How long to clean out mom's apartment?

Lindsay22

For those that have dealt with cleaning out your LOs house or apartment after a move to AL or MC how long did it take you? It is a one bedroom condo but mom was a bit of a "collector" so there is lots in there.  And there is a storage locker in the basement that I have never seen that is no doubt filled to the brim. It will mostly just be me and my husband doing the work but I plan to hire a haul away service.  We'll have to pull up the carpet as well, replace the flooring, have it painted which is why I am trying to give myself a realistic timeline.  I would like to book contractors in advance since I know everything is taking longer with COVID. Do you think 3 weekends is realistic? Also not sure how emotional I will be which will, no doubt, slow down my productivity. 

Thanks! 

harshedbuzz

It's hard to say.

My mother, aunt, cousin and I spent almost 3 weeks of 8-10 hour days cleaning out my other aunt's "compound" in ME; in the end we hired a professional to finish the job. Aunt had a 3 BR house with a full basement and office, a workshop for my uncle's hobby with an apartment above, a 2BR cottage, a boathouse, a shed and a 4 bay garage. She had some nice things, so a local attorney who does auctions on the side came with a crew and 3 trucks (one for the auction, one for Goodwill and one for the dump) and worked the final 2 days we were there.

Stuck in the middle

I had to handle every scrap of paper, because a photo of my grandmother might lie between two years-old grocery ads and the owner's manual for a '58 Ford.  My wife and I worked on it 2-3 hours a day for two months.  That was a 5-room house, and she had lived there for 50 years.

loveskitties

A lot depends on your frame of mind as you go through things.  If you find sentimental attachment to thing and will have to make hard decisions, it will take longer.

While most folks recommend the 3 pile method (keep, toss, donate) you might want to add a fourth for "to be determined".  Using this type of system makes things go faster and you can see an accomplishment.

If the "TBD" pile gets big, it may also help to go thru it for final determination...comparing items sometimes will bring you to the point where item 1 is more important than item 2 which can then be donated rather than kept.

Also, don't forget that you can also take a picture of items which you would like to keep, but have no room for, rather than keeping the item itself.

Good luck on this transition.

Lindsay22

The picture thing is a great tip. I actually did this with my now teenaged daughter when we got rid of mounds of sentimental stuffed animals.  Now we have a nice photo book of her lovies without having them in our house.  I am generally very sentimental which is what concerns me.  What I'm taking away here is to give it more time than I think it will take.  Thanks!

Stuck in the middle

If I used a TBD pile, I would still be working on it (since 2012).  Rule is, pick it up, set it down in one of three piles (keep, donate, toss), and never touch it again.  The keep should be a bushel, the donate can be whatever, the toss is a rolloff trash dumpster.

When I cleaned out my mother's house, I threw out stuff that was hers, stuff that was my father's (died in 1987), stuff that was from my grandfather's house since 1972 (some of it was HIS parents' stuff), some was junk my brothers had stored there years before and never retrieved.  I threw out veterinary supplies (grandpa raised cattle), a bowling ball, a bong, a half ton of comic books and paperbacks, etc.  Mom didn't haul junk home, but what checked in didn't check out.

My mother never could clean it out.  She would start, find some old housekeeping manual her mother had received as a wedding present in 1920, and start reading it.  Don't do the same.

Klgm326

My mother was quite the hoarder. I rented a huge dumpster, chose the few items to keep, had the movers come and get the pieces of furniture to move to my house and to AL, then hired an estate sale company. They came and worked for a week, had a two day sale, and emptied the house afterward AND I made money rather than paying a removal company. I never went back after my last cleaning/dumping day. (She had a reverse mortgage so I just had to turn it into the bank, so…) 

I would give yourself at least a few weekends and then hire someone. No $ out of pocket for reputable sellers They take a percentage of the sale 

Best of luck! (And of course, Mother saw none of this—it would have killed her). She was at my home for a few days until she could move into AL