Liquidating Lots of Stuff

A very long weekend of high drama has finally ended today - on a Wednesday! Our family decided that after eight years, it was time to stop spending $500 a month for Mom's stuff from her big house on Linda Isle to be stored in vaults at Bekins. We made the decision last Monday that we had to liquidate, then called lots of friends and family to come help us unload the vaults on Friday. Little did we know how much stuff was in those eight vaults! And once we had all of it unloaded from the rented U-Haul and about five pick-up trucks belonging to friends, we had completely filled our RV slab, the garage, driveway and the grass in the front yard. Who knew there was so much stuff?! We started at 7 AM on Friday and ended at 10 PM, just as it started to rain. Thankfully we had listened to the weather report and knew rain was coming, so Gary raced over to Home Depot and bought tarps, plastic and rolls of tape so we could cover all the stuff, much of which we had put under our huge canopy on the RV parking spot. And of course, it POURED rain that night. Still, there were dozens of cars parked outside at 6 AM the next morning for the 7 AM start of the garage/estate sale. We lost a few items to the rain (some linens in a box that got wet and a red tablecloth bled all over them plus some books that got soaked), but most of it was ok.

We published the sale on Craig's List - and believe me, that WORKS! We got rid of a ton of stuff on Saturday, in spite of the rain. We continued on Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday. In the end, we didn't make much money, but we got rid of a lot of junk. That's what was in the boxes - trinkets and trash, along with some big pieces of furniture that had been ruined by Mom's dogs peeing on it or chewing wood chair and table legs till they splintered. I had an expert come to look at the furniture to see if we could sell some of it at auction or on consignment. The only pieces she said were worth consigning were the two that I wanted. Oh well. At least we made enough money to pay for a week of Saint Norma's caregiving services along with the cost of U-Hauls, tarps, gas, pizzas, beer and sodas.

Speaking of Saint Norma, she sent her friends to buy stuff. And she kindly kept Mom and Jack from coming over to see us. I could only imagine how sad Mom would be to watch people going through all the things that meant so much to her for most of her 85 years. It made me sad too. But I got through it in spite of lumps in my throat from time to time. Thank God for Aleve.

I'm very happy to be on the other side of this painful process. There are a few items in our driveway tonight with a big "FREE STUFF/LIBERTE EL MATERIEL" sign and we've had a steady stream of folks stopping by to check it out and take an item or two or five. And no more big monthly payouts for storage. Hard to believe we paid over $40,000 to store that stuff, but we won't look back now, just forward to the joy of no more storage bills. Liquidation rocks!