Everything we get asked

No, and it is probably the best time. A great many people want to understand what is actually involved before they decide anything at all, and that is a reasonable thing to want.

We will come and look, talk it through and leave you with a written picture. There is no obligation, and we will not chase you afterwards.

No to both, deliberately. We are removers, not valuers or dealers, and a firm that both clears your house and offers to buy from it has an obvious conflict.

If we think something warrants a proper opinion we will say so and suggest you get one before it goes anywhere.

Yes, and it is very common. Tell us in writing who is authorised to agree things on your behalf and we will deal with them properly, keeping you copied in if that is what you want.

The same applies to a solicitor, an attorney acting under a power of attorney, or a care manager.

Because that is where the volume is. A bedroom count describes almost none of a house like this — the loft, the garage, the cellar, the fitted wardrobes, the under-stairs and the shed are where a very large part of a long-occupied house actually lives.

It is also why our first figure is sometimes larger than others you may have been given, and why it tends not to change.

Some of it, and less than you think. We measure the new property properly — walls rather than rooms, plus doorways, turns and what is already built in — and we tell you plainly what will not go while there is still time to decide about it.

The built-in storage is what people actually lose. A 1930s house with a loft, a cellar and a wall of fitted wardrobes holds far more than a newer, smaller property with none of those.

Yes, and for a downsize it is frequently the sensible way. Clearing first, so the house shows better. Family deliveries before the main day. A storage run to take the pressure off.

Stages cost a little more than doing everything at once and are very much easier on everybody involved.

Less than people hope. Upholstered furniture generally needs its fire label intact, electrical items usually need testing, and most shops cannot take flat-pack at all.

We will tell you what is likely to be accepted before anybody makes a trip, and it is always worth ringing the specific shop rather than assuming.

They are recycled or disposed of under our waste carrier duty of care, and you get the transfer documentation. That paperwork matters and you are entitled to it — it is worth asking any firm for it.

We will take several drop-offs on one job rather than charging for separate deliveries, and we will deliver into the room rather than onto a doorstep.

The one thing worth doing first is asking them honestly whether they want it and whether it will fit. A generous gift that sits in somebody’s garage for a year helps nobody, and it is a more awkward conversation than the move itself.

A full pack, a part pack of the fragile and awkward things only, or materials dropped off. For a downsize the part pack is usually right, because the sorting and the packing want to happen together and that part is better done by you.

Northwood, Northwood Hills and Moor Park first, then Eastcote, Ruislip, Pinner, Hatch End, Rickmansworth, Croxley Green, Carpenders Park, Harefield, Denham and Chorleywood.

The new place can be anywhere — a great many downsizes from here go out to the coast or towards family in another county, and the family drop-offs go further still.

We do that work and we handle it the same way: the four destinations, sorted at the house, with somebody authorised to agree things. What we do not do is value, buy or advise on anything beyond the moving and clearing.

Cash, jewellery, deeds, passports and similar valuables; controlled drugs; firearms and ammunition; fuels, gas bottles, fireworks and other hazardous goods; perishable food; plants that may carry pests; and living animals.

On a clearance, paint, solvents, garden chemicals and gas bottles in the garage are the usual ones, and they need arranging separately.