Clearing out your household on your own or through a moving company? Process, costs and 10 valuable tips

Is it worth it to clear out your home on your own and or should you hire a company to move? These are the possible variants at a glance (including process, costs and useful tips)!

House clearance perfectly according to plan

The reasons for the dissolution of a household are as diverse as the life situations in which people can find themselves. In addition to a new partnership, the children moving out to study, moving to a larger house due to the addition of a family or changing residence abroad for work reasons, inheritances and the dreaded rental nomads are also among the typical causesClearing out the basementas well as living space and attic required. In order to save energy, time and nerves, it makes sense to hire a professional clearer. But a few steps before the clearing company arrives are not that difficult and will help save money.

Clearing out the household on your own: Put together a concrete list of tasks

To ensure that all work is completed within a short period of time, it is important to carefully consider why furniture and other items should be removed from a house. Depending on the effort involved

Household clearance
complete clearing out
House or apartment clearance

The focus of the tasks is either on the complete removal of the facility for theTransportto the municipal waste yard or to pack up the valuable antiques for sale or even to store them in a storage box provided for this purpose.

While during a complete clearing out, not a single item is used anymore and furniture, dishes and pictures are thrown into a large waste container, when clearing out a household it makes sense to take a close look at the furniture. Many high-quality and well-preserved things are often bought by other people for further use. Many declutterers count the profit from the sale of furniture from the closed house against the costs of their work. A household is also referred to as breaking up when two people move in together. All duplicate items such as washing machines and pressure cookers are only needed once, so the unnecessary items are either thrown away or resold. Finally, some couples even decide to rent a storage unit so that they can potentially put valuable furniture back in a large house later. Storing furniture is typical for expatriates who only want to work abroad for a few years. In any case, what all of these situations have in common is that living space needs to be emptied. When you list the tasks at hand, it quickly becomes clear what type of resolution this is. Many people even decide to clear out their basement or attic several times in their lives because too much furniture has accumulated that no one wants to have anymore.

Cost factor of apartment clearance

Depending on the size of the items that need to be removed from the apartment and adjoining rooms, the costs depend primarily on the square footage of the rooms to be cleared out. As a guideline, an amount of 10.00 to 50.00 euros per square meter should be used. Typically, the more employees are needed to carry heavy furniture and the volume of waste generated, the more expensive it becomes. Small items such as floor lamps, curtains, cupboard contents and books on shelves can be easily thrown into bags and quickly carried out of a house. Larger things like slatted frames, carpets and electrical appliances require more effort. This is followed by the removal of fixtures such as wooden panels on ceilings or walls as well as wallpaper and installed carpets. It usually takes some time until everything that has been brought into the apartment is thoroughly removed. A comprehensive clearing out of an apartment also includes filling holes in the walls and sweeping up dirt. After all, the standard expression in many rental agreements is “handover swept clean”. This list makes it clear that clearing out when moving privately can be quite expensive.

Save money by doing your own moving

Although oneMoving companyIf the company usually also takes care of the clearing out if requested, it makes sense for cost reasons to only entrust the company with transporting the furniture to the new address. If friends and acquaintances or students help with the decluttering at the student rate, a lot of money can be saved. As soon as it is clear which items should either be sold or finally disposed of, you can get started. An option for reusing well-preserved furniture can also be to have it picked up and picked up by a social department store. However, a container or a large van, which must be rented and for which a parking space must be rented from the road traffic authority, is usually required for larger parts or for carpets and other bulky things. There are fees for disposal at the municipal waste depot. In total, the costs for this privately organized disposal amount to approximately 1,000 euros. Friends who help are sure to come over for a delicious lunch and housewarming party. Even filling the holes where the nails for the pictures were stuck is very cheap with a tube of filler and simple tools from the hardware store. Nevertheless, clearing out as an additional task for the moving company can in some cases be cheaper than clearing out the household on your own. Large, heavy furniture and many layers of wallpaper on the walls can always be removed more quickly and safely by professionals than by amateurs. Ultimately it depends on the size of the circle of friends, the technical talent and the schedule. If the valuable furniture is to be stored, it makes sense to hire a moving company that offers insurance included in the complete price. This also applies to company moves, where, in addition to the large amount of furniture, data protection must be taken into account. After all, most files and a company's computer systems are subject to strict data protection standards.

Ten valuable tips for a successful household clearance on your own or through a moving company

Most of the tasks involved in clearing out a household or apartment can be carried out yourself with little effort. The following ten ideas can be modified individually as needed:

1) thorough planning of the move including timely termination of contracts such as the rental agreement
2) ask friends about a good moving company or possible help
3) timely re-registration of the address with all contractual partners such as GEZ
4) Re-registration at the residents’ registration office
5) Place a forwarding order for the post office
6) Order containers and apply for no-parking signs
7) Buy supplies such as sacks and tools
8) ask friends if they have time
9) Offer furniture for sale or as a gift
10) Make a systematic plan for moving day

Point 10 of course applies both to house and apartment clearance, which is carried out with the support of friends, as well as to moving with a removal company and to simply clearing out the basement.