Well not done done, Mum is still kicking LOL. Done with the house, done. Finally.
There is so much to do when selling, it's not all about keeping the place clean and tidy for open houses, or the odd drop ins. It's not about keeping in touch with your Solicitor and Real Estate Agent. It's not about changing addresses, and closing services. It's not about making sure all the bills are paid. At least it hasn't been for me. Sure those things need doing, but they are minor compared with dealing with the home of someone who has lived there for 60 years. Someone who built the house and has never lived anywhere else. And it's all about their fucking crap.
I get that there is going to be stuff, I have stuff, I'm sure you have stuff, but bloody hell, my mother had S T U F F. Yep, need to use caps for that one. I had 2 weeks annual leave, wanted to get away totally for the first week and a bit, so headed down to my daughters. Sounded crazy to her that I wanted to go down and relax when she has 4 kids 7 and under. But after everything that's been going on with Mum, it was like stepping into another world. A world of screaming kids, kids that would throw a tantrum over a missing lego piece, kids that would be all over you, and not let you watch what you wanted on TV lol. And I loved it, every single second of it. No sleep ins, but lots of naps, which didn't necessarily involve sleeping, just time reading in bed. At home I would of been stressed to the max, there, I had nothing to worry about. It was fan bloody tastic.
Second week, not so much. My brother had found a place to move to, woohoo. But this of course involved getting him and his crap out of the house in my last week of leave. Naturally he didn't have leave, so I was doing the main part all week. I had to deal with his depression over having to leave the only home he's ever known, and his stress, as well as my own. He has had months to get organised, but was he? Nope, not a fucking chance of that. He also had no clue what he was doing about finding a place as he has never had to before. So I had to teach him, cause I've done it a gazillion times.
I told him to cull his shit. He went from a 3 bedroom house, with heaps of storage and space, to a one bedroom, with nada lol. I walked through the place with him, and his form, and noted all the shit that they hadn't put down as being broken, or damaged. He asked why he had to and I said, do you want to be blamed when and if you ever move out? To me it's logical, but to someone who's never done it, it's weird. That first week, I took a load down every day. Kitchen stuff he wanted, books, clothes, linen. The house wasn't anywhere near empty even with that. On the last weekend, I hired a ute for the Saturday. We had a few bigish pieces of stuff that had to come up here, and the rest of his million and one crates of fucking books. We also stopped off while we had the ute and picked him up a fridge and couch. Mums fridge is a huge side by side 2 door, no way could he fit that in, so that's my sons now, and the couch was an old shit thing 3 seater that he hated. He had the cash so we got a smaller fridge and 2 seater couch for him.
We loaded in crates, boxes, loose crap both small and big, drove up and down, and still it wasn't enough. Sunday meant more trips in the car, up and down, round and round. And he was still packing shit up as we went. Why the hell one person needs 6 fucking back packs when they only use 1, is beyond me. And yet the kitchen stuff was only 2 to 3 boxes, boggles my mind lol. He currently has 4 bookshelf's in his bedroom, and one in the lounge room, and they are all double shelved (2 rows of books on each shelf) and he still has more to unpack. I've got another bookshelf for him I've yet to take down as well. He has no wardrobe as that was kind of built in at mums, I say kind of cause it was huge and was built in the bedroom, couldn't possible move it. He also had 2 push bikes to take down, but what we did with them, was I'd have a load in the car, and he'd ride one down meet me there and I'd drive him back up for the next bike. Did mean I had a bit of extra space in the car lol.
He finally had enough, we had his essentials there, and he abandoned the rest. Then began the next stage. Cleaning the rest of the crap out.
I had to go back to work on the Monday, but I'd had a contact from the Real Estate come out on Sunday while we were there, and I showed him around the place, and said it all has to go, by Friday lol. He was lovely, he really was. Didn't faze him at all, not even my brothers room lol. I had already been taking loads of crap to the tip, and when I say crap I mean, broken things and expired food (6 garbage bags of it), and had bought a lot of cleaning products up here. But still that wasn't enough, and I was done with a capital D. He started Monday, and finally finished Friday morning.
