As the subject line states, I expect that my elderly parents, who both have some pretty serious dementia issues going on, will be moved to a nursing facility within a month or so.
This leaves me with the task of closing up their home.
I live several states away and have limited vacation time in which to accomplish this task so I am hoping there are other folks here who have done this who might help me come up with a checklist of stuff I should be doing.
I know that removing valuables from the house is one thing I should do. To reduce costs I’ll probably also turn the AC off and just leave the heat on at 55 degrees or so to keep pipes from freezing should it become cold before the house is sold (they live in a depressed area so I really have no idea how long it will take to sell the house).
I’ve used the USPS online mail forwarding tool to forward any mail to my address.
What am I missing? I have financial power of attorney but a lawyer (who I know and trust) will have physical guardianship since I do not live in the state. I do plan to have the caregiver they are using now (who is wonderful) continue to visit them in the facility on a regular basis to make sure they have proper care.
I found that Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores will take anything. When I moved my folks, they emptied the house for me - including things like paint and garden chemicals.
How long has it been since you’ve seen the inside of the house? How messy is it? Do they tend toward obsessive neatness or extreme hoarding (or somewhere in between)? Depending on how much stuff they have and what kind of stuff it is, you have a few options. The more items you can donate, the better. Not only is it more environmentally-friendly and humanity-conscious, but it’s cheaper. They’ll pick stuff up for free, whereas you have to *pay *for trash disposal. Make sure to call ahead ASAP and schedule a date and time for them to do a pickup, though. As mentioned, Habitat for Humanity sounds great (here is a link to their donation page with a list of stuff they will take). Also, find out if there is a local Salvation Army and/or Goodwill that does pickups. Because, if HfH doesn’t take everything you want them to, one of the other thrift stores may pick up the leftovers. And even if (worst-case scenario) there *isn’t *a place that will pick up donations within range, there’s almost certainly a place that will accept them if you rent a u-haul truck and transport them yourself (unless they live way out in the rural boonies).
For the leftover stuff that’s just trash, you could rent a dumpster and pitch things into it yourself, avail yourself of a junk-pickup service (1800GOTJUNK is one in my area), or hire a cleanup company to take care of it. The junk pickup places will take a lot of stuff that dumpster companies won’t or can’t (like furniture and appliances, if you can’t find a place in their area to donate them). Per this link, you can’t put certain things into a rented dumpster, like batteries and medical/biohazardous waste. You also can’t put really bulky things into a dumpster (like bedframes or mattresses) unless you rent a larger one. Cleanup companies will actually spruce up the place if you’re on a limited timeframe and have enough money to afford it, so that may be a really good option for you.
I was lucky that a local Auctioneer had a ‘house clearance service’ where he took away everything my sister and I didn’t want, then sold it at auction and put that against the cost of removal.
In the end it cost me nothing.
Romansperson, I assume you are in the USA. I recently put my father in a nursing home- (I am on the other side of the country in Australia).
Seems like you have placed your parents, but I needed to employ a consultant to assist with that. She was great.
You will find you will get a lot of redirected mail- things you won’t even dream about. (I got mail for my father from the Transport union- he hasn’t worked there for 50 years but he was on the retired list.
Ensure you advise the Electoral Commission (or whoever it is where they vote). If you can get gas/ power meter readings and ensure you are in a position to have those turned off as soon as the house is sold.
Also, you haven’t asked and you may already be aware but there are often expenses in a nursing home that may surprise you. Medication, tags for clothing, telephone - that sort of thing. It can be daunting.
(I am relying on personal experience and it may certainly be different in your neck of the woods).
Thanks for the info, everyone. Fortunately the house is clean and in good order (the home health caregivers they have right now have assured that) but yes, there’s still 50 years of accumulated possessions that will need to be sorted. I do have a care manager for them who is terrific and I will certainly be availing myself of her advice as well.
Never done this, but I will probably have to within a few years.
You could employ a property management company to at do a visit on the home every few weeks to make sure things are ship shape. Just a quick walk through. I doubt it would be very expensive, and would give you some piece of mind.
Just another thought. To make sure they are doing their job, you could have them call when they visit, and request a picture of the bathroom, kitchen or whatever.
