Mom has moved out of her house and into an assisted living facility.
A household of things have been left behind that we need to move to sell her house. That includes clothing, paintings, vases, dishes, appliances, furniture, electronics. My sisters contacted liquidators and estate sales businesses to see if they would do it for a cut.
Short answer: no. Not enough of value to make it worthwhile.
I wasn’t overly surprised. Mom has tons of clothing and shoes but none is really vintage. She has furniture but the agents said that furniture is a hard sale these days.
My wife and I talked about this in relation to our own life. Adverse to an estate sale after she passes on, my wife has been doing a slow-roll death clean: a drawer a day. A closet. Organizing, tossing, donating. She used to refer to it as simplifying; now she just calls it the death clean.
It’s one of the places where we diverge on our philosophies. I consider my life busy and frantic enough to do without going through my belongings to see what I still want and want I need to throw away or donate. I do so sometimes, but I don’t make it part of my daily or weekly routines.
This exchange summarizes it for us. My wife said, “I don’t want people having to come through the house to get rid of things for me.”
I replied, “I don’t care. I won’t be there.”
As I walk around the house, I wonder, what would the estate sales agents say to me?
I suspect they’ll tell me the same thing they said about Mom’s stuff.
Michael Seidel, writer 
Your wife seems to be doing Döstädning aka Swedish death cleaning, which I’ve been seeing trending all over the Internet for several years. That’s all I know about it. 😀
Similarly, I’ve been seeing lots of articles explaining why “the kids” don’t want Boomer stuff–from smaller houses, styles (none of that brown stuff!), etc. So downsizers, resellers, auctioneers, etc. are flooded with inventory they can’t move.
Kinda sad.
Kinda understandable.
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Yes, exactly. And yeah, the duality of it – sad, understandable – is real. I’ve seen many articles too about the Boomer-stuff rejection. We should try to hang on to it; it could make a comeback in a few years. Like miniskirts. Bell bottoms.
Cheers
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In a way, the news about the estate sale doesn’t surprise me. I would imagine they’re pretty picky about what they take since they’re undoubtedly considering their overall profit.
Some months back, I started the “death clean.” Considering my age –even though at the moment I’m healthy and well– I felt it was something I needed to start doing. Thus far, I have donated several boxes of clothing and miscellaneous other stuff and I’m filling up more. But it’s all those personal knick-knacks, etc. that have little value to anyone but me that have been difficult to discard.
I have never had to do this type of cleaning because my parents were divorced and my dad had remarried. I was pretty much estranged from my mother –plus I was living in another state– so a couple of my cousins took care of things.
In any event, it’s not a subject that most of us want to discuss, but the reality is there.
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I wasn’t surprised by the estate sale news. I was disappointed more because Mom and my sisters had higher hopes for it. Yep, facing the reality is a challenge. The logistics, decisions, memories, emotions. It all stacks.
We just dropped off five more bags at the Goodwill. When I left this morning for my coffee/writing, my wife was busy purging glasses. “What’s this?”
That’s my Jim Beam boilermaker glass. It has sentimental value. Do you not have sentimental bone in you?”
“None at all,” she replied.
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