I have ended up as the sole trustee in charge of all my parents’ assets. It’s all been kind of sudden. My dad died unexpectedly last October, and my mom had to be moved to memory care a couple of months ago (also unexpectedly).
We are left with a three-bedroom house, 90 miles from where I live and work. I have never personally had to clear and move more than a small apartment’s worth of stuff. Now, we want to prepare the house to be sold within two or three months. To top it off, I started a new job recently and don’t have much leave time built up.
What kind of people do I need to hire to help me with this. Basically we want to do a few things:
1.Keep and store about half a dozen items of furniture (including an upright piano) and a few dozen boxes of memorabilia.
2.Have an estate sale for the rest of the furniture, collectibles and stuff of any conceivable value.
Get rid of a large amount of personal detritus, books, used kitchen stuff, old electronics, etc.
I’ve boxed up the paperwork to shred. The storage and the estate sale are reasonably clear, but I’m damned if I know how to clear out the rest of the junk.
Who does this sort of thing? What kind of businesses?
There are companies that do estate sales. However when my sister died we interviewed several of these companies and found that it really wasn’t worth it. They tell you up front that they normally recover only a fraction of the value of the items, and then they take a part of that for their fee. They also require several months to sort through the house and prepare it for the estate sale. In the end we just hired a handyman to haul everything away (moderately valuable stuff went to Goodwill, everything else went to the dump). Whether your situation will be similar will probably depend largely on how valuable your parents possessions are.
If your parents had a lot of antiques and things of value, there are services that do estate sales for you in exchange for a percentage of the take, and they will clear the rest of the house. We just went through this with my in-laws and we went the do-it- yourself route with some minor assistance.
Sell car(s) at CarMax assuming you have the title and it is paid off. You could sell it privately, but it’s a hassle, and this allows you to take care of it in one visit.
Take unwanted jewelry and coins/gems to shops that will buy it, settling for a cash-for-gold or pawn shop if time is of the essence.
Stage anything of value in an open space for the future estate sale, like the garage, that hopefully is now devoid of car(s) per step 1.
Take the largest vehicle you have (preferably a truck) and haul anything like generic clothes and stuff you know won’t sell to a Good Will or similar charity and get your tax write-off.
Have a junk hauling place drop off a large dumpster and chuck any obvious crap in that.
Hold the estate sale and advertise for it on Craigslist and in the local area at least a week in advance. Expect most of the people to show up at or even before your start time so plan accordingly. Have it start and end early so that you can scope out what hasn’t sold and have time to find a home for it. For large items (in our case a couch that didn’t sell and a washing machine), slap a free sign on it, and post it on Craigslist, putting it in your driveway.
One ugly matter that I don’t know how to address is old electronics and solvents. No one seems to want that stuff, including most recyclers, although you may find a place that takes e-waste if you are in a larger area. I never could find anyone to take oil, paint thinner, transmission fluid, cleaners, etc. or even old prescription drugs. We had a series of supermarkets going out of business in our town with large dumpsters in the back. I will admit more than one trip was made to said dumpster to make these things “someone else’s problem”.
Thanks. The house is in the LA area, so I’m hoping I can find a e-waste recycler. There are several old TVs and computers.
There was only one car and my mom gave that to us before she went to assisted living.
The dumpster idea is tempting. It’s amazing how much random stuff people can accumulate in 60 years, and there is only one small trash bin for the house.
We don’t have several months. If stuff is mostly presorted, I’m assuming the estate sale people wouldn’t take that much time to get rid of whatever didn’t sell?
I’d be interested to hear from people who did decide to go the estate-sale route. We would probably keep the real antiques, except for dishes and ornaments, but would leave a lot of furniture, including leather chairs and sofas.
The large appliances would stay with the house, probably.
There’ll probably be a day when I’ll have to be utilizing an estate sale agent for my brother and/or sister. I don’t think either will have any hidden treasures, and my brother at least is a probable hoarder. I hope he doesn’t leave any dogs behind for me to re-home.
My folks weren’t hoarders, just typical middle class depression babies.
I did have to rehome their dog, unfortunately. It was a hard decision. The memory care facility technically would take dogs, but he had been badly spoiled and barked constantly if he didn’t get enough attention. Luckily, they had already picked out someone who had agreed to take him if they could no longer care for him and I jumped at the chance. I still have regrets, but he is a young dog and I couldn’t care for him if it didn’t work out where Mom is staying.
This is in NH obviously, but gives you some terms to Google, like “whole house cleanouts”, “estate cleanout”. Theer are places that will take everything, provided there are some worthwhile items they can resell.
In my neck of the woods, Staples (known as Bureau en Gros in Quebec) takes e-waste. My town runs a toxic waste dump twice a year. The bank that will be executor for me and my wife will take charge (for a hefty fee), offer my kids (who live far away) anything they want (they don’t), give my daughter all the jewelry (not that much), auction anything that looks salable, give to charity anything they want and cart away the rest. And sell the house.
If you have a good realtor talk to them now, before you do anything else. If you don’t, it may be worth interviewing and finding a firm. They will often have resources to recommend to assist you with the sale prep, even this situation.
I would suggest something like the following:
Arrange a weekend there and select the pieces you want to keep. Have movers take those to storage or a secure area on the property (one specific room, for example)
Hire a junk removal company to come and empty the house. 1-800-GOTJUNK, for example, will empty the house and sort everything for you into donate, recycle and trash. They will deliver it to the appropriate places. You do not need to haul goods all over town.
