House Clearance A Delicate Time
Posted on 29/10/2020
How to Start Your House Clearance
If you are in the position where you are having to do a house clearance for someone you love then the chances are that person is not around anymore. Whether they have passed on or moved into a home, they will not be going back to their house and it is therefore your duty to sort through possessions and clear the house for resale.
Nobody is going to deny that losing a loved one is probably the worst thing to happen to a person but house clearances are a necessary part of that painful process and a lot of people have reported to have found them cathartic and an important part of the grieving and moving on process. This article will hopefully go just a small way to making the task of a house clearance slightly emotionally easier.
Often there can be an element of a time pressure on clearing a house and people might feel that it has to be done directly after the event. However, the housing market being the way it is, any property will probably take a long time to sell and as long as you are seen to be trying to sell it there may well not be any legal implications to leaving it a couple of weeks before going in. Give yourself a chance to miss the person before getting bogged down in the administration and practicalities of the aftermath.
Try not be a hoarder. It’s very easy to think that everything in your person’s house was there for a reason and somehow you do not have the right to be getting rid of any of it. This is not the case. All of the everyday things that you have anyway are probably only good for being disposed of, so there seems little point in worrying about giving these things away.
The really difficult things to get rid of are the things that have an emotional resonance with you and when you’re in the house it can feel like everything there is in some way important and relevant to your memory of that person. So here’s a tip; at a location that’s not the house you are clearing, close your eyes and picture the property. Things like furnishings will spring to mind instantly but most other things, will probably fade from conscious recollection. The things that don’t, the things that are ingrained in your memory, these are probably the things that matter more and the things you will miss. You may be surprised by what these are.
Try not to shut yourself away and ‘deal with the house’ as your role in the grieving process. Another person’s possessions are important to the people left behind, so try to make sure you include other people in the early stages of clearing. The earliest stage probably being take-the-things-you-want-to-keep. Being selfish at this stage and not allowing other people access to your person’s possessions will come back and haunt you and you don’t want to be that guy.
Finally, try not to feel the pressure of the task too much. Ultimately, these are just things and however much value you may put on them or indeed on yourself for sorting and clearing them – their owner is who matters. This is just stuff and it can be sold or replaced without it meaning a thing.
