Complicated feelings cleaning out a parent's house

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the "mayonnaise jar lid" PP above. Problem is I live 750 miles away and no siblings.. I go there about every 6 weeks and toss what I can out of their apartment, but their house is in a gated community, and they cancelled the garbage service, so I'd have to either take it myself to a dump or hire someone to take it away. Believe me I have done the routine of sneaking a couple hefty bags of trash into dumpsters at a local gas station! Ugh.
I, too,,have made the vow not to do is to my kids. Sadly it looks like the hoarding has skipped a generation, I see tendencies of it in one of my kids.

When the time comes, either when you parents die or you need to sell the house to pay to care for them, there are hoarding clean up companies. It will take some days and several thousand dollars, but you don't have to do it yourself--heck, I would argue there is no reasonable way you could do it yourself. I have been through such a clean up for a relative, and the clean up company was a god send.

Meanwhile, get your kid some help. If you are in DC, the Behavioral Therapy Center of Greater Washington is a place to start.

Because everyone has that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the "mayonnaise jar lid" PP above. Problem is I live 750 miles away and no siblings.. I go there about every 6 weeks and toss what I can out of their apartment, but their house is in a gated community, and they cancelled the garbage service, so I'd have to either take it myself to a dump or hire someone to take it away. Believe me I have done the routine of sneaking a couple hefty bags of trash into dumpsters at a local gas station! Ugh.
I, too,,have made the vow not to do is to my kids. Sadly it looks like the hoarding has skipped a generation, I see tendencies of it in one of my kids.

When the time comes, either when you parents die or you need to sell the house to pay to care for them, there are hoarding clean up companies. It will take some days and several thousand dollars, but you don't have to do it yourself--heck, I would argue there is no reasonable way you could do it yourself. I have been through such a clean up for a relative, and the clean up company was a god send.

Meanwhile, get your kid some help. If you are in DC, the Behavioral Therapy Center of Greater Washington is a place to start.

Because everyone has that?

How else to get it done? Or just sell the house as is full of stuff? Far better to pay the cash for the clean up so the house is empty to sell.

It would take weeks and weeks to clean out such a house solo, time no working person has.

[Anonymous]

...My sisters are local and did most of the work so I did not argue when they said they wanted to have a yard sale. (I did not think the profit would be worth our time.) That also took a ton of work over multiple weekends because the stuff was moved to my sister's house and then set up for the sale. That was this weekend and we got rained on and had to stop about noon. There was still so, so much stuff left. The sister who did most of the work needed to be done with all this. Multiple truckloads of perfectly serviceable objects went to the dump. I am still cringing at the sound of breaking glass and the sight of the piles of clothes and all the stuff that did not sell on the back of the pickup. At this point more sorting for charity was not an option. We set up a few tables with a free sign on the side of the road but everything else went to the landfill. At that point much of the stuff was damp from the rain. ...

OP It is a hard situation. I have done this twice -- both sets of parents, one in MoCo. Parents were neat but the house was packed with ... stuff. She was a smoker and lots of the stuff was damaged. It was too heartbreaking for the rest of the sibs. All the mattresses, curtains, sofas, drapes and so on were smoke damaged. One sib just ran through the house, took what she needed and caught a plane back to the west coast. Everything was dumped everywhere, and I would start to get ill from the disturbed dust/ mildew/ hidden cat pee, etc each time I went over there. We were selling the house and the RE came in and started crying when she saw what a mess it was ... it will never be ready! We hired a junk hauling service, took a deep breath (outside!).The sons/daughters of the deceased left and the wives/ husbands took over. Truck after truck went to the dump. There was no room in the adult children homes for all the ... stuff ... she had collected. It was hard, but it was over. The sib who ran out STILL thinks we should have "had a yard sale" ... forgetting that every object caused them to start crying all over again ... Very hard situation.

[Anonymous]

Let's face it - no one wants the job, especially the parents. But what I do not understand is the people are are so naive and unsympathetic and fail to understand what OP is going through. It really is difficult - no, it is one of the most difficult things one will ever have to do. If one takes what they want, and throws money at the very enormous, truly overwhelming very expensive job - well that is a different story.

Greed and help are very different.

[Anonymous]

I posted earlier on the thread. My biggest problem is stuff from my parents- since my post have been investigating auction companies. For my kids [young adults] it is going to be a speak now or forever hold your tongue. Downsizing is great-clearing out closets and cupboards and storage rooms -whether I move or not.

[Anonymous]

OP - I have been through this with both of my husbands parents and it is REALLY hard. There are lots of emotions for sure - anger, disgust, sadness, sympathy, guilt to name a few. Time is the best remedy for what you are feeling.

One good thing that came from dealing with hoarding in-laws is a few rules that we put in place as a result. You asked how people coped with the feelings, and my own coping method was to make a few big changes so that I didn't end up in the same boat one day...

Some examples -

1. My husband and his brother selected a handful of things that they would keep as memories with the idea that they could also be passed down to the grandkids one day - the rest we got rid of. We did use an estate person and basically the money we got from consignment paid for 1-800 -GOT - JUNK to haul the rest of the stuff away.

1. Each of my kids has one memory bin that I saved for them (this is from our stuff, not my in-laws) - both are in HS now, so this is a done deal. To get to one bin I went through about 6-7 bins of stuff that I had saved over the years and selected papers, art work samples, letters from camp, books and toys from various age groups that represented special moments and showed their personality. The rest was tossed or donated.

2. I do not give "permanent" gifts. I bring food or wine or flowers. I realized that so much of what cluttered up my house were little gifts that people had given to my family over the years and I felt guilty getting rid of. I know that must sound awful. But I find that photos, unexpected phone calls or Facebook messages to say hi and memories from fun experiences together are what really matter most and show people you care so that's where I try to focus.

