Stuffed because of your caree’s stuff? Looking at a house full of stuff that needs to go because of your caree’s move? This morning on Your Caregiving Journey, Julie Hall, author of “The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff,” offered tips and suggestions when you’re faced with cleaning out your caree’s house. (You can listen to our show via the player at the bottom of the post.)
Julie shared a process to help you get through the house: Start in the attic, then move to the closets with clothing, then to the kitchen cabinets. End your clean sweep in the garage and then the basement. Sort the stuff into four piles you’ve created: Discarded, donated, sold and kept.
Julie offered these final three tips:
1. If it’s not too late, avoid the daunting task of cleaning out a caree’s home on your own (and making decisions about stuff on your own) by talking with your carees now about their stuff.
2. Get help from professionals, especially appraisers, so you can make informed decisions about what gets tossed, what gets sold and what gets donated.
3. When you’re cleaning out a caree’s house, do everything you can not to fight (with your caree and with other family members).
Julie will re-join us for a follow-up episode on September 22 at 2 p.m. CT to help us do what sounds impossible: Not fight!
If you’ve cleaned out your caree’s stuff, what tips can you suggest that helped?
I didn’t listen yet, but I have read Julie’s book, “The Boomer Burden”. I liked it so much I wrote a review of it on amazon.com and pretty much recommend it to everyone I know who has parents. I’ve told my husband and his brothers that I consider it required reading for dealing with the challenge they will someday face with their parent’s home.
I haven’t had chance to listen to this broadcast yet, but I look forward to it. I am NOT a saver, and I hate clutter. My mother-in-law, however, saved everything, because “someone might be able to use it someday.” She was a sweet person but a bit of a hoarder.
Now upon her death her children have to get rid of tons of things many of which is no longer usuable. Moral of the story: If you are no longer using something, get rid of it.