View Full Version : please before you die...
clean your house!!!!!, also make sure you have enough life insurance
my aunt passed and as executor have been tasked with cleaning out her house. the big part of the problem is all the stuff she saved from when my grandmother passed 13 years ago, she was a pack rat too. i have to get all this done soon so if the bank needs to foreclose they can. did i mention ii live 6 hours away.
fml.
zeaxmays, my condolences on both your loss and being the person who gets to clean up the mess.
You didn't say where your aunt lived, but if it's near a larger city, there may be companies which will come in and run an estate sale -- tag everything in the place with a price, run the sale, get rid of the leftovers, take their cut, and give you the rest. My parents used such a company to clear out their house before they moved to the Midwest. Given the quantity of stuff that apparently is in the house, it may be worth it. It may not be the cheapest approach, but it will help your sanity.
Your advice to take care of business beforehand, though, is good advice.
ToomuchStuff
1-4-13, 11:35am
Was the house in foreclosure, or the process of, before she died? Friends disowned father died suddenly, and he found out when the medical examiner asked him to take possession of the body. (he didn't need to, but that is a long story, that shouldn't go here) The house was emptied and auctioned all the contents, by the auction company and they asked if the house could go back to the bank earlier. The bank, still has a six month (at least in my state), minimum time to legally foreclose. (check with an attorney and consider an auction)
clean your house!!!!!, also make sure you have enough life insurance
my aunt passed and as executor have been tasked with cleaning out her house. the big part of the problem is all the stuff she saved from when my grandmother passed 13 years ago, she was a pack rat too. i have to get all this done soon so if the bank needs to foreclose they can. did i mention ii live 6 hours away.
fml.
This is a good example of when a little cash can make your life easier. I think that's what you mean by
"life insurance" (we don't have it since we've got lots of money.) Hire someone to dump the contents into an industrial size dumpster and you are done. OP, the "Stuff" in your aunt's house is worth little to nothing. I say that without even seeing it--packrats save junk that has negative worth, it only costs to take care of it.
Due to your comment about foreclosure it sounds as though the estate has no money to operate like this. And certainly, while I second the idea of hiring someone to hold estate sale, there is a good chance that no one will take on that job. Our friend died suddenly and no estate sale Co would take on her house because, get this--she didn't have enough stuff! That was a GOOD problem to have. The estate sale of an elderly man I know just recently earned $3000 for his estate, and that was a lifetime of accumulation with fabulous tools (he was a professional carpenter.)
The bottom line: do not agonize over getting rid of the stuff, save yourself time and take the path of least resistance. That IS the responsible action in this case since you are charged with cleaning out the house ASAP. Don't let anyone in the family guilt you about how much that crap is worth.
ApatheticNoMore
1-4-13, 1:10pm
The people this would actually apply to are not the type who would listen though. Hoaders BELIEVE in their hoarding. And I assume that's what we're dealing with because if it was just dirty floors and sinks and so on, just hire a maid, really. My hoarder parents house will be an absolute disaster to inherit someday.
My condolences on your loss. I thank you for posting the warning! As often as I have heard it in the past, hearing it again is a renewed motivator for me to continue with my decluttering and organizing efforts. I sooooo want to reach my personal level of minimalism! Again, sorry for your loss and thanks for posting the reminder.
Ah zeaxmays, this will be us someday as well, dealing with parents' house . . .
I second Iris Lily. Not worth the effort to try to sell any of it, most likely.
Anyone else in the family who lives closer who could take on executor duties? I hope you are not stuck footing the bill for this. Why do you have to clean it out at all if it's going to be foreclosed? Because people want to make something off of it? It wouldn't be the nicest thing of all the possibilities to do, but you could leave it and let the bank deal. They have a lot more assets than this estate, sounds like.
(((Hugs)))
theres basically enough money to cover the basic bills and my expenses. not enough to pay on a house until it sells. her main life insurance of course had a beneficiary so that doesnt go to the estate.
80% of the house is junk, the rest is sellable household stuff (i have interested parties) and lots of mechanics tools and such. (interest here too, her and her husband built race cars)
I am sorry for you having to deal with this. Sadly no matter how neat or prepared a person is, they will leave something for someone else to clean up.
