As you may have seen in a post earlier in the year, John’s mom passed away in 2024. We completed our travel circuit for 2024 and arrived in Oklahoma in November 2024. We had some stuff we needed to do, such as finish caulking the trailer, insulating the dump tank pipes, putting up Christmas lights, making a Trash-mas tree, and … dealing with his mother’s estate.

John and his brother completed most of the “not real property” paperwork while we were still traveling. After arriving in Oklahoma, the real property paperwork was initiated and/or completed. A real estate agent was located for estate and other property that the family is not keeping. Originally, John’s brother was planning to buy his mom’s house. The house is on the larger and more expensive side for the area, but there are cheaper houses for sale that are in better condition with more land. In late December, he changed his mind and decided that we should sell it.

We have been cleaning out John’s mom’s house for the last week or so. Three 20 cubic yard dumpsters in two weeks, and we are only about half done. We expect one to three more dumpsters will be required. You might ask why we are not selling or donating everything. The biggest reasons are cost and time. It takes time to sell things. It took us about 18 months to sell about half of our possessions. We worked at least 20 hours per week on it. Our hourly wage was maybe a few dollars an hour. It also takes time to clean and donate possessions. Yes, they expect you to clean it and provide it in sell-able condition. Some places do not even accept furniture, and that is the largest volume of the possessions.

Yes, it is a shame and a waste, but the house is expensive to heat and cool. If you take 18 months to gather, clean and sell the estate possessions, you spend hundreds per month on electricity, gas, water, and taxes. You might even end up losing money. This does not even consider the limited time we are in Oklahoma or the incredible amount of effort and energy to just move stuff out of the house to a dumpster ten feet away.

We probably will not post much for January and maybe February.

You are not allowed to fill the dumpsters above the rim because they have to be covered for hauling. We filled all three to about 95% – 99% full, and we packed loose stuff into crevices.

Our New Year’s Resolution is to never clean out another house again.