[organizing notes / elder home clear out / overwhelm]
I thought it might be helpful to review how I approached clearing out my in-laws’ condo last weekend. Talking to Kevin about it, he mentioned that when he’d first started working on it, it seemed like everything he did just created more mess and chaos. That’s a familiar issue with any home organizing task, and certainly something my kids struggle with in cleaning their own spaces. So I thought I’d just go through my general approach to this particular task.
Main principles — as much as you can:
• sort things into subject matter sections
• divide into categories of keep, give away, trash / recycle / shred
• clear as you go, so you have space to work, so you don’t feel overwhelmed, and so you can see immediately and visually the progress you’re making.
Pre-clearing: have any family members or friends come over and ideally take, or at least mark with a post-it, items that are claimed. A post-it on an item is great — that means you don’t have to think about it again until the end.
If you’re planning to give things away on a local buy-nothing group, be sure to schedule the time needed to coordinate that. It may only be worth doing for larger items.
1. Getting ready: Consider if you’ll need boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, a Sharpie, post-its for labelling; get anything you need, so you’re not slowed down for lack of supplies. Have a plan for meals and snacks, so you’re sufficiently nourished while working — it’s easy to get on a roll and have time just slip by, and you don’t want to forget to eat, or everything will get harder — moving things, decision-making, etc. Stay hydrated.
2. If you’re going to be moving heavy items and you don’t have the capability yourself, schedule time with a friend or paid helper for those tasks. I was generally able to move everything that needed moving — thanks to my trainer for building up my muscles! I was tired and a bit sore at the end of two days, but not exhausted or in pain.
3. Set aside valuables that will need to be appraised, if any. For us, that meant photographing artwork, including a close-up of any signatures or makers’ marks, taking down various paintings and stacking them against the wall, and corralling any smaller art pieces into one section. Also setting aside any potentially valuable jewelry and silverware. Box them and set it all aside in an out-of-the-way place if you’re not dealing with it immediately.
4. Sort as you go. This is a key step — if you can periodically put things in broad categories, it’ll make it easier to see the scope of what you’re dealing with. Papers in one place. Clothes in another. Electronics. Etc.
5. Papers. (Gah.) Kevin did most of this, but basically, you need to sort into three sections — recycle, shred (anything with financial info, like SS# or bank account info), keep. If you can recycle as you go (fill a bag or two, take it out), that will help you visually see the impact of your work. Similarly, if you’re taking material to a shredding place, perhaps you can put it all in a box and take it out to the car, so it’s out of the space you’re trying to clear. (I found the paper sorting the most tedious task, though it was relatively physically easy. YMMV.)
6. Electronics. The main thing to be careful of here is to make sure anything holding sensitive personal information (financial & legal info, naked photos, etc.) is wiped clean before being passed on. Once that’s taken care of, you can stack all the electronics together, tape any remotes to their respective devices, give away to friends / family / buy-nothing group anything that’s in good working condition that they want, and then recycle what remains.
Many townships have an electronics recycling option, sometimes with pick-up, so check your local government website for details. And if you’re not the kind of person who enjoys and is good at sorting gazillion cables, it is totally fine to tag in someone else to deal with that.
7. Clothes. This can be emotionally difficult — if so, consider if there’s someone who can help you with it. Decide if you’re separating out for particular places (such as nicer workwear going to a charity that helps people getting back into the workforce). But mostly, this is just bundling things into large bags (clean trash bags work fine) and dropping them off at the charity. (Thanks to Shannon John Clark for coming by and picking up a carload of these items for us, to drop off when he had time.)
8. Housewares. We had a lot of these to dispose of — serveware, holiday items, a kitchen’s worth of cooking supplies, etc. Since Ron and Ann lived in a condo complex, I ended up just knocking on the two nearest neighbors’ doors, explaining the situation, and inviting them to stop by and take things.
I put all the nicer items out on the dining table for ease of viewing, and then pointed them to the kitchen and closets with cleaning supplies. You might not think that someone will want your half full bottle of bleach, but if they live right next door and have room for it, why wouldn’t they take it? It’ll save them a few bucks down the road. It was very satisfying being able to give a lot of items away in this manner — hyper-local!
The rest of the housewares can be boxed up and dropped at a charity. Some items may be eligible for pick-up — for example, Habitat for Humanity ReStores is currently charging a $40 flat fee for curbside pickup of any furniture + certain household items, such as picture frames, hardcover books, and much more. See their website for details.
9. Furniture, lamps, mirrors, appliances. We did the same as with housewares, and were able to give at least 75% of what wasn’t claimed by family away to neighbors. (This is where post-its are particularly helpful, so neighbors can see at a glance what’s already claimed, and don’t cause stress asking for items that aren’t available.)
10. Memorabilia. I admit, I was running out of energy, and Kev’s family had a LOT of memorabilia. We took photos of Ron’s many awards and then threw away the awards — no one was going to be displaying the physical awards in their homes going forward. We packed up all the photos and certificates and such into boxes for storage. I tried NOT to stop and look at photos, as that can easily really slow down the clearing out process.
The hope is that I’m going to have time some summer to sort through it all, scan in particularly good photos, and create a family website / archive. We’ll see if that actually happens, but at least for now, they’re safe. There are services that will digitize photos for you, but we don’t want to keep ALL the photos, so we’ll probably do a first pass winnow before digitizing.
We also packed up and stored a lovely christening gown handed down through multiple generations — Kevin and his sister wore it, and both of my kids wore it, which is sort of funny, since none of us are religious. But it was important to the grandparents, so…
That’s most of it. I’d say it took about two 8-hr days to clear most of a two-bedroom, two-bath condo, mostly just me, but with some help from Kev’s sister and my friends. You can call a junk service to come get what remains; we have a condo property manager who’s offered to do it for cheaper than Got Junk, so we’ll probably be doing that.
If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed by grief, and it’s really slowing down the process, I’d seriously recommend finding someone else to help. Don’t hesitate to call on friends for aid — this sort of tasks comes to most of us at some point. If you don’t help them directly with a similar task, you can always help someone else with it — it all comes around, eventually. That’s what community is for.
Nothing here is new information, I’m sure, but hopefully it’s a little helpful anyway…
Photo of bougainvillea, putting out new colorful bracts.
