House clearance in Balbriggan

As far north as Dublin goes

Balbriggan is the last town in County Dublin before the Meath border, out on the coast beside the M1. It's part of our normal Fingal area, and we plan the day so the run up the motorway is done before the traffic builds.

The town has two quite different sides. Around the harbour, the beach and the main street there are older terraces and town houses, a few of them passed down through several generations. Around those, mostly inland, are the large estates that went up quickly around the turn of the century: semis, townhouses and duplexes, home to a lot of young families and a lot of rented homes.

The kind of house you have changes the plan for the day more than anything else, so it's the first thing we look at in your photos.

The estate house: attic, garage and the kids' stuff

In Balbriggan's newer estates, the rooms you live in are rarely the problem. It's the storage. Families who moved in twenty years ago now have an attic full of baby gear, outgrown toys and boxes from the last move, and a garage, if it hasn't been converted, that no car has been inside for years.

• Attics in these houses are often boarded only in the middle and reached by a folding ladder. We stay on the boards, keep off the insulation and pass everything down carefully. See attic clearance.
• Garages fill with bikes, scooters, paint, a chest freezer and flat-pack furniture nobody rebuilt after the last move. See garage clear-outs.
• Sheds and gardens collect broken garden furniture, a rusted barbecue and a trampoline that's seen better days. See shed clearance.

BeforeAfter spotless.ie

Moving up, moving on

A lot of Balbriggan families bought their first home in one of those estates and are now moving to something bigger, or leaving for Meath, Louth or abroad. A move is the best time to clear, because nobody wants to pay a removal company to carry boxes that will never be opened again.

What tends to work:

• Clear the storage before the removal quote. With the attic and garage empty, the removal company quotes for what's actually going.
• Sell or give away the good pieces early. Anything you're listing online needs a few weeks.
• Leave a "last day" pile. Beds, the kettle and the cleaning things go on the final morning, and we can collect what's left after the van has gone.

If you're renting the house out rather than selling, the same order works, with any furniture you're leaving for tenants kept in place.

Duplexes and apartments

Several Balbriggan developments have duplexes, with a flight of steps outside and another inside, as well as apartment blocks run by management companies. Both are routine for us; the price simply allows for the extra stairs. For a block, tell us about the lift, the parking and any rules on moving furniture, and our apartment clearance page will fill in the rest.

Older terraces near the harbour

The town-centre terraces are a different job: narrower halls, steeper stairs and parking on the street rather than a driveway. We stage everything indoors and keep the van's stops short so the street isn't held up.

Many of these houses have been lived in by one family for a long time. When one is cleared after a death, we work gently, go through drawers and coat pockets, and return anything personal to the family; see bereavement clearance. If a house has become very full over the years, we can clear it in stages and without fuss; see hoarder clearance.

Landlords and tenants

With so many rented homes in the town, a lot of Balbriggan clear-outs happen between tenancies. Anything that's part of the letting, like beds or white goods, stays put, and everything else goes. We can pick up keys from you or the agent, and we send a set of photos of the cleared house when we lock up. If the carpets are staying for the next tenant, we can clean them as well. If you manage several units, see property clearance.

Price and the paperwork

Your price is fixed from photos before you book, worked out from the volume, the access and anything needing separate disposal, like fridges, mattresses or electricals. A typical estate semi with a full attic and garage is a one- to two-day job; a town-centre terrace can be quicker, depending on how full it is.

Every job is fully insured, and we're an authorised waste carrier holding permit NWCPO-25-13287-01, so what leaves your house goes where it should: reusable items set aside, metals and electricals recycled, the rest to licensed facilities. Read more on our main house clearance page or see house clearance across Dublin. Down the coast, we also cover Skerries.