Best way to empty house after Mum's passing

Yorkshireman99

I take your point but my expereince was rather different. The problem with fire certificates for furniture and eleAIUI they get electrical items PAT tested. Of course it does depend on the indvidual who comes to collect. Worth a try anyway.

theoretica

There are house clearance places which will take everything, sell what can be (readily) sold, donate stuff charities want and either charge you or give you a cheque depending on what the saleable stuff fetches. I would start with a google search on house clearance auction and see what comes up local to the house.

jackyann

I think, theoretica, that whether that is suitable depends on one's own feelings.
I didn't want just to get rid of stuff, I wanted to honour my parents by carefully giving away things in the way they would have wanted. Of course that is more time-consuming, but for me, it really helped the grieving.
Others just want to hand it all over to someone else. It sounded as if OP wasn't totally happy about that, but it may, in the end, be the best thing to do.

GaleSF63

jackyann wrote: »

2 kinds of bags: black for rubbish and clear for everything else, so it can be seen, or you can write on a piece of paper and shove it so it can be seen.

Lots and lots of bags!

When I cleared my mother's house i had at least 5 different colours of bin bags/pedal bin bags and it worked extremely well.

She was unfortunately a hoarder, (the hoarding also provided the dozens of different coloured bin bags) though not of anything very valuable, so I used Freecycle or Freegle and got rid of a tremendous amount that way. Almost everyone who came went away with more than they had expected when they arrived! One man who didn't have transport and needed to catch at least 2 buses each way came twice and carried away as many books as he could manage.

Everyone came within about 2 days of the offers.

What I did consider, but as things went so well I didn't need to do was have a kind of Freecycle open day - listing a few categories of items and saying "there's a lot more, if you are interested come on ....day between the hours of xxx and xxx and see what you can find.

jackyann

I find you have to be clear on Freecycle: not sure if OP is familiar with it.
When I reply to say 'it's yours' I give collection times and say 'If I do not hear from you by (give time & date) then it will be re-offered'.

Also, sometimes, if under time constraints, you have to be brutal with people who are 'waiting to see when their mate can lend a car'. A shame, but I have been more patient when time is not an issue.

I think you also need a plan as to what is best to go to charity shops (such as clothes) or Freecycle (furniture, household stuff). We donated a great deal to our local homeless centre, stuff that might help someone setting up a home, and smart clothes for job interviews.
Worth contacting them, as they all operate under different conditions and restraints.