House Clearance - so overwhelmed, where do I start?

[ErlingHaalandsManBun]

My Dad died earlier this year and my brother and I are sole beneficiaries. Probate granted and the house went on the market last month and sold.

We now have the absolutely mammoth task of clearing out the house.

Where do we start??

There is so much 'stuff' such as plates/pans/crockery/vases/pictures etc... what do we do with them?

Anyone done it recently who can give some sound advice on how to approach this overwhelming task.

We just hired a house clearance company after we had removed the items we wanted to Neil

the valuable stuff was sold at auction

we took a hit on what we received. Zero regrets though

I'm sorry you have been left this sad task, one which our family had to do a couple of years ago.

Perhaps you could both go over there together, and gather all the paperwork into one pile. There will be all sorts of things you need to find - old insurance policies, guarantees for household appliances, certificates for double glazing, that sort of thing. The paperwork is something that you can go through together, either in the house or you could each take some home with you.

Then decide whether either of you wants any particular items of furniture or ornaments.

After that, it really is a case of getting a load of boxes, old newspapers to wrap things in, and some black sacks, and getting rid of everything you can bit by bit. Charity shops will always take anything that isn't broken, including electrical items, and anything that isn't fit to be donated can go to the local recycling centre. Also check your local auction house, as you can send stuff there such as clocks and other items of value, postcard collections etc. Animal shelters will take old towels.

Maybe start on one room and clear everything out of that first, which will give you some spare space to put the things you are keeping.

It helps to have several piles as you go - keep / charity shop / auction / recycle / wheelie bin, and after several hours get the things out of the house and take them to the dump or the charity shop.

We hired a house clearance to company once we'd been through the important stuff.

We are having to do this for my FIL’s house, slightly complicated in that SIL lives overseas and can’t come back to help but worries that we are throwing away all her things (she emigrated 30 years ago and has been back regularly - everything she wanted, she has had plenty of chances)
Once you’ve taken the things you both want, either clearance firm or
you need 1 or 2 firm friends to help you

only charity shop the things you can genuinely see someone else pausing money for

anything you think “has value” - take to an auction house but be prepared to bring it home

then dump the rest(recycle where you can)

and then both promise to each other that you will sort out your own stuff so which ever of you goes first, you aren’t leaving this headache to the other!

And don’t feel guilty for throwing away photos!

Hi! Ironically, we have literally just finished this process and will hand the key to the estate agent for completion Friday , first thing in the morning.

Only difference is mum is in a home and still with us but we’re knackered to be frank!

I’m no expert but I would say you to ask family and maybe close friends to take what they want in terms of furniture, ornaments and stuff soon. We found it super hard to get anyone to but / even auction the apparently very expensive antiques . Making your peace with the fact that what meant the world to them is almost worthless to anyone else is bloody depressing. Even Charities and community furniture depots not interested in most of it.

I'm waffling but get as much sold and donated as possible and then you’ll have some space . The hardest bit was all the paperwork. They kept everything . We killed two shredders and , in the end , burnt much of it in the garden - check with neighbours first obviously. The pressure came on the being worried we would destroy something important!

the pots and pans may be of interest to a charity shop but be prepared to have to thrown them out too.

we found it cheaper and more convenient to get a local ‘man with a van’ to take the rubbish away- was so much cheaper than all the skips we would have needed

one of the most successful ways of clearing out was to put stuff we didn’t want in the drive with a big sigh saying ‘house clearance- make us an offer.’ As we were all there all of that day, one of us could always keep an eye and pop out.

I would also be very judicious in what you choose to keep. It really made us think about what our own children will be faced with and we don’t want them to open the loft and go ‘oh god , all of this was grandads too!’ I made it a priority to find a few key things that reminded me of them ( inexpensive keepsakes and some garden items for example)

But honestly? It makes me realise that I should not be keeping things for best but actually using things . Our son and his wife took great grandmas tea-set which had very little monetary value on the resale market but had spent decades being nicely ‘displayed ‘ in different cupboards over the years and never used. They intend to use it and are enjoying the splendid occasion that comes with ‘having tea.’

Last thing- try not to get overwhelmed by the responsibility and guilt here. Get some help.

It’s a tough one. take care x

I’ve PM’d You @ErlingHaalandsManBun

Thank you. You are right, it is a sad task.

I like the idea of taking one room at a time and putting things in piles and doing regular dump runs.

I was thinking of a house clearance company but I think they are pretty expensive so we will probably have to do this ourselves.

Was a house clearance company expensive? Its a 4 bed house. Thanks

Can I ask how much this was? I was under the impression a house clearance company was quite expensive. Thank you

Thank you so much.

I actually really like the idea of putting stuff outside with a sign as we get lots of people walking past the house so lots of people will see it.

I will definitely need to be brutal. My brother and I have both taken what we wanted from the house so literally everything else that is left needs to go. But some of it is really nice. Lovely pictures, quality vases etc and I think lots of people would be really interested and would be happy to take them. There is some nice furniture too and some antiques which we need to do something with as I wouldn't want to just skip those.

Its honestly giving me sleepless nights and we have not even got started on it yet.

I would concentrate on personal belongings, paperwork and any valuable items. Then hire in a house clearance company, to completely clear the property. Yes, it will cost you money, but you won't have the bother of having to remove it yourself.

Charities like Royal Heart Foundation will collect furniture to resell if it's in good nick. Check local antique auctions too.

My dad had lived on a road with a primary school at the end so we put a long table across the drive in the afternoons and left books and little knick-knacks, etc on top with a note, "please help yourself". Parents and kids would have fun browsing for free stuff on the way past.

