Apartment Clearance in Geneva

How do you estimate a volume in cubic metres?

This is the most useful question on this page, because nobody estimates volume correctly and a bad estimate is the leading cause of a quote being revised on the day. Here are concrete reference points.

One cubic metre is roughly ten standard removal boxes, or a washing machine, or an armchair and a bedside table. Two cubic metres is a two-seat sofa. Three cubic metres is the contents of a normally cluttered cellar. Five cubic metres is a complete bedroom: bed, dismantled wardrobe, chest of drawers, boxes.

For a whole home, the orders of magnitude we see in practice are as follows. A soberly furnished studio is 8 to 12 m³. A 2 – 3 room flat lived in for a few years, 15 to 25 m³. A family 4 – 5 room flat, 30 to 45 m³. A flat occupied for twenty years by the same person, with cellar and attic store, can exceed 60 m³ — and that is where a phone estimate goes wrong most often.

The simple method: walk through room by room and count the large items — sofas, wardrobes, beds, appliances — then add an estimate in boxes. Send us a few photos or a quick video of each room, cellar and attic store included. That is enough for a fixed quote, and it saves us giving you a figure we would then have to correct in front of you.

What happens to what we take away?

A clearance is not a trip to the tip. Sorting happens on site and each category goes to a different destination, which has an obvious environmental benefit and sometimes a financial one for you.

Anything reusable as it stands goes to reuse: furniture in good condition, working appliances, crockery, books, clean textiles, toys, sports equipment. Geneva has a network of organisations that collect this kind of item, and it is always better for a still-usable piece of furniture to find a second life than to be shredded. We point it out when we see items that clearly belong in that channel.

Anything recyclable goes to material streams: wood, metal, cardboard, paper, glass, identifiable plastics. Electrical and electronic appliances follow a separate and mandatory channel in Switzerland, distinct from ordinary waste — that covers televisions, computers, small appliances and light fittings.

What is neither reusable nor recyclable goes as bulky waste. That is the share we try to reduce, because it is also the most expensive to process. A well-sorted clearance costs less to dispose of than one sent off in bulk, which is one reason we sort at loading rather than on arrival.

A word on what we do not take: hazardous waste. Paints and solvents, chemicals, batteries in quantity, gas cylinders, medicines, oils. These belong at specific collection points and we tell you which rather than mixing them in with everything else.

Cellar and attic store: the volume everyone forgets

The cellar and attic store option adds CHF 150 to the calculation base, taking our 15 m³ example to CHF 690. It is not an opportunistic line: that is where the volume nobody counts actually sits.

The reason is as much psychological as practical. You live in your flat and you can see what it holds. The cellar and attic store you visit twice a year, and you keep no accurate mental picture of them. The result: across the clearances we carry out, those spaces regularly account for three to eight cubic metres that were not in the initial estimate.

The typical contents are always the same and they are bulky: boxes from previous moves never reopened, furniture replaced but kept just in case, bicycles and sports equipment, skis, tyres, part-used paint tins, DIY materials, suitcases, Christmas decorations, archives. The volume is real and so is the weight.

So our request is simple and we always make it: open the cellar and attic store before calling us, and photograph them. A quote produced without having seen them is not a fixed quote. We would rather state CHF 690 up front than CHF 540 followed by a revision once the team is already on site.

Appliances, electronics and heavy furniture

The appliance option adds CHF 120 to the calculation base, taking our example to CHF 660. It exists because these items need particular handling, not because they are heavy.

In Switzerland, electrical and electronic appliances follow a mandatory take-back and recycling channel, separate from ordinary waste. That covers large appliances — washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge, freezer, oven, dishwasher — but also televisions, computers, small kitchen appliances and light fittings. We route them to that channel; putting them out with bulky waste is not an option.

Refrigeration appliances need one extra precaution: they contain refrigerant and must not be laid flat or damaged in transit. A fridge carried on its side can lose its refrigerant, which is an environmental problem and renders the appliance unusable even if it was working.

On heavy furniture — upright piano, safe, solid antique wardrobe, large aquarium — we ask to be told in advance. That is not about refusing but about team and equipment: bringing an upright piano down from a third floor without a lift needs three people and carrying gear, and it has to be in the quote rather than improvised on the morning.

Wear or damage: who pays what at check-out?

