Cleaning up deceased MILs place

Just a few numbers.

A large two storey house as well as a 3 bedroom beach house and 4 x 10m shed, all COCKA with stuff.

Two months during which family members selected and removed various kitchen goods, furniture, personal stuff and bric-a-brac.
4 boxes of Poisons, paints and unknowns to hazardous waste disposal centre, still finding some squirrelled around the place.

Last week we hired a large skip and called in some 10 odd family members to assist
All remaining decent furniture colocated in ground floor of main house.
Everything else onto front lawn, estimate was 5 skips worth of stuff.
Advertised for free on GT - "stuff" volume down to <1 skip within 4 days.
At times stuff was going as fast as we dragged it out!

40 garbage bags of clothing to Vinnies and Red Cross
>40 boxes of books mainly to Red Cross
>30+ boxes of kitchen ware and bric-a-brac to Vinnies, Red Cross and Good Sammys.
2 van loads of metal to metal recyclers,
4 van loads of junk to tip.
2 van loads of stuff to our place
2 van loads to sons place
1 van load to BILs place.

To go:
~20 more boxes of books
~25 bags of linen
3-4 boxes of electricals to Good Sammy's

At least one more van load of "stuff" that has to come back to our place as SWMBO can't face dealing with sorting it at her mum's old place.

I'm not that well so I've mainly be driving the van and on maintenance duties, leaking taps, damaged light switches, lots of patch and paint, etc.
I've been full time on this project for 6 of the last 9 days. It's also 40 minutes drive there, and because of road works up to 60 minutes drive back.
Today is supposed to be a rest day at home - instead we're going through repeated rounds of "Rubics cube" furniture rearrangements replacing older worn out stuff with better.
Luckily it's hard rubbish collection in our street so lots going onto verge.

Probably 4-5 days worth of work to go.

That's enough complaining - I think you get the picture :)

Hang in there Bob.

Yep know how it is been through similar a couple of times, makes me think that some poor b$%#er will be saying the same about my place one day

SWMBO has a 40' container as her 'studio' along with stuff lying around, Ive declared the day after her funeral a match goes to the lot, she vows to come and haunt me, bring it on better than the outside shoit.,

Dad passed away in NZ just recently been in a 2 bedroom unit 3 years, 4 brothers all took what they wanted compared to what they needed, but that was only 2 items each, the rest was boxed up, Salvos came took the lot. Unit completely empty a week after he'd shot through and sold a week after that. No pain, no fights, no depression, lots of laughs and happy memories.

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Originally Posted by Tonyz

passed away in NZ just recently been in a 2 bedroom unit 3 years, 4 brothers all took what they wanted compared to what they needed, but that was only 2 items each, the rest was boxed up, Salvos came took the lot. Unit completely empty a week after he'd shot through and sold a week after that. No pain, no fights, no depression, lots of laughs and happy memories.

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I can see the attraction of this but 75% of the work is sorting through the piles, cupboards and drawers, before we even get to boxes and moving furniture. SWMBO and her nieces must have spent a month of days sorting so far.

All of the stuff in the beach house was well beyond and form of charities pick up - that's why we had to get a skip. The charities I called to come and collect now want a photo of the furniture item BEFORE they come and collect and they wouldn't come for boxes. Maybe the are less picky in NZ.

Also if we had just thrown stuff into boxes we would have easily lost some classic family gems. Her grandfathers WWI and her dad's WWII military memorabilia, (apparently valuable) stamp collection, her mums 1945 diary, the VP day sailors cap, the bag of silver round 50c pieces, the grandfathers 1920's mining gear etc. Has it been worth it? There's no question we are doing well out of the cleanup and I can see it has been important for SWMBO. In the shed I found a set of 1920' P&N taps and dies wrapped up in greasy newspaper - If I had chucked these into boxes I would have missed these.