This week after two years of putting it off, I am prepaying for our cremations and setting up all that stuff so my sons will not have to deal with it. Or husband if I depart first to a better place. My folks have a very tidy home, but a life time plus of stuff. She uses the words "I am junking and clearing out" weekly, dad always makes a loud laugh when she says that. I have debated to no ends with myself IF I dare say, "PLease leave everything 100% to my brother". He is never going to get ahead in life(another story) He will need a home and all the stuff and the money they have, far more then me. Plus I would never have to deal with the final issues.
WOULD that be terrible for me to kindly, sweetly say to my folks????
I had to do this with my mother's house and grieve at the same time. You are in my thoughts. I tell my hubbie who has a room piled with crap and treasures to please organize it because it would kill me to do this again....
I dread the day I have to deal with my mom and my inlaws' homes. (Dh has only one sibling and she lives outside the country). I've tried talking to my mom about decluttering and getting rid of junk. She has allowed us to move a lot of stuff, but the bottom line is that if my dad "paid good money" for something she is hardpressed to let it go. It's just 60+ years of accumulated items that need to be gone through.
My MIL is a packrack with "decluttering aspirations". She even told my FIL during their last visit that he needed to "go look at our basement". They have an overflowing basement full of stuff and stored items. I have nothing in my basement outside of a dryer, folding table, small chest freezer and a drying rack. . (I also have a garage I reminded her and she doesn't).
That said I have a goal of simplifying and decluttering so that my home is as simple to take care of down the road as possible. We have one child and I don't want him to be burdened by an overwhelming task. I want things to be simple and organized and easy to manage when the time comes. We are considering everything from our personal possessions and furnishings, to dh's tools and our paper files. Everything we have needs to be easy to go through, and identify.
Dh and I paring down to just those items that we really need and use and each item, including furniture is carefully considered. Today we are are going to be evaluating the value of a hutch that we have owned for 20 years. Right now it is empty and the shelves just house a few photos (for lack of anything better). At the moment it is largly unused and has been for the past two years. In the past it has served as storage for daycare toys, games and puzzles (a home business I closed a while back) and has served as a kitchen cabinet for storing food, dishes, etc... when we lived in an apartment with no cabinets to speak of. It has the potential, if we downsize later, of being an important piece for storage purposes.
Bottom line is if we don't use it, we don't need it. However, we have things stored in storage closet in the basement that, should we downsize, will no longer be something we can utilize.
It's an ongoing process.
I've posted this before, but I think of it always when I read posts like this.
My mother used to be a huge "collector" of knick-knacks, clothes, books, you name it. Then her mother and aunt died and she downsized into a three bedroom condo, and tried to stuff as much stuff into that condo as possible.
But one day, when she was only 50, she had a brain aneurysm. She survived it, but due to post-surgical complications she was mentally disoriented for 18 months, and permanently disabled on her right side. She could walk, with a limp, but her right arm was paralyzed.
During that 18 month period, when I didn't know that she would eventually regain at least 80% of her mental faculties back, I worked with my uncle to sell her condo. Just in case she got better, we decided to store her stuff in a barn he had on his property.
Her husband left her during that time. (by the way, for anyone into astrology, way before the aneurysm, she had her chart read and the astrologer told her that she was going to lose her health, her home, and her husband. Go figure).
Well, you'd think that would be enough of a "purification" for one person to handle, but my uncle's barn mysteriously burned down, and everything was gone. Gone.
Then she got her mind back, and I had to tell her that pretty much what she had in her four drawers at the nursing home was all that she had left.
When she died, 18 years later, my brothers and I took one bag of clothes to Goodwill, and packed her personal mementos, etc. in one medium sized box and that was it in terms of handling her "estate," which also included her last $60 in cash which she gave to me on her deathbed.
The funny thing was, and maybe the moral of the story is, during her post-aneurysm years, she was the happiest, most cheerful person I had known. I don't know if it's because her brain got resorted somehow, or if it was because she was no longer burdened with all the many burdens possessions can put on you. She was also free of toxic relationships for the first time in her life, after having married three alcoholics one right after the other. But she made friends wherever she went. She a bit eccentric, and I'd be embarrassed by her, but I would learn by the faces of the people around her that they enjoyed her immensely.
