Cleaning House: When Little Messes Become Big Problems
Published on - August 12th, 2008 (by J.D. Roth) Kris and I drove down to clean Mom’s house last night. Over the past decade, her place has gradually been overtaken by Stuff and clutter. Since Mom is still in the hospital, we figured this was a great time to tackle some of the mess.
After three hours of cleaning clutter and sorting Stuff, there’s no mystery about where I acquired my compulsion to buy. I come by it honestly. But while I’ve managed to kick the habit, Mom is still under its sway.
The gift that keeps on giving
We started cleaning upstairs in the spare bedroom. It was difficult to even get the door open, and when we did, we didn’t know where to begin. The room was piled with boxes and bags and bubble wrap.
Mom has a thing for ordering from catalogs like Current, ABC Distributing, and Colorful Images. Over the years, she’s ordered boxes and boxes and boxes of Stuff from these companies to give as birthday and Christmas presents. She’s given most (but not all) of these things away, but, for some reason, she’s kept the boxes.
She’s also kept some of the gifts, misplacing them beneath stacks of paper and plastic. Kris found one item intended for our nephew, Michael. Mom wrote herself a sticky note: “Christmas 2002 2004″. It’s now 2008. Michael will be ten years old this winter, and the gift is no longer appropriate.
The spare bedroom also contained:
- Over 50 rolls of wrapping paper
- Mom’s collection of mail-order dolls
- Unused exercise equipment
- A personal computer from about 1993
- Stacks of newspapers from the mid-1990s
- Immense quantities of packing peanuts and bubble wrap and other shipping debris
At one point I stopped and sighed as I looked around the room. “This is a great example of why you shouldn’t buy too much in advance,” I said. “This whole thing is a mess.” I’m sure Mom no longer has any idea what is left in the room. She ought to take an inventory.
Best by date
Next we worked on cleaning Mom’s refrigerator and pantry. We sorted the old, expired food from the good. Little was good. “This soup is from 1997,” Kris said, discarding a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom. “And this Wheaties box has Clyde Drexler on it.” We laughed.
We found many similar examples:
- Mayonnaise “best by” 1996
- Juice boxes from 2003
- Green olives black with mold
- Snapple long since turned to sludge
Mom apparently buys a lot of food at Costco in bulk packages. She might drink the first two bottles of a Snapple four-pack, but then the last two become spoiled. Or she’ll buy a six-pound bag of pretzels but forget about them.
(“Maybe she likes pretzels,” I said when Kris showed me the bag. But she replied: “No woman living alone should buy a six-pound bag of pretzels.” The bag was from 2001, so I’ll give Kris the point on that one.)
We threw out several hundred dollars in spoiled food, nearly all of it in giant Costco containers or bound as part of a Costco bulk pack. Costco (and other warehouse clubs) can be a great way to save money, but not if the food doesn’t get used. A bargain is not a bargain if it goes to waste.
Little messes become big problems
Eventually we noticed something alarming. My father had actually purchased many of the items in the freezer and the fridge. My father died in 1995. Obviously it makes no sense to throw food away just because the person who bought it has died. But it also makes no sense to keep the food for twelve years past the expiration date.
“You know,” I said. “Mom probably never meant to save this Stuff so long. I’ll bet it started small. She let a couple little things slide. She kept this jam, for example, or those pickles. Before long, she wasn’t throwing away any of her old food.”
A similar problem became apparent with the cats’ litter boxes. What had started as a single “accident” is now a looming disaster, an accretion of months or years of similar accidents. The stinky mess has ruined not only the linoleum, but perhaps also floorboards underneath. If you let the little things slide, they eventually become big things. In this case, a mess that might have taken a few moments to clean will probably now cost several hundred (or several thousand) dollars to repair.
A small step
Going through all of Mom’s Stuff, and handling her finances recently, I feel like I’ve been given a peek at a secret life. I’m able to see how she handles money, what she spends it on. Mostly she’s doing okay, but like all of us, she has blind spots.
