Home›Services›Downsizing clearance
Downsizing clearance in Balmoral & Mosman
A smaller home, not a smaller life.When a full house is coming down to an apartment, most of a lifetime's things are not making the trip, and none of them deserve to be treated as junk on the way out. We are the crew for everything that is not going with you: set aside, offered on, carried gently, with one price settled in writing before we touch a thing.
Everything that is not going with you, handled properly
A downsizing clearance is the whole of what remains, taken care of in one arrangement: one conversation, one price, one crew with good manners.
- The keepers, protected. We start only when the things going to the apartment are out of the house or plainly marked, so nothing bound for your new shelves is ever near our load.
- The second look. Before a room is cleared we go through it the way you would want us to: the backs of drawers, the top wardrobe shelf, the sideboard papers. Anything with the look of mattering about it is set aside and shown to you, never assumed to be finished with.
- Pieces for the family. The dresser promised to a granddaughter, the tools a son has always wanted: boxed or wrapped, labelled, held for collection or sent on.
- Donation before disposal. Good furniture, books and linen go to charity first. E-waste and the other regulated streams travel to licensed facilities, and landfill comes last.
- Swept on the way out. Rooms, hallway and porch left ready for the agent, the new owners or the tenant, with photos to you the same day if you are not there to see it.
The order of a downsize
We are not the moving company, and the difference matters: their truck carries what is going to the apartment, and we care for everything that is not. Kept in that order, nothing precious is ever in the wrong van.
-
You choose, at your pace
The apartment is settled on and so are the keepers. That part belongs to you and your family, and we never hurry it.
-
The keepers travel
The moving crew takes what is going with you. Until they have, we do not start.
-
We walk what remains
One visit, together or on a video call, then one fixed price for the whole clearance, in writing, before anything is lifted.
-
Cleared, offered on, swept
The second look room by room, the donation runs, the licensed streams, and swept rooms with the keys back in your hand.
Two ways it can run
| How it runs | When it suits |
|---|---|
| One clear day, after the move. You settle into the apartment first; we clear the whole house behind you. | Most downsizes. The house can usually wait a week. You should not have to. |
| In passes, while you are still living there. The garage, the under-house and the spare rooms go first; the last rooms after moving day. | Long-held houses where the under-house is a job of its own, or where a settlement date is close behind the move. |
Either way the price behaves the same: each visit is quoted and agreed in writing before it starts.
Often the new address is on the same beach
The houses above the beach, on Mandolong, Botanic and Stanton, have often been in the same hands since the children were small, and when they are finally traded down, the apartment is very often on the Esplanade or the lower slopes: the same postcode, the same morning walk, sometimes the same neighbours. This is rarely a leaving. What changes is the number of rooms, and a lifetime of contents has to come down to fit them.
A move that gentle deserves better than a skip in the driveway and one hard weekend, which is the version families regret: something gone before anyone asked, and good furniture wasted because the bin was closer than the charity. Ours is the unhurried version. Nothing that matters leaves, and nothing useful is thrown away for the sake of speed.
Helping your parents move, without taking over
If you are organising this for your parents, from across town or another city, the whole thing is built to keep them comfortable and you informed:
- We take our pace from the person whose house it is. It stays their move, and they stay in charge of their own things.
- Everything lives in writing: the quote, the set-aside list, what was offered to donation. The whole family reads the same page, wherever they are.
- When something turns up that nobody mentioned, a medal, a ring, a box of letters, we stop and ask before it goes anywhere. No exceptions, and no hurrying.
- You can join the walkthrough on a video call, and photos of the finished rooms come to you the day we sweep them.
There is more in our guides: downsizing to an apartment and clearing a house you can't attend.
One price for the whole of it
We do not price by the hour or by the cubic metre, and we do not publish rates, because a household is not a commodity load. What we will tell you is how the price behaves: quoted once we have seen what remains, covering the crew, the van, the tip fees and the donation runs, put in writing before we begin, and still the same figure when the last room is swept. If the job runs in passes around the move, each pass is agreed the same way before it starts.
Asked often, about downsizing
Do you come before or after the moving company?
Either, but after is usually easiest: once the keepers are safely in the apartment, everything still in the house is ours to care for and there is no risk of the two loads meeting. If the dates are tight we can clear the spare rooms and the garage beforehand and return for the rest after moving day.
Can you clear the house while we are still living in it?
Yes. We work room by room, close doors behind us, and leave the lived-in rooms exactly alone until you are ready. Plenty of downsizes run this way, especially when settlement follows close behind the move.
What happens if you find something that looks like it matters?
We stop and ask. Photographs at the back of a wardrobe, papers in the sideboard, a ring in a kitchen drawer: it goes into the set-aside box and it is shown to you, never decided for you. That rule is the reason for our name, and it has no exceptions.
Can furniture go to our children instead of charity?
Of course, and it happens on almost every downsize. Tell us during the walkthrough which pieces are promised to whom: they are wrapped, labelled and held for collection, or sent on to wherever the family is.
We are months away from moving. Is it too early to talk?
Not at all. Some families talk to us seasons before the apartment is even chosen, just to understand how it works. Read the walkthrough at your own pace, ask us anything through the form, and nothing about asking early obliges you to anything.
How is a downsizing clearance different from an estate clearance?
Same crew, same manners, same set-aside habit. The happy difference is that you are here for it: the keepers move first and the decisions are made around the kitchen table, not after. For a house that must be cleared after a death, the estate clearance page describes how we handle that.
Whether the apartment is chosen, or the idea is new
Tell us about the house and the move, in whatever order it comes. We will come back to you promptly, arrange a time to look, and agree the price before anything is lifted.
Not ready to write yet? Read how a clearance works, at your own pace.