When people would ask her about her paralyzed arm, she would say, "My arm's broken, but I'm not." And that was certainly true. She never, ever complained or dumped on me, even though she had to continue to live in an assisted living facility for the rest of her life and she had nothing to call her own. Gifts to me were coupons she cut out of the paper. That was all the "money" she could give, but she would tuck them into an envelope and send them to me every few weeks. Or she would buy one of my kids clothes from the church flea market from the few bucks she had every month.
I didn't mean for this to be so personal and all about my mother, but I want to reiterate the OPs point: My mother taught me that getting rid of stuff just makes life better for everyone. Thanks for the reminder.
I want to reiterate the OPs point: My mother taught me that getting rid of stuff just makes life better for everyone.
I had not seen that story before, catherine. Thanks!
I wonder if, in addition to the lightness brought on by not being weighed down with possessions, your mother also experienced a shift in perspective cause by still being alive after all that! I've really grown to hate the phrase "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (heard it too many times), but surviving such stressful experiences can make us feel like we can handle whatever comes our way.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a room to declutter...:~)
My mom died last summer. She had lived in her house 60 years and was a hoarder. We got dumpsters and my sisters and I sorted into garbage/goodwill/collectibles/family. After we got the garbage and goodwill and family stuff out we found a guy that buys estates to take the rest for less than $1000. They took everything...the old metal and junk on the back patio, the collectibles (none worth too much when we got right down to it) and ALL her furniture that was old and not worth much. He emptied the house. He commented that he likes the goodwill stuff and wishes we had called him in earlier. They literally take EVERYTHING in a house and salvage it.
On reflection, we should have went through the house and picked out what we wanted and let that guy take EVERYTHING. Would have saved us days and days of work bagging up good will stuff, hauling from basement to dumpster, etc. We were methodical as we wanted to know what was there and make sure we saw everything. She hoarded so maybe we couldn't have done that without our dumpster trips and good will truckloads out of the house first. She had collectibles she kept from my grandma too. But you look them up on Ebay and it is a cute 50's thing and it might sell for $25. None of us had the interest in trying to coordinate listing it all and shipping it all. So we ended up just letting it all go to the estate cleanup guy. It took us about four months with three of us working together a day here or there when schedules would allow. It was horrible. Mom had musty rolls of carpet in basement, old clothes that were musty .....garbage basically. Pots and pans and jars and vases she probably hadn't used in 25 years. And we got to haul it out to the dumpster or goodwill.
I hope to die with a couple of card board boxes of stuff. I don't want to leave that burden on anyone. I think stuff anchors people My mom loved her house and her stuff but I don't think she had seen most of it for years and years. She protected it and never got far from home. In the end, except for a few memory pieces to us, it all goes to goodwill or in dumpsters. Sad to me...I always felt her house was suffocating with all the stuff. She liked it. But I do wonder if it burdened her also.
I had to do this with my mother's house and grieve at the same time. ...
Same here. It is almost too much. And then my sisters and I argued over things while cleaning out the house. One of the worst years of my life. Glad it is done. On top of that I ended up doing probate myself instead of hiring an attorney because there was no money....that took hours of research and filing papers, etc. Mom died quickly and we were not ready for it. Sadness, stress, tension with family. Ach.
ToomuchStuff
1-8-13, 2:45am
My mom died last summer. She had lived in her house 60 years and was a hoarder. We got dumpsters and my sisters and I sorted into garbage/goodwill/collectibles/family. After we got the garbage and goodwill and family stuff out we found a guy that buys estates to take the rest for less than $1000. They took everything...the old metal and junk on the back patio, the collectibles (none worth too much when we got right down to it) and ALL her furniture that was old and not worth much. He emptied the house. He commented that he likes the goodwill stuff and wishes we had called him in earlier. They literally take EVERYTHING in a house and salvage it.
On reflection, we should have went through the house and picked out what we wanted and let that guy take EVERYTHING.
First, sorry for your loss. Second, that is one thing about being so close to the person, though. It would be more time consuming for you as you may stop and talk memories, where he may empty the house in one week or less, take the metal to the scrapyard (make up some of the outlay that way), send a bunch to Goodwill, and take the tax deductions, Ebay, CL, antique or flea market other items, and take a trip to the dump for the rest, without a second though.
I'm sorry for your loss, and the difficulty of this situation.