We didn’t finish the job tonight. We managed to get a lot of Stuff out of the house, but Mom’s back porch is littered with trash. Her laundry room reeks of cat urine. We have a shopping list of things to buy for her. Even after we take care of these tasks, the work will continue in the weeks and months ahead.
This article is about Odds and Ends, Psychology, Real-Life, Relationships
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@JD and Kris…kudos to you for doing this for your mom! And,that she is glad you’ve done so is an added bonus!
Though my mom isn’t a hoarder, per se, she is a “collector” of things and some old rare books. One of my jobs this fall will be to go over and put post it notes in books that should be donated to a special collections library..which brings up donations…
Most local libraries, special collections libraries at universities and/or local geneological groups would be thrilled to receive some collections of things–especially anything to do with local history. Obviously not the junk but do think before you throw…. Remember that researchers of the future will visit these places to research US! Primary sources will always be important. If you think you’ve got something that somebody might be interested in, give one of these places a call.
Plus, it offers you a good tax deduction.
@DB…sigh, collector that I am, I would have loved to have helped you clean out the remainders of a craft store. That is MY weakness…. but it is used in products I re-sell, so I guess I should be called a re-cycler. For other readers that might encounter such stuff, please put it on craig’s list, ebay, or etsy. You will probably find a buyer, and quickly.
A friend of mine was cleaning out the attic of his family home (mother was a horder) and I knew that there would be stuff in there that I could use. I told them I would come help. A year later, at an art show I was in, the friend’s wife came up and saw something I was selling–hand molded reproductions of old figural Christmas lights. The first words out of her mouth..”I just threw away a TON of those from the attic.” ARGHHHHHHHHH
I know from talking with my mom, who gets overwhelmed by the paper/mail/magazine syndrome, that being physically unable to deal with some of it causes it to mount up. Once it starts to mount up, the anxiety/stress/depression about NOT being able to do something about/simply getting overwhelmed about it sets in. It is a Catch-22 for some folks up in years–and even my age, mid 50′s.
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Please don’t minimize this psychological disorder. Seriously. I’m a therapist and have heard many heartbreaking stories. If you can’t get some help for your mom (and chances are very high she will refuse any type of counseling), at least get knowledgeable yourself so you can handle the situation with a minimum of stress to your mother and yourself. Best wishes.
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Your mother has a compulsive hoarding disorder. You need to study up on it. You can damage her psyche by cleaning up trash that she has deep attachments to. My grandmother is a compulsive hoarder. I have learned that I must tread more lightly than I wish to. There have been cases of social workers going in to clean up public health hazards, believing they were helping these individuals, and winding up doing more damage than good.
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Actually, this is one of the reasons we moved out of the bungalow we bought 3 years ago into a duplex we bought this year — we’ve gotten rid of so much stuff! At some point, we realized that we were paying a chunk of our mortgage just to store junk. Out of a 3 bedroom house basement, we and our kids slept in 2 bedrooms, we used the kitchen, den, and dining room, and the rest just accumulated piles of stuff we were slow to get rid of.
Is there a category of disfunction called “consumerist illusion of frugality” where you hang onto stuff you don’t need because someone paid money for it (maybe you), so it’s worth something, so it’s hard to give it away or throw it out? Hey, you might need it again someday!
Every time I go camping, I’m inspired to get rid of stuff when we get home, because it’s so relaxing to me to live with just the stuff we took with us — no piles of extra paper, spare bedding and towels (for the rare guests we have), more summer and winter clothes than we really need, junk/trash that hasn’t made it out of the house yet, etc.
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My mom became ill 18 months ago and will not be recovering. Her house is full of clothing, linens, shoes, knickknacks, a huge amount of pots,pans, many sets of dishes and silverware(but not actual silver). There is no clutter in the rooms- but closets( 14 coats! in one), pantries, drawers, garage and a large storage closet are full. When friends and family would downsize, my mom would take some of their things- even though her own house had plenty. I am gradually giving some things away that my mom will never use again(because she has such a quantity) and my family does not want and others need- table cloths, towels, sheets, dishes. It is okay with my mom to give almost anything or to take almost anything.
