The first Romsey job we booked in 2022, a house in SO51, didn't start with a van. It started with a list.
A property firm working the file from another county rang in March that year and asked whether, before anything was carried out of the house, we could write down what was actually in it. Every room, cupboard by cupboard — and whether we could put values against the contents as well. Fair question. The valuing side isn't ours, and we said so. The inventory we could do. Andy drove over, walked the whole place, and came back with the picture: a shed in the garden to empty, a stairlift on the staircase that would have to come out, a loft that we'd been told was empty (we still went up. You always go up), and a set of medical aids that another firm was collecting separately. Three mattresses. The instruction on what to leave was short and precise: the washing line, two chairs, and the outside storage box in the garden. Carpets to stay down.
That visit stood on its own, months before anybody loaded a van. The clearance came later — July, four months after the list was written, which is about normal when a Hampshire house is going through probate and a sale at the same time. When we did clear it, it ran to two van loads, with a mattress and an upright fridge freezer going off as regulated recycling and disposal. Nothing on the day caught anybody out, because the picture had been written down in March. That is the whole point of sending a man out to look before a house clearance is booked at all.
A house clearance that finished with a clean
Another one, on a January that began with an email arriving twice inside a minute. The second one opened: "Sorry - hit send too soon."
The man writing wasn't the householder. He was handling it on somebody else's behalf, which is more common in this work than people imagine, and it makes no odds to us who is holding the keys as long as somebody is. Three bedrooms. A full clearance team for the day, and the contents came out in two van loads rather than the single load we'd hoped for — houses are nearly always fuller than they look from the doorway. Four mattresses out. Everything else weighed in as regulated recycling and disposal.
Then the cleaning, which had been asked for at the same time. The three bedrooms and the rooms that went with them, and one further room besides, all done the same day so that the property was empty and clean by the time the door was locked. Not every clearance ends that way. When it's asked for, we'd sooner do it in one visit than send men back a second morning.
Where the Romsey streets make it awkward
Anyone who's tried to unload a Luton near Market Place or The Hundred knows what the town does to a working day. The centre is tight, a good deal of it is one-way or pedestrianised at the wrong moment, and the older cottages towards the Abbey and along the Test have no drive at all. Out on the newer estates — Cupernham, Halterworth, Abbotswood, Woodley — it's the opposite problem: plenty of tarmac but narrow turning heads, and a caged tipper reversing past parked cars takes patience.
We'd rather know about it beforehand. If the nearest legal spot to stop is forty yards up the road, that's forty yards each way with every wardrobe, and it changes how long the day takes. Tell us on the phone and it goes into the plan for the day rather than turning up as a surprise while the men are stood in your hall.
Reuse first, tipping last
Nothing goes straight in a hole in the ground if it doesn't have to. Furniture in decent order, unopened household goods, tools, books — we'd sooner see them go on to a charity shop or a reuse scheme in the area than into a skip. Whatever can't be passed on gets sorted and weighed in at a permitted transfer station, and the transfer note is raised at the point of tipping and both sides hold a copy, which is how we can send you one for the estate file. Customers do ask for them. That's fine — you're entitled to see where your mother's furniture went.
We hold a waste carrier licence, registration CBDU419679, and we're insured for the work and for the property while we're in it. If you ever want to check a firm before you let them through the door, that number is searchable on the Environment Agency register, ours or anyone else's. We've been doing this since 2007, which is long enough to have learnt where the awkward bits of a Hampshire house usually are.
Things that travel separately
Some items can't ride in an ordinary mixed load. Tins of paint, aerosols, gas cylinders — bottled gas from a caravan or a patio heater turns up more often than you'd think — those go off on their own route to a site licensed to take them. Upholstered furniture caught by the POPs rules is kept apart from the general load and burnt in a permitted incinerator rather than shredded with everything else. Fridges and freezers have to be handled whole, by a site that can take the gas out of them properly. It's the law and there's no way round it. We'll tell you which of your things fall into that bracket before the day, not while the van is being loaded.
Probate house clearance in Romsey: getting a figure, and who we invoice
Nothing is asked for up front from UK customers, and there's no deposit to hold a date. A probate house clearance is the commonest job on our books here. Where a solicitor or the executors are handling matters, we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate once the house has been dealt with. The family don't have to find it themselves and then claim it back. Executors living at the other end of the country do this with us constantly; it saves them a journey and a piece of paperwork they'd only be reclaiming later.
