Gotelé can be removed while you live in the property if the work is done room by room, with the working area sealed and a bedroom, the bathroom and some kitchen use kept available. Expect dust despite precautions, noise from sanding and moving furniture, and a few days per room when it is out of use. Good planning of the room order, storage of belongings, and a clear agreement on working hours and cleaning make the difference.
Is it realistic to stay at home during the work?
For most apartments and houses, yes, provided you accept some disruption. The work produces dust and some noise, and every room will be out of action for a time. What makes it manageable is that gotelé removal, unlike a full renovation, does not usually involve cutting off water or power for long periods, and the bathroom and kitchen can normally stay in use.
It becomes harder in a small apartment where there is nowhere to store furniture, when there are young children or someone with respiratory problems in the home, or when the work is combined with new floors throughout. In those cases a short stay elsewhere during the dustiest phase can be worth considering. We discuss this honestly during the visit, because a plan that looks good on paper but leaves you living in a building site helps no one.
In what order are the rooms done?
The usual approach is to start with a bedroom so that you have a finished, clean room to sleep in as soon as possible. From there we move through the remaining bedrooms, then the living areas, and finish with hallways and the entrance, which are the routes everyone uses until the end. Ceilings in each room are done before its walls.
The order is adapted to your household. If someone works from home, their workspace may be moved or done at a quieter time. If the property is partly let, the let rooms are scheduled for when they are empty. We agree the sequence in writing as part of the quote, so everyone knows which room is affected on which day of the plan.
How is dust kept under control?
Containment starts with sealing the room being worked on: doors closed and taped or replaced by a zipped dust screen, and sometimes a temporary sheet wall across open-plan spaces. Floors along the route through the home are protected. Sanding is done with tools connected to extraction units rather than by hand, which reduces airborne dust significantly but does not eliminate it.
At the end of each working day the area outside the sealed room is vacuumed and the route cleared. Even so, fine dust can find its way into other rooms, so it is wise to store clothes, books and electronics in closed boxes or cupboards. The final clean at the end of the job covers the whole property, not just the rooms we worked in.
What happens to my furniture and belongings?
The ideal is to empty each room before work starts. Where that is not possible, furniture is moved into the centre of the room and wrapped, or moved temporarily into a room that has already been finished. Pictures, curtains, lamps and anything fragile should be removed by you beforehand; we can help move heavy items as part of the job if this is agreed in advance.
Wardrobes that contain clothes are a common sticking point. If they are built-in, their doors and interiors are sealed; if they are free-standing and must stay, we wrap them carefully. Think about what you need day to day, such as work clothes, chargers and medicines, and keep it outside the work area.
What about noise, hours and the neighbours?
The noisiest parts are sanding, moving furniture and, if they are part of the job, removing old fixings or tiles. Most of the work is quieter than people expect, but it is not silent. Working hours follow local custom and any rules set by your community of owners or the town hall’s noise ordinance (local hours: to be verified for each building and town).
The Ley de Propiedad Horizontal asks owners to inform the community’s representative before altering elements or installations of their flat. A brief message to the administrator or president with the planned dates is good practice in any case, and we protect the lift and stairs during the job. If your works go beyond decoration, the town hall may expect a declaración responsable under Andalusia’s LISTA law for minor works (applicability: to be verified case by case).
How do you keep the home usable each evening?
A household that is living through works needs some predictability. At the end of each day tools are gathered in the room being worked on, walkways are cleared and vacuumed, and any temporarily disconnected lights or sockets are made safe. The bathroom and kitchen are kept usable unless something in them is being worked on, and we tell you in advance if that is the case.
We also agree how communication will work: one person to contact, messages by WhatsApp or phone, and a short update if the plan changes. Living with work in progress is much easier when you know what tomorrow looks like.
When is it better to move out for a while?
If the job also includes new floors throughout, plasterboard partitions or ceiling work in every room, the disruption is wider and lasts longer, and moving out for the most intensive phase often saves time overall. The same applies if anyone in the household is sensitive to dust. When you are deciding, look at our gotelé removal and interior painting pages, and at our guide on how gotelé is removed, which shows what happens at each stage.
Official sources
- Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, art. 7.1 (consolidated text hosted by the Ayuntamiento de Madrid)
- Ley 7/2021 (LISTA), art. 138.1.a, as cited in a municipal declaración responsable form for minor works (Vera)
Bauman Raymond Attila · Quitar Gotelé Málaga · Avenida Antonio Belón 3, Marbella. Last reviewed: 05/11/2026.
