A soup of stuff sits on the desk in front of me: remote controls, spectacles, a fly swatter, a medication box, a pebble paperweight inscribed with the owner’s name. Even false teeth, lying where they were discarded. This is personal yet familiar clutter: we all have our own version.
I am in the front bedroom turned office and music studio of a stranger. Every conceivable object seems to have migrated here, creating shaky piles of paraphernalia that encapsulate a life’s passion. There is some impressive retro recording equipment, keyboards, a horn, all coated with a thick layer of dust.
No one lives here any more. This frozen scene was left behind when the elderly occupant died around Christmas. I guess the date because of the cards still on the mantelpiece downstairs, next to a treble-clef-shaped candle.
Suddenly it feels so intimate that I have to look away. “I will never, ever get used to going into someone’s house after their death. I will always feel as if I shouldn’t be there,” says Brendan O’Shea.
I’m surprised by his emotion, the reverence. After all, this is his job. O’Shea, 44, works in house clearance: the business of stuff; the tidying away of lives.
What becomes clear, though, is that he ensures it is done with as little waste as possible and nothing is ever sent to landfill. His business, Just Clear , launched in south-west London with one van in 2012. Now, eight vans operate from that original yard, each depositing an average of three van-loads.