3. I declutter a few times a year and always take the extra stuff to the Salvation Army and let them find a home for it. I find having one place to haul stuff to makes it easier then letting stuff sit as I try to think of the perfect people to ask. Again, this is just my personal preference, but it keeps my closets and basement clutter free.

4. Before I check out at Target I always "edit" my cart. I don't have to do this much now, but when I first became aware of how burdensome extra stuff is I did this for awhile and saved quite a bit of money while curbing my impulse buy tendencies

5. If I buy stuff to replace old stuff (new dish towels, cleaning supplies, shampoo, band aids), I must first get rid of the old stuff, or at least consolidate the item, before using the new stuff. I'm sure most people already do this, but I had duplicates of so many things just "sitting" around that I realized I needed to change my habits here

I do not miss or regret anything that I got rid of - it is a relief to have a clutter-free living space and when it comes time to downsize my home, we will be in good shape to do it ourselves, or, god forbid, if my husband or kids have to do it for some reason they will be grateful that I did not leave them with a huge, overwhelming, chaotic mess. I made these changes about 6 years ago and they have worked like a charm.

[Anonymous]

Good advice, PP. When we cleaned out MILs house, there were SO MANY gifts from us over the years. We spent a lot of money and it really did not matter to her that much. little things and pictures are best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I have been through this with both of my husbands parents and it is REALLY hard. There are lots of emotions for sure - anger, disgust, sadness, sympathy, guilt to name a few. Time is the best remedy for what you are feeling.

One good thing that came from dealing with hoarding in-laws is a few rules that we put in place as a result. You asked how people coped with the feelings, and my own coping method was to make a few big changes so that I didn't end up in the same boat one day...

Some examples -

1. My husband and his brother selected a handful of things that they would keep as memories with the idea that they could also be passed down to the grandkids one day - the rest we got rid of. We did use an estate person and basically the money we got from consignment paid for 1-800 -GOT - JUNK to haul the rest of the stuff away.

1. Each of my kids has one memory bin that I saved for them (this is from our stuff, not my in-laws) - both are in HS now, so this is a done deal. To get to one bin I went through about 6-7 bins of stuff that I had saved over the years and selected papers, art work samples, letters from camp, books and toys from various age groups that represented special moments and showed their personality. The rest was tossed or donated.

2. I do not give "permanent" gifts. I bring food or wine or flowers. I realized that so much of what cluttered up my house were little gifts that people had given to my family over the years and I felt guilty getting rid of. I know that must sound awful. But I find that photos, unexpected phone calls or Facebook messages to say hi and memories from fun experiences together are what really matter most and show people you care so that's where I try to focus.

3. I declutter a few times a year and always take the extra stuff to the Salvation Army and let them find a home for it. I find having one place to haul stuff to makes it easier then letting stuff sit as I try to think of the perfect people to ask. Again, this is just my personal preference, but it keeps my closets and basement clutter free.

4. Before I check out at Target I always "edit" my cart. I don't have to do this much now, but when I first became aware of how burdensome extra stuff is I did this for awhile and saved quite a bit of money while curbing my impulse buy tendencies

5. If I buy stuff to replace old stuff (new dish towels, cleaning supplies, shampoo, band aids), I must first get rid of the old stuff, or at least consolidate the item, before using the new stuff. I'm sure most people already do this, but I had duplicates of so many things just "sitting" around that I realized I needed to change my habits here

I do not miss or regret anything that I got rid of - it is a relief to have a clutter-free living space and when it comes time to downsize my home, we will be in good shape to do it ourselves, or, god forbid, if my husband or kids have to do it for some reason they will be grateful that I did not leave them with a huge, overwhelming, chaotic mess. I made these changes about 6 years ago and they have worked like a charm.

I could have written this. I am determined that my school won't have to go through what I have. I've also discovered, as others have pointed out, that if you keep everything, the true gems get lost in the pile of crap. You might as well keep nothing.

I have a theory that we are the first generation to inherit from parents who lived their whole lives in a consumer society. My grandparents had very little from their childhood, and more from their later years, so cleaning out their house was a chore, but really wasn't that bad. However, the stuff accumulated over my parents' lifetime was overwhelming. I hope this generation is learning the lesson -- let go, and dont accumulate so much stuff in the first place.

Finally, I agree that OP's feelings have more to do with her feelings about her Mother's situation than the stuff.

[Anonymous]

Yup, yup, yup. Been there, done that. One was long-distance, large house, for father with dementia. I needed to get a lot done in compressed timeframes, so I kept things simple - donations of his books from the University that would accept them (former professor), estate sale service, trash hauling. Fortunately this was in a large metropolitan area so there were resources to throw at it.

Other parent had a smaller apartment, but packed. A relative blessedly came and helped me pull out stuff that other family members would want (mainly photos and jewlery), I took some stuff, and then called Hunks Hauling Junk to take the rest -- they (supposedly) donate what can be donated and dispose of the rest, and for me everything is gone in one step and I don't have to make decisions about what's donatable where. Again, fortunately, a major metro area where that was available.

And I was fortunate that I could make those decisions myself - I'm an only child, and the relatives who had an interest were interested for sentimental reasons and not financial. So no one said, "You're paying to have someone take that away? We could sell it."

And even so ... even so I know there were things that were not optimally handled, that maybe could have been salvaged or re-used or whatever that ended up getting tossed.

All I could do was tell myself I was doing the best I could under the circumstances, to learn the lessons I could and to move on. (It also helped to think that at least some of that stuff was just built up through the years and would have been thrown away earlier in the ordinary course of things. It seemed like a lot all at once because it was years and years worth of stuff.)