People usually quote a clearance in bedrooms. It is a reasonable shorthand and it is wrong about half the time.
We cleared a fully furnished property in Looe, on Cornwall's south east coast, and it was a house with a great deal in it. The front room alone held bookcases along three walls, a table covered in smaller items, pictures hung nearly floor to ceiling, and the accumulated belongings of many years of living there.
A room like that takes longer than its size suggests. The volume sits in the small things rather than the furniture, and small things have to be sorted rather than simply carried. Two houses with the same number of bedrooms can be a day apart, and it is why we visit before quoting rather than pricing over the phone from a room count.
The books
We cleared every room: bedroom furniture, personal effects, kitchen contents and household belongings. The books were checked before anything was bagged.
Books are one of the few categories where something genuinely valuable turns up in the middle of fifty that are not. First editions, local Cornish history, out of print reference, signed copies. It is worth the ten minutes to look properly, and a clearance company that tips a bookcase straight into a van is not doing you a service, whatever it saves on the day rate.
Everything else was sorted as we loaded. Items with resale value went to our own auctions and resale channels, with the value recovered set against the clearance cost. Usable household goods went to reuse and to local charities, glass and ceramics were separated out, and only what could not be saved went for licensed disposal with a waste transfer note on completion.
Access in a town like Looe
Looe is narrow streets and steep access. We agreed parking and the carry distance before the day rather than discovering them on it, which is worth doing anywhere on the south coast and essential in the older parts of town.
If you have a property to clear in Looe, Liskeard, Polperro or anywhere in south east Cornwall, call for a free no-obligation quote.
See the full set of before and after photographs from this job.