How to clear your parents’ house

I kept the hankies. They were useful.

I keep seeing things about people clearing out their parents’ houses. Well, of course I do. It’s what happens to people my age. I did it seven years ago.

Here are just three of the articles that I've noticed recently. (Yes, they’re all from the Guardian, cos that’s what turns up on my Facebook. Other newspapers are available.)

• My mum has died - and every decision I make about her belongings feels wrong 
• ‘I feel like I’m cancelling out her life’: the wrenching work of clearing out a parent’s home
• ‘Under the stuff I can’t throw out is the stuff my parents couldn’t throw out’: novelist Anne Enright on the agony of clearing her family home

I’m not going to go into that much detail, or write about the emotional aspects of it. At the time it didn't feel like an existential crisis: it felt like a practical one.

Anyway, I’ve already written a blog post, the year my Mum died, called Things I’ve inherited from my mother. 

But I lied (to myself?)  when I said I’d cleared the house. I’d only started. 

It’s a few years now since I had to do it, and I still think about it sometimes. And I wish I’d done it differently. But it’s one of those things that you only do once in your life: no second chances, no chance to learn from your mistakes. I made a lot of them, and they gave me daytime nightmares for a long time. 

I’m not going to write about the emotional stuff.  I’m going to write what I wish someone had told me.

1. Get a skip.

I’m not joking.

This is the single thing that would have made this, in practical terms, much much easier.

I lost count of the number of times we went to the tip. Mostly in my sister’s car because it is the largest because she has dogs. Sometimes in my small car because it was only me and Husband there.

Nightmare scenario: Paying the council to take away a sofa which the charity shops didn't want. Having to saw it in half because it was too long for the council to take.

What I wish I had done differently: Got a skip, from day 1.

2. Take your time.

My mum died in early November. We had to talk to estate agents get a quote for probate, and they were keen to get the house on the market. They told us the optimum time was Boxing Day. They were right. We got a sale straight away. 

But they were wrong, because we had a job to do that needed us to take our time. And we didn’t have enough of it.

Nightmare scenario: The last day, going to the house and realising how much more stuff was still there. More trips to the tip. Trying to finish before the estate agent closed (in the end, we put the keys through the door). Trying to finish before dark, because of driving home on the motorway in the rain. Being too tired to say goodbye to the house.

What I wish I had done differently: Not listened to the estate agent.

3. Don’t rely on charity shops.

The week that Mum was in the hospice, I lay in bed at night thinking about how to recycle all the stuff in her house, because I hate waste. There was a lot of stuff, because it was a family home and only one person living in it. It had lots of Storage.  

Turns out that charity shops don’t want everything.

Things that charity shops don’t want:

• Anything upholstered that doesn’t have a fire label.
• A table that doesn’t have matching chairs.
• Extra-large pieces of furniture.
• Hardback books.
• Any books at all if it’s just before Christmas.

Nightmare scenario: The BHF house clearance people looking at Mum’s largest cupboard and wondering if they would get it in the van. 

What I wish I had done differently: See number 1.

4. Don’t let go (yet)

Hating waste is a good thing but sometimes there are other priorities.

The important thing isn’t what you’re getting rid of. The important thing is what you are keeping.

But it takes time to work out whether something actually has sentimental value or not. There are so many possibilities. Little personal things. Letters and cards. Things that aren’t valuable, but which might be important.

I wish I had kept more stuff, even temporarily, and given myself time to think about whether it mattered.

Nightmare scenario: Thinking about all the things I might have kept, and didn’t.

What I wish I had done differently: Told myself “If you’re not sure, take it home.”   

I don’t think I let go of anything that really mattered. But I will never really know. 

I kept these. Obviously.