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pls recycle the peanuts and packing supplies!! UPS/mailbox etc stores take them back.
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My mom (alive and well) is very similar. She keeps food in her ‘food storage’ area that expired in the mid-80′s. Also, my father passed away 3 years ago and she still has food that he bought in her freezer – that has since expired – most of it expired three years ago as well (and she tries to feed it to us on family occasions)! When we mention that the food has expired and should probably be thrown away she gets EXTREMELY AGGITATED with us. I also see signs that she is getting more comfortable witht the messiness and clutter of her house (it’s not to the extent of hoarding – thank goodness), but my question is what I can do about this and how to help her so that she can avoid (or maybe so that we can avoid) having to clean up a ton of worthless stuff?
By the way, you truly are helping your mom in so many ways. I’m glad that she is not upset. My mother would be furious probably to the point of not talking to us if we did that to her home.
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Hopefully your mom makes a speedy recovery, and is pleased with your clean-up efforts. However, you may be rationalizing your mother’s clutter-amassing behaviour, and you may want to glance over the definition of compulsive hoarding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding
Edit: I should have read over some of the other comments, people are pointing you in the right direction.
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I agree with a couple of other commenters. J.D., not to alarm you, but 2 of my grandparents who had dementia had the food spoilage problem (and you couldn’t not see the spoiled food..it was in the front of the fridge). I’m not in the medical field, this was just a commonality that I noticed.
Best of luck.
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My father-in-law went through this after his mother passed away. She has purchased many things through mail order catalogs and they were piled in rooms all through her small trailer. She had hundreds of Franklin Mint statues and had even ordered two computers through the mail. One thing they ran into was creditor problems because she hadn’t ever paid for any of these items. I imagine a lot of it was out of loneliness. She didn’t have anyone very close as she pushed most family members away and she was additicted to gambling. She enjoying having stuff just to have stuff and it was never enough.
Very sad. Good luck fighting through all of the clutter and getting her well and back home. Remember to be with her when she gets home so she isn’t in shock
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This was a really timely read. I just came back from my MIL’s house, and everytime I go there I am stressed out by the amount of clutter. It upsets her to get rid of anything, because (she admits) she holds on to the past that way. I find things in the original packaging from the ’60s. Everything you eat you have to inspect, because it might be years expired. Reading all these posts makes me feel better about it though,because I think it’s a common problem. Don’t be alarmed though, if your cleaning efforts are for naught. If she’s not on board, it’ll mever work once she gets in control again.
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Thank you for posting this. It’s so personal but applies to so many of us out there. I dread going to my Mother’s house. She is still in good health, but there will come a day when I will be doing what you are doing. This is going to sound really corny, but Oprah did a show on hoarders and the psychological aspects of why people keep buying and don’t throw anything away. It’s worth looking into. This is a really big, multi-faceted problem.
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Wow, I am overwhelmed by the response to this article!
I work for an elderly man–my actual job is to help clean out his house, which is in a very similar state–but I am in the same predicament as Maya:
“you’re lucky. my mom won’t let us clear out her clutter. she says there are papers that she needs in there and that she’s the only one who can go through them. but she doesn’t go through them…i’ve offered to pay someone to cart her junk away. she refuses. it stresses me out.”
It’s quite the mess at Dan’s house too. Wall-to-wall clutter, things he’s bought at Goodwill on seniors’ day because it was cheap, and a refrigerator that would render a team of horses unconscious. And he will not part with anything because he “needs” it all.
Does anyone know of any way to deal with this kind of predicament?
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My grandmother was also a hoarder. And in her declining health she lost track of cleaning out the fridge or washing dishes, she would just wipe them out with a filthy cloth.