Of the furniture we have selected two 1.5m tall sea chests in good nick that have a been in the family for 150+years, and two beautifully dressers restored by late FIL. Also still thinking about an antique wardrobe that the FIL has restored - I think it's made of cedar. SWMBO and her mum were/are both into fabrics and yarns so SWMBO scores the 2 dozen odd boxes of that all that, plus an old spinning wheel, (there were two spinning wheels, a nephew has taken one, SWMBO also already has one). Her dad was the holder of all family docs going back to when they arrived in WA in 1829 and most of these were well cared for but a few were scattered through other papers. luckily we found them. These have passed to my BIL.

Understand what you are going through.
Wife is only child and after FIL passed away ended up cleaning up his place to rent. Charities did not want, or unable to take some furniture. My son sold some items on GT, some other items of furniture ended up being scrapped. Some items like paintings and dinner set were sold at auction. (I tried to give away a buffet on WWF without success.) Also had No More Junk in to take away some rubbish and a couple of council collections. Took about 6 months to clean up and do up place to rent. Still have some stuff here to sort out, mainly pictures.
Sometimes the emotion makes it harder than the practicalities.

We lived with my mother's mother (Grandmother) in Brooklyn.
My mother moved us ( not grandmother) to California, abandoning 75% of furniture and stuff.
Four years later my mother, with father, moved to Florida leaving 75% of furniture and stuff behind.
Five or six years later my mother, with father, moved to Desert Hot Springs, California leaving all kinds of stuff behind.
Six or 8 years later my mother, with father, moved to Florida, again, again leaving much stuff behind.
Another 4 or 5 years and after my father's death my mother moved to a motel in Desert Hot Springs leaving almost everything behind.
After three years my mother moved to another motel in Palm Springs.
After two years my mother moved to a motel in Florida.
After another year or so my mother moved into a nursing home. The only stuff to move was personal clothes, etc.
Over the next three years there were several two or three week stays in a hospital before she died.
I had bought her a TV for the nursing home. A nephew took that for his kids. The staff at the nursing home took her clothes for other residents, including an ex-roommate that she detested. (I got a laugh about that.)

I was exceptionally fortunate that every bit of sorting and disposing was done for me.

I did have to make final arrangements for both my father and mother. In the last years of their marriage my mother hated my father and when he was transferred to a hospital, my mother made final arrangements with a local funeral home. When my father died a week or so later, my mother and I went to the funeral home and completed the arrangements. We encountered the most professional and ethical person I ever met in my life. The only up sell was $20 to have my father's ashes distributed into the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida.

When it came time for me to make the arrangements for my mother, I was experienced and encountered a shyster funeral director. As the arrangements had been made, as we (My brother and nephew) left the funeral home my brother said, "You are one cold MF."

The point here is that if you have no real experience making the arrangements, bring somebody with you that you give authority to and is emotionally detached. They will save you a fortune and you won't waste money on "features" that your loved one can't feel and will never know about.

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Originally Posted by rrich

We lived with my mother's mother (Grandmother) in Brooklyn.
My mother moved us ( not grandmother) to California, abandoning 75% of furniture and stuff.
Four years later my mother, with father, moved to Florida leaving 75% of furniture and stuff behind.
Five or six years later my mother, with father, moved to Desert Hot Springs, California leaving all kinds of stuff behind.
Six or 8 years later my mother, with father, moved to Florida, again, again leaving much stuff behind.
Another 4 or 5 years and after my father's death my mother moved to a motel in Desert Hot Springs leaving almost everything behind.
After three years my mother moved to another motel in Palm Springs.
After two years my mother moved to a motel in Florida.
After another year or so my mother moved into a nursing home. The only stuff to move was personal clothes, etc.

