A different kind of hoarding

My MIL recently died, she was a lovely person and we will miss her dearly and we are grieving but her death was merciful. It’s a long and complicated story as I’m sure most can understand and I don’t want to get too personal about the specifics of her life and death. She was a hoarder, her house is literally full, wall to wall floor to ceiling in spots of stuff. My wife is an only child and the only heir. She and I began the task of cleaning out the house, and have, we believe found the important documents pertaining to her life as well as high value items. She had a safe, it was accessible and looked to be gotten into regularly. We have also removed any items my wife can remember or see that has any emotional value to her. We attempted to sort through the rest but have thrown in the towel and hired an estate clean out company. Mostly because we don’t have the time and physical or emotional energy to deal with the situation and also because the house is infested with mice and we don’t want to expose ourselves to the mouse feces/urine with the associated risk of Hantavirus. There have been two recent cases of it in the area, both of which were fatal. It is otherwise a very nice house on a large property in a nice neighborhood. You would never know or guess this is the condition from the outside.



So the question, what to do with the stuff? How do we instruct the clean out company?Much of the stuff is unopened boxes of merchandise, much of it bought from QVC, and just being honest here because I know my MIL, it’s junk, trinkets, and gadgets. I think it’s reasonable to have the company set aside any item with obvious value or any unopened and unmolested by mice boxes and dispose of anything else. There is a fairly nice dining room set but the rest of the furniture is junk/ruined by the mice. We have no idea what to do with the stuff but are both wishing to be done with it as quickly as possible, opening and evaluating each box is not an option for us.

Bulk donate it to Goodwill?

Hire an auction company, maybe they will take the whole lot or be willing to evaluate each item?

We worked for two days and filled a 12 yard roll off dumpster twice and made two pickup truck loads to goodwill and that was just the garage and her bedroom. Here is the pile of boxes from the garage and her bedroom.

 

So sorry to hear what you two are going through. You are right though. This is a very emotional, draining task as well as a physical task. There must be a company who deals with this kind of thing all the time. Protective gear is must wear for dealing with this. Sorry I am not much help.

 

Very sorry for your loss. Being that there was an infestation, I'd probably just want it cleaned out. All contents are potentially hazardous so a sort out severely slows progress and complicates matters. Only thing I'd want set aside is something that appears to be personal (photo's etc).

 

Call these guys? They take it all away and donate what can be, responsibly dispose the rest...at least that's what the commercial says, no personal experience with them...
https://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en/what-we-do/what_we_do

 

Sorry to hear it, Dave. That type of hoarding is very sad.

In addition to Goodwill, you might have luck with contacting any religious organizations up there. They can't help with the piles, but when you get to things in the cupboards and cabinets, they know who is needy and can benefit the most.

 

I can certainly sympathize with you. When my mom passed, as the only child I was tasked with disposing of the estate. While not a hoarder by most definitions, the house help the possessions and memories of over 50 years (when the house was built). My wife (an absolute saint) and I spent over a year, disposing of trash, keeping things I couldn't bring myself to part with, and ultimately bringing an auctioneer in to take care of the rest of the personal items as well as the house and property. My experience that you will not receive anywhere close to the value of anything at auction. That wasn't our main goal, but seeing countless items leave for $1 made me sad to think that my parents worked their whole lives and many things were essentially given away.

If you don't have the time to invest (which I don't really recommend), let someone do it, don't be present and take what you can get. The more involved you become with the process, the harder it is. Good luck!

 

My mother had an auction company come in when my grandmother passed. We were all not very pleased with stuff selling for dollars.

I recommend saving yourself from that experience. It wasn't pleasant.

 

I'd have them fill the garage with any thing good. Then have a yard sale. Or If you don't need the little bit of money you might get just donate the remnants.

Any chainsaws in the hoard?

 

Sorry for your loss, salvage what you can church(s) or a personal favorite of mine is battered woman organization. Many times these victims leave with clothes and kids! Trinkets worth pennies make an empty place honey.