She lived in a rural area on the coast and when she fell and broke her hip shedecided (at our suggestion) to move up to Portland and live in an assisted living facility.
We went through all of her stuff, had an estate sale. We asked her what she wanted to move into her studio apartment and there were many things we wanted to save (a bedroom set that sailed around the horn with my great-great-grandmother, for example) but otherwise we sold so much stuff… I think she made about $1000 from her estate sale at dirt cheap prices, we just wanted it gone.
It was amazing… I hope I’m never like that but who knows.
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You are a very loving son and you have a very loving wife to help you tackle mom’s house. I have a VERY DEAR ( I love her to death) MIL who is in a similar situation….especially about the spare bedrooms (and in my MIL’s case bathroom, closet, upstairs hallway are filled to the brim with outdated clothing, toys and expired food. The older grandkids are always talking about the expired food. Once, I took a bite of her cheesecake (while pregnant) that was made with rancid buuter/margerine 8^O I gagged and spit that out and ran to wipe my mouth out asap-lol. We laugh about it now, but she is a *bargain shopper*…of the likes as your own mom. I told my husband his mother can NEVER die!!! Because my hubby, his siblings and I would be cleaning that house for weeks. While she doesn’t have inside cats, she does have field mice in her house and we have received gifts with mouse poop on them–YUCK!!!!! 8^O Anyway, as i was reading your blog, I had to laugh as this was so similar to our situation and if one doesn’t laugh, it would be very overwhelming and upsetting to deal with. I think with parents who were born in the Depression/WWII era, they have a tendency to hoard and save whatever they have, given the circumstances from whence they grew up. Also, they are getting older and they just do not get around easily like they use to…it’s not quite as important either to get rid of stuff.
Chin up, just laugh it off and make humor out of the situation as best you can. Even if it is hectic and chaotic with the cleaning, enjoy it as a quirky behaviour of your mom. Some day you will have some funny tales to tell to your grandkids.
Cheers, Jolie
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Ohmy. I really never wanted to admit my parents were like that. But yes, I feel your pain.
My sweetheart and I cleaned out my parent’s mountain home last summer and found the same things. Food from the early 90′s. Seven OPENED bags of flour in a closet. Empty deli containers. The crawl space was filled with empty boxes from, I swear, what seemed to be anything ever purchased in their lifetime. The list goes on and on.
I promptly emailed my daughter, apologized for anything and everything I may do to her when I’m old, and asked her to take me out in the north 40 and shoot me if I get to be like that. Then I started redistributing my own excess. I divided my belongings into two and ONLY two categories. 1) things I love 2) things I don’t love. It’s a good feeling to pare down and be surrounded by the things I really love.
My sister called when she found out what I was doing and asked me to start on Mom & Dad’s home here in town when I finished the mountain place. Ha Ha. I reminded her that SHE is inheriting that house. I already cleaned the place I’m inheriting.
Love and gratitude for all of you wonderful sons and daughters who take care of aging parents!
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One more thing. Okay, two.
1) You can also sell things on Craigslist and cheapcycle.org.
2)If you don’t want the hassle of selling things, check out freecycle.org. You post things you want to give away for free and folks email if they want it. You choose who gets it, tell them when and where to pick it up. Most communities have a freecycle group.
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Brad & Victor (#15 & #40)
Years ago my dear friend’s parents found two boxes in her grandmother’s house.
1) A shoebox tied with string and a tag “String Worth Saving.” Inside were neatly wound balls of good string.
2) A shoebox tied with string and a tag “String Not Worth Saving.” Inside was a bunch of crappy string.
They all had a good laugh.
