No one wants to lose someone special to them, but when it happens, there are often a number of things to do and tasks to accomplish. One of these is the packing up of the estate. It’s a difficult job to do and one that can be quite painful, but is necessary.
Go Room by Room
It’s helpful if you just move through the house and pack up each room. There is a greater sense of accomplishment when you do this. Start with one of the smaller rooms and then work your way through the remaining rooms.
Sort Everything
Before you pack anything up, divide everything in each room into four piles.
Save: These are the items you definitely want to keep and will be taking home. There may be different things that each family member wants, so these will all go into the
Maybe: These are things you can’t quite decide whether or not you should keep them. Put them in the maybe pile and you can decide later if they are that important.
Sell/Donate: In this pile, you can put anything you plan to get rid of through donation, giving away, or selling.
Discard: Anything that doesn’t need to be saved and has no real purpose can be destroyed and thrown away. Old checks or paperwork should be shredded before it’s tossed.
Hire a Packing Company
If you’re not up for the task of packing everything up, you can hire a company to do that for you. It’s a lot simpler to sort everything out and then let someone else do the rough work.
Hold an Estate Sale
You’ll likely have a large amount of furniture, dishes, and other household items once you’ve finished everything. This is a good time to donate them to a charity or you can sell them. Many people prefer to hold an estate sale where they can sell everything in one go, but others like to sell online, piece by piece. Which option is best for you? Only you can decide that.
Store Everything Else
Once everything is packed up, sold, or donated, you can store the rest in a storage unit until you’re able to deal with it. Some people prefer to do this with just about everything in order to eliminate the stress of what to do with the house. Once it is all packed up, they can deal with the belongings at a later date, when the loss isn’t quite so fresh.
Losing a loved one is never easy and having to go through their belongings can be difficult. If you can, schedule the packing over a few weeks or months and let yourself grieve before you tackle it.
If you’re in need of packing and storage services, contact Store Safe today to find out how you can save time with our services.