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My mum and dad were the opposite coming from very poor origins.
When Dad came to Australia he arrived with one suitcase
Mum arrived in Australia with two suitcases, a small steamer trunk and my 3 month old sister.
They only moved 4 times in 46 years each time taking everything they had with them before dad passed away.
At that stage mum was in a decent sized, 3 bedroom unit and even with dad gone she continued to accumulate stuff, much of it gathered on foot from verge side hard rubbish collections.
In one bedroom she had double bed with two mattresses and another room she had 2 single beds each with 3 mattresses on them.

Then when mum developed dementia and moved into the ground floor at my sisters very large two storey house mum was allocated a room with en-suite, another bedroom for storage, plus her own kitchen, dining and lounge room which were already furnished.
Anyway clearly some hard decisions had to be made none of which were easy. I remember taking 7 pedestal fans and 4 electric heaters to Good Sammy.
She had 20 pairs of gardening shoes in the shed, boxes full of short pieces of string, rags, old clothing etc. Every little item was argued about. We'd put some stuff in the bin and then when we went back later mum had taken them out of the bin. In the end one of my sisters and I were putting stuff in our vehicles and then to our rubbish bins.
The most awkward things to deal with were mum's plants. Mum had over 1000 health attractive pot plants at her unit and she insisted on taking most of of these to my sisters place. In the end we pared this down to about 100 which transformed my sisters garden and we thought would continue to give mum something to do but no, 100 plants were not enough as mum started messing with the rest of my sisters garden (my sister already has a regular gardener) and many a bun fight ensued.
A year later mum moved to a dementia care facility and is now down to one room. She still had two rooms, a linen cupboard and other cupboards full of stuff at my sisters place. Recently my sisters ground floor was flooded and they had to vacate the ground floor while repairs were being made. I'm not sure what's happened but I think my sister has moved it all onto charities.

Another day on the MILs house clean and time just seems to slip away when you're having fun.

Primed a new gate and did a bit of ceiling patching and painting.
Shuffled some furniture, bags and boxes around.
Trip to tip to drop off scrap metal.
Then filled van up to the gunnels with "Stuff"
On way home managed to catch the schoolies afternoon traffic jam on the roadworks part of the Kwinana freeway AND stopped off at
Vinnies to drop off 5 boxes.
Hazardous wast disposal centre to drop of a small box of nasties..
Son's place to drop off a piece of furniture and pick one up for the verge collection.

The more I think about it the more we should have moved in to MILs plACE FOR TEH DURATION - would have saved a lot of travelling - maybe - then would have been traveling back home all the time to pick up tools and drop stuff off etc.

Been there done that.
When my dad karked it I moved my mother and my bro’s junk from Sydney to Central Coast in my ute. Countless trips, this was 50 years ago.
Mum moved 3 times on the coast I was involved in all of them,my bro a sparky worked at Gove, New Guinea, Antarctic etc. He had a huge collection of old elec stuff which I moved every time.
Bro buys a house so a mate and myself help him move from his unit with 2 Utes.
Stuff goes in my ute (for tip) bro moves it to Peters ute for new house, Peter puts it back in Tip ute. Bro doesn’t move it again.
Years later bro ends up divorced and in huge ratty house up North coast and has to move to retirement village due to Parkinson’s so another huge clean out days from Sydney.
Next bro has to move from unit to full care so I buy a small 240/12v fridge that fits behind the seats in the ute and wife and I move into his stripped unit for a week to finalise everything.
Done similar for 5 Woodies/tool freaks latterly.
I have several semi loads in my shed so god only knows how that will go when I kark it.
At least it’s all in one place at my property,I know a few bods with multiple containers of ‘good stuff’ all over the countryside.
H.

It's always a tough job cleaning out the things which represented someone's daily living or possibly their life's history. I'd love to leave a selection of our books to a grandchild or three but reality kicks in when you realise that although you might value them they might not. The same goes for all sorts of other things like tools. Dad wasn't much of a handyman but I have one or two of his tools in the shed and never fail to think of him when I use them.

mick

We're now up to spending 13 of the last 17 day on this job - I feel like I need a holiday from it all.
I reckon we are still 3 days away from completion of clearing the goods but still a few more days after that of repairs.

