My dad died in 2012 and my mom has been living in the 4 bedroom home they’ve had since 1979. After years of begging her to move closer to me she finally agreed to sell the house and downsize. I’ve been going through the house trying to clean up/clean it out and I’m overwhelmed by how much stuff there is.
Big items like furniture aren’t really an issue, I can find a consignment store for that. Part of the issue is that both my mom and dad were collectors of things. Dad had a woodworking shop in the basement and it’s essentially a 1000 sq ft hardware store. Screws, nails, fasteners, clamps, you name it he had it. Enough wiring to do four houses. Boxes of tile. Multiple toolboxes. Thankfully he was pretty organized and marked everything.
My mom collected all sorts of weird things. She was not so organized. Plus there’s decades of paperwork that needs shredding, old clothes and a million saved little things.
I’m really all she’s got for help and I’m seriously overwhelmed here. Hiring one of those companies that will just shovel everything into a dumpster really won’t work as they are pretty expensive and, especially when it comes to the workshop, the stuff isn’t garbage. It’s not viable for me to sell items on eBay/fb marketplace just from a straight time perspective. The house is a couple hours drive from where I live and unless I use pto I can really only go down there a couple days a week. I can see this taking years at this rate and I’m watching mom’s health declining right in front of my eyes.
Between the two of us there’s only so much money and it seems like the companies that do “estate” liquidation for you are really expensive. Is there a frugal way to do this? A way to avoid just dumping everything in a landfill? Can I speed things up somehow so I can spend more time taking mom out to lunch instead of taking her stuff to the dump?
Ideas? Help!
July 25, 2021 at 08:29AM
