Most of our house clearance work in Worthing arrives as one of three phone calls: an executor sorting out a parent's house, someone selling up and moving on, and a landlord with a flat that has to be empty by a fixed date. Worthing is a straightforward town to work in for most of the year and an awkward one in August, and the difference is almost entirely parking. We have been clearing houses since 2007, we carry waste under licence CBDU419679, and the number is 0800 046 5555.
The February clearance, and the man who checked twice
One that stays with me was a February job, booked in for a Thursday, crew at the property for nine in the morning. The man instructing us wasn't in the house and wasn't anywhere near it. He lived at the other end of the country, he was arranging it on behalf of family, and he was a solicitor by trade, which showed in the way the emails were written — short, numbered, nothing left to assumption. Somebody local was going to be at the door to let the team in, so the confirmation we sent said exactly that: the day, the time, and who would be met there.
The evening before, he wrote again. "Just checking all is still in hand for tomorrow. Please confirm." People organising a clearance from a distance nearly always ask that, and they are right to. They cannot see the van, they cannot see the crew, and if the day goes wrong they are the one who has to explain it to the rest of the family. So we confirm, in writing, every time. It takes a minute and it saves somebody a bad night.
The clearance itself came to one van load. A mattress went with it, and a mattress cannot simply ride in with everything else — it goes through its own stream at the transfer station, the same as it would from any house clearance we do. The rest went out through the regulated recycling and disposal route, weighed in and documented rather than tipped and forgotten. That mattered here more than usual: when you are acting for somebody else, the paperwork is half the job. He needed documentation he could produce later, to show what had gone and where it had gone, and he had it before he had to ask twice.
Afterwards he wrote one more line, and it is the one I remember. "The house looks very sad now!"
They do. An empty house always looks worse than a full one for about a fortnight, and nobody warns you about it. The rooms go bigger and colder, the marks on the walls come out where the furniture stood, and the person who arranged it all is usually the one who has to walk through it last. He left a five-star review a few days later and asked, out of interest, whether we worked at the far end of the country as well. We do go a long way, but we said honestly where the limits are rather than promising something we would then have to wriggle out of.
Getting a van to the door in Worthing
Worthing is not a hard town to work in, but it has its habits. The seafront and the roads behind it — Heene, Tarring, the terraces off Rowlands Road — are Victorian and Edwardian, built before anyone imagined a Luton van outside. Bays are permit-controlled, they fill by half eight, and the front door is often three steps up with a tiled path too narrow to wheel a sack barrow along. Broadwater and Durrington are easier: post-war semis, driveways, side gates wide enough to get a wardrobe through. Goring-by-Sea and Ferring are mostly bungalows, which sounds simple until you meet the loft ladder. Findon Valley sits up off the main road with steep drives and turning space that runs out quickly, and High Salvington is narrower still the further up you go.
Past the town boundary the same vans run house clearance in Brighton along the coast road — the bigger place in that direction — with house clearance in Littlehampton and house clearance in Arundel the other way.
If parking is going to be a problem, tell us when you book and we will sort it — either by getting there before the bays go, or by arranging a suspension with the council in advance. It is not a small thing. A crew circling for somewhere legal is a crew not carrying anything, and a house clearance in Worthing that should run to a single day can turn into two for no better reason than a full street. Flats without a lift are the other one worth flagging early: everything comes down a communal stair and out through a fire door, and that changes how many of us turn up.
Flats, tenancies, garages and lofts
Not every booking is a whole house. Flat clearance along the seafront and in the conversions behind Rowlands Road turns on the stair and the front door rather than the volume: tell us the floor, whether there is a lift, and where a van can legally stand. End of tenancy clearance is the landlord and agent side of the same work — a fixed check-out date, a property to be emptied and swept, keys back the same afternoon.
Garage and loft clearance is a booking in its own right too. The bungalows at Goring-by-Sea and Ferring and the semis at Broadwater and Durrington almost all have both, and between them they hold more than the rooms do. Say so when you ring and the right ladders come with the van.
What happens to it all
Anything still usable gets offered on before it gets thrown. Furniture in one piece, clean clothing, crockery, books, tools — West Sussex has no shortage of charity shops and reuse projects that will take them, and bagged clothing from a loft usually goes exactly that way. What is genuinely finished with goes to a permitted transfer station, weighed in and receipted, and we can hand you the transfer note for it. We carry waste under licence CBDU419679, and we are insured for the work and for your property while we are in it.