Apart from the shed (still a mess) we've consolidated every thing into 3 rooms/areas.
The stuff to go to Vinnies is in the downstairs dining/living area.
The entry/hallway has 3 cupboards to clean out and a few boxes of stuff - 1/2 a day.
The garage still has about 50 boxes of stuff that needs sorting - SWMBO can take her time over that as the cleaners can can do the rest of the two houses and we can do the garage.

I spent half a day hanging the same garden gate twice. The first time it was too high and it could not close because of a cross beam above the gate.

The best almost completed job today was SWMBO's stair repair. The stairs had a travellator/escalator fitted which when removed left every second step with 3 x 10c size holes in the floor tiles. SWMBO's ceramic repair skills came to good use.

You can still see the repairs but you have to look fairly hard.
By the time the fake glaze is applied it will be even harder.
Attachment 464739

I'm half blind but I couldn't see any repair at all.

I have place a small red dot to the right of each repair.

Every second step has 3 10c size holes in it with the same pattern repeated all the way up the stairs.

Attachment 464743

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Originally Posted by Glider

Dad wasn't much of a handyman but I have one or two of his tools in the shed and never fail to think of him when I use them.

mick

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True, I feel that no one has really passed on while they’re alive in our memories.

Today my nephew and I tackled the remains of the feelthy Norfolk Island Pine Needle infested shed.
When those needles break down it produces a nasty itchy dust.

All the tools and decent bits of timber had long gone.

A neighbour had then taken taken most of the remaining unwanted/unpainted timber to use as fire wood.
All that was left were 3 old benches, some rust metal shelving bolted to the walls, painted timber and weathered masonite and chipboard.
The was also a set of wooden shelves with jarrah shelves made of boards some 12" wide which I broke down and kept.
The benches and the shelving shown in the photo below RE going to a large farm workshop down south.
Nephew cleaning up the drive.
Attachment 464781.
\
And finally here it is.
Bit of history here.
SWMBO and I lived in the little beach house the first year we were married and this shed was my first real workshop.
At that stage it was only about half full of beachy and assorted beach house crap but I had the other half to work in about 20sqm.
I put the shelves up, added a few power points, and welded up the frame for my own small bench from old bed frames which lasted a bout 30 years.
I bought a small combo machine and on the first day I used it I docked 5mm off my LH ring finger with the buzzer and was out of action for 6 weeks,

Today most of what's on the floor is crushed decomposed Norfolk Island pine needles.
The box on the RHS has spare house floor tiles in it and will remain in the shed.
All that needs to be done here is cover myself with overalls, boots, gloves and my Triton respirator and sweep it out.
Then I will repair the holes in the back wall.

Attachment 464782

The crap we took to the tip with my Nephews 1978? F150.
Best thing about it - it has a tipping tray!
Quickest unload EVER.
Sorry about the crappy photo - lens must have been fogged.
Attachment 464783

That is a really excellent repair. If you had not pointed it out it would not have been seen.
:2tsup:

About to start the shed sweep.
Attachment 464845

That shed is probably 98% asbestos....

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

That shed is probably 98% asbestos....

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Yep!

It turned out I didn't not get very far after I got dressed up in the PPE as shown in the above photo. I had swept up less than half the floor when the respirator batteries started to go flat so had to stop and as I had the charger at home could not do anymore until today.

Today I spent almost the day at the salt mine.

The main task was supervising the blokes in the Vinnies truck that came to pick up the residual furniture. Beds, tables chairs, outdoor settings, dressing tables, side tables, recliner rocker, etc They took about 80% of the furniture and all 37 boxes of "stuff" we had prepackaged for them. Now I have to find homes for a solid timber "bar", a decent king size single bed, a wall unit, solid timber wardrobe and 2 washing machines and a dryer. I think I have takers for the bar and wardrobe. The rest will probably go on GT on the the weekend.

