T's mom and I are still close and I still go to their house about once a month, or every other month to spend time with her and with T. She's a sweet lady, and would give you anything she has, but that tends to get her into trouble. It gets her into trouble, because she collects tons of stuff thinking it would be useful to someone else, and it gets out of control. I stop just short of saying "hoarder", because it's not about a need to have things for herself, but for others. Her heart is in the right place, but it takes over her entire home. She and her husband were sleeping in the living room, because their bedroom was being used for all these items. It was so full, it was almost inaccessible. Some of it spilled into T's room, making it limited as to where he could store his own stuff.
I have offered to help her clean and organize and this past week, she finally gave me and T the go-ahead to get in and to clean it up. I took several of my off-days from work, got my boss to group them over two pay periods, and went to her home. I was ready to tackle the enormous chore ahead, and curious to see what was in the mix. I knew it was a ton of stuff in a two-bedroom walk-up apartment, with exterior stairs, but there were more obstacles coming.
One challenge I knew was coming was T himself. T insisted on being in charge of the clean-up, and his personality (flaw?) revolves largely around his belief that he's got the best idea of how to proceed in most situations. His idea in this particular situation, however, was not the one I would have used: he wanted his mother completely out of the house, for several hours, tossed out what he deemed disposable, then allowed her to come in and decide what needed to stay and go. Though there were a lot of items that was discarded, and there was indeed trash in the mix, it would have been horrifying to just discard the things he would have, as there were things like prescriptions, important documents, and other useful items mixed into the trash. So, his mom needed to be there. T fussed about this, but we proceeded.
Another challenge was T's mom's need to have many items go to specific beneficiaries. In other words, she bought these things to go to someone; that someone needed to have it, in her mind. Luckily, most items were for my family, so I took them into T's room. Problem was, I was sleeping in T's room, which had other things that she was storing, which made for a claustrophobic sleeping area. But we drove on.
One thing I didn't anticipate were the sheer amount of empty boxes, both designated for storage of these items, and from shopping at a warehouse club. Don't get me wrong; I love Sam's Club, and shop there when I can. But why hold onto the product boxes once they're empty?
Which brings me to the biggest challenge: disposal. As we went along, T's mom discarded tons of stuff, all actual garbage. The problem was, they only had literally half of a household dumpster, assigned to their building---which they shared with their downstairs neighbor. So, the garbage was piled into their laundry room, until it could be hauled to the dump. Donated items were collected into one or two bags or boxes, and taken immediately to the Goodwill drop-off. Some things, like designer handbags and shoes, were collected in a separate box for consignment. T and I offered to sell some stuff for her, and she allowed us to try and sell a few things--no takers. But the biggest downside was that we could only work at night, while T's mom's husband was at his night shift hospital job. So, our ability to get things out of the house was definitely limited by the times the places we could take things were actually open.
But, by the end of the my stay, the room was completely accessible, and the floors were cleared. Thanks to the night issue, we still had trash in the laundry room, but T and his mom's husband were taking the stuff while I was on my way home. I took almost a complete car load of clothing, accessories, and toys home, which opened up T's room, and completed T's mom's task of getting these things to their designated recipients. She did say that she would think twice from now on about accumulating things, considering how long it took to get it all out of the apartment. Her husband was excited at the prospect of getting things out of the room, and the potential of being able to sleep in a bedroom again. T himself was happy that he might be able to get his room back, if his mom could get the stuff she was storing out of there.
And me? I felt good, having helped, and having it happen now was sort of just "gravy". Sure, I got some clothes and other items, but I feel better now that their living area is cleaner and easier to use.
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