Well, let me start with some good news: WE’RE UNDER CONTRACT! I’m actually underselling a bit here – I’m closing NEXT WEEK. The bad news? Getting to this point has been a total nightmare. Did two of my neighbors happen to put their homes on the market at the exact same time as me? Did I overpay for flooring, only for my carpet installer to destroy a family heirloom and leave my home in total disarray? Did half of my moving crew no-show before wrecking my newly-installed carpet and refusing to cover the damages? Did a homebuyer discover a leaking pipe during the open house? Am I on the verge of a literal nervous breakdown? 

Spoiler: the answer is yes. To all of the above. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today – the honest realities of being an executor who’s getting a house ready for sale. So settle in for your Wednesday schadenfreude-y read – you can take solace in knowing that it all works out at the end. But I have learned a few more things since we last chatted, and I’m going to kick off with some tips for anyone who might find themselves in a similar situation. 

• Prepare for months 4 – 6. It’s so bad, you guys. Everyone warned me. My mom’s friends. The hospice staff. Every psychological professional on the internet. (It’s almost like all these people know what they’re talking about!) Caitlin, they said, you are going to be absolutely crushed by an anvil of grief, Looney Tunes-style, at some point between month 4 and 6. Did I listen? Did I prepare? Did I think it would happen to me? NO! And then May rolled around, and the reality of the situation sank in (she’s not coming back! We never get to talk again! It is the worst!), and I shut down. In turn, Dennis stepped up, called in the reinforcements, and took over until I found the will to pull myself off the floor (metaphorically, but also sometimes literally). So let me warn you: you are not the one person immune to grief. Plan for some extra help between months 4 and 6, even if you don’t think you’ll need it. 
• Prioritize firsthand sentimental. I say this as a woman who has cleared out nearly 5,000 square feet of stuff: prioritize the “firsthand sentimental” (read: pieces you know, love, and that bring up good memories) over the “secondhand sentimental” (read: anything you couldn’t pick out of a lineup, but love because it’s associated with your family or heritage or whatever). Watch this video one hundred times on repeat as you clean out your house.
• Ditch the “useful” things. WHY DID I KEEP A BOX OF TAPER CANDLES? Why did I, a woman who lives in the middle of the Los Angeles with concrete for miles in each direction, keep a bunch of antique yard tools? Why did I keep plastic holiday tablecloths? Because they were all good and useful and I could see that I’d need them someday. THIS IS A TRAP! I was just keeping myself trapped in the past. If these things are so useful, pass them off to someone who will use them NOW – they don’t deserve to sit in a storage unit for all eternity.
• You will bleed money. I’ll forever be grateful that my mom put our house in a trust – it’s going to save me a ton, long-term, and it allowed me to jump right into this sale process without waiting for probate to close – but keeping her house out of the estate means that I’ve been on the hook for 100% of the costs incurred. I know I’ll be able to pay myself back in a few short days, but covering the mortgage and bills and repairs has been tough. (If you’re leaving someone a property, try to make sure that they’re the beneficiary on a checking or savings account.)
• You’re going to need a junk pickup (or three). This house feels like the scene in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice where the brooms keep multiplying. WHERE IS ALL THIS STUFF COMING FROM? I’m proud of how diligent I was with donations – I worked so hard to make sure that everything ended up in a home, not a landfill – but one day, I was staring at a pile of 40 cracked plastic totes, and I had to call in the guys at 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Give yourself the grace to know that every item isn’t salvageable, and that’s okay! (I’ve gotten 3 trucks so far – spent $300 on the first, $500 on the second, and $800 on the third. In hindsight, a dumpster would have been more affordable, but I was doing the best I could.)
• ReSupply is your friend. Looking to offload bulky furniture? IT’S SO HARD. I’ve found ReSupply is the best-priced solution on the market – about half the price of LoadUp, in my experience – and they’ll take your pickup straight to a local ReStore, Goodwill, or the like. I wish I had found them sooner in my process!

ALRIGHT NOW FOR THE HOT GOSSIP. LET’S CATCH UP ON THE MESS. 

