Charities and House Clearances

Hello guys. Tom Pickering here, Clearance & Cleanup.

In this short blog, I'm going to go through the pros and cons of using a charity to help with your house clearance.

There are so many charities out there for you to chose from.  Animal charities.  The Heart Foundation.  Family charities.  Hospital charities.  Housing charities.  They come in all shapes and sizes and all run in different ways.

It’s important to remember that even though they are a charity, they are still a business.  They still need to make money to continue to run. People often forget this and think that all items will be gratefully received.  But this just isn’t the case. Charities will only take items which they can sell and make money on.

So, when you make the initial contact a charity to arrange a collection, be prepared and give them as much detail as possible about the available items.  This will allow them to determine whether they will either be easy to sell or are items that are needed by their clients (if they provide things free of charge).

There are many things which a charity will not be able to take from you.  This will include items which don’t have the relevant fire safety labels on, such as mattresses, sofas, and soft furnishings. The fire safety label started being used about 15 years ago, so items older than that definitely won’t be accepted.  Please check for labels before offering the items.

The other thing to consider is the date and time of a collection.  The usual practice is for a charity to give you a morning or afternoon slot, not a precise time.  This could mean you waiting around at the property for them to arrive.

This point is of particular relevance if you haven’t gone through the list of items available with them before the collection.   I would always advise providing them with as much detail as possible when making the arrangements.  Then if possible, send them photos of each of the items before confirming the collection.

When they arrive at the property they will ‘cherry pick’ the best items.  These will be the things that they can sell easily and quickly, to generate the most amount of money for the charity’s funds.  Currently, in 2019, I know many charities will not take dark wood furniture because people no longer want it.  It isn’t modern.  Whilst you may look at it and see quality and that it’s still perfectly useable, if no one will buy it, then it would simply be taking up valuable room in the charity’s shop or storage facility.

Taking all of the above factors into consideration, I would still always encourage you to contact a charity when preparing a house clearance.  The more items a charity will take, the less you have to pay a clearance company, like ours, to remove.  Just be aware that you may be waiting around for them to arrive and they may not take as many items as you would like, or expect.

If you want any more advice, please contact me, I can definitely help you with this.

So that's me, Tom Pickering. I hope you found this helpful.