Verein Brocki Werdenberg

Most clearance businesses in this category say nothing about price beyond "call for a quote." Brocki Werdenberg's Räumungen page does the opposite: it publishes an actual rate card, a foreman at 50 francs an hour, other staff at 40 francs an hour, a vehicle at 50 francs per half day or 1 franc per kilometre, and a disposal fee of 200 francs per tonne. That level of transparency is unusual enough on its own to be the most notable thing about the site.

What it is

Verein Brocki Werdenberg, subtitled "hilft Bosnien" (helps Bosnia), is a nonprofit association based at Moosweg 11 in Buchs SG, founded in 2001 by Christian Roth, a trained primary school teacher and the former manager of the Brockenhaus Buchs, who still runs it today as Geschäftsführer. Alongside its secondhand shop it runs three paid or semi-paid services: a free pickup service for furniture still in good condition, a clearance service for single items or full properties, and a moving service, all billed at the same hourly rates.

What you get

The clearance service covers everything from disposing of a single piece of furniture to emptying an entire apartment or house, billed by the hour for labour plus the vehicle and disposal charges above. The moving service uses the identical crew and hourly rates, minus the disposal fee, since a move has nothing to dispose of. The pickup service is separate and free: the association collects furniture and household items still in usable condition directly from a donor's home, which then goes into the shop's own stock rather than being billed as part of a paid clearance. That distinction matters in practice, since a homeowner with a garage full of still-decent furniture and only a few items genuinely bound for disposal has a real incentive to ask about a free pickup first and pay the hourly clearance rate only for what is left afterward.

What stands out

The founding story is the most specific, checkable claim on the site, and it has nothing to do with clearance pricing. According to the association's own "Verein" page, Christian Roth set it up in 2001 to support a former Bosnian employee who had to return to Sarajevo after the Yugoslav war and rebuild a livelihood there. About three times a year, that person transports furniture and household goods from Switzerland to Sarajevo, which the Brockenhaus supplies at close to cost, well under what it could get reselling the same goods locally, and resells them there at a fair price. The same page states the association now extends the identical arrangement to a family in Czechia, one in Croatia, and one in Africa, none named further. That is a specific, unusual social mission behind what would otherwise read as an ordinary local Brockenhaus, and it is stated as an ongoing arrangement rather than a one-off donation drive.

The published rate card matters for the same reason: a reader can actually estimate what a small job might cost before calling, which almost none of this category's other listings allow.

How it's organised

The site names two people specifically: Christian Roth as Geschäftsführer, and Ayse Sari as the separate contact for sales ("Verkauf"). Bank details are published too, an IBAN under the association's own name at the St. Galler Kantonalbank, consistent with an organisation set up as a registered nonprofit rather than an informal side project. Where the site is genuinely inconsistent is its own contact block: one version, repeated on the Räumungen and Umzüge pages, lists the main phone number as 079 215 86 28 with Wednesday hours of 14:00 to 18:00, while a second version further down the same pages lists 081 740 16 19 as the main number and Wednesday-to-Friday hours of 14:00 to 16:00. Both blocks agree on the Buchs SG address and the Saturday hours of 10:00 to 16:00, so a visitor is safe on those points, but should confirm the phone number and the Wednesday hours directly before making a special trip.

What it costs

Here, unusually for this category, an actual number exists: 50 francs an hour for a foreman, 40 francs an hour for other crew, 50 francs per half day or 1 franc per kilometre for a vehicle, and, for clearances specifically, 200 francs per tonne for disposal. The site does not publish a minimum job charge or an estimate for a typical apartment, and this write-up does not attempt to build one by multiplying the rates above, since the association itself never states what a representative job actually totals.

How it compares

Set beside the other nonprofit-run Brockenhaus in this category, which funds a published list of local grants, Brocki Werdenberg's giving is narrower but more concrete: a small number of named-by-relationship families abroad supplied with goods at near cost rather than a broad donation programme. On price, it stands apart from every other listing in this category covered alongside it, since none of the others publish an hourly rate, a vehicle charge or a disposal fee, all of which Brocki Werdenberg states outright.

Who it suits

This fits someone in or near Buchs SG who wants to know roughly what an hour of labour and a load of disposal will cost before picking up the phone, and who is comfortable with a nonprofit association whose profits and in-kind donations support a specific, ongoing arrangement with families abroad rather than a broad charitable fund. It is a weaker fit for anyone who wants a single fixed quote rather than an hourly rate, since the site gives no example of what a typical clearance adds up to in total.

The verdict

Brocki Werdenberg is a small, two-person-named operation whose real strength is saying more than almost anyone else in this category is willing to: an actual hourly rate, a founding date, a named founder, and a specific description of where the proceeds and the donated goods go. Its one weak spot is internal, not external: the contact block itself gives two different phone numbers and two different sets of Wednesday hours, which is worth a quick call to confirm rather than a reason to look elsewhere.