Clean Out an Estate and Care for the Environment

Q:  While I’m cleaning out an estate, how can I also “go green” for the environment?

A:  Thank you for this excellent question.

Donating, recycling, and selling are less expensive than a dumpster and may provide cash for your unwanted items.  They may also provide a tax deduction or help out a worthy cause.  Use your imagination when deciding where things could go, other than black trash bags!  Can someone use your items in some form or fashion?  This is the ultimate in recycling.

Remember the following when cleaning out estates:

• Have the neighbors in for free household chemicals, garden/yard tools, etc.
• Create a donation network by discussing what you have to give.
• Keep watch for charity drives in your community.
• Web search for places to sell or donate items.
• Gazelle.com, venjuvo.com, techforward.com and myboneyard.com all offer varying amounts of compensation for electronics.
• Mygreenelectronics.com tells you where to find nearby recycling centers for electronics.
• Paper, cardboard, and scrap metal are commodities that are traded.  Find a buyer in your local phone book.
• Scrap metal and other household metals, photo frames, etc. are wanted by artists, or can be sold for scrap.
• Charities are in a funding crisis; paper, books, games and toys help daycares, senior centers and after-school programs.  Give them a call; they are happy to give you a wish list.
• Alzheimer’s facilities are always looking for clean linens, towels, etc.
• Many religious organizations/groups set up homes for refugees, domestic abuse victims, pregnant women, disabled adults, etc.  They need many everyday items that you need to dispose.
• Inventory the home before buying materials.  Garbage bags, boxes, and cleaning supplies are normally already in the house.
• Worn sheets and towels, leashes and pet bowls are very much needed by local pet shelters.
• Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

Do your part to help!

© 2012 Julie Hall

Make Extra Income Doing This …

People have been collecting, sorting, and selling “scrap metal” for eons.  But I have recently read articles that claim that full-time scrappers make anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000 annually.  That’s pretty impressive money.

Take it from one who knows — there is a good deal of scrap metal in our own homes, on the street being trashed, and thrown in dumpsters from coast to coast.  To me and people like me, that’s like throwing away money!  Think twice before you push your trash bin to the curb.  Do you have any copper, brass, steel, aluminum, bronze, etc?  Forget the condition; it matters not if you find a pipe here or an old teapot there.  Here are some tips for you:

MAXIMIZE YOUR SCRAP METAL RECYCLING:

Go to www.metalprices.com and get familiar with what the different metals are selling for.

• Sort various metals into different piles.  Steel should go into one pile and copper should go into another.  You will get more if you segregate the lands of scrap.
• Deal only with reputable scrap metal brokers or scrap yards.
• Keep all garbage out of your scrap metal piles … metal only.
• Always carry a magnet.  You can use a magnet to quickly tell if the material is ferrous or non-ferrous, and then separate your metals accordingly.

© 2011, The Estate Lady

“Mom has a friend…Maybe we’ll use her.”

Margaret called me from a Chicago suburb with a frantic tone in her voice.  “We have all this stuff, and we don’t have a clue how to get rid of it!  It looks like it might be junk, but there are some antiques in here too.  What do we do?  My mom has a friend who is sort of in the business.  She’s dabbled in buying and selling for years.  Maybe I should just hire her.”

Her words hit a nerve!  It’s sort of like saying, “My brother got an A in dissecting, so why not let him do your brain surgery?”

I strongly urged her to hire a professional, and warned her about letting an untrained friend handle something as important as this.  But she decided to go to her friend anyway, a decision that cost her dearly.

A month later, Margaret called me again, in tears. “I’ve made a horrible mistake, and I don’t know how to undo it.  My mom’s friend didn’t know the true value of many of the items in the house and sold them for pennies.  One local dealer contacted me to tell me the estate person charged $75 for a fine antique English Windsor chair that was worth about $800.  An antique needlepoint sampler dated 1854 sold for $10, but should have sold for several hundred.  I am eaten up with misery wondering how many other things got sold for next to nothing.”

Please get the right kind of help!  Unscrupulous professionals come out of the woodwork at a time of crisis.  Amateurs, even though they are friends or golf buddies or play bridge with you, are still amateurs!  It may be costly to hire the right professional, but an amateur is much more “costly” in the end.

© 2010 Julie Hall

Announcing my new book!

“A Boomer’s Guide to Cleaning Out Your Parents’ Estate in 30 Days or Less” is finally ready!  It is currently available as an e-book which you can download and print out (http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=686132).  Within the next two weeks, it will be available in print also.  I’ll include an update here on my blog when it has been released in print.

