Attic Clearance in Ballsbridge: Period-House Attics, With Papers and Photographs First

The attic is the family archive

In a modern house the attic holds Christmas decorations and suitcases. In a period house in Ballsbridge it holds the family. Three or four generations may have used the same rooms under the roof, and each left something: trunks, tea chests, deed boxes, albums, framed pictures turned to the wall, bundles of letters tied with string.

That changes how an attic clearance should be done. In most attics the job is to get the volume down safely. Here the job is to find what matters first, and then get the volume down. This guide explains that order of work. For the house as a whole, see our guide to clearing a period home in Dublin 4, and for a house full of books, our Sandymount guide to books, records and collections.

PropertyClearance.ie is based in Athy, Co. Kildare, and clears homes across Dublin 4; see our house clearance in Ballsbridge page and our attic clearance service, or call 083 090 4545. We are a clearance company and nothing here is legal advice. Questions about the estate are for the executor and the solicitor.

What the attic of a period house is

It is seldom one space. Photograph all of these, because they are cleared differently and they hold different things.

• Top-floor rooms. Proper rooms under the roof, with sloping ceilings and small windows, reached by the last and steepest flight of stairs. Once bedrooms, now full.
• Eaves cupboards. Low doors in the knee walls of those rooms, with storage running back under the slates. Things are pushed in and forgotten.
• The roof void. Above the top rooms, through a hatch, with the water tanks and whatever was put up there to be out of the way.
• The return. Half-landing rooms at the back of the house that became overflow for the attic.

The first pass: papers, photographs and pictures

Before a single trunk is moved, we go through the attic once, looking only for three kinds of thing. They come out first, by hand, and go to a table in a room you have chosen.

1. Papers. Deed boxes, document cases, folders, ledgers and loose bundles. Each is labelled with where it was found, because where a paper was kept often tells the solicitor what it relates to.
2. Photographs. Albums, framed photographs, boxes of prints, slides and film. These are kept together so the family can go through them once.
3. Pictures and frames. Paintings, prints and mirrors are carried down flat or upright, never stacked, and stood where the family or a valuer can see them.

Nothing in those three groups is assessed by us. We do not decide what a paper is worth or whether a picture is good. We find them, keep them together and put them in front of the people who can decide.

Where papers and photographs turn up

In an old attic, important things are rarely in the box marked for them. These are the places we check by hand:

Who decides what

The first pass ends with a table of things to be decided, and it helps to know who decides each.

• The solicitor sees anything about property, money or the estate: deeds, wills, policies, share and bank papers, and letters from other solicitors. If you are not sure whether a paper matters, it goes in this pile.
• A valuer, if the estate needs one, sees pictures, furniture and anything else that may be of value, before any of it leaves. The clearance is booked for after that visit.
• The family decides about photographs, letters and keepsakes. One person keeps the originals, and the others can have copies made.
• The executor gives us the final list of what is staying, and we take our instruction from that one person.

Bringing the rest down

Once the table is full and the attic holds only things nobody needs to see, the clearance proper begins. In a tall house that means the top flight of stairs.

• Stair carpets, banisters and hall floors are protected before anything is carried.
• Furniture that went up in pieces comes down in pieces. Wardrobes and bed frames are taken apart in the room, so nothing is forced round the turn of the stair.
• Trunks are emptied before they are lifted, and carried by two people.
• The roof void is cleared through its hatch, with the crew on joists or boards only.
• Old water tanks, loose boards and debris left by earlier work can be taken as well. Insulation, pipework and wiring stay, as they are part of the house.
• The landing and stairs are hoovered when the last load has gone down.

What we cannot take

We do not handle asbestos. Old pipe lagging and some boards in roof spaces of this age can contain it, so if we see anything suspect we leave it alone and tell you; it needs a specialist contractor. We also cannot take paint, solvents, oils, fuel, chemicals, batteries, gas cylinders or clinical waste. Anything of that kind is put together in one place and pointed out.

What PropertyClearance.ie does on a job like this

An attic in a period house is rarely cleared on its own. These are the services that usually run together, under one fixed price where you want them to:

• Attic clearance: top-floor rooms, eaves cupboards and the roof void, with time for the family to look through what comes down.
• House clearance: the rest of the house, floor by floor.
• Bereavement clearance: the same work at the family's pace and in step with the solicitor.
• Furniture removal: single pieces carried down and taken away once the family has chosen.
• Garage clearance: the mews or coach house at the end of the garden; see our Ballsbridge garage guide.

We provide a written quote beforehand and, on request, dated photographs of the empty rooms and written confirmation of clearance for the estate file. Reusable furniture and household goods go to reuse where possible, paper, metals and electrical items are recycled, and the rest goes to authorised facilities. PropertyClearance.ie is operated by Krystal Klean Express Limited, an authorised waste carrier under Waste Collection Permit No. NWCPO-25-13287-01, and is fully insured. We work Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm.

Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Sandymount and the rest of Dublin 4

We clear attics in period houses across the district, including Donnybrook and Sandymount. Parking on these streets is at the kerb, often under permit or pay-and-display rules, so a word with the neighbours the week before helps keep a space free. For Georgian houses nearer the city, our Dublin 2 guide covers basements, upper floors and attics together.