Job details
✅ Real completed job. This case study documents a genuine completed clearance job using a verified job record provided for publication on houseclearance.co.
Project overview
A three-bedroom semi-detached house in Islington, N1 needed clearing before completion on a sale, with the owner wanting the rooms empty well ahead of viewings and handover rather than left to the last minute. houseclearance.co put the request out to 9 carriers; 4 came back with bids, and the job was won at £1,280, the real price paid.
What stands out about this one is the pace: the job was posted on 18 August 2026 and marked complete on 21 August 2026 – three days start to finish. For a seller working to an exchange date, that kind of turnaround matters as much as the price itself. The owner confirmed a keep/remove list for each room before the carrier arrived, so loading could start without any on-the-day decisions slowing things down.
Items removed and quantity
The inventory for this job covered:
- Two sofas
- Three bedframes
- Storage units
- Rugs
- Kitchen contents
- Boxed belongings
Together this came to an estimated 9–12 cubic yards of material – a fairly typical load for a three-bedroom house being emptied room by room rather than gutted of fixtures. The two sofas and three bedframes made up the bulk of the volume, while the storage units contributed most of the weight once packed contents were accounted for. Rugs, kitchen contents and boxed belongings rounded out the inventory but were quicker to move, being lighter and easier to carry in multiple trips.
Fitted fixtures, hazardous waste, paint and rubble were excluded from the job without a separate assessment, since none of those fall under a standard house clearance and would need pricing on their own terms if the seller wanted them dealt with too. For a pre-sale clearance like this one, keeping that boundary clear matters: the goal was an empty, presentable property, not a strip-out, so anything fixed to the walls or floor stayed exactly where it was.
Access and logistics
The main access constraint on this job was a long route through the front garden to the van, combined with restricted kerbside parking on the street. Neither of those is unusual for Islington's period terraces and semis, but together they add real time: every piece has to be carried the full length of the garden path rather than lifted straight off a doorstep, and the van can't always sit directly outside, which stretches the carry further still. Storage units and bedframes were the items most likely to need breaking down to get through doorways and manage the distance comfortably.
Because the van couldn't be parked immediately outside the property, the clearance also had to account for a short walk between the front door and the loading point, on top of the garden path itself. That combination – distance plus restricted parking – is one of the more common access challenges on Islington jobs generally, and it's part of why access conditions get asked about upfront when a job like this is posted, rather than discovered on the day.
How the clearance was completed
With the keep/remove list agreed in advance, the carrier worked through the house systematically, starting with the bulkier items – sofas and bedframes – that needed the front garden route and the most careful handling given the restricted parking. Storage units were part-dismantled where it made the carry easier. Kitchen contents and boxed belongings were loaded last, once the larger pieces were clear of the hallway and garden path.
Fitted fixtures, hazardous waste, paint and rubble were left in place throughout, exactly as scoped. Reusable furniture and household goods were set aside for an appropriate reuse route where feasible, with the rest going through authorised disposal channels.
The whole job was completed within the three-day window between posting and sign-off, which left no slack for working around scheduling gaps – the sequencing of bulky items first, followed by boxed and loose contents, was what made that pace achievable without compromising on care around the front garden route.
Final cost and pricing factors
£1,280 is the real price paid for this job, and it won out against three higher bids of £1,500, £1,400 and £1,365. What affected the cost here was the combination of item count and weight – two sofas and three bedframes among them – and the access conditions: the long carry through the front garden and the restricted kerbside parking both add to loading time, which carriers factor directly into their bids.
There's no fixed houseclearance.co rate for a house clearance in Islington; each of the 9 carriers notified on this job priced it independently based on the inventory and access details supplied. £1,280 reflects this specific property and this specific job – see how prices are calculated for the wider picture across different property types and job sizes.
Quote activity
This is how the request for Islington moved through the houseclearance.co marketplace:
The winning bid of £1,280 was the lowest of the 4 bids received, ahead of £1,365, £1,400 and £1,500 in houseclearance.co's reverse-auction marketplace, where licensed carriers compete on price for each job individually. Nine carriers were notified for this job and four chose to bid – a solid response rate that likely helped keep the winning price down.
Result and handover
The three-bedroom semi-detached house in Islington was cleared of the full inventory listed above within three days of the job being posted. The goal – clearing contents ahead of a planned property sale – was met on schedule, leaving the property ready for viewings and handover without any further clearance work needed.
For a seller working toward an exchange date, the three-day turnaround from posting to completion was as much a result as the £1,280 price itself: the property was empty and presentable well within the window the sale needed, with nothing left outstanding on the front garden route or around the kerbside parking that had shaped the job's planning.
About this case study
Is this a real completed job?
Yes. This is a real completed clearance job. The property type, item list and £1,280 price shown on this page are real details from the completed job.
What would affect the cost of house clearance in Islington?
On this job, the main factors were the number and weight of items – two sofas and three bedframes among six item categories – and the access conditions: a long route through the front garden to the van and restricted kerbside parking, both of which add to loading time. Those factors are reflected directly in the £1,280 price paid for this completed job; it's the real figure the winning carrier charged, not an estimate.
How should bulky furniture be prepared for loading?
Before a carrier arrives, it helps to measure doorways and any tight stair turns against the furniture being removed, so it's clear in advance which pieces – such as bedframes or storage units – may need to be safely dismantled rather than carried whole. It's also worth going room by room to separate keep-items from remove-items ahead of time, as was done on this job, so the carrier can load without stopping to check on individual pieces.
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