If the home will be empty of people for a while, the property manager idea is good. Also, if there is a yard, hire a gardener to keep it minimally maintained. Also, timers for lights both inside and out would keep the place looking occupied. Have a neighbor push the trash cans out/in and pick up any flyers left on the front door, and stop any newpapers.
I had to do this last year. I needed nothing from my dad, so the lot went to Goodwill. As stated above, there are charities that can do the heavy lifting - as long as you do not expect to profit, it will come as a huge relief to get rid of the stuff.
Good luck - it is the right thing to do - for a while my parents living on their own was pretty dangerous for them.
You should also contact your parents’ home insurance company. Some policies become void if the house is uninhabited for a certain period of time, so you’ll want to make sure you modify the policy if that is the case.
Why not go ahead and sell the house? Prices aren’t likely to change enough to make up for the expenses of an empty house. Plus, a realtor can be very helpful with referrals and advice.
The property manager is a good idea. If the house will be sold, a realtor can handle this. After getting the valuables out, you can advertise an ‘Everything Must Go’ sale. People will take things you wouldn’t believe anyone would want if it’s free. But they’ll also leave things you were sure someone would take away, so you need someone to come in and clean things out. The best bet in all this is to discuss it with a realtor. They may want to leave some things in the house, and they can arrange to have it cleaned out, something they have an incentive to do to make a sale. You also have to assess what kind of additional work is required to maximize the sale price. It may need some repairs or painting. Again, a good realtor or property manager is a solution to these problems.
Good point. We neglected that with my folks house - and someone stole the brand new exterior compressor/condenser for the AC. Not covered because the house was empty. Had we adjusted the policy, things would have been fine.
Locally it’s common to have estate auctions like this. They aren’t always homes in great shape, often very modest. They auctioneers will also sell all the personal property down to kitchen pots and pans. The good thing about that is it’s all wrapped up in one day. The stuff is gone and you don’t have to worry about it. You might not get as much for the real estate, but you won’t have to pay someone to look after it, won’t have to insure it, etc.
The only things you should absolutely make sure are kept and moved to the home with them are some family photos and perhaps some music or video tapes of family events, if any. People with dementia seem to relax more when listening to music they liked in the past, and family photos can help bring back memories in more lucid moments and are sometimes good things for them to see nearby. Having a few other items (specific lamp or painting or something prominent from the house) can also make it seem more like the home they left.
I don’t envy you - this is a hard time for everyone involved - but try to keep the transition as a good thing. They will be together, they will be cared for, and with just a few little items, they will feel more quickly at “home” and remain as normal as possible in these circumstances.
Since you have the financial POA you should be able to put a hold on their credit report for a small fee or at least a note that can be added for free. This may require contacting all three reporting agencies but avoiding a substantial fraud will be worth it. I saw countless instances of ID theft perpetrated against the elderly in my debt collecting days and yours will be at their (sorry to say) most helpless in the home, yet be surrounded by strangers.
When I had to clean my parents’ house up, there were a couple of things I recall:
Look out for neighbors who will raid the home and garage to look for things to take, which they can later claim had been “borrowed” by your parents and actually belong to the neighbor. I had this happen and fortunately could, in one case, confront the neighbor with my parents’ purchase receipt for the item that the neighbor claimed was his own.
In my case, I cleaned out the house myself and found when I was done that I had 80 large trash bags out front for the garbage guys to pick up, full of real junk and trash. There may be a lot more than you think! My parents were not “hoarders” but still people tend to collect a lot of odds and ends that really end up being trash.
Go through the clothes carefully before selling them or donating them. I had a woman return after our garage sale and give me two gold rings that my mother had left in a dress pocket. That woman could easily have kept the rings, but fortunately she did not.
Be sure that what you put up for any garage sale is really worth selling. I found out later that some items I’d sold for pennies were actually collectibles. Ooops! Gone now.
It may well worth you while to take time off to do such a garage sale. I made over $2200 in a day from selling my late parents’ “stuff,” and that was at bargain basement prices. But again, be careful about what you sell and what you charge for it!
It may pay off to go through their documents carefully to be sure they don’t have any insurance plans or bank accounts that you don’t know about.
All in all, I think it would be worth your while to take some time off and be there personally to check their possessions carefully before you finally dispose of everything.
(I just noticed that this was posted a while ago - hope all went well for you!