 

Sorry for your loss. It seems like people who hoard start that right after some extreme emotional event happens to them. Have sympathy for those who are hoarders like that.

 

I was waiting for that question.

An 021 that looks like it has the original chain still sharp

Not a chainsaw but…

 

it started right after the divorce and when my wife went off to college…1990…slow decline since then…very sad, I saw the whole thing we’ve been together since 87, but you would have never known it if you met her, she was very personable and outwardly happy

 

I’ve dealt with taking care of elderly family members, some have died and we still have a few left to take care of. It can be really tough sometimes. You just have to do your best. You can learn some good life lessons.

 

My FIL took a bunch of OPE and woodworking tools (much of it high end) to an auction after the auctioneer blew a bunch of smoke up his rear about how well that stuff would sell (for the record, I warned him not to do it) it sold for pennies on the dollar compared to what it should have brought...the auctioneer was the only one that made out there (well, that and the people that got all those deals)
He said he would have been OK with $2k total for everything...he got $300.

 

Dave,
Sorry for your loss for sure. The depth of grief is typically directly correlated to the depth of love/relationship. All the best in healing.

I have lost 2 in-laws. Both had stuff. One had neat stuff she was hoping to move into a house one day, but never did.

They had their spaces till the end of the month, and there was a lot of sorting and distributing to do. I didn't think one could jam that much into an apartment.

It took a few full time days (and my truck) to triage and distribute. What helped, was to have a handful of people. Dear Wife did the sorting, and several of us hauled lotsa trash (down many flights of stairs), loaded various vehicles as folks stopped by to take what DW had offered them, stashed our stuff out of the way. It was an intense few days.

In the end, we took over a dozen boxes of stuffola home. We sorted it over the following years, going thru each box, tossing things that weren't as meaningful, and repacking things that she or I were not ready to part with.

I guess, triaging with a good handful of folks handy (and masked or whatever) really worked. Folks who had things with their names on them, took that and stuff from the unassigned pile. Multiple people from her church took things either for themselves,.for their families, or their church.
What we took, we looked at over years. We're down to 1 or 2 boxes of stuff that is valuable.

All the best.

Sca

 

So sorry for you and your wife's loss

Although an estate auction may not bring top dollar or even close, if you don't need the money and don't have the time/patience/will to try to sell them on CL, that may be your best bet. HOwever, I have no idea how they work and if the contents need to be sorted for them or not. Maybe you could have an auction company do the selling and donate any proceeds to your MIL's favorite charity/cause.

You were talking about donating to GW anyway, and GW will probably expect it to be sorted - and they only take certain things IIRC. However, you would be able to take a tax deduction on their stated value (which will also be low)

I've also seen individuals put up "estate sales" on CL where they charge something like $5 for every armload or milk crate (or whatever unit of measure) you can carry out. Larger tools and machines that can't be "carried" are more but not by much. Once again that is something that takes time and effort and may not produce quite the results that you expect.

 

Decision fatigue could easily overwhelm you with that much work to be done!

Look at this way, you don’t want it, don’t need it, can’t use it, don’t want to store it = JUNK. Hire out someone to take care of it and don’t go back until it’s done!

Instructions I would give to whoever was doing it boxes/piles for the following
1) pictures/family papers/official documents
2) money/loose change
3) tools

Donate everything they can and trash the rest!

This is an essential job that needs to be done with minimal risk to your mental and physical health!

 

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated.

Meeting with a local auctioneer guy tomorrow, I doubt we will use him but it can’t hurt to at least hear what he has to say.

Clean out company is supposed to start Tues, we’ll see how far they get with a 40 yard roll off and 5 workers. $3-4K to fill and dispose of the 40yard. They will only dispose of stuff, they do not handle donations but are willing to set stuff aside, if we want to donate anything it would be up to us to get it where it needs to go or possibly have someone come pick it up. I will have them set aside any unopened boxes in the garage.