She has been in Assisted Living for 4 months now. Her five bedroom house is still full of many of her personal belongings. Family members have taken some furniture and she's fine with that but there is still quite a bit left. I would like to start getting rid of things but I feel like I'm doing it behind her back. Occasionally she will ask for something like her craft supplies for example or a piece of jewelry. I feel like I can't get rid of anything because what would I do if she asked for that item after it was gone? She also can't stand the idea of strangers living in her house whether we rent it or sell it.
I know this is a slow process and maybe she will eventually give in but I'm wondering if other people who have been in my position could give me some advice.
Four months is not a terribly long time to become accustomed to her new living arrangements. She has no memories at the AL like she has in her home. Don’t rush her to accept her new living arrangements. Tell her that whomever you rent or sell to at some point will absolutely have to be in love with her house and promise to take the best care of it ever.
Her jewellery you should box up safely and keep at your home (assuming your home is sufficiently secure). In due course, as time goes on, suggesting she might like to make gifts of pieces she doesn't wear is a good idea: granddaughters and DILs and nieces get very special birthday and Christmas presents, and your mother has the pleasure of being thanked in person and not just in memoriam.
Are books a problem? Don't know what you do about books. I'm still working on that one, and my mother died coming up for three years ago (unbelievably). The awful thing about them is finding good homes, it's a real struggle; and throwing them away - yikes. Can't do it.
Clothes: we had endless battles. Then suddenly mother lost interest. Wearable items went to charity, ragged items to textile recycling; and I had no idea what we were ever arguing about. It was like a tug of war where one team just let go of the rope.
You can safely work on the "if she hasn't named it, she'll never want it" principle. I could quietly have stowed all of the disputed items away, dealt with them a few weeks later, and she'd never have noticed. My mistake was to think she ought to be involved in the selection.
Craft supplies: you only need to keep "old faithfuls" - for example, pinking shears that fit her hand perfectly; thimbles somebody gave her that she uses all the time; a pincushion she made herself in grade school; anything that looks as if it was in constant use. Stashes of part-used yarns or embroidery threads or fabrics or other materials; or anything that you can easily and cheaply replace should she ever need it - they can go. Half the fun is choosing materials for projects, anyway.
With *anything*, actually, you can make a certain amount of progress by boxing things up in categories, throwing out whatever is unusable by anybody, stacking it neatly and then just waiting and seeing.
Genuine treasures that don't take up too much space - do you have a nice chest or blanket box that you could store them in?
And on a philosophical note, the very worst that can happen is that you might find yourself in disgrace temporarily. After all, if push came to shove, assuming you haven't done something daft like auction off her great-grandmother's Crown Derby, and she really wanted or needed something you've sold or given away, you could always buy her a new one, couldn't you? They're only things.
I have to comment on "Are Books a Problem?" I admit to being an avid reader and keeper of books. I could fill an Ikea Billy bookcase with novels, then there are the craft books, cook books and others. I gave away over 100 books last year.
For places to donate books, here there are several organizations that do big books sales as fundraisers at different times of the year. I give to them.
I probably have 20 books on my desk as I type this.
In my will, all my sewing, quilting and craft books/magazines, will go to the quilt guilds. My kids get first dibs on my cookbooks (favourite recipes), then the rest, plus all the novels and nonfiction will be donated to the next book sale.
I have 3 heirloom books that I would like to pass on to the next generation. If they do not want to keep them, that is ok.
My dad is a book hoarder. He has floor to ceiling bookcases two deep and 15 feet wide full of gardening and finance books. The gardening books would be easy to donate, but most the finance ones are out of date and of no interest to anyone. Likely we will rent a community hall and have a big book plus 'treasures' sale. The property is such that holding a garage sale is not possible (very limited access, no turnaround space).
I hear your struggle. I think the suggestion of a storage locker might be best. When my grandmother moved into assisted living, we left everything as is till her passing.
I think its an uphill battle to convince an elderly person to let go of anything. They have worked hard their whole lives for these items. My grandparents and parents grew up very poor and it was hard for them to want to let go of anything. I made the mistake of decluttering and cleaning up like a mad person. It only caused them more stress. In hindsight, I think I should have left well enough alone if possible till they passed. I know everyone is different and finding the right balance seems almost impossible sometimes.
Everything else went into a storage unit. Every once in a while she will ask about something, and finds it comforting to know it is still there in the storage unit. We actually can't easily get to anything. We had it professionally packed in boxes, and those boxes are stacked high and deep in the unit so we can only get at what is in front. But at least she knows it is there.
And everything has "value" to her, so throwing anything away is pointless. At this stage, we sometimes can get her to box up a certain amount of junk, label the box and put it in the basement in storage. Absolutely nothing of value.
It's not worth the headaches/heartache of watching her dither and fuss over a card or a piece of mail--she literally came unglued when I gave a plastic frog to GoodWill. She went out to the box I'd put it in and scrabbled through it to retrieve the nasty thing.
Choose your battles. It seems inevitable that you'll toss a piece of junk jewelry or a mug and the next thing you know, she's wanting it back. She had a commercial grade meat slicer that went when she moved from the "family house" to her apartment and she honestly mourns that thing. It weighed about 20 lbs and was huge, but she remembered she owned it and wanted it back.
Now we just placate her and try to keep open walkways in her place. Not worth the battles and anger afterwards. She is content to know that a lot of her stuff is "safe" in the crawlspace under the house.
Mother notices if she doesn't have 20 boxes of Kleenex. No way could we remove a dresser or chair she doesn't use so she could have more space.
I "deep cleaned" ONCE in the 21 years she's been in her current apartment, She has never forgiven me, not forgotten a single thing I threw away. (ALL with her permission). Not worth the hassle.
