Hoarding clearance prices in Paris 2nd
Volume is everyone’s first instinct, and it is never the whole answer. On a clearance linked to hoarding, the quote is built as much on the journey the contents have to make as on how much there is: an old staircase, a high floor and a street where nothing can park sometimes weigh more than the number of bags.
The 2nd arrondissement is probably where that shows most plainly. This page sets out how a Diogenes clearance quote is put together here: what is counted, what is measured, and why two homes holding much the same contents can be priced quite differently depending on the building around them.
- Volume accumulated and number of bags
- Furniture to dismantle before it goes down
- Floor level, lift, width of the staircase
- Carrying to the vehicle and where it can park
Where the time on a clearance actually goes
A hoarding clearance is not a feat of strength: it is a series of slow operations, two thirds of which happen outside the cluttered rooms. Telling them apart explains why the quote does not come down to the van.
The sorting
- Personal items spotted during sorting are set aside to the agreed instruction; any specific search is provided for in the quote
- Setting aside the belongings the family wants to keep
- Separating waste by type before it is bagged
- A slower pace when the occupant is present
The dismantling
- Wardrobes and furniture wider than the doorway
- Bed bases and bed frames taken apart in the room
- Fixed shelving, often added over the years
- Protection of the landing while it is done
The carrying
- Down the stairs where there is no lift
- Trip after trip, bags kept apart from bulky items
- Communal areas to cross and to protect
- The walk to the loading point
Staircase, landing, pavement: the 2nd arrondissement’s share of the job
The smallest arrondissement in Paris is also one of the densest, and its period buildings almost never offer the conditions for a straightforward clearance. Around Vivienne and Gaillon you find spiral stairwells where a wardrobe simply will not turn, landings so tight that no more than two bags can be set down at once, and rooms under the roof reached by a second staircase narrower still. Where a house would let you carry a piece of furniture out whole, here it has to be taken apart before it can go down.
The loading point matters just as much. Around Montorgueil the street is pedestrianised; in the Sentier and the Mail, wholesale deliveries take up the spaces for much of the day; over towards the Grands Boulevards and Bonne-Nouvelle the traffic allows only short stops. So the vehicle sometimes stands a good distance away, and every return trip is repeated as many times as there are loads. Add the narrow courtyards and light wells, where passage is agreed with the caretaker or the managing agent, and the basement stockrooms behind shops, which mean going up before the going down can even begin.
From your first description to the quote
What you describe
Type of property, number of cluttered rooms, roughly how high the accumulation reaches, the large pieces of furniture present, and what the family wants to keep.
The building survey
Floor level, lift or none, width of the staircase, any courtyard, pedestrianised street, and whether a space can be obtained for the vehicle.
Estimating the volume
The contents are converted into transportable volume, then split between bags, bulky items and furniture to dismantle, from photographs or on site.
Choosing the disposal routes
Household refuse, bulky waste, furniture, textiles, electrical appliances, special waste: each category has its own destination and its own drop-off.
The quote, item by item
Sorting, dismantling, carrying and disposal appear separately, so the scope can be adjusted if you would rather keep part of the work yourself.
Preparing for the day
Slot agreed, caretaker informed, communal areas protected, order in which rooms are emptied. Nothing starts without your written agreement.
Criterion by criterion
The table below brings together what is observed during the assessment. None of it produces a figure on its own: these factors combine, and it is the sum of them that sets how long the job takes and how many people it needs.
| Criterion | What makes it vary |
|---|---|
| Volume accumulated | How high the accumulation reaches, how many rooms are involved, whether you can still move about or the hallways are completely blocked. |
| Number of bags | The share of light waste that can be bagged, as against rigid objects that are carried one by one and load far less efficiently. |
| Furniture to dismantle | Wardrobes, bed bases, fixed shelving: anything wider than the door or the landing has to be taken apart before it goes down. |
| Floor level | The higher the floor, the more the number of trips tells. A top floor in the roof space often adds a service staircase on top. |
| Lift | Having one changes the rhythm; its size matters too, since an old car will take neither a mattress nor a worktop. |
| Width of the staircase | A narrow or turning staircase rules out carrying two abreast and forces smaller loads, which means more of them. |
| Carrying distance | The metres between the street door and the vehicle, multiplied by the number of return trips. |
| Parking | A space obtained outside the building, a pedestrianised zone, a restricted stop, or falling back on a neighbouring street. |
| Sorting what is kept | Searching for papers and keepsakes, the presence of the family or of the occupant, decisions taken as the work goes along. |
| Disposal routes | How many waste streams have to be separated and how many different drop-off points: the more categories, the more journeys. |
A clearance does not include cleaning the surfaces it uncovers: that is priced separately, once the volume is out and the real state of the floors and walls can be seen.
Related Paris 2nd pages
Here the quote covers the clearance alone: dismantling, bagging, carrying and disposal, with no deep clean of the surfaces uncovered. Clearance comes before cleaning without replacing it. The pages below cover the service itself, the support offered where hoarding is involved, and the pricing of the clean that follows.
Frequently asked questions about hoarding clearance prices
Does the quote depend only on the volume to be removed?
No. Volume gives the baseline, but the journey it has to make counts just as much. The same contents taken out of a ground-floor flat with a parking space at the door, or out of a top floor with no lift in a pedestrianised street, do not represent the same workload at all.
How can I estimate the volume without getting it wrong?
You do not have to work it out. Tell us how many rooms are cluttered, roughly how high the accumulation reaches and which large pieces of furniture are there. A few photographs taken from the doorway of each room read far more reliably than a figure guessed at.
Is sorting the belongings to be kept counted separately?
It appears as an item of its own, because it depends not on volume but on time spent. Searching for papers, photographs or keepsakes in a long-standing accumulation calls for patience, particularly when the family wants to approve every decision.
Should a parking space be booked for the vehicle?
It is strongly advisable in the 2nd, where spaces outside buildings are scarce and often taken by deliveries. Failing that, the vehicle parks further off and the carrying distance grows, which feeds straight through into how long the job takes.
Is cleaning included in the price of the clearance?
No, these are two different services. Clearance frees the volume; cleaning then takes on the floors, the walls and the fittings once they can be seen. Both can appear on the same quote, but on separate lines, so that the choice stays yours.
What happens to everything that is taken away?
It is directed by type to the matching disposal routes: bulky waste, furniture, textiles, electrical appliances, special waste. Whatever you have asked to keep is set aside before anything leaves and handed back to you at the end of the job.
Getting a hoarding clearance priced in Paris 2nd
Tell us which rooms are involved, the floor level, whether there is a lift and what the parking is like: that is enough to start the assessment and draw up a quote broken down item by item.