Some things travel separately. Fridges and freezers hold refrigerant gas and go through a dedicated route, whether they are under-counter, upright, chest or American-style. Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating containing treated foam have to be handled through their own controlled stream since the persistent-organic-pollutant rules came in; that is not us being awkward, it is the law, and the transfer station will refuse the load otherwise. Mattresses go their own way too. Tins of paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers, car tyres — all doable, none of them allowed to travel in a mixed load. Tell us on the phone what is there and it goes into the plan for the day instead of turning into a surprise at half four.
How we plan a house clearance in Worthing
Ring us and describe the house honestly, or send photographs through the form on this page. Photographs are better than adjectives — a picture of a full loft tells us more than "quite a lot up there" ever will. From that we can tell you what the day would involve, how many of us would come, and whether it is one visit or two. Nobody arrives to inspect you and then leans on you on your own doorstep, and the estimate does not commit you to anything.
There is no need to bag or box a thing beforehand. Cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, the lot — we empty them ourselves, and we will lift carpets and underlay and sweep through afterwards if you want that too. Houses that have got badly on top of somebody, where rooms have filled up over years, are ordinary work for us. We turn up, we get on with it, and nobody passes comment.
Probate house clearance in Worthing and the paperwork
A good share of our house clearance work here is probate. Where an estate is being administered we invoice the solicitor, the executor or an administrator directly, and payment can come out of the estate rather than somebody's own pocket. There is no deposit and nothing is asked for before the work is done — which is usually the first question the family asks and rarely the one they ask out loud. We can work before or after the grant of probate, whichever fits how the estate is being handled, as long as whoever instructs us has the authority to do it.
You don't have to be here on the day. We collect keys from an agent, a solicitor's office or a neighbour, photograph every room before and after, and return the keys wherever you ask. Plenty of our Sussex clearances are booked by people two counties away, or abroad, and a probate house clearance in Worthing arranged from Scotland or from overseas runs no differently — it just needs more written down. A numbered list of rooms with two columns, take this and leave that, is worth an hour of phone calls. Curtains staying up, a mirror left on the wall, white goods left for the sale, a box marked *leave* that stays exactly where it is: written down it takes a minute, guessed at it goes wrong.
The ground we cover
Worthing town and the whole of BN11, BN12, BN13 and BN14 — Broadwater, Tarring, Durrington, Salvington, High Salvington, Goring-by-Sea, Findon Valley. Out west to Ferring in BN12, then Rustington and Angmering in BN16 and Littlehampton in BN17. East through Lancing and Sompting in BN15 to Shoreham-by-Sea in BN43 and Southwick in BN42. Inland to Steyning, Storrington and the villages under the Downs. If you are near enough to Worthing, West Worthing, Durrington-on-Sea, Goring-by-Sea or East Worthing station, you are well within our patch.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Worthing
Do I have to sort everything out first? No. That is the job. Open the door and leave the drawers full — we go through room by room, and anything you want kept goes on a list before we start.
Can you do a probate house clearance in Worthing if I live abroad? Yes, and it is common. We take keys from an agent, a solicitor or a neighbour, send photographs of every room before and after, and put the keys back wherever you tell us.
Who do you deal with when it's an estate? The solicitor, the executor or the administrator, whichever of them is instructing, so the arrangement sits with the estate and not with one family member personally.
What won't you take? Nothing goes in a mixed load if the rules say otherwise: fridges and freezers, upholstered furniture with treated foam, mattresses, paint, gas canisters, extinguishers and tyres all have their own routes. We still take them — they just travel differently, so tell us in advance.
Can you get a van outside my flat? Usually, with notice. Seafront and town-centre bays fill early, and a suspension has to be arranged with the council before the day, not on the morning.
How long does a house clearance take? Most three-bed houses in Worthing are a single day. Lofts, garages and sheds are what stretch it, along with stairs where there is no lift.
Give us a call on 0800 046 5555 with the address and a rough idea of what is in the place, or send photographs through the form on this page, and we will tell you what a day there would involve.
