere else in the country, this is how it tends to work. You send photographs, room by room, and tell us what is staying — carpets, curtains, the new appliance still in its wrapping. We give you a figure off that. Somebody local holds the keys and lets the team in, or the agent meets us. We ring you when we are on site and again when we are off it, and the empty-room photographs go over the same evening.
On the paperwork side, be plain with us and we will be plain back. Where the clearance follows a bereavement and probate is being dealt with, we invoice the solicitor, the attorney under a power of attorney, or the executors of the estate directly. Whichever of them is running it — and settlement can come from the estate rather than out of your own pocket. There is no deposit and nothing is asked for up front; the invoice follows the completed work. Probate house clearance is a good part of what we do around Rushmoor, and the reason we photograph every bare room is that a probate file usually ends up in front of somebody who was never there.
The districts we cover, and getting to them
This page covers GU11, GU12 and GU14 — Farnborough itself, Cove, Farnborough Park, Southwood, North Camp and the Aldershot side of the border, all of it in Rushmoor and all of it in Hampshire. We are in Frimley, Mytchett, Ash Vale, Ash Green, Fleet, Blackwater and Farnham often enough that a job there is barely a detour. Northwards it runs into Surrey proper: house clearance in Camberley is the next town along the A331 and has its own page, and house clearance in Woking, the larger of our neighbours up that road, is written up separately again. Booking one of those is the same phone call.
Access is the thing worth mentioning on the phone. Farnborough Main and Farnborough North both sit in streets that were laid out for far fewer cars than park in them now, and a Luton needs the length of two spaces, not one. Some of the terraces near the Farnborough Road end are permit-only with no visitor bays free before the evening, and if that is your situation, say so when you book. Rushmoor can usually be squared away in advance, and it saves the team barrowing everything two hundred yards. Flats without a lift are fine, we would just rather know the floor beforehand than find out on the day, because it changes how many pairs of hands turn up. Farnborough Airport traffic and the A331 can put twenty minutes on the run in from the north, which is why the vans set off early.
How to get a figure for a house clearance in Farnborough
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs of each room, the garage and the loft hatch through the form on this page. Tell us the postcode district, which floor, and what is to stay. That is all it takes, and you will have a figure and a date back — no obligation, and no visit required first unless you would rather have one.
What we will not do is start the conversation on the doorstep with the furniture already on the van. You get the figure before the van is booked, and it holds unless what is in the house turns out to be materially different from what was described. If it does, the team stops, tells you what has changed and what the options are, and waits for you to say yes before touching another item.
Where it goes, and what we won't take
Anything still serviceable is offered on before it is thrown. Usable furniture, crockery, tools, books and clothing go to reuse schemes and charity outlets around Rushmoor and the Blackwater Valley — the volume of decent stuff coming out of a fifty-year-old family home surprises people every time. Metal is separated for scrap. What is genuinely finished goes to a permitted transfer station and comes back as a transfer note, and you are welcome to a copy. We hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 and we are fully insured, and we have been doing this since 2007; the household recycling centre on Eelmoor Road is run by Hampshire County Council rather than the borough, while Rushmoor handles the kerbside collections. Worth knowing if you are clearing gradually yourself and wondering who to ask.
There are things the vans cannot legally take. Tins of half-used paint, thinners, weedkiller, patio gas and camping cylinders, car batteries, asbestos sheeting from an old garage roof, and clinical or chemical waste all need a licensed route of their own. We will point you to the right one, and for asbestos we will tell you plainly to get a specialist rather than let the team near it. Sofas, armchairs and anything else stuffed with treated foam travel separately as well. Under the persistent organic pollutant rules they have to be kept apart from general waste and incinerated rather than tipped, and no operator can lawfully mix them in with the rest of a load. Fridges, freezers and mattresses go down their own routes too.
Full houses, and no comment from us
Some of the properties we clear in Farnborough have not been sorted in decades. Rooms with a path through them, wardrobes packed to the door, a garage nobody has been able to enter since the nineties. Hoarder house clearance is ordinary work for this crew and it is booked in exactly like any other house clearance in Farnborough, with more hands and more time set aside. Nobody makes remarks, on site or afterwards, and relatives who have been dreading the day usually find it passes quietly.
So: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send your photographs through the form on this page, tell us your postcode district and which floor, and say what is to stay. You will get a figure and a date back, and if you want the empty-room photographs at the end, you will get those too.
Common questions about house clearance in Farnborough
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 property 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 evening.
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 the job? They are if you say so when you book. Both are worth mentioning on the phone — in Cove and Southwood the garage regularly holds more than a bedroom.
What won'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 Farnborough take? Most three-bedroom houses are done in a day. A very full property, or one with the loft and garage as well, can run into a second.