You literally can't give them away.
Etc that she will never need or likely ask after in AL. Call church and they may have a thrift store or be resettling immigrant families and can use much of the furniture. Agree with others on selected keepsakes you keep or divide with siblings.
I cleaned out moms house in a week with a big dumpster. I had no time for yard sales etc. I put a lot out on curb and many neighbors and passerby’s stopped “to ask after mom” — then her furnishings. I told them if they could haul by end of week they could have. One lovely family was helping their son set up household and they cleaned my house the last day in exchange! One mowed. So nice to have it all over with in a matter of a week and on the market for sale.
Some questioned why I did what I did, but honestly—it gave me comfort to know the furnishings, prints, lamps, etc went to good homes where families will gather around the dining room table again, kids will be sitting at their new desks, someone crafty will repurpose and adorn an old dresser, etc.
Don’t think of it as disposal-but of giving new life and new memories.
I understand that this is supposed to be a compassionate site.
If it is her home, if she has the income to pay for it then leave her things alone until she decides what she wants to do with them.
And, since the OP also states that the house will have to be either rented out or sold, then yes I think we can assume that in due course the income or capital will be needed to pay the mother's ALF.
It is the mother's house, they are the mother's belongings, it is important to respect the mother's feelings. But don't get snippy with people who raise an issue, and dismiss it as though there isn't a problem.
A side note: A friend was cleaning out her closet and tossed many old items, including some 70's disco boots. After the trash truck left, she asked her husband whatever happened to her diamond wedding ring set from her first marriage (RIP)? He told her she wrapped it in tissue and hid it in the toe of her old disco boot! Check everything
HA
Our local library has a “free” bookcase inside the entry. Books and magazines fly off the shelves. People going on vacation in campers and motor homes love to pick up materials for leisure reading. Others who don’t have a library card stop in as well. People in our area also have decorated “help yourself” boxes out in front of their homes. Goodwill and veterans organizations in both states where I have lived will take books. There is an organization that takes only books to recycle to disabled people (check online). Good luck. Much love
I might have missed this:
(1) what is the cognitive functioning of your mom? What will she be able to recall/remember?
(2) Does she have the financial ability to pay for storage unit herself?
(3) who or what is in the house; it is getting readied for sale and/or why is she 'keeping the house" - does the house eventually belong to the family/you - wherein she has a place to keep things vs renting a storage unit?
(4) For my client, when getting her house readied for sale, I took just about everything to the Good Will/Salv Army or tossed out. Books to library (?). Hazardous waste type things went to specific entity managing disposal.
I had to read this for myself. While not a hoarder at all, I live in a small space.
Letting go of things often feels like letting go of my life, which it is - a trail, a history of who I was and perhaps am not (so much) any more... and then there are the WHAT IFS . . . I want to do watercolor painting again . . . (keep these expensive top-of-the line paints). I love my juicer and may want at a later time... keep it and it goes on and on.
Yesterday when I got home, my daughter told me about a friend of hers whose father, who had been living alone in a small apartment for several years, had recently had to be hospitalized and moved into AL. Apparently his family had not been to his apt recently and they found it was completely full of stuff he had acquired, lots of electronic and engineering equipment that he had collected, repaired and carefully packed and stored; almost like a museum of technology, often multiple similar items. We now have some of it in our garage, as my daughter does a lot of ebay selling. And they found out that his brother's place is similar!
My dad stayed in our old house after Mom passed and I got married, and he was only sick a short time before he died. My brothers and I went through quite a bit that summer, and then I closed up the house for a little over a year before we could get back, clear it out and sell it. We stayed there six weeks and did a house sale, packed up the biggest u-haul they had, and the buyers said we could leave anything we needed to. We moved some of the stuff a couple of times and I still have some things in boxes after two moves myself. The world is full of stuff!!
My Durable POA allows me to do the things discussed in this thread. I am not needing to yet with Mum. A Will only applies after death, I am Executrix. By writing a Will, I am not guaranteeing that the items listed in it will still be around, it is stating that if I still have my ring, it goes to XX.
Often it is necessary to sell the house to pay for care, whether or not the house is left to someone in the Will. Otherwise who is responsible for paying taxes and upkeep while it is empty? Mum knows if she needs to move into a nursing home (she decided which one she wants over a decade ago), we will sell her house.
If a person has made a list outside of their will for who they want to receive items, then those things can be given away to the recipients. If there is an Intro Vivos Trust the goods can be transferred prior to death. But a Will only comes into play after death.
Fine china is not too different. These days, few people want delicate china that you can’t put in a dishwasher because of gold or silver. Sets sell for next to nothing in the OpShop. Perhaps you could keep four places out of a twelve piece set to produce for a visit, or even just a cup and saucer for her to use.
You will be very lucky if you sort clothes and blankets, and don’t find moth in them.
Sorting for my late mother, I found that she had washed and kept a large number of plastic bags (mouldy), small pieces of string, and other ‘depression treasures’, but had thrown out all the family correspondence, including my ‘diary letters’ from my trip through Europe. I wished that I had checked some things out a bit earlier while she was still in the unit.
It is all quite distressing, whenever and however you do it. We now have too much ‘stuff’ to keep things in use regularly, and imports from China are too cheap for old purchases to have retained their value. There are many good ideas on this thread, but nothing is likely to make it an easy and fool-proof job. I have now done this for my mother, aunt, parents-in-law, and for myself in a house I lived in for forty years. You have my very sincere sympathy. Do your best, check the tricky bits with another (friendly and sensible) family member, and brace yourself to ignore both personal guilt and other people's criticisms.