I'm with Iris Lily on this one. Call a company that will clear a house and haul away, and then let the people who go to the dump looking for things of value go through it (there are whole subcultures devoted to this, btw -- here in NZ, these subcultures have a "home" with a recycling center for finds right beside the dump. Brilliant, actually.). Unless there is something there that yu *know* you want, I would consider letting it all go.
my friend just turned 54. Her goal for this year is to get down to one suitcase. then next year, she wants to get down to one, carry-on suitcase. I think that's pretty brilliant.
She currently lives in a furnished studio apartment, and runs a small gallery and art-space. So, she has a lot of paintings as her "possessions" -- but she says that she want them to "go!" (meaning sell, or as gifts, or just be displayed in different places). That is, if these things are easy-come, easy-go, she's fine with that. In fact, that is her ideal situation.
I think it's a great goal, honestly.
"my friend just turned 54. Her goal for this year is to get down to one suitcase. then next year, she wants to get down to one, carry-on suitcase. I think that's pretty brilliant. "
I think that it is pretty brilliant also. It is my goal to do the same after my kids leave home. Anybody want a cat?
I'm working on this. I still have the 2 10x20 storage units near my Mom in the US while I'm here in Honduras. I'm combing through the stuff I have here. It won't cost me personally anything to ship back what I choose to keep, but a lot of stuff isn't worth shipping back. I have spent the past 4 years moving my stuff around, and next month I'm coming back and taking a vacation! I'm going to Las Vegas, but that is an entirely different post... I'm looking at my furniture trying to get ready to turn loose of it. I really only have a nice recliner/rocker and my Ikea kitchen table down here, and a neighbor has already said he wants to buy my recliner when leave. I can replace the table from Ikea if I need it again. Linnens and towels will be donated, and probably dishes as well. As for what is in the storage units, it will take awhile to work my way through all that. Does anyone remember Jim (I think his name was) who was on the very old boards who had 3 suitcases and a box? He lived in Mexico and had all his stuff in the suitcases, and a box of paperwork in some family member's attic back in Canada. That has been my end goal. It just is taking awhile. About 10 years so far... Oh, and one of the storage units does have my Jeep in it, so it isn't all just 'stuff'.
welp, the house is being returned to the bank , but ive got to get it cleaned out. so im gonna do 3 3-day weekends working it, also going to have sales all 3 days while im working. have two helpers so i wont be all by my lonesome.
zeaxmays, one tip I have for you is to set out a free area (with a sign) and let people glean from it during the clean out and at the sale Days. We got rid of lots of stuff too small or not valuable enough to price...boards, chicken wire, damaged furniture etc. We had regular "customers" taking things daily. We also pretended we were just helping out to clear the house so people didn't feel uncomfortable taking things and had the pile far enough away from the house that it was easier for folks to pick through it. Heck we even helped people put things in their trucks or vans and they even helped us haul out heavier objects. This was successful at my mom's wreck of a house, selling our MIL's house and also when we sold our house and needed to put our things in storage until our house was built. Good luck to you.
welp, weekend 1 complete
-1600 dollars in sales
-gave lots of freebies
-13 - 50 gallon bags of trash
lots more trash to be bagged
goodwill pile made
-all metal off to salvage (saving the copper/brass/aluminum to sell myself)
-cars will be gone in 2 weeks
-2 more weekends to get rid of everything and i send the deed to the mortgage company.
Nice work, zeaxmays! And I know it was work....
zeaxmays, that's fantastic progress for a single weekend.
You'll have to come back and tell us your "lessons learned" after all this is done. It's interesting to see how these things turn out for each person who has to handle this kind of thing.
so weekend 2 got done before google wouldnt let me visit here for the malware.
-recycled metal
-more trash out.
-sold a few more things
weekend 3 happened without me.
i sold the rest of the stuff for 50 bucks to a church for their yard sale. leftover furniture/boxed smalls. W/D
-they came and got alot, bagged and took out all trash.
weekend 4 is this weekend.
-empty waterbed
-people get rest of stuff.
-recycle some more metal
-sweep up.
call bank on tuesday.
Sounds like you are getting very close to finished . . . and feeling relieved of it!
fidgiegirl
2-13-13, 11:22pm
Oh my gosh, what a job. I bet it will feel like a huge weight off when it is done and over.
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