The Junk Whisperer: Decluttering a Hoarder’s House – Part III

Not to be overly dramatic, but I just finished erasing my parents’ lives. 

This year, I’ve been an archaeologist, archivist, historian, donor, salesperson, recycler and waste management professional. That is what it takes when you clean out a home people have lived in for 50 years.

In April, we moved my mom in with my sister in CT and my parents’ house in NJ was 50% cleaned out (related blog posts here and here). My winter cleanout consisted of prying open drawers overstuffed with clothing & paperwork from all the decades. 

I returned for 3 weeks this fall to finish the task. There is a fair amount of grief that comes with emptying and selling of a childhood home, the home where I was born and raised. It’s not so much that I am a junkaholic who needs to keep all the things, but there are long-forgotten symbols of our existence that deserve memorializing before trashing. 

Once again, my mom made me laugh as I went through box by box and bag by bag (plastic bags from stores that haven’t existed since she got married). My mom kept things she hadn’t used in decades, yet she couldn’t part with them. 

We found 40+ pairs of shoes in her closet, which might be every pair she ever owned. No matter that most had the soles worn through and broken straps repaired with packaging tape … she kept them all.

Nothing was thrown away without trying to tape it to death. My favorite was finding boxes Christmas lights with the word “decent” written on it, then crossed out and the word “broken” or “not working” written on it. 

She had backups to the backups. I can understand stocking toilet paper and medicines, but how many letter openers and alarm clocks need to be on standby? Was she a shopaholic? Yes. But it’s not even that my mom liked getting free stuff or getting a deal. Just paying full-price for the strangest items that sometimes just sat in packages all these years.

There were so many religious relics (like palms from Palm Sunday) scattered through the house that I wouldn’t be surprised if I went straight to hell because of all I threw out. 

Once I got into the attic, I filled the spare room 7 times. Let’s be clear, I didn’t HAVE TO go through every single thing. I WANTED to. From the handcrafted mementos from preschool to indelible, mass-produced plastics, it was a delight to walk down memory lane. I started decorating the walls with various pieces that really conjured up all the feels—a mini memorial before tossing them to the curb. 

Thankfully my mom’s diminishing cognitive function eliminated her emotional attachment to the house and its contents—something that was untrue for her even one year ago. 

The cleaning out task is complete, and here’s what I know from the experience. You can hold a cocktail of feelings in your heart at the same time, even when you feel you’ve moved on. It’s heartbreaking & healing. It’s funny & tragic. It’s shocking & numbing. It’s joyful & sad.