More than a “How-To” guide, A Boomer’s Step-by-Step Guide to Cleaning Out Your Parents’ House in 30 Days or Less is a “What To Do, When, and Why” take-along manual packed with meticulously compiled checklists, resources, and information. You are given logical, easy-to-follow steps so that you can literally clean out your parents’ house in less than 30 days. Best of all, you are given advice from a nationally acclaimed expert who has “seen it all” on how to do this for your own peace of mind and keep everyone’s best interests at heart.

Separate sections of this book cover practical checklists and resources to use when your parents are living and still in their home, when one or both parents are in failing health, and when parents have died and the estate remains.  This book includes many worksheets, checklists, and forms you will need to effectively handle cleaning out your parents’ home.  I want you to tuck this guide in your pocketbook or briefcase and use it throughout the process: my wisdom and experience at your fingertips.

Those of you who have read my first book, or read this blog for very long, know that I want to educate you.  That’s my goal!  There is a lack of information out there that handles cleaning out an estate, or dividing the estate contents equitably and without fighting.  I want to create helpful and very practical guides that cut through to the essentials, and give you all the tools to educate yourself and then do the task effectively.

© 2010 Julie Hall

The Death Bed Thief

Exploitation can raise its ugly head in the midst of unsuspecting situations.  Such was the case with the Garvey family (not real name).  Mom and Dad Garvey were about the nicest people you’d ever wish to meet.  Their three adult children lived nearby; they loved to have all the grandchildren over for Sunday dinners.  All of the children were successful, and the family often took vacations together.  As Mom Garvey shared with me, she could not recall one moment of discord between her kids. 

Dad Garvey was diagnosed with cancer at age 73, and the disease progressed rapidly.  He had lived a good life, and faced his illness with grace and courage.  Even as his strength waned, he loved having his family visit.  But soon death was imminent and hospice was called in to assist him and his family.  That’s when strange things began to happen.

One of his daughters became uncharacteristically possessive.  She wanted to be at Dad’s bedside around the clock.  Normally a sweet and accomodating person, she would snap at her mother over the smallest thing.  She accused her siblings of not caring enough for their dad, even as she tried to prevent them from being with him during his final days.

Eventually Dad Garvey passed away, with his wife and children at his bedside.  But as the funeral director’s hearse pulled up to take the body to the funeral home, the same daughter disappeared into the basement, while the others comforted one another in their grief. 

It was a few days later that they discovered what the daughter had been doing.  Apparently, while she was keeping vigil by her father’s bedside, she was also surveying his belongings.  When he died, she quickly grabbed the things she had stashed in the final couple weeks of his life.  Mysteriously, even though Dad Garvey had prepared a will, it was never found.

This is a scary story, no doubt.  But imagine, for just a moment, how different this story would have gone if the parents had given serious consideration to dividing their estate prior to infirmity or death.  At the very least, they should have distributed a master list of what they wanted each child or heir to have, making sure that each child received a copy.  The will should have been given to the executor or another trusted professional, so it would have been available upon death. 

If every child knows the plan in advance, it will be much harder for one child to take the lion’s share.  Unfortunately, this scenario occurs every single day, because no one planned ahead!

© 2010 Julie Hall

Is there an expert in the house?

You can only imagine what I see each day as I venture into the homes of people getting ready to disolve the estate of a loved one who has passed away.  It is an amazing view into the world of human nature — who wants what, the fights over money and things, the greedy relatives coming out of the woodwork, families not understanding the value of things, etc.

You name it and I’ve seen it!  Not much seems to surprise me in the realm of estate settlement.

Having spent 18 years in perfecting the process of estate dissolution for my clients and those wanting to learn my area of expertise, I have uncovered a vast need in the country today that virtually no one is tending to.  And soon enough, it will be near epidemic level!  No one thinks about it until it actually happens and you find yourself in the midst of a crisis.

As our beloved parents leave the earth, they also leave behind one of the largest accumulations of stuff, more than any other generation in history.  The Depression Era is known for never throwing anything away, and not always very good at letting it go either.   Their parents, our grandparents, actually owned very little by comparison.  Therefore, their accumulation was not dealt with, but absorbed by our parents’ generation.  This leaves the boomer children with not only mom and dad’s stuff, but now they have to deal with multi-generational items at the same time.

As overwhelming as it is to handle the death of a parent, it becomes absolutely grueling when the kids have to dive into the estate face-first: divide the estate, handle feuds that arise, and clean out the house in a short period of time.

Then it occurred to me that the reason so many flounder in this area, is because there has never been anyone to show them how to go through the process in a logical and timely fashion.  No worries — help has arrived!

My book, The Boomer Burden — Dealing With Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff, is a must-have book on how to go through the process from beginning to end, offering trustworthy guidance every step of the way.  More on that later…

© 2009 Julie Hall