Once the home is empty, you really need the realtor. They will give you an honest assessment as to re-painting, re-carpeting, landscaping, and any little fixes the house might need prior to sale. It may also be a good idea to show the house for sale while it is staged. The agent should be able to arrange that as well.
Once you and the agent(s) have done the walkthrough and agreed on work to be done, you can manage things from out of town I would think.
Yep, my parents were close to being hoarders, and losing the ability to keep up with maintenance and housework.
A few relatives were invited to come over and scavenged some few valuables, but in general furniture from 40 years ago, rugs the cats and dogs have used, and bestseller hardcovers from 30 years ago do not have a market. I managed to get over 2000 negatives and slides, and a few priceless books like my dad’s DPhil thesis. Basically, my nephew collected any relevant accounting papers, then got 1-800-GOT-JUNK to make a few trips and just haul away what was left. It was probably more convenient and in the long run cheaper than renting a dumpster, and someone else did all the work.
Even a grand piano was barely worth anything, since they are hard to sell or even give away, and very expensive to move.
but sadly, most people’s lives will end up leaving nothing serious material behind that the next generation will see as valuable. Just memories.
Thanks ddsun. This sounds very close to what I should probably go for. Although there would be a lot of furniture, etc., none of what we would sell would be very old or valuable. The tax write-off is probably more important at this point.
It just takes diligence and a high energy level. We found money in a dozen purses, and stashed in drawers everywhere. The silver coin stash was wrapped up and hidden such that we nearly tossed it. The last day I even found $60 under some shelf paper in the hallway.
We emptied my BIL’s house by calling a local auctioneer. Some of the stuff was moderately valuable (furniture, some electronics, dishware) and some was junk. The auctioneer agreed to empty the house, including stuff that wasn’t valuable and just plain junk. He auctioned off what he could and charged a percentage (I think it was 25% or so). It was worth not having to rent a dumpster and go through everything ourselves. So, in addition to the terms indicated above, search out “auctioneers” in the local area.
As for the house, interview three or four local real estate agents. Have them prepare a market analysis regarding value, likely buyer profile and marketing procedures. Explain to each that you want them to handle some of the duties that an occupant might handle, such as finding handymen to make repairs. After you interview three, you should have a pretty good idea of value, marketing time and which agent will work best for you. I did that for a house we owned that was three hours away, and the process went smoothly since we picked a good agent.
If your township / county /whoever is in charge of trash doesn’t have e-pickup points, ask at an electronics or white goods store. Even if they’re not willing to take them off you without a concomitant sale (some as the aforementioned Staples/Bureau en Gros will do it as a matter of good neighbor policy, or for a small fee), they will know where those things need to be taken.
This appears to be local to my market, but I’ve seen ads for homes asking for two different prices for two different states: with or without a do-over. Some offer “do-over to taste” but that’s generally when the seller happens to be a contractor; normally if you ask for the do-over it’s a generic “paint it white”.
If you want everything gone in a weekend I’d recommend having an auction. Pick though the stuff you want to keep and then they will sort out the remaining items of value and sell them individually. Then they will box everything else up and sell them off in lots. I’ve seen buyers take 20 boxes of junk that no one bidded on in order get an item in box 21, generally they are told to take it all. You can even haul some of the junk out of your own home and get rid of it there.
In the end you may make more doing an estate sale but then you will have cost associated with clearing out the junk that doesn’t sell.
When my grandparents were both gone, my mom and their sisters/husbands did the dumpster thing. My grandparents (on that side) weren’t hoarders but there was still a lot of useless crap in there. It was really for the best. That’s the way I’d go.
My suggestion is that you run an ad for a week or two for a rummage sale on a Sunday at their house. Go up that Friday and Saturday with a moving truck (and some muscle and make sure the truck has a lift gate for the piano or make other plans for it) and have a dumpster there ready for you on Friday.
On Friday and Saturday put the stuff you want in the dumpster, throw out everything that you can sell for more than $10 and you don’t think actually will sell. On Sunday, let people wander through the house and buy anything that isn’t actually part of the house. I’d even be tempted to let them take the appliances (but they must be able to get them out 1)today 2)on their own 3)without damaging anything). Keep in mind, this is all free money, you don’t have to get back more than it’s worth or more than you paid for it. It really doesn’t matter if the dresser is worth $300, if you only get $50 for it, that’s one less thing in your basement or you hauling out to the dumpster/curb.
Lastly, when we did this, as the rummage sale was winding down, my uncle put it up on Craigslist and watch a whole new breed of people descend on the house and clear out the rest of it. (I don’t recall if he listed it as everything being free, it also helped that he’s a cop and he has no problem wearing his badge/gun in these situations so it kept any riff raff at bay).
TLDR, get a dumpster and get rid of the stuff. Do you really need all the old crap?
One thing I didn’t mention before is that the house is located in a gated seniors-only community, so a plain-old garage sale thing is out of the question. It would have to be an organized auction or estate sale.
Also, we live in a small condo and have little storage space of our own, so what we take will be minimal and temporary.
I think I may get estimates from both the junk people and the estate sale people. First, though, I’m going to need to talk financials with a CPA and see whether the tax issue is going to trump whatever cash we might make.
After the estate sale, try to get 2nd hand dealers to bid on all the remaining stuff. Or see if a charity will pick up some of it.
For all the rest of the stuff, stick it out front and put up signs saying FREE. Also put up signs on nearby busy roads saying FREE STUFF and an arrow pointing the way.
After about a week, call your local garbage service and get a big garbage “haul away” container. Throw all the rest of the stuff in that. Also use that for trash from fixing up the house for sale.