Let the Games Begin

To refresh your memory: my mom bought this house in 2004 (when I was 12!) for $520,000. There’s about 3,00 square feet of finished living spaces with a massive basement (that I’m still cleaning out, somehow, days before closing), a two-car garage, and the most fabulous landscaping in the neighborhood. We chose to list at $825,000 – $24,000 less than the most recently sold home on our block – in hopes of moving quickly. 

While I worked on sprucing up the inside, my realtor booked a photographer and captured a nice group of exterior photos. In late April – actually, the same day that my first post in this series went live! – she threw us on the MLS as “coming soon” with a target date of June 5^th. And then, the next day, my realtor called: my neighbor was also putting their house on the market, and they were going to beat us to the punch. 

Not just any neighbor, either – we share a backyard, separated only by the tree line of our garden. (You can see them up on the top right of that first picture – those tall ones are in our yard.) But there was also some good news: they were planning to hit the market at $939,000, which immediately put me at ease. It was the first time in the process where I realized things might be okay – fixing the dinged trim or scuffed paint didn’t seem as urgent now that there was a $114,000 difference in our asking prices. 

So imagine my surprise when, later that week, I received a Zillow push notification: another house on our street had been listed for $989,000. Scrolling through the listing, I assumed I was having a neurological issue. This wasn’t my neighbor! I didn’t know a third house would be on the market! And they were asking for a hell of a lot more than I could fathom, to boot. (To be fair to both of these homes, they each had fully-finished basements which added an extra 2,000 square feet of finished room to their total area. These prices were appropriate for the sizes of their homes, but they left me gobsmacked.) 

And that is how THREE HOUSES in my tiny development hit the market at once. The first went live at $989,000 on May 27^th, the second went live at $939,000 on May 31^st, and we sat in our little “coming soon” bubble at $825,000 as I scrambled to finish getting the home ready for sale. If you feel like you are drowning in home prep, a neighbor listing at $164,000 above your asking price is a welcome salve. This plot twist worked out in my favor, I think.

The Miracle Organizers

If you remember from our last update, my mom had booked a team of organizers to help me clean out the house before she passed. (This remains to be both the most morbid and generous thing she’s ever done for me.) In early May, about 4 months after she passed, I was finally ready for some heavy-duty decluttering…or so I thought. 

Enter: KS Organizing. (If you’re in the Philadelphia area, I cannot recommend this team enough.) I’d never worked with a professional organizer before, but Kate and the gang made me feel comfortable and understood, especially since they’d liaised with my mom prior to her passing. We worked together for 2 jam-packed days – from 9 AM to 3 PM – and the amount of work knocked out was INCREDIBLE. 

We decluttered, sure, but we also did so much more – they staged donations for me in our garage so I could sort through them easily AND they ended up packing my entire kitchen (!!!), dining room, and a number of other spaces. These 4 women saved me WEEKS of work. The next time I move, I’m calling an organizer first – they really knew how to help me think through the entire process, what’s worth keeping and donating, and the way that they packed the things worth keeping made it SO EASY to settle into my new space. (More on that in the next update!)

What I did not expect: THE TEARS. Why was I totally inconsolable after a 40+ year old bottle of O’Douls was mistakenly tossed in the trash? (Why have we even had it for so long? Doesn’t matter – I’ve never known a home without that dumb bottle sitting in the back of a fridge or cabinet.) Why was I inconsolable after seeing my mom’s old umbrella go in the donate pile? Why was I absolutely burnt out by noon each day? IT’S BECAUSE THIS PART SUCKS. It was agonizing seeing the home I’d loved being taken down and boxed up, bit by bit. I’m so glad I had help here – I couldn’t have done it alone. We wrapped all the organizing and packing the day before our carpet was scheduled to be replaced, and I was excited to be making such tangible progress, even if it was embarrassing to be weeping about ancient non-alcoholic beer in front of a bunch of strangers.

