House clearance in Gateshead, on the Tyneside side of the river, covers more ground than the one name suggests. The town centre, Bensham and Saltwell sit in NE8; Low Fell, Sheriff Hill, Wrekenton and Harlow Green in NE9; Felling, Pelaw, Heworth, Bill Quay and Windy Nook in NE10; Dunston, Lobley Hill, Kibblesworth and the Team Valley in NE11. Four districts on the south bank, and the work that comes out of them has very little in common. One week it is a flat that has to be empty before the keys go back to the agent. The next it is a house nobody has been able to walk through properly for years.
The house clearance in NE8 our own paperwork calls verminous
March 2021. A property in NE8, and the person who instructed it was the better part of three hundred miles away in south London. They never came north for it. Access was arranged at our end, the team went in, and it was done on the one visit.
It is down on our books as a verminous clearance, and that is not a word we use for a house that is merely full. Our booking form has spelled it out the same way for years. "Decaying food, human faeces, animal faeces, bodily fluids (human or otherwise), animal carcasses, heavily soiled scenes, death in the property, drug paraphernalia (needles etc.), and the general decaying of waste itself is classified as a verminous clearance". A house in that condition is not cleared the way an ordinary one is.
The team go in covered — gloves, masks, oversuits, and a change of them for the tip run. Nothing out of a house like that is set aside for reuse, which on a normal job is the first thing we look for. It is bagged, sealed, kept away from the rest of the load, weighed in at a permitted transfer station, and the transfer notes go on file.
That is how most of them go: booked, done, keys back, invoice out.
What leaves the house, and where it goes
On an ordinary house clearance in Gateshead, anything still worth using we try to pass on rather than bin — a reuse project, a charity shop that will take furniture, sometimes a house-clearance sale. A teak sideboard and a nest of tables. A china cabinet with the good dinner service still sat in it: that sort of thing rarely needs to be thrown away, and there are plenty of houses across NE8 and NE10 that still have exactly those pieces in the front room.
Whatever genuinely is waste is weighed in at a permitted transfer station, and we keep the tickets. Waste transfer notes on request, every time — ask and you get them. We are registered with the Environment Agency as an upper-tier waste carrier, licence number CBDU419679, and insured for the work. Gateshead Council's own household waste site at Campground, over by Wrekenton, is fine for a car boot of garden waste, but it is not where the contents of a three-bed semi go, and a trip to the tip is not the same thing as being a licensed carrier.
Fridges, freezers and fridge-freezers are classed as hazardous because of the gas in the coolant circuit, so they travel apart from everything else and go to a site permitted to take them. Upholstered furniture — sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs, office chairs, footstools, bean bags — counts as a POP item. Persistent organic pollutants, from the old flame retardants in the foam. It cannot go in with the general load and it cannot be recycled; it is kept separate and sent for incineration. That is law, not a policy of ours, and if a quote you have been given somewhere else says nothing about it, ask where the sofa is going and who takes it.
Paint tins, gas bottles, solvents and asbestos sheeting are the things we cannot put in an ordinary load at all. Tell us they are in the shed when you ring and we will say what can be done with them.
The two-day house clearance where we had the keys the night before
Not every job is a day's work, and it is better to say that at the walk round than at four in the afternoon. June 2023: a three-bedroom house with two sheds and a garden that had things stood about in it, the sort of place where one person had been coping with a great deal on their own for a long time. Talked through before it was booked, it came out as three loads and two days, with a clean at the end.
The customer lived a few minutes away and would rather hand the keys over the evening before than stand about at nine in the morning. One customer wrote: "That isn't a problem thanks for sending the details over. We will drop the keys off tonight so they can let themselves in in the morning."
Small thing, and it changes a whole day. The team let themselves in, started on the ground floor and the sheds, and nothing waited on somebody driving over to open a door. All the white goods were staying, which was settled at the booking rather than argued about on the step. Three pieces of upholstered furniture came out as POP items and went their own way. One mattress. A handful of paint tins from the shed, which do not travel with an ordinary load and had to go for proper disposal on their own.
The team held the keys overnight and asked for a ten o'clock start on the second morning instead of nine; that was agreed, and they rang about an hour before they were due to finish so the house could be walked round, the keys handed back and the door locked behind everybody. Two days, three loads and a clean through at the end.
The order of the day
The team meet you at the property at nine. The team leader walks round first, so he is looking at what is actually there rather than what got described over the phone, and he says then whether it is a one-day job. If it wants two days, you are told before anything moves, not afterwards.
Nothing needs boxing or bagging beforehand. The lads empty wardrobes, drawers and cupboards themselves, lift carpets and underlay if you want them up, and sweep through at the end. Anything that looks like it matters — photographs, papers, a biscuit tin with jewellery in it, a bundle of documents down the back of a drawer — stops the job for a minute and gets left where you can see it. If you cannot be at the house, we will email photographs of every room once it is empty, and we can post on anything sentimental.
Parking decides more here than people expect. The Victorian terraces around Bensham and Saltwell are tight and often permit-only; the Team Valley end of NE11 is the opposite, with room to put a Luton van at the door. Say when you ring whether there is a bay outside, a bus route, or a suspension needed, because it changes how the morning runs.
