House clearance

I feel for you Gagjo I had to do the same. My mum was in the nursing home already. She gave me instructions on what had to be done with things but it made it no easier.
It's finding your toys on the loft and some of my fathers who had passed away many years earlier.
If it helps my mum got a new lease of life in the home, remade friends with people from school actually enjoyed the meals and went up two sizes in clothes and was content. She even told a cousin who passed it on she should have done it years earlier, though not to me.
Just tell yourself she is safe clean, warm and well looked after with help 24 hours a day. Enjoy your time with her.

When we cleared our Mums home, my sister and myself went from laughing tears to sadness tears in a heartbeat, multiple times each day.

Sending you a (((hug)))

Unfortunately, Mum has S4 cancer, so not sure how long she has. And I live 300 miles away with GC care duties so can't be here much.

It is hard work and it does emotionally wreck you. I had to empty my mother in laws house her sisters then her brothers we were their only relatives close by.
Your mum will settle soon enough in a nursing home and it will take the stress away from you.

I feel for you Gagajo. My Mum died very suddenly and I am an only child so everything fell to me. When I let myself into the house - my childhood home - her undrunk cup of tea was still on the kitchen table.

My swing and wendy house were still in the garden, and although she'd been brilliant and decluttered a great deal after Dad died, there were so many childhood memories there.... cards I'd sent, crafts I'd made for her, etc. I cried buckets, and for months afterwards I revisited the house in my dreams.

Take care of yourself. Sending you hugs. (( ))

Having done both, IMO it’s a lot harder clearing a house when someone is still alive, rather than when they’re gone. You feel as if you’re throwing their life away - I did, anyway. We had to clear my mother’s house after she had to move to a care home (dementia) and a sister and BiL did the same for an aunt.

One thing I’d say, if anyone’s thinking of getting house clearance people in, keep an eye on them. My sister found them taking more than a very cursory interest in a picture which had been wrapped in brown paper and shoved for decades behind a chest of drawers.

It had belonged to a GM who’d never had much money but had been fond of going to sales - I remembered it vaguely from her rarely used ‘front parlour’. Sister had it valued - it turned out to be by a well known Victorian artist and sold at auction for £9.5k - all of which went into the aunt’s pot for care home fees.

I’m so sorry GagaJo, it’s so difficult especially living so far away and with family commitments. ?My own experience was similar to yours Sparklefizz. My son is also an only child and it’s spurred me on to leave as little as possible in the way of possessions.

I'm sorry to heart this, Gagajo, it's a difficult thing to do.
There were a few tears and trips down memory lane when we did both mothers' houses.

My Mum was a great clearer-outer so it was much easier to clear her house when she could no longer cope on her own.

My MIL was a hoarder and it took some time, umpteen visits to the charity shop, house clearers for furniture and a very large skip.

However, we still have much of their stuff all these years later, a big mistake imo. I would recommend being ruthless, you could take photos of things rather than keep everything.

Good luck

Oh, I just read your second post, that is very sad.

It’s horrible Gagajo my sister and I did Mum’s, she was in care with dementia. So many memories and having to be tough, particularly clothing, a pile for charity, a pile for the tip, we could remember her wearing so many of them.
It felt wrong.
Thinking of you x

My sons have urged me to come south to live closer to them and I am inclined to agree to this. However, I am facing the daunting task of clearing out a lot of things accumulated in the twenty years I've lived here. So far, the charity shops have benefited from several loads and the bin is full of stuff excavated from the black hole under the sink. But, I know that by doing this now, I'm relieving my sons and their families of the task of clearing the house after I'm gone.

I can remember the woman at the local charity shop where I went with the umpteenth bag asking sympathetically if I'd lost someone close to me

Day after I'm back home and still struggling to go through all the cards & notes etc from my mum, grandparents, other dead family members.

Does it get easier if I leave it for a couple of years?

