Estate sales. Look for them online.
These companies specialize in clearing out old homes, pricing items and selling them by organizing a sale onsite that the public goes to. They broom clean the home, and connect you with real estate agents for house sale (not that you need it, I think). It's by far the easiest way to deal with a clear-out, even though the companies take a significant cut of the profits, since they do all the work. Relatives can of course earmark some stuff for themselves.

You can sell the home as-is, or remove the wallpaper and carpet, plus repaint, which will fix most of the cigarette smoke issues.

I am not familiar with auction house apart from the big ones like Christie's. Very often people think their antiques are more valuable than they are. An appraiser might come and take a look, perhaps to guide you in the right direction.

Anonymous wrote:Taking down old wallpaper and painting + replacing carpet will probably help with the smoke smell. Paint close to listing/open house so it smells like fresh paint.

Good point, thanks!

Taking down old wallpaper and painting + replacing carpet will probably help with the smoke smell. Paint close to listing/open house so it smells like fresh paint.

Thanks. Has anyone worked with an auction company that does online auctions for antiques? This is how my mom purchased most of her recent acquisitions, hoping we may be able to do the same.

Hire people for all of it.
Estate sale company for inside.
A RE agent will tell you what to do to sell it.

Consult an estate sale company about this. I know Blue Moon is one of the bigger companies, but there are several reputable ones. Prepare yourself to get far less than you would expect.

Do your best on air purifying / cleaning the cigarette smoke and talk to companies that handle estate sales. Try to sell as much of the crap as you can through the estate sale, then consider FB Buy Nothing and similar groups for the rest so you don't have to actually pay anyone to take away things.

Hopefully, what's left can just get picked up bulk trash / regular trash.

For the antiques, considering what it will cost to ship them, a donation and tax deduction may be a better deal.

For the clean out, call Caring Transitions. This is their speciality. They will sell (online) as much of the stuff as they can and take care of donating/trashing the rest.

THey may also have suggestions on what to do for the house, but you will either need to sell as is to a flipper/developer or have it remediated. Consult a few RE agents to get their opionion. to me, it would depend on the approximate value of the house. If under 500k I would just sell as is. If more, put some money into fixing and staging.

Anonymous wrote:Don't expect anything for the antiques. There is a market for certain styles and periods, but aside from that, you get very little. Check Replacements.com for comparison. Sorry.

Replacements pays very little and sells for more than eBay and antique stores. They have to charge a lot to stay in business. The market for their product is declining.

You ship to them at your own risk and cost of shipping is high.

Get a POA and lie about the process. No one wants to hear that their smokey old stuff has to be paid to be hauled off.

It's worthless especially with smoke damage. Toss everything. Work with a realtor that is familiar with this process. They will know the vendors that push bills to the sale of the house.

Don't expect anything for the antiques. There is a market for certain styles and periods, but aside from that, you get very little. Check Replacements.com for comparison. Sorry.

As for your last sentence, if your mom is in assisted living, you can kind of shelter her from knowing about how her antiques are disposed of.

I'm sorry OP. I know this is really hard.

Your best bet is to get everything out of the house, carpets up, wallpaper out and fresh paint. If you can do that DIY it will be a lot of time but not as much money. Otherwise you have to pay for it and it will eat into what the house fetches. I would not do any other improvements to the house. After that it is "as-is".

As for getting everything out of the house (I glossed over that) you can try estate sales but it will be more like 800 got junk...

Good luck OP.

My mom just moved into assisted living due to mobility issues and mild (for now) memory issues. We need to sell her antique furniture and other antique stuff--pottery and glassware mostly, and sell her house. The house is in OK shape structurally and as far as the furnace and roof go. But, it reeks of 40 years of cigarette smoke and has old carpet and wallpaper. What's the best way to sell the stuff and prep the house for sale that will produce a decent return without me having to spend too much time? And how do you deal with this process with someone who complains that people are too cheap and don't know the value of antiques?