Bereavement Clearance in Donnybrook: Clearing a Period Home in Dublin 4

A period house is cleared floor by floor, not room by room

Most of what is written about bereavement clearances is about decisions: what to keep, who chooses, when to start. Our Dublin bereavement clearance guide covers that side in full. This guide is about something more physical. In Donnybrook and the rest of Dublin 4, the family home being cleared is often a tall period house: three or four floors, a basement or garden level, a return at the back, an attic up a narrow stair, and a street where the only parking is at the kerb. The building shapes the job.

So this is a guide to the practicalities: where a truck can stand on a permit-parking street, how a wardrobe comes down from the top floor without marking the banisters, why a house like this is sequenced over more than one day, and how the solicitor and the estate agent's photography date set the timetable at either end. It is general practical guidance, not legal advice; the solicitor or executor handling the estate is the right person for anything about the estate itself.

PropertyClearance.ie is based in Athy, Co. Kildare, and clears homes across Dublin 4; see our house clearance in Donnybrook and bereavement clearance pages. If you would rather talk first, call 083 090 4545.

What a Donnybrook period house tends to involve

The older houses of Dublin 4 share a family resemblance, and each feature has a consequence for a clearance.

• Steps up to the front door. Everything leaving by the hall door comes down outside steps first, so the pavement and railings are part of the route.
• A basement or garden level. A separate flat, the kitchen or decades of storage, reached from inside, from steps at the front or from the garden. Its route out is rarely the same as the floors above.
• The return. Half-landing rooms at the back with their own short flights of stairs: bathrooms, box rooms, studies and a lot of boxes.
• Tall reception rooms. The largest furniture in the house is usually here: sideboards, bookcases, dining tables, sometimes a piano.
• An attic with a narrow stair. The last flight is often the steepest, and the attic is often the fullest room.
• A long garden and a shed. Included when you photograph them. Where the house backs onto a usable lane, garden contents can leave that way; otherwise they come through the house last. See garden clearance and shed clearance.
• Original features. Floorboards, tiled halls, plasterwork, turned banisters and panelled doors are part of what the house will sell for, and the easiest things to scuff.

If the house was divided into flats at some point and later joined back together, expect extra kitchens, extra meters, locked internal doors and more than one household's contents. Tell us; it changes the plan more than the volume does.

Parking and the truck position on a permit-parking street

Parking on most Donnybrook streets is on the street itself, often under permit or pay-and-display rules, and a clearance truck needs to stand at the kerb for several hours while it is loaded. Every extra metre between hall door and tailgate is walked dozens of times in a day, so the truck's position is the biggest practical question on the job.

• Send a photograph of the street from the front door, in both directions, with the room photographs. It shows us the kerb, the parked cars, the trees and the width of the road.
• Have a word with the neighbours the week before. If they normally use the space outside, asking them to leave it free on the morning is the simplest arrangement there is.
• Tell us about restrictions you know of: a bus route, a school, a one-way or very narrow street, a lane at the back that is or is not usable.

We plan the truck position around what the street allows and do not block a neighbour's gate or drive. If the only workable space is some distance away, the quote allows for the extra carrying.

Carrying routes: the steps, the hall, the stairs and the basement

In a tall house the route each item takes is decided before it is lifted. A wardrobe from a top-floor bedroom passes down three or four flights, round each landing, along the hall and down the front steps. A chest freezer in the basement may be better taken out through the garden-level door than through the house at all.

What comes apart and what does not. Beds, wardrobes and flat-pack units are dismantled where they stand, so what travels down the stairs is panels rather than boxes. Solid period furniture generally does not come apart: a mahogany sideboard, a glass-fronted bookcase or a dining table is carried whole, which is where the planning matters. Pianos are carried whole too; tell us about one in advance, with a photograph, so the right people and equipment are there.

Doors, turns and the return. Where a landing is too tight for a large piece, an internal door may be lifted off its hinges for the day and rehung afterwards. The return stairs are usually the narrowest, so those rooms come down in smaller loads. Nothing is pushed or slid down a staircase.

The basement. Basement and garden-level rooms are often damp, poorly lit and full of heavy, awkward items. Where there is a separate door to the front area or the garden, that becomes the basement's own route out, and it is usually cleared as a stage of its own; see basement clearance.

Sequencing a tall house over more than one day

A three- or four-storey house with a basement is rarely a one-day job, and trying to make it one is how things get damaged. A sensible order, agreed in writing beforehand:

1. Before anyone lifts anythingPapers, photographs and anything the family wants are out of the house or in one marked room with the door closed. Anything a valuer or the solicitor needs to see stays where it is.
2. Top of the house firstThe attic and top-floor bedrooms, cleared while the stairs are freshest and the hall is empty. Anything in drawers, pockets and boxes that looks personal is set aside.
3. The middle floors and the returnBedrooms, bathrooms, box rooms and studies. Paperwork tends to live here, so the crew slows down.
4. The reception roomsThe largest and heaviest furniture, carried whole along a hall that is now clear. Pieces staying for the agent's photographs are protected in place.
5. The basement or garden levelOften a day of its own: kitchen contents, white goods and years of storage, taken out by its own route.
6. The garden and the shedBy the lane if there is one and it is usable, otherwise through the house last.
7. Between daysUpper floors empty, hall protection still down, kept items untouched, doors locked, alarm set. We agree who locks up, who opens in the morning and who to ring if anything is wrong. Keep the electricity on; the crew needs light on the stairs.
8. Sweep, photographs, keysEvery room is swept and photographed, floor protection is lifted, doors are rehung, and keys go back to whoever you have named.

Working with the solicitor and the estate agent's photography date

A clearance like this is bracketed by two other professionals: the solicitor, who confirms at the start who may give instructions and whether anything must stay for valuation, and the estate agent, who sets the date at the end for the photographs that will sell the house.

The solicitor

Period houses in Dublin 4 often hold things of value: paintings, silver, rugs, antique furniture, books. If the estate needs a valuation, it happens before the clearance, and those items stay where they are until the valuer has been. Ask the solicitor whether a valuation is required, who holds the keys, and whether there is a date the house must be empty by. We provide a written quote beforehand and, on request, dated photographs of every room and written confirmation of clearance for the estate file.

The estate agent

Agents generally want their photographs taken once the house is clear and clean. Some prefer a few pieces left in the main rooms for scale; others want the rooms bare. Ask before you book and tell us exactly which pieces stay, so they can be protected while everything around them leaves; the same goes for carpets, curtains and light fittings. Work backwards from the agent's date: photographs, then a clean if one is needed, then the clearance, with a day or two spare between each. A clean is a separate job; ask when you request the quote and we will say what can be arranged.

What changes the quote for a period house

One fixed written price from photographs, covering labour, transport and disposal. For a house of this kind these factors move it:

Donnybrook, Ballsbridge, Sandymount and the rest of Dublin 4

The same houses, and the same parking, run across the district, and we clear them in Ballsbridge, Sandymount, Ranelagh and Rathgar as well as Donnybrook. If the house is full of books and collections rather than furniture, our Sandymount guide to books, records and collections deals with that side. For pieces going to relatives, see furniture removal; for the whole city, start from the Dublin page. One note on sheds: paint, solvents, oils, chemicals, batteries and gas cylinders cannot come with us, and should go to a civic amenity site.