The Best Tip for Cleaning Out an Estate After the Death of a Loved One

I am in the antiques business, so I deal with a lot of friends and acquaintances who wish to know how much things are worth after the death of loved ones. Too many times, the surviving relatives escort me into a household where nothing has been sorted, or each room still has little piles of this and that. Going through such a hodge-podge can take unnecessary hours.

Too often, the surviving relatives are so overwhelmed by the looming task of cleaning out the deceased loved one's household estate, that they procrastinate for months, making little piles here and there to appease their consciences. This approach only makes the task more undesirable.

At the opposite extreme, there are surviving relatives who just don't want to deal with the task of cleaning out an estate after a loved one dies at all. So they rent a dumpster and just throw most everything away, rationalizing that their relative was of meager means so there could not possibly have been anything of real value. Let me just say this: Ten items worth five dollars each at a garage sale is still $50. Why would anyone throw free money like that away?

The best advice I can give, as someone who deals with these situations on a regular basis, is to begin by designating one entire room in the house of the deceased loved one as a staging area.

Dining rooms or living rooms make good staging areas because they are usually large and central to the other rooms in the house.

To begin with, clear everything out of this staging room, including anything on the walls, furniture, lamps, and area rugs if they are deemed of any value, be it sentimental or monetary.

The reason this step is so important is because it quickly becomes overwhelming walking through a house from room to room, having piles here and there. "This box in the dining room is for my niece." "This mirror goes to Aunt Fran." "Nobody in the family wants this pile of appliances and utensils on the kitchen table, so they are going to be put in a garage sale." I hear it all.

My consultations would be so much shorter and cost-effective for the surviving relatives if they focused on having me look over organized things in one room, rather than dragging me from room to room in an entire house.

Making designated piles in each room is just not an efficient way to clean out a household estate after the death of a loved one, because no one room is getting wiped off the "To-Do" list. There is no sense of accomplishment as the task is being done, so there is no impetus to complete it in a timely manner!

Having a staging room set up makes the task of cleaning out a household estate much quicker. An estate that would normally take a couple of months of weekends, if not more, to clean out could take just a couple of weekends, tops!

All items designated as family heirlooms should be placed in one area of the staging room with tags identifying whom they go to. All garage sale items should be place in boxes in another area of the staging room. All photos and paper items-greeting cards, maps, etc. should be placed in another area. Do not include any paper items or photos of an extremely personal nature that the family would not want to see sold on Ebay!

The items mentioned above should give family members the idea, as obviously, there will be other categories of household items to sort through after the death of a loved one.

The point is to have everything sorted into organized lots in the staging room. At the end of the task, the only room not cleaned out will be the staging room-but wait! Everything in it has already been sorted into designated piles. Now, call an antiques dealer or auctioneer for a consultation! You'll pay a lot less!

For more tips on handling household estates after the death of a loved one, especially if the family is considering auctioning off the contents, please refer to my previous articles with important insider tips: "Preparing for an Estate Auction: Five Rules to Follow",

"Find Great Auctions in your Area on Auctionzip.com" and

"Working for Goldfuss and Associates Auctioneers".

Losing someone dear is always traumatic, but cleaning out the household estate afterwards does not have to add to the family's misery.

Note: It is my personal policy and I believe a matter of ethics to make clear to those who call me for consultations in such matters that I will not purchase any of the items they ask me to look at and assign a value to. That would be like the fox guarding the hen house!

Source: Personal Experience