Probate and Estate's responsibility for the making the house sellable?

[tvguy]

Because she was a hoarder. The reality show Hoarders type of hoarder. She had 3 floors full of stuff and garbage. No estate sale company would touch that house with a ten foot pole. I moved the valuable things into a large storage locker which I cleared within two months. We donated what we could. The rest was hauled off to the dump. It literally took 2 weeks of me working with a team of 3 people to finish the job. I spent another few days cleaning the floors and surfaces before I put the house up for sale "as-is". In the meantime, I was inundated with low-ball "we buy ugly houses" offers. I was offered between $75k and $107k by those vermin and ended up selling the house for $135k.

Thanks. Still mind blowing. Closest I have come to that was a friend had an illness and had to move out of the townhouse she had been renting for 25 years. She likes those Hallmark Channel like romance novels. I had been in her house several times a year for all 25 years but had no idea that two closets in her house were filled with those books. Worst thing was, she had three copies of many of those books. Oh, and she says she has over 1,000 of them on her Kindle.

 

[china mom]

Because she was a hoarder. The reality show Hoarders type of hoarder. She had 3 floors full of stuff and garbage. No estate sale company would touch that house with a ten foot pole. I moved the valuable things into a large storage locker which I cleared within two months. We donated what we could. The rest was hauled off to the dump. It literally took 2 weeks of me working with a team of 3 people to finish the job. I spent another few days cleaning the floors and surfaces before I put the house up for sale "as-is". In the meantime, I was inundated with low-ball "we buy ugly houses" offers. I was offered between $75k and $107k by those vermin and ended up selling the house for $135k.

I'm right there with you. When I took custody of my mother, we grabbed al of the furniture, clothes and sentimental stuff she wanted. And my hoarder brother stayed in her house because his row house was uninhabitable. I had to file an eviction to get him out. I hired a half dozen teenagers and we hauled everything out of the house over the next 12 hours. 50 years of Mom's normal accumulation plus two years of the hoarders stuff. We rented her house out and I eventually bought it.

Fast forward to now and hoarder brother died. I got a crazy high estimate to clean out his stuff and a ton of lowball offers from the investors to buy the house.

I ended up leaving all of his stuff in the house and I announced an open house on an investors FB group and called everyone who had tried to contact me about the house. I got offers as low as $40K saying that if they pay $1 more, they will lose money. I am under contract for $91K , as is, buyer pays all closing costs!

 

[barkley]

Thanks. Still mind blowing. Closest I have come to that was a friend had an illness and had to move out of the townhouse she had been renting for 25 years. She likes those Hallmark Channel like romance novels. I had been in her house several times a year for all 25 years but had no idea that two closets in her house were filled with those books. Worst thing was, she had three copies of many of those books. Oh, and she says she has over 1,000 of them on her Kindle.

i get the issue with holding on to already read books. growing up actually owning a copy of a book vs. borrowing it from the library (or in my case the bookmobile) was special. most families i knew owned a copy of the bible, a dictionary and a cookbook-some had splurged on weekly payments for 'the worldbook encylopedia' set but liesure books? those were from the library or borrowed and passed from one friend/family member to another.

i think some of us with older parents also heard the horror stories of book burnings and it impacted us such that the idea of ever throwing away/destroying a book is abhorant. when covid hit and many people got on the declutter/marie kondo bandwagon they purged allot-but when they learned that neither libraries or charity shops would take used books and had taken to directing people to throw them away they had a harder time letting go (so there may be lots of hidden closets of books and overstuffed bookcases lurking out there).

on the subject of hallmark though-when we cleaned one deceased family member's apartment i came across a HUGE stash of hallmark greeting cards. i think when she got bored she would walk through the store near her home multiple times a week. i've not had to buy a birthday or many other occasional cards for almost 15 years-and i had no idea the obscure and specified cards available (down to congratulating a graduate for a very specific type of licensing that i doubt i will ever encounter anyone pursuing).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

on the subject of hallmark though-when we cleaned one deceased family member's apartment i came across a HUGE stash of hallmark greeting cards. i think when she got bored she would walk through the store near her home multiple times a week. i've not had to buy a birthday or many other occasional cards for almost 15 years-and i had no idea the obscure and specified cards available (down to congratulating a graduate for a very specific type of licensing that i doubt i will ever encounter anyone pursuing).

