Mission Possible: Cleaning Out a Big, Cluttered Victorian
Category: Downsizing
By Barbara Ross and Bill Carito
October , 2018 —
I recently calculated that my husband and I, either solo or with other family members, have emptied eight houses in the last ten years. Like many people our age, this has included helping elderly parents downsize from big old homes, emptying their second homes, and finally, emptying their downsized homes when they were gone.
The spring/summer of 2017 was the trifecta. We cleaned out my mother-in-law’s chock-a-block full apartment following her death, helped our son and his family move from Connecticut to Virginia, and moved ourselves from Somerville, Massachusetts to our dream retirement home in Portland, Maine.
One task remained
We bought my mother-in-law’s big, beautiful Victorian sea captain’s house on the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine from her in 2004 in a transaction so complex, I took to calling it “Momitrage.” As a part of the whole deal, she moved into a lovely
Comments on "Mission Possible: Cleaning Out a Big, Cluttered Victorian"
M Williams says:
For those items that cannot be sold or donated like matresses, beat up furniture and just plain junk we used 1-800-JUNK. Two very polite strong young men came to the house and we just pointed at the items we no longer wanted. Slightly more expensive than dumpsters, but no heavy lifting on our part.
Darla says:
Barbara and Bill give a realist picture (literally) of what it is like to go through this and I commend them on all they did and how they did it. I have two brothers and two sister-in-laws that were overwhelmed at this process although we knew the day was coming with both parents sick and one having dementia. But they had no interest and I wanted everything taken care of quickly. After months and months of procrastination and no one showing up to help me, I arranged for a couple of church organizations, The Salvation Army, and 1-800 Junk to show up with their trucks on the same day, it took me two months to coordinate dates but they loaded up the house and by the end of the day, I was done, swept the floor and left and sold it for our asking price the following week.