I’m so sorry GagaJo. It’s an awful job. If you have the space, I’d say put them away until you feel stronger. Don’t try to do too much all at once. It does get a bit easier in time but I still have some of that kind of stuff 20 years later, and what spurs me on to deal with it now is not wanting to leave it to my son to do.?

Thank you. I'm torn between plowing through it to get rid of the clutter that's now in my house and putting it off to save the hurt.

GagaJo I would say put off anything that you can save till a later date. I actually moved house with a suitcase full of my Mum's cards, letters and general non-urgent clutter, and sorted it about 3 years after her death. It was still a tearful process but gave me a break.

A bit at a time then? Eating the elephant in chunks not all at once. I think you’re working too and have caring responsibilities? Cut yourself some slack and do what you feel like when you feel like it.

GagaJo

Day after I'm back home and still struggling to go through all the cards & notes etc from my mum, grandparents, other dead family members.

Does it get easier if I leave it for a couple of years?

No, it just gets shelved, put into boxes in the attic out of sight, out of mind, and 20 years later you think you ought to do something about it but haven't got the energy.

Best to do it bit by bit now.

Can you put some of them into just one keepsake album or box?

GagaJo

Day after I'm back home and still struggling to go through all the cards & notes etc from my mum, grandparents, other dead family members.

Does it get easier if I leave it for a couple of years?

Dh and a brother couldn’t bring themselves to chuck virtually everything from their father’s house after he died. So much of the stuff that nobody wanted - or had room for - went into storage - for about 10 years! Should add that neither of them lived anywhere near the storage facility - BiL was a 5 hour drive away.

Eventually they did get down to it, and 99% of it was chucked.
I never liked to think of what all that storage cost, but at the same time could completely understand why they did it.
Such a painful exercise, for most people, at least.

I’m sorry you’re facing this difficult task, Gagajo.

It’s not something we’ve faced, as my poor sister-in-law dealt with my MIL’s house - we live nearly 600 miles away and my Dh was working abroad when MIL died.

My own mother is an inveterate clearer-outer so there won’t be much to go through there, although at 94 she’s still healthy and robust! She had got rid of everything of my dad’s by the day after his funeral, whereas MIL still had FIL’s gardening clothes hanging in the hall, nearly 25 years after he’d died. I know there will be no memories to be found in my mum’s house, although I believe there is one piece of jewellery she wants me to have, a brooch given to her own mother by her first fiancé who was killed in WW1. I don’t think I’ve ever set eyes on it, though.

We have been decluttering our own house as we will downsize at some point. I randomly hit upon a method of deciding whether to chuck or keep those more personal items. Would I ever use/look at/listen to etc that item again? Also, would any of our dc ever be interested? If it had no purpose, practical or aesthetic, then out it went.

It was easier doing it that way than simply asking myself do I want to keep that, because I’d probably keep it all if I could.

When we moved we took only what we really wanted/needed and the children took anything that they wanted and we got house clearance in to take the rest. That was almost 10 years ago now and we've not regretted anything or missed anything. The house had just silted up with stuff somehow. I'm so glad we used a house clearance company. It's a social enterprise and gives good jobs to people and recycles as much as possible. If they could make a profit on anything they uncover then good luck to them. They worked very hard and left the house spotless.

So sorry Gagajo.
My mum died a few months ago and we're starting to go through stuff as we have to put the house up for sale. My parents bought it in 1966 and we all grew up there.
It's hard but I find taking it in small pieces is best. Maybe start going through all the ornaments one day, keep one or two as momentos and then go straight to the charity shop with the rest. Another day go through all the coats, hats and scarves, pack them up and straight to the charity shop. The bookshelves another day, then the kitchen cupboards.

Nothing is going to make it easy, but I think spending days doing it not stop would be emotionally and physically wearing.

Will your Mum want to take some of her things into the nursing home with her, Gagajo?
Is she up to being able to choose some of her more precious things to take with her?