There was stuff under the house, I can blame both Mum and Dad for that lot. When they had the kitchen redone, everything went under the house, they didn't chuck it out and it was useless crap. There was also crap in the yard, same thing, just shoved in a corner and the weeds grew over it. Everything I hadn't been able to see in the garage sale, and no one wanted, had to go. Furniture, Mum had decided she wanted that used to be my Nana's, it wasn't needed, she just wanted it. She had enough cutlery to host the Olympics, but not enough plates so they'd have to bring their own. Saucepans with handles falling off, that had been replaced with new shiny ones, but never thrown out. Fry pans that were burnt or broken in some other way, and newer ones, more than 2 people would ever need. Cake tins, muffin tins, bread tins, cooling racks, trays, all the latest and all the freaking oldest. Plastic containers, no lids, lids, no containers, plastic cups, paper plates, coffee cups, glasses, 7 bread boards, 3 knife sets in blocks, ladles, potato mashes, potato peelers, the list is fucking endless. The spice and sauce cupboard was filled to the brim, and yet when we went through it, there was basically 4 sauces and about 10 spices that we kept, 90% were expired. She had little plastic organisers, freezer bags (unopened packs) in every single cupboard. Sandwich bags all over the place, yet only one lot of cling wrap and alfoil, 2 of the things she would of used the most lol.
I bagged up as much as I could and everything went into the almost empty back room. I did nothing in my brothers room, except look at it and cry internally. Mums room had already been cleaned out, just one bit of furniture that was broken to go. And I'd actually vacuumed in there lol. The spare room, had been cleaned out already, only had my brothers pc and desk left, so we took that down to his new place. The bathroom, arrrggghhh, forgot I hadn't cleaned out all the drawers, so had to throw out bags and bags of make up that was all almost used or expired. Lounge room, had assorted stuff in it, lounge, desk, coffee tables that had broken legs (which is what every home needs just in case), books my brother abandoned, broken pottery, a small bookshelf that she'd used for her phone, and the fold out table that was a wedding present. Everything from the kitchen had been bagged so that was empty, and I'd already done the laundry, so it was just the backroom, which had a dresser another big desk, and a sewing machine cabinet, and all the bags of crap I'd thrown out there. In my brothers room, the wardrobe had to be dismantled and the wall unit he had in there as well. He had crap still in the wardrobe and a trunk full of magazines, also a porn collection under his bed lol. I'm pretty sure the room hasn't been vacuumed or dusted in 30 years, could be more, but I opened the windows and walked out.
Then there was the shed. 2 lawn mowers that didn't work. Enough gardening tools for the gardeners at Buckingham Palace (most still in wrappings and unused), old broken stools, old broken pots, another bike (broken a bit, my son took that to fix up) and crap crap and more crap. She'd even put boxes of books in there and forgotten about them, so naturally they were all just rubbish. Old pots and hoses in the yard, old garbage bins, compost bins, and an old bit of our old clothes line which was pulled down years and years ago. I'd arranged to have the asbestos from under the house removed, but they found more, sigh. Another bike, assorted paint and poisons all in the shed and under the house. 5 days it took him. 5 fucking days to get it all cleaned out. The house was by no means a hoarders house, you could walk around it free and easy, but because of all the storage, everything was hidden away. I'd gotten rid of some stuff before I left, our local council does a free clean up service twice a year, but they will only take so much, and the house was still filled.
I don't know if it's because I've moved so much, or because of Mum, but I can move my whole house in one day with a truck, or a ute, and I know this because I've done it. And I did it with 3 kids and their crap as well. So 7 days to move my brother, and a gazillion days to clean out a house. I have cleaned off my old bookshelf for my brother, and have culled the small number of books I had, I've culled clothes, with more to go, and my cupboards are full, but any food that expires, goes, any broken pots or whatever, goes. I'm not keeping jack. My kids will have to dispose of stuff, sure, but it won't take them as long as it's taken me, it will take them a day and that's it, done.
I am so glad it's all over, and I can now relax a bit. Life still goes on, Mum still has Alzheimers, we are all getting older lol, but one chapter has been closed completely and I will never have to do that again. Please, don't be my mum or brother, cull your shit. Remember that if you don't, your heirs will have to, and why would you do that to them? They won't have the time to miss you because they'll be cleaning out your S T U F F and thinking fuck me, how did this happen. I've changed all addresses, shut off services, redirected the mail, and returned the foxtel box, I'm pretty sure that's it LOL. I still have stuff of Mums here, I've saved memories and trinkets, I've got photo boxes and albums, but it's all culled to the extreme and packed neatly away. I'll do another cull now the house is gone, and will empty her files of non essentials, and get on with life.
Wouldn't mind a weekend at a spa, or just being pampered lol.
Catch yas
Cathy
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