St. Luke's charity collected boxes of books, china, (four dinner services!) glass, puzzles.

It was a lot of work cleaning and packing things up for collection but we were able to donate a lot of nice things, which my dad would have been pleased about.

We made money on one house clearance. It depends what the company do with the stuff they clear. One company auctioned it and as I say we made money. Another just sorted it and gave it to charity or the tip depending on quality. It was worth the money in both cases. Paperwork I had shredded by a company. They sent me bags which I filled and returned to them and got a certificate of destruction.

I did this fairly recently for my monther-in- law's house. Here's so things I did:

• Took what we could that would have been use.
• Asked family and friends if there was anything they wanted
• Used Olio and Facebook to give things away for free. Beds, garden furniture, patio slabs etc etc
• Went round the whole house and collected all the clothes and materials, bagged it all up and got a material recycling charity to collect it
• Went round the house and collected all the metal items e.g. filing cabinets, tubs of nails, anything metal. Made a massive pile on the driveway and informed the local scrap man
• Used a local charity shop called "Stella's Voice" to collect items for their charity shop. This included some furniture. I had to box up all the books and nick nacks
• Anything paper went in the normal recycling bin
• Everything else, I booked 5 consecutive days to the local tip. Filled my little Honda Jazz and dumped the rest.

Found it hard and very sad. Things that were once bought with intention were just dumped 😔 Made me realise that 'stuff' is just stuff.

We had to do both MIL and FIL's properties a few years ago. We whittled down the amount of stuff in FIL's flat but MIL's house was much larger and rammed to the gunwhales with furniture and stuff. We took out the documentation and anything sentimental and got a house clearance company in for both. It wasn't cheap but they did a LOT of work, six lads and two Bedford vans cleared MIL's in a morning. (Their business model was to sell items from their warehouse and only mattresses etc went to landfill, they recycled or sold on as much as possible. So nothing back to us for the sale of the goods.)

While I don't think they were cheap, it was still worth every penny to have the strain taken away, it can be very stressful trying to decide what to do with every single item you take out. And since we had inherited it all, including the value of the houses, spending a grand or so wasn't really an issue. It would have been nice to get some money back but we weren't expecting to, and just having the problem sorted was a relief.

Maybe check with your local district council to see if one of the local tips has a re-use centre attached to it.

You may also find a local charity which will take furmiture for renovation or upcycling. I know of one in our county which is a centre for people with a variety of additional needs, and they learn how to renovate furniture in the workshop. Very worthy enterprise.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Its really helpful.

We are thinking of doing much of it ourselves but considering a big skip for all the dump stuff or a local man with a van to do the skip runs for us.

I have a few local charities that I hope will collect the furniture items as some of the furniture is nice and in good condition so I am sure they could sell them on.

I think all the plates/cups/mugs etc and things like that wouldn't be of use to anyone so I think we will end up skipping a lot of that stuff.

Its a difficult process as it is without the emotion that comes with it.

Thanks again

Sorry for your loss OP. This is a very tough job to do.

Just to add to other pp v helpful advice, you can make it easier by grouping stuff for charities:-
decent coats / sleeping bags - homeless shelter
kitchen utensils, appliances and pans, hoovers - students, shelters
bedding, duvets, towels - pet rescue centres
tools / garden stuff - local growers / allotments
books - world of books (scan and post)

be kind to yourself (and your brother too)

We made money on my grandma’s bungalow clearance.
There really wasn’t much to sort.
Grandma had regular clear outs
So once we took the sentimental bits, threw the obvious rubbish and removed a fairly decent colour tv, all that was left was some very old cabinets and wardrobes ( Chronicles of Narnia type)
I hope the clearance company made some money too.

Depends how much energy you’ve got.
I started by sorting out personal items/photos and dishing it out between us.
I then started selling the big stuff on marketplace - sofas/bookshelves etc. Anything that didn’t get interest I put on Olio for free. You could do a driveway/garage sale?
British heart foundation also collect furniture but has to be reasonable quality and have fire safety tags still attached if it’s sofas/beds.
Stuff that’s not really worth anything - put on olio (found people on there more likely to show up than off marketplace)
Clothes got sorted into charity shop/bin piles and dealt with accordingly.
There’s an organisation that collects donations and you can choose which charity you want it to go to, that can be useful.

We had to clear a relatives house and couldn't afford a company. Listing a few bits for free on facebook went really well, as people took lots of other stuff too. Old tools, ladder, rusty cement mixer etc got taken for the scrap value. Most of the furniture went to a local hospice shop. Ebay a few bits that could be posted such as a painting and ornaments. That raised enough for a skip. A neighbour knew a man in his 90's who wanted the videos as he never got on with streaming or dvd's.

It did take longer this way though, so if you are pressed for time, as clearance company may be better.

Try your local auction house, you might be surprised with what is of value. My mil loved craft, we sold all of her stuff via auction and it came to a few hundred pounds.

Things like midcentury furniture can be worth selling, there are groups on facebook.

I would filter out anything worth selling, then anything for charity. Try putting stuff out that locals might want, or advertise on local groups for a house clearance.

Then once you have got rid of as much as you can, I would get the house clearance people in.

Best of luck.

You need to weigh up the cost of a house clearance against your time/petrol to and from the house and tip/hiring a van for tip runs and charity drop offs/hiring a skip - plus house clearance can often take more away than a tip will accept from a “layperson”

Thank you. Excellent point.

im going to get some house clearance quotes tomorrow and see what they come out at. We will
need at least 2 skips I think so it could end up being more time and cost effective to just use a company to sort it.