House clearance in Lichfield is mostly quiet work. A house that hasn't been properly emptied since the seventies, an executor living two counties away, a completion date already in somebody's diary. We've been doing it since 2007, we're a licensed waste carrier, and we cover the whole of the Lichfield district. WS13 across the city centre and the north side, Fradley and Streethay with it; WS14 taking the south, Whittington, Shenstone, Wall and Weeford. The job below is a fair example of what a house clearance Lichfield side of the county actually looks like on the day.
The one over in WS14
The Lichfield job worth describing was on the eastern side of the city, out where the estates run towards the bypass. The house was owned by a company, and the paperwork went through a trustee at a PO Box, so nobody local ever met us at the door — keys collected, work done, photographs sent, invoice posted somewhere else entirely. Two loads on the day, one after the other, two mattresses, an upright fridge freezer that had to be degassed properly before it went anywhere. A clean through the empty house afterwards so nobody had to come back with a hoover before the keys went to the agents.
That is more common than people think. The person responsible for a property is often not the person who ever lived in it, and on this one the responsible party was a company address on the other side of the country. We work to written instructions in that situation: what stays, what goes, who gets the photographs, who gets the waste paperwork. Nothing gets decided on the doorstep by whoever happens to be standing there.
The sport was the surprise in that one. A set of golf clubs in the hall cupboard with the heads still covered. A fishing seat box. A badminton set with the net wound round its posts. A croquet set down to two hoops. A rowing machine in the back bedroom and an exercise bike that had spent a decade as a clothes horse. A folding sunbed, the sort people bought in the early eighties and then couldn't bring themselves to throw out. Under the stairs there was a box of singles — The Floaters, Elvis, David Soul — and those went off to be sold rather than skipped, which is usually what happens with records.
What sort of house clearance Lichfield people actually ring about
Probate house clearance in Lichfield
Most of our work here is probate work. An executor, a solicitor handling probate, or an attorney under a power of attorney rings, usually with a sale already agreed and a date they can't move. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, payment can come out of the estate, and there's no deposit — the invoice follows the work, not the other way round. We're used to waiting for funds to be released, and that's normal work for us rather than a favour. If you want the detail of how a probate house clearance runs from first phone call to final photographs, it's set out on our probate house clearance page.
Flat clearance in WS13
Not every clearance is a three-bed semi. A flat clearance in WS13 — above a shop in the older part of the city, or in one of the small blocks off the centre. Is a different animal: a shared entry, a stair with a turn in it that nothing wide gets round, and a loading spot that has to be agreed with somebody before the day. Tell us it's a flat when you ring, tell us which floor, and tell us whether there's a lift. A flat clearance done properly is quicker than a house; a flat clearance sprung on the crew at nine in the morning is neither.
Garage and loft clearance in Lichfield, and the sheds
Plenty of people don't want the house done at all — just the loft, or the garage, or a shed that hasn't been opened since 2011. That's a normal booking. The loft and the garage are nearly always where the weight hides, and on the estates out towards the east, where there's a driveway and a garage, they hold more than the house does. Where it's rubbish rather than contents, house rubbish removal may be the better fit and we'll say so.
Packed houses
Some houses are packed. Rooms you can only get halfway into, a hallway with a path through it, forty years of newspapers, a kitchen that hasn't been usable in a long time. We turn up to those the same as any other job, we don't take photographs to laugh at, and we don't make anybody explain themselves. It just means more loads and sometimes more days, and we'll tell you honestly which before the first one is finished. There's more about hoarder house clearance on its own page.
Where things end up
Nothing goes in a hole in the ground if it doesn't have to. Furniture that's sound, kitchen bits, unopened bedding, books, records, tools — we'd rather see them go to a shop or a reuse scheme in the district, and around Lichfield there are enough charity outlets to take a decent amount of it. What's genuinely finished is weighed in and documented; if an executor or a solicitor wants the waste transfer notes, they get them. We're a registered waste carrier — CBDU419679 with the Environment Agency — and it's worth checking that number, or anyone else's, before you let a van take your mother's house away. Staffordshire has no shortage of people willing to clear a house without a licence, and fly-tipped estate contents get traced back to the household that paid for them, not to the man with the van.
