House Clearance Hitchen – Problems But We Still Got The Job Done

Nationwide House Clearance were recently appointed to clear a 3 bedroom bungalow in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. What should have been an ordinary typical house clearance turned into somewhat of a nightmare for our guys, though. After arriving at the property at their usual time of 9.00am the three men quickly established with the customer that it would take 3 van loads to clear the property due to large quantities of clutter in one of the rooms and the large double garage which also contained quite a lot of junk.

By 10.00am they had loaded up the van with one full good load for the recycling centre, anticipating a midday finish. When they arrived at the recycling centre, however, something happened to their van. Namely the loss of brakes and extreme heavy steering! Nationwide take extremely good care of our vans and this particular van, an 07 Ford Transit Luton Van, had recently been fully serviced.

Further investigation revealed that a large chunk of metal and some other bits and pieces had came off from the engine bay. With the help of the recycling centre the men somehow moved their van into the centre’s large yard. By this stage they still hadn’t ‘tipped off’, and had about 1 tonnes of household waste still to be disposed of, on the back of the vehicle.

Our guys automatically reverted to company policy whenever we have a break down, which is to call out the quite frankly brilliant RAC, our breakdown cover team. Amazingly within 20 minutes one of their guys was at the van trying to fix it. Unfortunately, although he had the part, he lacked the tools to carry out the repair. It transpired that part of the crank shaft had broken off and damaged some of the pulley. This, according to the RAC man, was something that was unusual in itself, but all the same, something that could happen at any time.

Meanwhile, some 3 miles away from the recycling centre, back at the actual clearance, 2 of our guys were left scratching their heads for a short whole. Unable to commence with the rest of the clearance because there was no van, action was taken and decisions made. The men with the van arranged for a 12-yard skip to be sent to the property. This was the equivalent of 1 van load. Within an hour or so of booking the skip it had arrived, allowing the two men at the job to carry out their task of clearing the property. They instinctively knew only to put non-recyclable items into the skip which they dully did, keeping back items marked for a charity donation.

Back at the van, the RAC man phoned around to see who would take the van in to fix us. No luck! Luckily the guys were in an industrial estate, which contained several repair shops. The RAC man, using his short wheel base Transit van, towed us around to 3 repair shops. The first two repair centres turned the men away, citing a busy schedule and such short notice. That was more than understandable. Thankfully, the 3rd repair shop, didn’t! They are GT Tyres & Motor Care. Within hours they had the van fixed and back on the road. Stars to a man, everyone at Nationwide cannot thank them enough!

Once on the road the men returned to the recycling centre where they had broken down to dispose of the first van load. An hour or so later and they were back at the property, greeted by a 12-yard skip which had already been filled by the guys who remained at the house. What was left to clear was basically recyclable items for charity, items which had already been established with the customer, to be donated to The British Heart Foundation.

By 4.00pm the full property had been cleared and the men were back on the road, the customer to his credit, was amazing throughout and actually credited us with a good service. We naturally didn’t charge the customer for the skip hire charge!

This is the first and hopefully last time we ever break down on a clearance. However, should it happen again, we are confident, thanks to our great staff (and the RAC), that not even a breakdown will stop us from carrying out our house clearance duties.