Country houses, not town houses
County Carlow outside the town is farming country. The Barrow runs south through Leighlinbridge and Bagenalstown towards Borris, the Slaney passes Rathvilly and Tullow on the eastern side, and the land rises towards the Wicklow border at Hacketstown and the Blackstairs in the south. The homes we clear out here are rarely in estates. They're farmhouses at the end of a lane, bungalows built on a site from the home farm, cottages at a crossroads and two-storey houses with a yard of sheds behind them.
That changes the job more than people expect. In the countryside, the hard part is rarely parking or a flight of stairs. It's distance, extra buildings and decades of things kept in case they'd be needed. This page is about those houses. For Carlow town and Graiguecullen, see house clear-outs in Carlow town, and for everything we do across the county, our Carlow page.
What a Carlow farmhouse usually holds
Every house is different, but the same rooms tend to fill in the same way:
| Space | What we tend to find | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen and back kitchen | Dressers, delph, a range or old cooker, a chest freezer | Have anything plumbed in or wired in disconnected first |
| The good room | Display cabinets, a suite, pictures, heavy sideboards | The pieces families most often keep, so mark them |
| Bedrooms | Big wardrobes, iron beds, mattresses, boxes of clothes | Wardrobes are taken apart to get down narrow stairs |
| Loft | Suitcases, papers, decorations, old toys | Often reached by a ladder, so mention it |
| Yard and outbuildings | Timber, gates, scrap, feed bins, cast-off furniture | Photograph each building separately |
spotless.ieWhen the house has been in the family for generations
Most farmhouse clearances follow a death or a move into care. The house may have been home to one family for generations, and the people sorting it now often live in Dublin, Kildare or further away. So we plan around them:
- Visits on the family's schedule. A Saturday when everyone can get down, or two shorter visits a few weeks apart.
- Sorted rooms first. We start where the family has already been through things and leave the rest until they're ready.
- Papers kept back. Land documents, letters from the Department, old deeds, cheque books, photographs and Mass cards are set aside, never thrown out.
- Marked items left alone. Anything with a sticker or a note stays exactly where it is.
If the house or the land is going through probate, the executor decides what goes and when, ideally with the solicitor's advice. Our bereavement house clearance page explains how we work with families. Where a home has become very full over the years, we clear it gently and in stages; see hoarder clearance.
Sheds, haysheds and the back yard
The yard is where a rural clearance grows. A garden shed full of tools and timber, a garage or lean-to used as a store, a workshop, an old dairy, and a hayshed with forty years of odds and ends in the corner. We clear the lot in the same job as the house:
- tools, mowers, bikes and garden furniture from the shed
- a chest freezer, old furniture and boxes from the garage or store
- suitcases, papers and toys from the loft
- scrap metal, old gates, timber and broken machinery parts from the yard
Some things we can't take: asbestos cement sheeting, which is common on older farm roofs, plus waste oil, diesel, sheep dip, sprays, fertiliser and paint. Take chemicals and oils to a civic amenity site or a hazardous waste collection, and we'll clear the rest.
Lanes, gates and soft yards
Getting the van close makes the biggest difference to how long a country job takes. When you send photos, tell us:
- the Eircode, so we can see the house and the approach on a map
- how long the lane is, and whether there's a gate, a cattle grid or a low branch
- where a van can turn, and whether the yard gets soft in wet weather
- whether there's stock in the fields, so gates get closed behind us
Clearing a house in rural Carlow? Photograph every room, the loft and each building in the yard, add the Eircode, and send it all on WhatsApp. We'll come back with one fixed price.
Pricing a country clearance
The price comes from your photos and is fixed before you book. It reflects how many van loads there are, how far everything has to be carried, anything needing special disposal such as fridges, freezers, mattresses and electricals, and how long the crew will need. However far out the house is, the figure you agree is the figure you pay.
What we take is sorted, not dumped. Good furniture is set aside for reuse where possible, metals and appliances go for recycling, and the remainder goes to licensed facilities under our waste collection permit, NWCPO-25-13287-01. We're fully insured on every job. If a flat in Tullow or Bagenalstown needs clearing too, see apartment clearance, and for what every clearance includes, our main house clearance page.
