Ins and Outs, details, tips, ah-ha moments…all the things that take all my damn time.

Moving + Cleaning out Mom’s house

It took us YEARS to get my mom to agree to move. There was the period she was never going to move, the years she was “thinking about it”, the times she said yes and we started the moving process, the (multiple) times she stopped the process. There was the 9- month period I didn’t speak to her b/c I was wiped out from continual starting and stopping of the moving process. It was a journey.

She finally had a breakthrough and we started the process for the last time. Truthfully I think her close friend moving to be with her kids helped tremendously. The move and sale of her house had to happen. This all fell to me. The cleaning out of her house was the most daunting.

Here’s what I did:

1. Gave her blue painter’s tape so she could mark each item she wanted to move.
2. Had the movers only pack and load those items.
3. Moved her, got her unpacked and settled in the new place.
4. Scheduled Habitat for Humanity to meet me at her old house with their box truck. They did ask for pictures ahead of time to decide if they wanted the items. They arrived and filled their truck to the brim.
5. Hired a local junk removal company to come take the rest.
6. Hired a local cleaning company to deep clean.

Did she leave photos, paperwork, pretty furniture, half her dishes, and memories from the last 25 years there? Yes.

Did I go through it all? No.

Did I see things I hesitated to throw away? Yes.

Did I save them? No.

Did I hear glass crack, see childhood pictures flutter and smell cat food as it all got tossed in the dumpster in the yard? Yes.

Did it hurt? It made me sad.

I was also tired. 5 years of lead up plus 4 days of packing and moving out and in plus 2 more months of back and forth to her house 4 hours each way to get the house in order.

Only after all this were we able to have meaningful conversations with a realtor. It takes time but with some planning the nitty gritty can go pretty fast.

TIPS:

1. Habitat was a game changer-– having them come (for free) and haul a massive amount of stuff away saved us a ton of $$. *Tip them!
2. Check all the utilities and make sure you know who can speak to someone about the accounts before you spend hours trying to cancel them.
3. Find out which hardware items have to be returned for TV and Wifi. We had to make multiple trips bc we didn’t research this first.
4. Check for reoccurring charges on credit cards. We never cancelled the home security system (thought it wasn’t working!) and she ended up paying for it for 7 months after moving. I only figured it out when I was setting up online access for credit cards. Oops!