TVScope: Cutting Edge - The House Clearers Channel 4, Wednesday, July 13th, 9pm
An old lady moves into a nursing home and within days Gail and Brent have arrived. As Brent smashes furniture and shoves stuff into black sacks, Gail is searching among the old woman's possessions for anything valuable.
They are not thieves. Gail and Brent Clampitt make their living in Prestatyn, Wales by clearing out houses after people have died or moved into nursing homes or elsewhere.
This Channel Four Cutting Edge documentary tells a fascinating story.
Luckily for the programme makers, one of the main characters even died while it was being shot.
The sight of that lady's home being "cleared", of her carefully arranged furniture being thrown aside, of items she had kept and valued being taken, was shocking.
The Clampitt's grimy shop is stuffed full of the treasures they have salvaged from the dying or otherwise departed. To this shop come the bargain-hunters. There's Ron, a massive, very old man who suffers from diabetes and other conditions, but who has filled his house with good pieces bought here and elsewhere. Ron used to work for Rolls Royce and he has an eye for quality, we are told.
His sister-in-law Maude is also a collector.
And there's Hilda, an antique dealer who hobbles in on two crutches.
Given Gail and Brent's work, there is something weird about the fact that their shop is frequented by people who may not be on "the right side of the sod" for long.
And so it works out, for Ron dies during the making of the documentary.
Gail and Brent are under the impression that Ron has left them half his house, which will remain in Maude's possession until she dies and will then go to them.
But Maude reveals to the camera that in fact Ron left nothing to them and that she has no intention of leaving anything to them either."I feel like telling them," she says. "But I don't want any animosity." She seems to find the whole situation very funny.
One wonders how funny Gail and Brent found it when they saw her confession on the programme.
Their luck is out in other ways, too. They have in their cellar many years of items they have put by, convinced that they are valuable. Finally, the man from Sotheby's comes. One by one he goes through their treasures and politely dismisses them.
The whole lot, he says, is "NSV" - no sales value. You might as well "car-boot" them, he says. It looks as though Gail and Brent, like their clients, cling onto things which are worth very little to anybody else.
One could see them as ghouls profiting from the misery of others.
Brent reflects on this. We're living on other people's misfortunes, he remarks, and then, says, "someone's gotta do it".
Still, there is something unforgettable about the sight of Gail walking through the home of a woman who has died, pointing to the different bits of furniture and other items and saying "tip, tip, tip, tip", to the ones she doesn't like, consigning them to the dump.
It'll come to all of us, you know. So if you've got anything that's worth anything, flog it now.
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.