Clearing a relatives house, nobody wants stuff any more !

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Clearing a late relatives house, contacted over 6 charity shops and refuges, Freecycle, Olio, Gumtree etc etc..only one bothered to turn up, the others cancelled or didn't turn up...lots of free items in good condition, sofas, freezers, fridges, etc....After 2 weeks of this, not one of the organisations took anything. The annoying thing is we sent pics and they agreed to take items, so now breaking up items and taking to council tip and booking a paid clearance company this week as house is sold and need to hurry up. All items with relevant fire labels, working etc.....Do people just all buy new things now and dont bother to get second hand..?

I agree with this. Charity shops in my area stop taking donations every now and then. Look at the shops- where is ot all going?

I always see if l can get something second hand first. Most of my furniture is.

I've been looking for second hand furniture recently, and found that most van hire places are charging £100 upwards, even for just an afternoon. So unless you manage to pick up something unique, or you are getting a great bargain, or can coordinate getting several things at once, that is quite offputting.

Have a look at your local Facebook groups - I find a couple of local ones (called ‘hometown eco swap’ and ‘hometown buy nothing’) are much better bets for getting rid of stuff than Freecycle and marketplace!

They only want things they can easily turn around and doesn't take up too much space. Old fashioned tat isn't wanted

Do auction houses take it? I'd have thought that they would have issues selling it.

mum is thinking about trying to get rid of some stuff because she thinks it's likely to save me money in having it collected.

I'm thinking to keep some because it's better quality than what you can buy now. I will need to repaint it if I want it but that's better than buying more later on.

We gave away lots of DM's stuff via our local "free to recycle" FB site.
DM couldn't understand why people wouldn't pay £££ for her "good quality" furniture despite our explaining that you can buy stuff for pennies in IKEA.

We used The British Heart Foundation to clear my mums house. We had to pay, it’s on a sliding scale depending on how much the need to dispose of, but they literally took everything, even the rubbish from the garage. I couldn’t fault them.

We've just cleared PIL house this summer. Lots went to auction and made a few thousand (unusual ornaments and silver stuff), but the rest filled five skips including two grandfather clocks that had been in the family for decades 😬. Couldn't give them away.

clearing out late fil and mil house was a nightmare. i heard of a young girl leaving her partner so I went to see her and she said she needed everything. she came up to see it all offered her clean good beds everything down to a coffee table plus all the china and cooking items they needed. her father said he would move everything for her but in the end she just took a tv table! then she proceeded to moan to everyone she had nothing in her flat.
I think a lot of charities are block solid with stuff and have the same problem; no one is buying it from them. a local Forces place often has the no more stock notice and to be honest its a big warehouse but you could not get any more in if you tried

Do you live in a well to do area ?

If I ruled the world (fortunately not looking that likely) stuff designed to wear out in a very short time and end up in landfill or in an incinerator would have a huge tax on it to pay for the cost of disposal or carbon offset, and also as a disincentive from treating furniture like fast fashion.

When we first had to buy furniture in the early 1980s we went to secondhand shops and bought (very cheaply) solid wood stuff from decades earlier, some of which is still going strong. Later we bought reproduction wooden furniture, much of which is also doing well and will probably outlive us. The cheap stuff from Habitat, MFI and IKEA not so much. False economy, really.

I couldn't get rid of a really nice solid wood, expensive Next dining table and 4 chairs. It's in perfect condition as we never used it in the 3 years we lived in that house(we had a breakfast bar in the kitchen which we tended to eat at). It wasn't even dated.

People don't want second hand, just like they don't want to start at the bottom of the property ladder.

Thanks, yes having a nice holiday....we have contacted all the homeless charities and council depts..seems the uk is swamped with unwanted items...

house is in a nice middle class area but appx 2 miles away there is a poorer area. the shops etc we contacted are based in that area.

Thought so.

can you spread the gumtree ,Facebook to a much wider area.

When I recently cleared my parents’ house, I found the white goods were easy to donate (via local FB free site). But the furniture was not.

I was happy to give it away, and much of it was good quality Ercol, John Lewis and G-Plan. I gave up in the end and we dismantled stuff and put it in skips. The sofas/sectionals were collected by the council for a small fee.

We have a Facebook recycle page that's really good. I've got rid of stuff and had some bits. Maybe you could try that? It's a shame it's the winter. Whilst helping a friend clear his DMs house we put some on the Marketplace page and left other stuff by the skip and it all went.

I think people mostly buy new. I also had this problem eith my DM's property and tried giving stuff away on FB etc. In the end I just called in a house clearance company which solved the problem in one go. I would recommend that because when you give it away ppl don't collect amd are often so unreliable which means it takez ages.

Possibly a slightly unusual suggestion but have you tried contacting your local fire service? They sometimes collect furniture etc. to use for live fire training where a whole "room" will be set up complete with all of the usual things you would find in that room to ensure the way the fire develops is as realistic as possible.

Fully appreciate if you're looking to rehome things with any sentimental value you might not want to do this but if you just need it gone they might be able to help.

It's really erratic. Partly the time of year. Posher families tend to be keener on second hand overall if it's good stuff but old, but will have their own views on what is good stuff. I will be trying to get ds to buy second hand when he eventually gets his own place, but realistically he will be renting furnished for a decade or so and I couldn't altogether blame him if he wants to sit on his own sofa after that.

An awful lot of it is space and relative size/shape. Dps daughter has moved into a new build. It's nice but all the rooms are tiny with corners cut off to fit in more bathrooms. If she'd taken a 1970s dining table and chairs she'd be literally unable to move, and nobody she knows serves meals like that anyway, she does plates of buffet food in the kitchen and her guests sit on the sofa. A grandfather clock would be taller than the room and would annoy the neighbours.

'Stuff' is cheap. We went to an auction house to talk about my mum's furniture and they said we would pay more to transport it there than we'd get back, if it sold at all.

Having said that I did want a proper antique wardrobe, looked on various sakehouse sites and they started at £3000. So if the stuff is good enough, there is still a market. It needs to be genuinely antique, or you need to be lucky on FB.

Our local Facebook buy nothing/free to a good home etc. group is brilliant, I always use it rather than on Facebook marketplace offering for free. It is large and very well run by the admin which I think makes the difference. Almost everything goes straight away, things like fridges and freezers, cabinets and drawer etc. are ALWAYS snapped up and collected the same evening.

Even stuff that I see posted and think 'noone will want that' is always taken quickly. The main things that don't go are very old fashioned settees and chairs, but otherwise everything is taken quickly.

We have a Facebook recycle page that's really good. I've got rid of stuff and had some bits. Maybe you could try that? It's a shame it's the winter. Whilst helping a friend clear his DMs house we put some on the Marketplace page and left other stuff by the skip and it all went

Ercol and g plan sell on eBay really easily

It must vary a bit around the UK. We donated a sofa to Air Ambulance, it was a few years old but quite stylish! They said on the phone that the final decision was the driver/collection guy's but fortunately when he saw it IRL he said "oh that should sell". It felt like passing a test! I felt proud of my old sofa being judged worthy!!

Some Councils have connections with St Vincent de Paul who will collect furniture/ household goods for free and have centres where families in need can pick what they need- again for free eg Sheffield, Manchester, London, Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, London, Cardiff, Leeds etc etc.

St V de P also have community shops in many towns where people can pick up household goods at very low prices.