Anyway we now finally have the amount furniture down to where the rest can fit in the garage along with the remaining 50+ boxes of crap that still need sorting by SWMBO.

With freshly charged respirator batteries I finished the shed floor sweep and bagged up the crap and was surprised to see it fit into 10 large green garbage bags which along with another dozen or so bags full of rubbish from the houses plus some odd and sods made for a worthwhile tip run but this time in my van.

I also found and wrapped up some 25 asbestos offcuts and was able to dispose of them in the recommended OHS manner at the local tip when I went to drop off the other rubbish- still cost me a double standard tip fee ($146). The asbestos had to be double wrapped in 200 micron plastic. I already had many metres of 100 micron plastic but the tip people would not accept quadruple wrapping or sextuple wrapping in 100 micron so had to buy some 200 micron especially for the job. Luckily I rang them to check their requirements. Packages of plastic wrapped asbestos had to be be abled to be picked up by me and transferred to a large loader bucket which there able to place right alongside my van so that bit was easy.

I reserved a couple of the asbestos offcuts to patch holes in the shed. One was probably a cricket ball hole that is some 40 years old. The other happened last weekend when the nephew put a plank through the wall.

While I was on site I did a few handy man jobs.
Looking forward to a rest tomorrow although SWMBO is threatening to want to go down - she still can't drive due to vertigo. I'm hoping her brother will take her down :)

My remaining tasks are a bunch of repairs - maybe a day at the most?

Hoo - BLOODY - ray.

A few years ago did a refurb' of a shed including disposing of asbestos sheeting at the tip. Carefully wrapped in heavy black plastic stacked on a pallet and on the back of my ute. Got to the tip and was directed to the assy disposal area to wait for the loader or forklift to come down and remove it from the ute. Bloke rocks up, loader won't start might have to come back later. The ramp down into the hole is pretty steep so I suggested I drop the tailgate reverse hard down the ramp, hit the anchors and parcel will slide off. Tip bloke agrees it'a a brilliant plan he'll give me a yell when to anchor. Took off down the ramp hit, the brakes, asbestos flew out the end of the plastic wrapper and scattered down the ramp. I asked the tip bloke what was the next move and he suggested we both leave the scene of the crime and he'll come back later when his loader is fixed.

More than 15 years ago when the 12m long back fence (timber frame and asbestos sheet) blew down during storm so I discussed thiswith the prickly bastard neighbour. I got a couple of quotes for a new fence including the removal of the old one but they wanted over $500 to remove the old fence so I said I would do the disposal as long as the neighbour paid for half the costs. I carefully double wrapped each sheet and carted them the 30 km to the asbestos waste disposal place in Kwinana where they weighed the van and then I followed a VERY dusty track up onto an asbestos hill about 100m high where there were heaps of mostly unwrapped asbestos pieces just laying around and a D9 dozer running back and forth over the piles crushing them down. I held my breath dumped my sheets and ran for it.

BTW the wrapping plastic and gaffer tape cost about $60 and the disposal fee was $45, and although the mongrel neighbour paid for half the replacement fence he never paid for half the disposal cost of the old fence.

Another day at the salt mine mainly spent delivering stuff to people.

This morning we had a sofa, King single bed and base, wardrobe wall unit, 2 washing machines and a drier to find homes for.
A washing machine, the drier, bed and wall unit went as freebies on GT - I delivered these for a fee in two trips with my van.
I took one of the washing machines to a relatives place, a neighbour took the sofa and now there's just a wardrobe left.

At the last minute a sheet of ceiling plaster in the beach house decide to develop a 1m long crack and drop a couple of inches down from the ceiling. I injected half a tube of Liquid Nails through the crack and Acro propped the sheet back into place. I'll see if that worked tomorrow. One of the glass panes in one of the beach beach house windows is really loose so that will get something applied to it tomorrow.