Fridges and freezers are their own job: the gas has to come out under a controlled process. Mattresses go into a stream that pulls the springs and the foam apart. And upholstered furniture — sofas, armchairs, padded headboards, foam-filled garden seats — now has to be handled apart from ordinary waste because of the fire retardants in it. That's a legal requirement rather than a policy of ours, and it's the reason a three-piece suite and the wardrobe standing next to it don't travel the same way.
The access question
Lichfield is not a hard city to work in, but it isn't uniform either. The Georgian and Victorian streets near the Cathedral Close and Minster Pool, over in WS13, are tight, with short frontages and residents' bays, and a Luton box van needs thinking about before nine in the morning rather than at nine in the morning. The post-war and eighties estates out towards the east and Boley Park are the opposite — driveways, garages, and room to swing the tail lift. Curborough and the newer builds at Streethay give us decent turning space; the older cottages out at Wall and Weeford don't.
We come up the A38 from the Birmingham side or across the A5 at Muckley Corner, so an early start isn't a problem. If a property is somewhere awkward — a flat above a shop, a shared entry, a suspended bay needed from the council — tell us when you ring and we'll sort it before the day rather than stand outside working it out.
How far we run from here
WS13 and WS14 are ours, and that's the city plus Fradley, Streethay, Whittington, Shenstone, Wall and Weeford. Beyond that we work the neighbouring towns on the same runs: house clearance in Tamworth to the east, house clearance in Walsall to the south-west, house clearance in Burntwood just over the district edge, and house clearance in Rugeley up towards the Chase. Each of those has its own page with its own local detail.
Lichfield City and Lichfield Trent Valley stations both matter for the jobs where nobody lives locally. An executor can come up on the Cross City line from New Street, or off the West Coast route into Trent Valley, meet us at nine, and be back on a train by mid-afternoon with the house done.
Plenty of our Lichfield work is exactly that — someone in another county who has inherited a house they've barely visited. We can take keys from a neighbour, an agent or a key safe, work through the property, put anything of obvious personal value to one side, and send photographs of every room when it's finished. If something turns up that shouldn't be thrown — documents, jewellery, service medals, a bank book in a drawer — it gets bagged and sent on, not binned.
How a day actually runs
A house clearance in Lichfield normally starts at nine. The crew walks every room first, including the loft hatch and the shed, so the plan is made from what's there rather than from what was described on the phone. Then it's the heavy furniture, the beds, the white goods, the loft, the garage, and last of all the small stuff and the sweep-through. A three-bed with a full loft is a day. A bungalow with a packed garage can be a day and a half. Lichfield District Council collects the bins here and Staffordshire County Council runs the household waste centres, but neither of them will take a house's worth of contents off a driveway, which is the point at which most people start ringing round.
There are limits. Paint, thinners, gas cylinders, car batteries, asbestos sheeting off a garage roof and anything clinical need routes we can't put on a general load; we'll identify them, tell you where they go, and tell you plainly if we can't take them at all.
Getting a figure
We don't guess over the phone and we don't publish a rate card. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and describe the rooms honestly — including the loft, the garage and the door that's been shut for years — or send photographs through the form on this page, and you'll get a figure back. The quote is free and it doesn't commit you to anything.
Questions we get asked
Do you cover all of Lichfield? Yes — WS13 and WS14, city centre, Fradley, Streethay, Whittington, Shenstone, Wall and Weeford, and the neighbouring towns listed above.
Can you invoice a solicitor or an executor? Yes. On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Payment can come out of the estate, there's no deposit, and the invoice follows the work.
How much is a house clearance in Lichfield? It depends entirely on what's in the property, so we won't put a number on a page. Ring 0800 046 5555 or send photographs through the form and we'll give you a figure for your house.
Does somebody have to be there on the day? No. We work from keys held by a neighbour, an agent or a key safe, and we send photographs of every room when the property is empty. Written instructions about what stays are followed to the letter.
Will you clear just a garage, or just a flat? Yes. A garage, a loft, a shed on its own, or a full flat clearance — all normal bookings.
Are you licensed and insured? Registered waste carrier CBDU419679 with the Environment Agency, fully insured, working since 2007. Waste transfer notes on request.
