But James Oliver, who runs BVE Clearance Services, collected something unexpected during a recent house clearance – a live hand grenade dating back to the First World War.
Not realising that the explosive was real he carried on with his scheduled pick-ups and even jokingly threw it around with workmate Connor Maher.
Mr Oliver collected the grenade, which was in a box with other items, from the garden of a St Mary house undergoing renovation work. He left it in his van over the weekend where it stayed before he started work on Monday.
‘We didn’t think it was real,’ the 24-year-old from St Saviour said. ‘We were driving around with it all day. We threw it to each other a few times.’
It was only when Mr Oliver showed the grenade to a friend, who is an honorary police officer for St Clement, that alarm bells began to ring.
‘I jokingly said to him I think I might have a grenade in the van,’ Mr Oliver said. ‘He didn’t think I was being real at first. When he saw it he put cones around the van and called the police and the bomb disposal officer.
‘It was a bit of a shock when I realised it was real. The bomb disposal officer said we had done the right thing to call but said taking it on an Island tour was not a great idea.’
Bomb disposal officer Stuart Elliott attended St Clement Parish Hall at about 5.30 pm on Monday.
‘It [the grenade] was on the front seat of the van. It was in good condition. It was a French First World War grenade which were used by the Germans during the Second World War. I got it taped up to make it secure. I removed it to another location, put a small charge on it and destroyed it.’
Mr Oliver, who took over the business two and a half months ago, said that he had collected guns from house clearances before but never a grenade, adding it was the most unusual thing he had picked up ‘by a country mile’.
He has since been in touch with the owners of the house to inform them about what he had discovered. ‘They didn’t know anything about it,’ Mr Oliver said. ‘They think someone put it in there [the box].’