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You are wonderful for helping out your Mom. Please do ensure that her cats are well cared for. They are unbelievably loving and clean creatures, but their boxes do need to be scooped once a day. If let go, they are so clean that they won’t go in a dirty box, hence the problems that occurred. In order to properly clean and prevent them from resoiling an area that they have already soiled, it MUST be cleaned with an enzymatic cleaner (such as “Nature’s Miracle” or “Petzyme” found at PetSmart, PetSuppliesPlus, or other pet stores)…otherwise you may FEEL it’s clean, but the cats WILL smell it and think it’s an acceptable place to go. A black light (also at many pet stores or Wal-Mart) will highlight areas that need to be cleaned. Cats can also get deathly ill if they go without food for more than a day (feline hepatic lipdosis–liver failure— sets in quickly, and lack of taurine can lead to heart failure) so if she is overwhelmed (or forgetting) she may need regular help once she is out to care for her sweet little kitty cats.
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I’m so sorry that you have to deal with the aftermath of her pathology. My in-laws are hoarders, and my husband is praying to die before his brother does, so cleaning their dad’s house won’t be our problem! (That may sound flippant, but I’m completely serious. It’s that bad.)
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I think you’re rather brave to open up your life so much, and I really appreciate it. These lessons taught from personal stories are the best, IMO.
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My boyfriend’s mother does this. She is a hoarder to the point that there have been multiple times dumpsters have been brought to the house to clean things out. She like clothes, books, bulk foods, you name it. She filled a 4 bdrm ranch house, and then an extra garage was built so she could continue. Last year, my boyfriend’s father passed away, and in some ways his mom has cut back on spending, but in other ways, she continues. She is mesmerized by deals and cash back. She unfortunately has a Kohl’s card and, as a senior, gets extra discounts on things she doesn’t need, and her sons and grandkids don’t want either. And you can’t use logic on her. She just gets her feelings hurt and feels like she’s being attacked. There’s an ugly circle of behavior, and honestly I don’t think she will ever escape it.
I try to live by the mantra “You will never have enough of what you don’t really need.”
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I recently when through the exact same experience with my Mom. My husband and I came to call it the House of Many Treasures and the sad part is that there really were very few treasures that turned up. It took us 4 commercial dumpsters to clean out her house after she moved with a fully loaded 28 ft. truck.
The rest of the family thought that once she was moved into a nice clean new space, she’d eventually see how much of a problem exploded food, bugs in the kitchen, mouse infested boxes, and less than body width paths through the house had become, but no… she just continually berates us for all the treasures we took from her.
I blogged about it too and my coworkers thought it was supremely amusing isolated behavior. I think in realty, there are many people like this.
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The home of my mother in law, a retired primary school teacher, is hovering between 1st and 2nd stage squalor (thanks JenK@43 for that disturbingly graphic description of the descent). Oddly, her classroom when she taught in it was beautifully ordered with the many small pieces of teaching equipment neatly boxed and the children’s artwork cleverly and tidily displayed on the walls and ceiling. I think her professional pride kept the classroom clean. She loved teaching and enjoyed making the environment welcoming for children and visitors. She doesn’t feel anything like the same attachment to her home, and despite having an active social life and many friends, would seldom have a visitor who wasn’t family – quite deliberate on her part. Efforts by her children to clean the place up – with the ultimate intention of moving her into a smaller house – are only partially successful. My mother in law, a gentle and seemingly yielding person, does an excellent stubborn old cow impression when pulled in a direction she doesn’t want to go. Part of me thinks: good for you. The other part suggests my late father in law’s suits could go to a better home. Said father in law, dead now 7 years, was a very unpleasant man despite being a member of the clergy so I don’t think the attachment to the suits is romantic. The nicest thing anyone said of him at his funeral, attended by the great and good of the Anglican church, was that he was “an orderly man”. Not, as they say, a match made in heaven.
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Ten years ago I called my mother and she said I needed to come home( I lived a 1000 miles from her) to clean her closets. I was there 3 days later and I spent 4 days cleaning closets. We laughed about one closet that was stuffed. I don’t think I could put all the clothes back in there. I put bags and bags in the formal living room with the intention of taking it to the thrift store at the end of the week but my the end of the week, my Dad and I put her in the hospital were she stayed for 6 weeks before she died. I was thankful for the opportunity to help her and thankful to be able to help my father. They had a lovely home together.
