Attic clearance in Dalkey, then the stairs and landing cleaned

Attics in Dalkey: cottages, terraces and villas

What is above the ceiling in Dalkey depends on which Dalkey you are in.

In the village, around Castle Street and the roads to the harbours, the cottages and small terraces have small roof spaces, and some have none worth the name. Where there is a hatch, it is often over a steep, narrow stairs or squeezed into a box room. The attic may hold only a few dozen boxes, but each one is awkward to get at.

On Dalkey Hill and towards Sorrento and the Vico, the period villas are a different matter. They have big roof spaces that have been filling for generations, and some have rooms at the top of the house, reached by a narrow stair, that were turned into storage long ago. Between the two are the later family homes, with an ordinary hatch on the landing and a folding ladder.

Our main attic clearance page describes the service across Dublin, and house clear-outs in Dalkey covers the houses. This page is about the attic, and about the part of the job that most people forget until it is over: the stairs.

Getting it down: hatch, ladder and stairs

Most of the planning is about the way out. When you send photos, include one of the hatch and ladder taken from the landing, and one looking down the stairs.

Anything that went up in pieces comes down in pieces. A cot, a bed frame or old shelving is taken apart in the attic first. Insulation is left where it is. We work around it and do not pull it up or flatten it to reach things.

What comes down, and what is set aside

An attic holds what a family could not part with, so it gets a second look on the way out.

• Boxes, suitcases and bags, opened and checked as they come down
• Christmas decorations, toys, cots and prams
• Books, school work and folders of old paperwork
• Rolled carpet, spare doors and offcuts of timber
• Old lamps, pictures and frames
• Loose boards lying across the joists, if you want them gone

Photographs, letters, certificates and anything with a name on it are set aside and shown to you before anything else leaves the house. If you are clearing a parent's home, our guide to bereavement clearance in Dalkey covers keepsakes in more detail.

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The part nobody plans for: dust

Things stored in a roof space for twenty years carry twenty years of dust, and every one of them travels across the landing and down the stairs.

We do what can be done on the day. The landing and the stairs are covered before the first box comes down. We wear masks and gloves in the attic. Boxes that have gone soft are repacked before they are moved, so they do not split on the ladder.

Even so, look at the carpet under an attic hatch in almost any house. It is the patch where the ladder feet land, where every box was set down for a moment and where the dust from above settled each time the hatch was opened. Then there are the stairs, which take more footsteps than any other carpet in the house and show it first on the front edge of each step.

A clearance does not cause that. It is simply the day you notice it.

Then the stairs and landing carpets

This is where Spotless is different from a clearance-only company. We clean carpets as well, so once the attic is empty the route out of it can be cleaned too.

• The landing. Cleaned by hot-water extraction, including the patch under the hatch.
• The stairs. Every tread, riser and nosing cleaned by hand, from the top down.
• The hall. The last few metres to the front door, where everything was carried out.
• Bedroom carpets, if you want them done while the machine is in the house.

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The order matters. Carpets are always cleaned after the clearance, never before, because there is no point cleaning a stairs that forty more boxes are about to come down. On a small attic both can happen in one visit. On a large one, the cleaning follows on another day.

You can walk on a cleaned stairs straight away in clean socks or bare feet. Keep outdoor shoes off until it is dry, which usually takes a few hours. If the stairs has a wool runner, as many older Dalkey houses do, tell us, because the method is adjusted for wool. See carpet cleaning in Dalkey and stair carpet cleaning.

Before insulation, a conversion or a sale

Many attics are cleared because something else is about to happen.

• Insulation is going in. Installers need the floor of the attic clear before they can lay new material. See attic clearance before insulation or a conversion.
• A builder is starting. A conversion begins with an empty roof space, and it is quicker for us to empty it than for the trades to work around boxes.
• The house is being sold. Buyers and surveyors open the hatch, and an empty attic and a clean stairs both show well.

Tell us the date you are working to and we plan back from it.

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What Spotless does, in one place

• Attic clearance: everything brought down, checked and taken away, with the attic left swept.
• House clearance and house clear-outs in Dalkey: when the attic is one part of emptying the house.
• Stair carpet cleaning and carpet cleaning in Dalkey: the landing, the stairs and the hall, by hot-water extraction.
• Sofa and upholstery cleaning in Dalkey: fabric furniture that is staying. We clean fabric only, not leather.

Usable items are set aside for reuse where possible, metal and electrical items are recycled, and the rest goes to authorised waste facilities under our permit, NWCPO-25-13287-01. We are fully insured on every job and work Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm.

We clear the contents of the attic. We do not lift fixed flooring, strip insulation, remove water tanks or touch wiring. We cannot take paint, solvents, oils, fuel, chemicals, batteries or gas cylinders, and we do not handle anything that may contain asbestos. If old pipe lagging or board in the attic looks suspect, we leave it alone and tell you.

Before we arrive

• Take a photo of the attic from the hatch in each direction, with a light on
• Take a photo of the hatch and ladder from the landing, and one down the stairs
• Tell us whether the floor is boarded
• Tell us what you want kept, or what we should look out for
• Close the bedroom doors on the day
• Leave the water and electricity on if the carpets are being cleaned

If you would like to sort the attic yourself first, our attic clearance guide explains how to do it safely.

Getting a price

Send the photos on WhatsApp to 085 202 1222, or use the quote form on this page, and tell us whether you want the stairs and landing cleaned afterwards. You will get one written quote, usually the same day.