Clearance in Munich

Why photographs are not enough

Photographs reliably show the front row of the stack. What stands behind it appears in no picture, and experience says roughly the same quantity again is waiting there. Nor does an image reveal the weight of a workbench base, how an installed shelving unit is bolted down, or the clear width of the cellar door. Anyone quoting a fixed price on that basis either pads it heavily or renegotiates on the day. Both are avoidable if someone looks at the area first.

Carry route and parking

The carry route often costs more time than the sorting does. What counts is the floor level, the number of steps, turns and tight landings in the stairwell, and the door widths along the way out. A lift changes the calculation completely – but only if it is genuinely usable. Car dimensions, permitted load and whether the building management requires protective panelling therefore belong in the viewing. A loft without a lift is the most expensive square metre in the building.

Where the vehicle may stand is a planning point in its own right. In densely built Munich districts the nearest lawful stopping place is often several house numbers away, and every extra metre counts on every single trip. A temporary no-parking zone has to be applied for with the city and put up in good time, which needs several days of lead time. At the viewing we work out whether that effort pays off or whether a courtyard, a garage ramp or a loading bay will do.

Sorting and the disposal fee

Sorting happens at the property, not at the disposal point. Wood, metal, waste electricals, cardboard, residual waste and rubble each take their own route, and mixed bulky waste is regularly dearer on acceptance than cleanly separated fractions. Waste electricals may not go into bulky waste in any case. Rubble is the special case: it takes up little room but weighs so much that it caps the vehicle load long before the deck looks full.

That determines what a quote can do before the viewing and what it cannot: working time can be estimated in advance, the disposal fee cannot – it only follows from what is actually unloaded at the receiving facility in the end. Anyone who gives you a single total for both beforehand has guessed the second half. We therefore give two figures: an estimate for the time and an open item for the fee.

What we cannot take

Not everything can go on the van. Old paint and solvents, waste oil, batteries, fluorescent tubes and pressurised containers belong at the facilities designated for them and are not simply loaded up. Where asbestos-containing material is suspected – old planters, removed night-storage heaters, corrugated sheets in the garage – we stop and leave it untouched. That work belongs with a firm licensed for it. We tell you what was found and carry on clearing the harmless remainder.

When something turns up

Cellars and lofts regularly bring to light what nobody expected to find there: photo albums, certificates, savings books, old identity papers. Such finds are set aside and handed over, not disposed of. With commercial clearances, retention obligations come into play – business records may still have to be kept for years. Settle before the appointment who does the sifting and where the retained items go. It saves the hours on the day when everyone would otherwise stand around waiting.

Warehouse, workshop, retail unit

Warehouses, workshops and vacated retail units raise a different set of questions. We need the delivery windows, the arrangements for lift and ramp, and a list of what stays in the property despite the clearance: leased equipment, tenant fixtures, inventory with residual value. Files earmarked for destruction belong on a separate, documented route rather than in the paper container. Whatever applies is recorded in writing before the appointment, so that nobody has to guess on the day.

Broom-clean is not handover-ready

After the clearance the area is empty and roughly swept. Broom-clean means exactly that – not ready for handover. Anyone returning a cellar compartment or a commercial unit to building management or a follow-on tenant will as a rule need a subsequent cleaning pass: floors washed, window sills, the gaps between radiator fins, door leaves and frames. We plan that as a separate stage with its own time rather than quietly folding it into the clearance.