If you want a figure before you commit to anything, there are two ways to get one, and both are free and tie you to nothing. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photographs of each room through the form on this page along with the postcode. Either way the figure comes from a person who has looked at the rooms, not from a script read down the phone.
Hoarder house clearance Romsey, and houses that have simply got away from someone
We turn up to properties that are packed floor to ceiling and we get on with it. No comments, no faces pulled, no phone photographs passed around. Sometimes a house has simply been lived in for fifty years and nothing has ever left it; sometimes it's a genuine hoarder clearance, with a path worn through the middle of each room and doors that only open a foot. Either way, the job is the same job, only longer, and we'd rather you told us honestly what's behind the door so we bring enough men and the right number of vans instead of running out of both at two in the afternoon. If it's a hoarder house clearance in Romsey, say so when you ring — nobody here is going to think less of the household, and it changes only the size of the team we put on it.
We also keep an eye out for what shouldn't go. Loose cash, papers, jewellery in a tin at the back of a drawer, photographs — anything like that gets set aside and handed over, not shovelled. Say beforehand if there's something specific you're hoping is still in the house and we'll look for it properly.
Garage and loft clearance in Romsey
The garage and loft are where most of a house actually lives, and they're also what people forget when they describe a property over the phone. Half the bungalows on the Romsey estates have a loft boarded out and filled since the seventies; the older places have a garage that hasn't held a car since before the owner stopped driving. We clear the garage and loft on the same day as the rooms, so long as we know about them beforehand and the ladder or the up-and-over door actually works. Sheds, greenhouses and the lean-to behind the kitchen count too. Tell us what's out there when you ring, even if it's only a guess.
Where we work around Romsey
Most house clearance Romsey work sits inside the SO51 postcodes. Across town and the villages either side, North Baddesley, Nursling, Ampfield, Mottisfont, Lockerley and Wellow, Braishfield, Awbridge, Timsbury, Michelmersh and the Wellows. And we carry on north up the valley to Stockbridge in SO20 and on to house clearance in Andover, the bigger Test Valley town and the one most people north of here search for first. East of us we're regularly in SO21 around Barton Stacey and the Worthys, in Winchester's SO22 and SO23, and out to New Alresford in SO24. South it runs down through Chandler's Ford into house clearance in Eastleigh and on into Southampton. We go down to the edge of the Forest for house clearance in Lymington and house clearance in New Milton, small enough places that a job there and a job here often share a week.
Test Valley is the district; Hampshire County Council sits above it, and the whole lot is South East England as far as anybody official is concerned. Romsey station sits on the Southampton to Salisbury line with the Eastleigh services through Chandler's Ford, which matters mainly because plenty of the people who instruct us arrive that way for the day, hand over a key, and go back the same afternoon. That works. If you can't be there at all, we'll take the key from a neighbour or an agent, photograph the property before we start and again once it's empty, and post the photographs over to you.
Questions we get asked
How soon can you do a house clearance in Romsey? Usually within a few days, and often quicker in the middle of the week. Probate work tends to be booked further ahead because of the solicitor's timetable rather than ours, so if you have a date in mind, ring early and hold it.
Do I have to be there on the day? No. Plenty of our SO51 work is done for somebody a hundred miles away. A key from a neighbour, an agent or a lock box is enough, and you get photographs of the property before and after.
Can you invoice the solicitor or the executors on a probate clearance? Yes — we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate once the property has been dealt with. There's no deposit, and nothing is asked for before the work is done.
Do you clear the garage and loft too? Yes, and the shed and the greenhouse if they need doing. Just mention them when you ring so the day is planned around them rather than squeezed in at four o'clock.
What happens to everything you take out? Anything reusable goes to a charity shop or a reuse scheme; the rest is sorted and weighed in at a permitted transfer station. We'll send you the waste transfer note for the file if you'd like it.
Will you take a fridge, a freezer or a mattress? Yes. They travel and are dealt with separately from the general load because the rules require it, so tell us how many there are when you book rather than on the morning.
Booking it
Ring us on 0800 046 5555, or send a few photographs and the postcode through the form on this page, and we'll tell you what we think the house will take. If the date suits, we're at the door at nine and the property is usually finished the same day. If you want the waste transfer notes and a set of photographs afterwards, ask — we'd send them anyway.
