Recently instructed by a client, we were tasked with clearing a 3 bed semi detached house, so it was ready to move into. It was a full top to bottom clearance, but not to include cleaning or any garden work.
This property was dark, and we mean really dark! Whilst you may say ‘turn on a light’ the power had been disconnected, meaning we couldn’t do this. The main reason for the darkness, was the amount of foliage and trees that were in close proximity to the house. There were trees less than 10 feet away, that were twice the height of the house. The hedges and other plants close to the house had been left unchecked, further blocking out more light.
To compound matter even more, all the doors, skirting, window frames and other wooden items in the house were dark brown.
At some point it did appear that the walls had been painted a light colour, however years of nicotine build up had lead to these becoming darker.
We were able to use torches, and work in some areas where the light was low, but we were able to work around this. The loft was cleared, followed by the bedrooms. We moved all the rubbish and other items out to the garage as we went. We were then able to clear the downstairs and take this out the same way.
In the video you can see that we had fridges and freezers that were still full of left over food. Whilst we are unsure how long the power had been off for, saying at least 3 weeks would be a good guess. As I am sure you can imagine, the smell that came from both of these was overpowering at times.
We were also instructed to remove the carpets, as these stank of dogs. Although not as bad as the fridges and freezers, it was still quite smelly.
The job was completed in 3 days, mainly using 2 people, with 3 on one day. We used 1 skip, and a few loads in the van.