Lived Experience Forum

[Determined]

Took a big trailer load to the dump this morning from yesterday's effort. Have an even bigger load ready to go in the morning as soon as they open the gates.  Managed to borrow a trailer this morning that has a large cage on it. That will save a couple of trips. 

My mum was able to clean all the windows and glass doors today. The place starting to look good. Got rid of some stuff out of our living room tonight and it looks so much bigger.

[Determined]

Today's decluttering effort. .

Took another even bigger load of rubbish to the dump this morning. With the trailer 1/2 full again.  Sold a shipping container tractor and stack of steel gave away some more steel a stack of bricks and mower to a friend who helped out with some cleaning up. Place is starting to look great.

Bro has pressure cleaned the outside of the house and my mum has cleaned all the windows. I can't remember the last time our home looked this good. 

[Former-Member]

Ain't it always the way, tidy up the place to sell it and it looks good enough to buy @Determined

[Determined]

Haha @Former-Member, we were only talking about that last night. Don't want to leave now. Just wish I could have found the motivation before this so it wasn't such a big rush. Nothing like a little pressure to get things done. 

[Determined]

Today's effort 

Another trailer load for the tip ~2 cubic meters.

Added another ~cubic meter to the scrap metal pile (up to about 4 cubic meters in total) and darling has another car boot load destined for the salvos. I cant believe how much stuff we have in such a small space. 

[Former-Member]

I can't believe it either @Determined 👍👍👍 Amazing effort!!! Where ya getting the energy?

[Determined]

Don't know where the energy is coming from @Former-Member but not complaining. Probably running on adrenaline at the moment. And we have lots of help at the moment. Mum and sister are here again this morning. 

[Former-Member]

@Former-Member Mr D & I are interstate dealing with our own "hoard abroad" clearing out my late FIL rental unit. We need to do this promptly as we are from interstate and time is limited.

Actually have had to restrain Mr D from packing everything and save a few things for family members - he would have donated the lot to Vinnie's.

Have BIL wife refusing to talk to me -  not being involved - she is anxious that things she wants to have will go - it is a bit awkward as BIL marriage not going well - to the observer they are separated -  I think she will get quite a surprise when she sees just how much we have saved for BIL - he will also be getting FIL car as a thank you for caring for him.

BIL would not speak up and say what he wanted - it is a shame as sentimental value is really all there is - most things 2nd hand to start with - I have had to guess and hope it is generous enough.

As it was in the shed, which he said he had not been into, I gave away my BIL spare car battery to a neighbour ... oops ... neighbour  kindly returned it when I explained ... was able to give him a few more bits so he was happy.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Well done @Former-Member.  Sounds like you’re doing a fabulous job of it ..... as is @Former-Member 💕💕

[Smc]

Hi all.

Massive job @Determined, but sounds like it's going well.

@Former-MemberGuesswork like that is hard. I hope he does appreciate your choices. Since your Dad was living in a unit, I assume there had already been a fair bit of downsizing done when he moved there?

I get it about the sentimental value. Latest trip to our parents' home was with Hubby, sister and our younger girl, and towing a trailer. So I've just brought home a few things, including a cane laundry basket made by either my Dad or my Grandpa, a woven wire plant stand that belonged to my Grandma (Dad's mum) and two ceramic jardiniers that were my Mum's mother's. (She died long before we were born, so we've never had a specific grandmothers-name for her, but I guess there's still a sense of connection there. I look a lot like her, which probably adds to that.) All things that have way more sentimental than $$ value to me. Now the challenge is making sure we remove junk here to make way for the "treasures" coming in.

Still not really any mass tossing-out at the parents' home yet, but we moved some things away from the fenceline that had the next door neighbours concerned about rats etc.. Found some definite rubbish, but most of it was scrap metal that Dad would have been collecting to get some cash, until age caught up with him and he didn't have the capacity to organise it happening. There wasn't enough time to do anything with it this visit, so we may need to make another visit with trailer in tow sometime soon. Or call the scrap metal guys for pickup. Am not sure which would be better, since getting another trailerload from A to B would be a help too. It feels good being able to do more than "rearrange the deckchairs" at their place.

So... current plans at that end are:

Continue ferrying what we want to keep here;

Organise scrap metal collection/drop off;

Once there's a skipload worth of rubbish in one place, order a skip.

Selling on unwanted stuff that's worth making better arrangements than an op shop drop off is still a hard call though. Because it's being done as short occasional visits, neither garage sales nor facebook buy/swap/sell groups are really workable, and either of those would be likely to draw attention to the fact that the house is mostly unoccupied.