The Nightmare Flooring Company 

You know the saying “you get what you pay for”? Well, I believe that’s true, which is why I splurged on just over $22,000 of carpet and tile from Avalon Flooring. (It was a $15,000 deposit, which I mentioned in the last post, with $7,000 due upon completion.) They were my highest quote by a mile, but I really enjoyed the in-store and measurement team members, and their bid had included furniture removal and replacement, which would save me a ton of time and effort. I threw down my credit card in hopes of taking some more coordination off my plate.

And then…the install happened. I’ve been around the block a few times, but I’ve never seen a job site left in such total and utter disarray. I couldn’t enter the bathroom. They had somehow turned on the tub, so everything they tossed inside had been soaked. Furniture was left outside. The team broke a number of precious family heirlooms, didn’t even attempt the furniture replacement I’d paid for, and left me with piles of carpet shreds, staples, nails, and foam strewn about my house. (The kicker? I had removed almost everything from each room and was home THE ENTIRE TIME. If they’d needed help moving things or, you know, wanted to fess up to breaking things, I was RIGHT THERE!)

To their credit, the Avalon team was apologetic. But they also left me with a ton of homework: I had to handle appraisal on the broken items. I had to figure out how to pull my home back together. And when you’re dealing with probate and grief and moving and being 2,500 miles from home for over a year…it was just too much. I paid my invoice and let it go. (At least it makes a fun read for you, right?)

I’ve worked with a few flooring contractors in the region – Airbase Carpet & Tile Mart stands out as a great one; they just couldn’t meet my deadline – but I really picked wrong here. I got 80% of the value (they didn’t even tear out some of the old carpet, just threw carpet on top, not even tamped down!) for 120% of the cost. If you’re in the PA/DE/NJ area, just know that they will throw their contractors under the bus in an attempt to eschew accountability – it’s just not worth it. (To be fair, one of the contractors was weird. He used the bathroom with the door open; he re-entered my home one night after they’d left without even knocking…just a horrible experience, overall.) 

You might get something great if you work with Avalon – I thought I would! – but you’ll more likely be left with a big mess to clean up and a laundry list of tasks to earn any type of reimbursement. (A rare instance where throwing money at the problem actually made more problems, not fewer. I was just trying to make it easy on myself! Instead, I paid $22,000 for the honor of destroying things my mom kept safe just for me. Not including the photos because I’ll start crying and this post will never get done. Life is so great right now!!!!!!)

If nothing else, I do love the wool carpet I chose (from Karastan in “full moon,” which is the PERFECT mid-toned neutral hue) and can sleep easy at night knowing that if the new owners do choose to tear it out, at least it won’t spend forever rotting in a landfill. WE PROCEED.

Don’t Trust Taskrabbit (Duh)

I can hear my grandmother chastising me: “sometimes, it’s like you have no common sense.” And once again, in this case, I HAD ZERO COMMON SENSE. After the flooring had been replaced, I needed a hand loading a U-Haul with heavy boxes from the basement and a number of 8′ and 9’ plants. (I inherited a full-on jungle, as you might have noticed above. I couldn’t keep them all, but if you happen to be in Delaware, you’re likely to spot some of these at a Brew Haha near you -they’re owned by one of Den’s best friends, who graciously helped clean me out. It’s nice that I can visit them now, too! Keep this in mind if you’re ever trying to offload plants – a local coffee shop might be happy to take them off your hands.) 

ANYWAY. So when I needed moving help, who did I turn to? Not a certified mover, or an experienced mover, or even a professional mover: I turned to TaskRabbit, like any good millennial city-dweller. THIS IS SUCH A DUMB IDEA. DO NOT REPEAT MY MISTAKES. 

The day the move was scheduled, I emailed customer service that only one helper had been assigned. They assured me that two helpers were assigned. You know who showed up? ONE GUY. The other helper sent me a text that he was running late, and then he just…ghosted. I jumped in to start moving, but I’m slow and weak (it’s sad, it’s true) and our progress ground to a halt just as a thunderstorm hit. 

Now, I’m going to be honest: this new carpet had been laid for THREE DAYS. I was PSYCHOTIC about the carpet. I asked the mover to wipe his shoes each time, to be really cognizant of the weather, and to try not to drag any mud inside. He responded by never wiping his shoes and by permanently staining the carpet with mud. Does TaskRabbit care? Nope! They haven’t even refunded me for the second mover, two months later, despite their repeated assurances that this isn’t their “normal standard of care.” 