The kinds of house clearance Gateshead asks for
Probate house clearance in Gateshead
Estate work is most of what we do here, and a probate house clearance in Gateshead follows the same shape every time. The probate side is usually the slow part and the house is the straightforward one: we can hold a date while a grant comes through, and we would rather move a booking twice than have you rush it. Executors are very often not local — the family moved south, or abroad, and the house on the hill in NE9 is the last thing left to settle. That is normal for us and it changes nothing about the day. More on how probate house clearance works is on its own page.
End of tenancy clearance
End of tenancy work runs to a deadline rather than to a mood. A landlord or a managing agent rings with a void property, a date the keys have to be back, and a list of what the incoming tenant is keeping. We can take the key from the agent, clear it, and send photographs of every room the same afternoon. Say at the booking whether the carpets are staying — end of tenancy jobs are the ones where that answer changes most often between the phone call and the morning.
Flat clearance
A flat clearance is about doors and stairs more than volume. Third-floor walk-ups above the shops in NE8, sheltered schemes around Low Fell where the lift will not take a wardrobe standing up, communal corridors that cannot be blocked while a fire door is propped. Tell us the floor, whether there is a lift, and where the bin store is, and the flat clearance is planned around that rather than discovered at nine in the morning.
Garage, loft and outhouse clearance
Not every job is a whole house. A garage and an outhouse and nothing else is a perfectly normal booking. Garages up here hold more than the house does: boxes of curtain rails, a dressmaker's dummy leaning in the corner, sacks of knitting wool gone hard with damp, a tallboy that was too good for the tip and too big for the new place. Lofts, sheds, coal houses, back yards — say what is included when you ring, because it changes how the day is planned.
Hoarder house clearance
Some properties have forty years in them and no floor left to stand on. Those do not put us off and they do not get a lecture. We will usually say at the walk round whether it is a two-day job, and we will say it before we start. What we will not do is begin, get halfway, and leave you with a half-empty house and an argument. There is a fuller account on the hoarder house clearance page, and single loads of rubbish rather than a full house are covered under rubbish removal.
How far we go, and who is next door
The Gateshead districts are NE8, NE9, NE10, NE11 and NE92. NE92 is a large-user district — business post rather than streets of houses — so the domestic work all comes out of the other four. Locally that takes in Bensham, Saltwell, Low Fell, Sheriff Hill, Wrekenton, Deckham, Harlow Green, Felling, Bill Quay, Pelaw, Heworth, Windy Nook, Carr Hill, Dunston, Lobley Hill and Kibblesworth.
Getting to any of it is easy enough. Gateshead Interchange and Gateshead Stadium are both on the Metro. Heworth Interchange picks up the NE10 side, and Newcastle Central is one stop over the river — useful if you are coming up from London or Leeds to meet the team at a property and going home the same evening. A good share of our Tyne and Wear bookings are made by somebody who lives nowhere near the house.
We work the places round about as well, each with its own page. House clearance in Newcastle upon Tyne straight over the bridges, house clearance in Sunderland out east, house clearance in Cramlington down the A194, and house clearance in Whitley Bay just south of the county line. If the house is in one of those, start there; if it sits between two, ring and we will sort out which team is nearest on the day.
What a house clearance in Gateshead costs, and who we invoice
Two ways to get a figure, and both are free and put you under no obligation. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode, how many bedrooms, and whether there is a garage or a loft in it. Or send photographs through the form on this page — a shot of each room, the garage and loft clearance is plenty — and you will get a figure back in writing. We do not publish numbers on this page, because a house clearance in Gateshead is priced on what is actually in the property, and a page cannot see that.
On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate once it is in funds. There is no deposit and nothing to pay up front; the invoice follows the work. If you want it sent to a firm rather than to you, give us the postal and email address at the booking and that is where it goes.
Questions we get asked
Can you invoice a solicitor or the executor rather than me?
Yes. We invoice solicitors, attorneys under a power of attorney, and executors of the estate directly, and settlement can wait until the estate is in funds. No deposit, and the invoice comes after the clearance, not before it.
How do I get a figure for a house clearance in Gateshead?
Ring 0800 046 5555, or send photographs through the form on this page. Postcode, number of bedrooms, and whether a garage, loft or shed is included is enough to work from. It is free and it commits you to nothing.
Do I have to be there on the day?
No. We will collect a key from a neighbour, an agent or a solicitor, clear the property, and email photographs of every room once it is empty. Sentimental items can be set aside and posted on.
Can you do an end of tenancy clearance to a fixed date?
That is most of what the end of tenancy work is — a date the keys have to be back and a property that has to be empty before it. Book it as early as you can, tell us what the incoming tenant is keeping, and say whether carpets and curtains are staying or going.
Do you clear one flat rather than a whole house?
Yes, and a flat clearance is booked the same way as any other. What we need to know is the floor, whether there is a lift and what size it is, and where a van can stand — those three answers decide the day.
Are you licensed to take the waste away?
We are registered with the Environment Agency as an upper-tier waste carrier, registration CBDU419679, and we are insured for the work. Waste transfer notes are provided on request, every time.
We have been clearing houses since 2007, and a fair number of them have been on this side of the Tyne. If you want to talk it through, the office number is 0800 046 5555, and the form on this page reaches the same desk.