A clearance almost always sits within an end of tenancy, and the question that follows immediately concerns the rental deposit. The distinction to know is simple and it favours you more often than people assume.

Normal wear is not your responsibility. It is written off against the length of your tenancy: paint dulled after eight years, a weathered parquet floor, carpet flattened in a hallway, yellowed bathroom sealant are all normal ageing of the property. A tenant does not have to hand back a new flat; they have to hand back a clean one with no damage.

Damage does stay with you whatever the age of the property: a hole in a partition, a burn, a stubborn stain, a broken cupboard door, a missing fitting. And there is a third category many tenants discover too late: items left behind. A flat handed back with furniture, boxes or a full cellar is charged to the tenant, at whatever rate the régie — the managing agent acting for the landlord — chooses, and that rate is invariably higher than the cost of a clearance organised in advance.

That is precisely the financial case for a clearance: paying CHF 690 for a planned clearance is almost always cheaper than the deduction applied to your deposit for a property handed back uncleared. We say so because it is a calculation tenants rarely do beforehand, and often do afterwards.

Combining clearance with end-of-tenancy cleaning

End-of-tenancy cleaning straight afterwards adds CHF 350 to the calculation base, taking our 15 m³ example to CHF 900. It is the combination we recommend most often, for practical reasons.

The first is mechanical: a property can only be cleaned properly when empty. Cleaning around remaining furniture leaves untouched areas — behind a wardrobe, under a bed, in a corner — and those are exactly the points an inspection looks at. The clearance creates the conditions for the cleaning; the reverse makes no sense.

The second is about responsibility, and it is the decisive argument. With two different providers, a scratch on the floor or a marked door frame becomes a blame exchange: the cleaner says it was there already, the clearance firm disagrees, and the tenant pays. With one provider across both stages, the question does not arise.

The third is the calendar. In Geneva handovers cluster on the same days at the end of each quarter, and coordinating two independent companies across two consecutive days in that period is a gamble. Booking both together secures the sequence, which is exactly what you need when the handover date is set by a contract.

A heavily cluttered home: where to start

Some clearances involve heavily cluttered homes, sometimes after years of accumulation. Those situations need more method and often more tact, and we handle them without judgement.

The first rule is not to start by sorting. Sorting a cluttered home before clearing space is discouraging and often impossible: there is nowhere to make piles. What works is removing first what is obviously for disposal and takes up volume — empty boxes, packaging, broken furniture, newspapers — to create space, then sorting what remains with room around you.

The second is to set a perimeter per session rather than an overall goal. One room, one cellar, one cupboard. An overall goal on a cluttered home is overwhelming; an emptied cupboard is a visible result that makes the next step possible.

The third concerns items that are hard to decide about: papers, photographs, keepsakes, a relative's belongings. We always set those aside in identified boxes rather than deciding for you, even when they appear to have no value. Nobody should discover after a clearance that an important document has gone.

Finally, if the situation involves significant accumulation with hygiene issues, tell us on the phone. It changes the preparation, the equipment and the duration — and it is a conversation that goes far better beforehand than at the moment the team opens the door.

Doing it yourself or handing it to us?

For a three-cubic-metre cellar with easy access and a car with a decent boot, doing it yourself is perfectly reasonable. Two or three trips to the recycling centre, one morning, and it is done.

Four things change the calculation and they are rarely anticipated. Volume first: beyond ten cubic metres you need a van and several return trips, each with loading, unloading and waiting. Floor level next: bringing 20 m³ down from a third floor without a lift is several days of physical work, not one. Sorting next: the streams are separate, so it is not one trip but several, to different places.

The fourth is the one people forget: the items you cannot move alone. A corner sofa, a washing machine, an assembled wardrobe that will not fit through the door, a piano. Those are what stop a self-managed clearance, usually halfway through, once the rest has already gone.

Our position is consistent: small cellar, easy access, vehicle available — do it yourself. A whole home, a floor without a lift, appliances, heavy furniture, or a handover date approaching: hand it to us, and take the cleaning in the same quote.

Options and where things go

A well-sorted clearance costs less to dispose of than one sent off in bulk, because the bulky-waste share is the heaviest to process. For exceptionally heavy furniture — upright piano, safe, solid wardrobe — tell us when quoting: it is a matter of team and equipment, not of refusing.