SPRING-Clean Declutter - Need Help

[Smc]

We can walk in, but only just. There's a narrow walkway leading to a workbench at the back.... it's two can garage sized plus workspace, so it'll take a while to sort. Given our Dad's interests over the years, we're suspecting a lot of it will be useful (either to us or to pass on to others) or very interesting (ditto....) with a bit of junk mixed in. Big garage or online sales coming up.

[Faith-and-Hope]

@Adge .... if your Mum.can get $1000’s more for the house in a cleaned up state, then maybe consider a salvage company coming in and taking whatever they find useful ..... then have a cleaning company come in and help determine what can be picked up by the Salvo’s, and do a good clean-through.

Sometime you just need an outsider to start the ball rolling, and if the salvage company will give your mum something for the bits and pieces that interest them, that could go to pay for the cleaning services (assuming there are items of value like power tools, etc).  

Salvage companies will clear out old homes that are going to be demolished, taking what they can re-purpose as “payment” for collapsing the old house and clearing away the debris.  Even if they don’t give you Mum anything, but do the skip hire and enough of a clean-up, it’s still getting her up and on the road to a much higher sale price for the house.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Oops .... just read the previous post @Adge that says the house is almost cleared .....

There may be another tidy-it-up company that can come and paint walls, tidy the garden, so some light repairs and window dressing for much less that what it would increase the sale price by ....

Again, there is value in someone objectively taking the task to hand when it is deemed too big for family to manage.

I would suggest the brother hires a self-storage room for minimal $ and insist that your mother take there whatever is not for her immediate needs .... for “safe-keeping” ..... ie she can still have it, knows where it is, it’s under lock and key, she can go and get something from there if she really needs it .... but it’s out from underfoot.  If your brother has room in the garden to buy a small shed from a hardware store and drop pavers down as a floor, this could be done at home.

[Smc]

Houses are tricky- every one is a different situation. 

Our parents' place will only sell for land value, so we won't be doing any spruce up there. Old asbestos cement cladding that's deteriorating, old termite damage to floorboards and possibly framework, and major built in appliances all at or past their use by date. We're expecting it will get knocked down to build units.@Adge's parents' place may be a different question?

[Former-Member]

I am feeling just a little blessed here, we will not be needing to bring in heavy duty equipment to deal with any goods and chattels at my mum's place.

Bless her heart she is keen not to leave us with excess and at times has gone on a clean out (I was visiting her and mentioned an item I was hoping to use if she no longer needed it, rescued this and another family heirloom which went to my brother that was going to be donated to charity) as a result there will not be a problem when the time comes.

Darcy

[Smc]

@Former-Member, I want to give our kids a chance to look over things before I get rid of them. There's a few family things my sister and I valued that were given away or tossed, and other things were carefully put aside for us that we had no interest in at all. I guess everyone has different reasons for considering something precious.

[Faith-and-Hope]

My grandma did that @Former-Member @Smc ..... and it was such a blessing. She talked over with everybody, right down to grandchildren and great-grandchildren what she could gift to them ..... usually over a lovely afternoon tea .... and smaller items she gave in the moment to be taken away with us ..... larger items she stuck stickers under earth with the intended receiver’s name on it. It was amazing what meant what to different members of the family, and not always what you might expect. There was also no “green eyes” or argument about anything later, and she even donated her body to science ......

That was my grandma ❣️

I come from a family of beautiful women and empathetic men.

[Former-Member]

@Smc @Faith-and-Hope
I think mum has written some things down about who is to get some special things but when she gets a bee in her bonnet about something needing to go she wants it gone yesterday. Rang me once to say an antique sideboard she had earmarked for me needed to be gone by the weekend... I live interstate so not possible ... my sister came to the rescue and is using it at her place (it will probably end up staying there). Our family are pretty easy going, I have had to speak up for one of my brothers who will not say a thing even though mum has made it clear if we have an eye on something to let her know. Mum is not an overly sentimental person and in many ways I am not either. I think living in a 3rd world country for a while makes me realise that at the end of the day, they are only things, it is the people who count. That being said, I do have a couple of items I enjoy that belonged to loved ones no longer with us.

Amongst the few things I rescued from going to charity was Gran's royal doulton tea pot, Mum did not want it as it did not pour well, ensured a sibling who cared about such items got that...

[Smc]

@Former-Member Yeah... one of the things I'm trying to work out is the psychology of attachment to objects. It can become unhealthy, and not just in the sense of hoarding. Objects as status symbols can get nasty, particularly if your self worth gets too tied up in what you own. If you lose it, where does that leave you? Objects for security, financial or emotional, kind of ditto.

My big puzzler is objects as holders of memories. I think of my Grandma when I use her wooden dining chairs, so I wouldn't want to part with them. I've got other things that are memory joggers of chlldhood, or friends, or special times in our lives. Having lost some of those things when our house got flooded, I know that I mourn the loss of the physical object's connection with the person who gave them, particularly when the person has since died. I'm not quite sure when that crosses a line and becomes harmful. 

[Adge]

My parent's old family house may get knocked down @Smc

It's solid brick & structurally sound - but it does need a lot of repairs.

People seem to prefer to get the block (for $$ value) these days, & knock the house down & rebuild (sadly).

The need for repairs has apparently reduced the sale price by over $200 to 300K - when my family really needs the money (from the sale).

Mum, having delayed the sale process for 2 years (since Dad died) - is now stressing over impending taxes, if she doesn't sell immediately.

There was a 2 year deadline to meet, to not accrue those taxes (apparently).

So she now won't or can't consider having the house painted & repaired before the sale - to get a better sale price.

It's the loss of the garden that I'm saddest about. My Dad was very attached to that garden, & my parents had planted some rare plants in it from their travels around Australia (in the 1970's & 1980's).

Adge