My mom has a modestly sized two-story house. She really hates heights and stairs, so she never went up to the second floor unless absolutely necessary. Normally, my stepdad would bring the Christmas decorations and other things down for her. In fact, he didn't want her to go upstairs at all. We found out why this weekend.
There are two bedrooms up there, along with a nine square-foot closet. They were all packed. All dressers, closets, nooks, crannies, etc. were filled with clothes. The queen-sized bed had a layer of clothes a foot deep. The closet had two feet of clothes in the bottom. It was INSANE.
We found at least 100 ties, 25 blue, button-down Oxford shirts, 30 pairs of gray or black sweatpants, 40 pairs of khaki shorts, 500 yes, FIVE HUNDRED t-shirts, probably 100 other dress shirts, a dozen sport coats, 3 brand-new suits, 25 pairs of shoes...my mother was pretty p.o.'d at him! If the cancer hadn't killed him, I think she would have by the time we were done.
I took 24 bags (the big, black, 30-gallon trash bags) of donations down to the Planet Aid box. I completely filled it and had to take 1/3 of the stuff to a different box. There are at least 16 bags of garbage to throw out, so my mom's going to call her collector and see if they can do a large pickup. My brother took 4 bags of clothes, I brought home 4 bags of clothes for PM and a bag of shoes for the shoe drive. We probably sorted through 1,500 pieces of clothing total, many of which still had tags or were only worn once.
Needless to say, my arms were killing me from hauling bags around and lifting stuff. I'm very surprised I didn't dream about sorting clothes!
ETA: We even found half a dozen hoodies that belonged to my mom. She thought they were lost or accidentally thrown out.
-- Edited by Aardvark on Monday 26th of May 2014 02:04:14 PM
-- Edited by Aardvark on Monday 26th of May 2014 05:23:45 PM
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
They would have been married fifteen years this past December, but he passed away in November. She knew he had a bunch of clothes, because he was always buying new tshirts and things, but she didn't know the magnitude. She isn't moving, she just wanted to clean out his stuff and pass it on to people who could use it.
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
(my SIL lost her husband last November as well and, although she has given a few of his things away, I know the bulk of his clothing is still there. I told her my dad had done nothing (NOTHING!) with my mom's stuff for two years after she died. Then he came to live with DH and me, so it fell on me to take everything to Goodwill or wherever it was I took it).
That's why my mom wanted to get rid of everything while she was still physically able to help. She's only in her early 60's, but has a really bad back.
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
He certainly was a clothes horse. That is a lot of shoes for a man. Even though, your mom was irritated with him, it must have been really hard for her to sort through all his stuff and get rid of it. That's a sad job for the two of you.
It was hard at times, ES, especially when we found things like his wedding ring and his referee shirts.
I think I am having a delayed reaction to all the stuff we went through. Last night, I dreamed we were moving to a new parsonage and I'd get everything packed up, turn around, and the room would be filled with more things to pack.
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
I know what you mean, Aardvark. It is so much work and heart wrenching. When my dad died, we still hadn't gotten rid of a lot of my mother's things. All of it brought back so many memories and sometimes it felt intrusive. They had lived in the same huge house for thirty years and it was filled with stuff they collected, closets full of clothes and hundreds of books and photographs. It kind of makes a person want to do a major purge on their own stuff now so no one has to do it later.
I know when I had to go through my late husbands stuff when he passed in an accident 10 years ago it was awful, all the memories, similar but different when I had to do my moms clothes
Nothing I would wish on anyone...
__________________
~ 4 Wheels Move the Body~ ~2 Wheels Move the Soul~
My parents were what I'd call neat hoarders. The house looked good but man did they hang on to everything. When they went into the ALF my bro and the other guardian arranged an estate sale and professional cleaners to deal with what was left over. Bro felt it would not be fair for me to have to do the heavy lifting so to speak since I was the one who had to deal with everything before that. I did acquire a couple heirloom pieces that Mama wanted me to keep but the rest.....they cleaned thAt house out. Whew....so worth the money!