About 3 years ago we moved Dad to asisted living and after a year we decided to sell his home. He had collected pieces of copper wire. Some were only 2 and 3 inches long. My sister thought my husband was a bite nutty when he said he was taking it to the salvage yard. After they loaded the van, I made the comment that we were spliting? When the fellows came back my brother-in-law was beaming. It was an easy $70 for each. My sister became in instant believer in my tendencies of being a scavenger.
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Why not hire a cleaning service to help? You could get a lot more done. Cat piss is not “clutter” — it is unsanitary nastiness and dirtiness. No one should live like that.
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THANK YOU THANK YOU POSTERS one and all. I woke up the other morning and decided to play dead. Yup, I was dead and so I pretended to be my two children who were left to go through my years of collecting “stuff”. My family silver which they will never use, my art work including empty canvases and big paintings I once sold before I went out of style, boxes and boxes of unfinished manuscripts, stories, novels, hundreds of art magazines, art books, art opening cards, children’s artwork, furniture I planned to paint with Pennsylvania Dutch designs, half finished sewing projects and rolls and yards of fabric. As I am cleaning, I keep thinking “I just cannot leave this mess for my kids to deal with.” That thought actually makes it easier to remove, toss, or sell, my ‘WONDERFUL STUFF’.
And reading all your posts is a big help!
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I know this blog post is a bit old, but I’d really like to recommend the website childrenofhoarders.com and the Yahoo group “childrenofhoarders” to people dealing with this.
Hoarders can be especially difficult to deal with, and when the hoarder is a parent, it makes it even harder. Up to what point should someone be allowed to live life the way they choose, and at what point do you call in the authorities? At what point do you force a clean-up, with the possibility of alienating yourself from your family forever (this is a very real possibility)? These are really hard decisions to make.
This disorder also has an enormous impact on children. The psychological and physical implications of growing up in squalor, the complete lack of cleaning/money management skills passed onto the kids, and having to lie to friends in order to keep people from coming to the house and revealing the family secret. In many ways it’s like being the child of an alcoholic.
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I used to live in a 3 bedroom flat but moved to a single storey house (have 2 roommates) and now have the master bedroom to myself. Hvg to squeeze all my junk into that one bedrm was an eye opener coz I found that I hv wayy too much stuff, even papers fr uni five years ago!
Trying to downsize and get rid of the clutter but it’s a rather slow and difficult process. I feel attached and just shift things from one box to another. Some are stufff from work which I cannot throw in case I need em for later, but I guess I’m gonna have to give them away or donate them since I use em once a while.
My grandad was a packrat, and my mother keeps all sorts of stuff too. I keep my bedroom door closed at all times coz I got too much junk and the room looks so cluttered. When my bf saw my room for the first time, he said it’s clean but very cluttered. When I visit him/other ppl,I am very organized and am very clean (I even helped organized my bf’s house haha) It’s just with my own space that I do the hoarding.
Bf’s mom’s house is full of stuff too. Pantryfull of food and fridge filled to the brim w food. Trying to get food was a nightmare coz u nvr knw wats good and wats bad. One time I took the trouble of going thru her fridge w the help of the bf and we threw out take aways fr god knows when. Recently, he had some cider from that fridge, and got sick coz he didn’t realise it’s gone bad (it was 2 months old). When we visit we can’t use the bedroom upstairs coz the bed has a couple matresses on em and there’s no space to keep them so we sleep on the couch. I thought about what would happen when they pass on, a lot of stuff to give away/left for the next gen I guess.
Parting with stuff is very hard, esp when it has sentimental value attached to it. But I’m trying, coz I plan to move
and rather than doing it all then, I’d rather do it bit by bit now.
Thanks for sharing. And sorry for the superlong comment :p
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