These days they have a free one per month "Just Because" card. I almost never take them up on the offer but I have gotten a housewarming card, a congrats card (meant for a promotion/job switch) and a few other ones over the years. We will buy in advance for birthdays, etc because of a coupon and I have a particular spot to put them in til it's time but that's not the same thing really.

On the topic of Hallmark collecting stuff last month we went garage sales in our neighborhood and this person had two boxes full of old Hallmark ornaments almost all in their original boxes. They said their father loved getting them and putting them out but they had no usage for them since he passed. Very understandable and something that is probably hard to sell but we did find an ornament for father-in-law's wife. She loves Christmas and Santas and while we've (and just about everyone else) has given her Santa stuff in the past we liked the vintage style of it. We could have gotten other ones too in addition but settled on just the one. A hard market for wide appeal but you know still something that may be junk to someone after this many years but a neat thing to someone else. I agree about the specific typ of licensing card, that one is probably just way to obscure.

It's dated 1995 collection, I saw ones from the 70s, 80s 90s and 2000s.

 

[tvguy]

i get the issue with holding on to already read books. growing up actually owning a copy of a book vs. borrowing it from the library (or in my case the bookmobile) was special. most families i knew owned a copy of the bible, a dictionary and a cookbook-some had splurged on weekly payments for 'the worldbook encylopedia' set but liesure books? those were from the library or borrowed and passed from one friend/family member to another.

i think some of us with older parents also heard the horror stories of book burnings and it impacted us such that the idea of ever throwing away/destroying a book is abhorant. when covid hit and many people got on the declutter/marie kondo bandwagon they purged allot-but when they learned that neither libraries or charity shops would take used books and had taken to directing people to throw them away they had a harder time letting go (so there may be lots of hidden closets of books and overstuffed bookcases lurking out there).

on the subject of hallmark though-when we cleaned one deceased family member's apartment i came across a HUGE stash of hallmark greeting cards. i think when she got bored she would walk through the store near her home multiple times a week. i've not had to buy a birthday or many other occasional cards for almost 15 years-and i had no idea the obscure and specified cards available (down to congratulating a graduate for a very specific type of licensing that i doubt i will ever encounter anyone pursuing).

Not sure if this is the case everywhere, but the explosion in new self storage facilities over the last 10 years or so seems to indicate a lot of people can't get rid of stuff they think they may need some day, but aren't using.

 

[focusondisney]

@easyas123, I’m sorry for what you’re going thru with your in-laws. Thanks fully my parents didn’t keep the left over foods & actual trash was regularly thrown out. But they left their home get in severe disrepair as well. My father started numerous projects & finished almost none. When we moved in in 1973, he pulled the frames off the living room doorways, intending to replace them after taking the wallpaper off & painting the walls. For years, he had wood look contact paper around the doorways. That eventually got all torn up, so the last 20 years or so, just exposed doorways. He intended to put a new ceiling in the dining room. Put the 2x2 wood studs up & bought the ceiling tiles sometime in the 80s. That’s as far as it got. There’s a trash bag stuffed into the attic ceiling, no idea why, but nothing is leaking. The roof was replaced & the house painted only once in the 63 years they lived there. We’re fairly certain the floor tiles & siding (many of them broken) are from the 40s & probably have asbestos in them.

My husband spent 2.5 hours using a shop vac to vacuum the 2 attic rooms, 2 stairways & around boxes in some of the bedrooms. He had to unplug the filter & hose several times as he did it. I totally understand your family’s need to distance themselves. Until I needed to care for my mom the last few years, I couldn’t spend more than 20 minutes at a time at my parents house. I really feel for you & everyone dealing with this.