So almost there.
In my van are ~6 bags and a couple of boxes going to Vinnies.
Still in the garage there is about half a van load of crap SWMBO wants to sort through at home (DOH!)
On the drive is a ratty bed base, a delimited plywood dresser, and a half Utes worth of rubbish all destined for the tip.

Cleaners come in tomorrow.

Meanwhile our place looks more and more like a tip.

Well, I thought it was all done and dusted but it turns out we need to go back one more time.

The ceiling crack repair with liquid nails I described above has failed so will need to go back and nail/screw the plaster board in place.

The main reason we need to go back is the cleaners did not do a good job on some of the carpet stains, they reckoned they were too ingrained.
SWMBO is dynamite with these so she wants to have a go just to prove the cleaners wrong.

Meanwhile, as I already said, our place looks like one of those hoarder TV shows but to give her credit SWMBO is methodically working here way through the monster sort of the 50 odd boxes/bags of stuff still inside our house.
Yesterday I did "milk run" with the van taking 5 boxes/bags of stuff to Vinnies, 4 bags/boxes of "craft stuff" to the woman that runs the craft sessions at mums dementia care facility, and dropped off more stuff at various relatives and friends place. Sometimes I think I should get a "StarTrak" sign for the side of van.

We also got rid of 4 green garbage bags of rubbish and SWMBO came up with a clever way to get rid of some useless "bric-a-brac" by making up a bunch of funny "lucky dips" which she took to her Book Club's Xmas function last night. Apparently it went down a treat and she came home with an empty bag.

Yesterday was supposed to be the last day on this job as the house will be made available for inspection as from Wed this week.

However, it looks like we will have to go back one more time mainly to do a bit more on the garden. Personally I think the garden would need many dozens of hours to make any significant difference but SWMBO reckons she can do something with it. I will go down with her and do a few odd jobs but then probably take the dogs to the beach.

The beach house ceiling repair worked this time with a half dozen plaster screws and a bit of white bog. The ceiling repair scattered paint flakes and plaster dust everywhere so that room needed to be vacuumed. I ended up vacuuming the whole beach house as the walls were in places spotted with fly poo so that had to be swept down and vacuumed up.

To make them easier for the neighbour to move I dismantled a set of crappy looking rusty metal shelves still sitting on the drive way

To stop the grandies from leaving lights on, FIL had a propensity for covering some half dozen light switches with layers of sticky tape. The tape had long since fallen off but most of the adhesive was still there and looked really grubby. I attacked these with "Dissolve it" and elbow grease.

Meanwhile SWMBO spent 5 hours on her hands and knees on carpet spots in the main house and used up 3 bottles of carpet cleaner with mixed success. The most remaining visible issue is the carpet has lots of unbleached patches and substantial dents in it where furniture stood for 30 something years and there's not much that can be easily done about this. SWMBO managed to fluff the carpet back up with a steam cleaner but the underlay is probably permanently crushed underneath so the dents are still visible.

There are also half dozen black spots on the carpet that need further attention using something stronger tham regular carpet cleaner. These would not be so bad if they were more out of sight eg in a corner, but they are right at the top of the stairs so are sort of in your face as you step off the stair landing.

The wardrobe in the garage still needs to be disposed of and I want to make sure the neighbour removes the work benches and shelves from the drive otherwise I will take these to the tip.

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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I agree, although I then would have to listen to SWMBO rant and rave on about it for the rest of our lives.

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Originally Posted by BobL

I agree, although I then would have to listen to SWMBO rant and rave on about it for the rest of our lives.

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Agreed! Its excellent fun. She'll be envious she didn't get a go :)

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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...and that's when the fight started.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Agreed! Its excellent fun. She'll be envious she didn't get a go :)

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SWMBO would be a bunny compared to the council.
Imagine the headlines.

"Asbestos Beach house demolished using bulldozer"