Four bedrooms, one weekend in Arundel

We've been in Arundel for a while now, and this was the first time I'd paid someone to take rubbish away. Mum moved into aged care in March, and the house had to be on the market by May. My brother and I live three hours apart and both work, so every weekend we spent there felt like moving a mountain with a teaspoon.

Every wardrobe was full. The linen press had sheets from the eighties. The rumpus room had a pool table nobody had played on in a decade, a treadmill used as a clothes rack, and boxes of school projects we couldn't throw out but didn't want to keep either.

Arundel is a leafy family suburb of brick homes and quiet streets, and getting things out isn't always simple. We plan around driveways, unit car parks and loading zones so the truck is close to the load.

I sent a couple of photos and got a call back within the hour. They gave me a rough idea on the phone but said they'd confirm a fixed price when they saw it in person.

They parked so the back of the truck lined up with the side gate, put a drop sheet down at the door and asked me to show them anything that was staying.

Halfway through, we found Dad's old letters in a shoebox under the stairs. Chris stopped the job, handed me the box and said to take as long as I needed. They kept working around me without making a thing of it.

By the time I'd made them a coffee, it was nearly finished. The price didn't change, and they even took a couple of extra bits I'd forgotten about without charging more.

I'd tried to do it myself twice before. Next time I'm just ringing straight away.