So let me make the mistake for you: DO NOT USE A MOVER FROM AN APP. I know that the app is easy. I know that you have decision fatigue. I know the app even works great when you’re trying to transport a cabinet across town or when you need someone to hang your curtains at the last minute. But this is not the place to skimp! If your mover damages your house (or forces you to push your photoshoot date, like this one did – I had to get the flooring cleaned again!), you are going to want a partner with actual accountability and not a faceless aggregator that’ll blame its own independent contractors. That night, I tried countless times to reach the TaskRabbit team – no one responded. Zero stars. Say it with me: DON’T USE TASKRABBIT FOR IMPORTANT THINGS!

Do Trust Real Movers

Unable to reach anyone at TaskRabbit, I reached out to the team at Tetris Masters Elite Moving. Isa and Demetrius were immediately responsive; they asked for photos of the items being moved, they asked for photos of how the truck was currently packed, and they communicated a plan to arrive after they’d wrapped their first job of the day. This is what moving should be like. 

They kicked off the process by totally re-loading my U-Haul – the TaskRabbit had made some questionable stacking and placement decisions – and they flew through the loading of remaining boxes and furniture items. But man, they won my heart with the care they showed to my mom’s plants. After weeks of hearing “you should just toss them” or “they’re just plants,” hearing a mover say “my sister told me that plants can hear us when we talk to them, so I want to take really good care of these guys” made my heart soar. (The plants have been in their new home for almost 2 months now and are thriving, thanks to these sweetie pies!)

So again, let this serve as a glowing recommendation: Philly, if you ever need a mover, hire Tetris Masters. I paid full price and feel genuinely lucky to have worked with such a thoughtful, honest, conscientious team. I can’t believe that something good happened! (Let’s also give a round of applause to Dennis, who was on the hook for unloading this entire 15’ U-Haul after I drove it to its new home and who managed the schlepping process with aplomb. He’s really the best.) 

Set The Stage

That brings us to the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the staging process. I always thought that this would be the fun part – I imagined advice from the EHD team (Em and I even talked about bringing the gang to Delaware!), new bedding combos, Turkish towels, sculptural ceramics on shelving…But I just didn’t have the juice. So when my realtor offered to take over this process, I was thrilled to hand off the reins. (One might even say that I threw the reins like a grenade – it was such a relief to take this off my plate.) 

I really like how we timed this part, though. At the end of May, we wrapped all of our renovation work and the overwhelming majority of the clean-out process before embarking on a two-week trip to Ireland with 13 (!!!) members of Den’s family. We left the keys with our realtor, who presided over the deep clean, staging, and photography. 

IT WAS SUCH A RELIEF. But it was also strange and emotional to see my childhood home through someone else’s eyes – with less art, with fewer rugs, with no personal mementos, with rearranged furniture, without all the plants and signs of life. I was glad to be 3,200 miles from home.

From across the pond, we watched the photography come in. We watched the Zillow listing go live. And then, I watched my text messages as my realtor sent a photo of an outdoor pipe from our open house: “Do you know what this is?” 

Turns out, a visitor to our open house had discovered a tiny hole in the water pipe that fed my mom’s irrigation system. You couldn’t see it with the naked eye, but in a video, I could see a bit of water spewing out – the area where the hose is attached had cracked. My realtor turned off the irrigation system for the rest of the open house, and when we returned from Ireland, I spent a little over $500 on a plumber who installed fresh piping and a fresh hose bib. Crisis averted! I pray that it’s my last big expense. (Cross your fingers for me, okay?)

Which Brings Us To Today

PHEW. Can you believe there’s stuff I left out? (Here’s one: the day that I fixed that pipe, my rental car got smashed in front of the house by a mini bulldozer that was repairing all the drains in our neighborhood. When it rains, IT POURS.) But we’re almost to the finish line – I’m heading to the office to sign all of my closing paperwork this Friday (!!!), and we’re formally closing early next week. 

I cannot WAIT to give you the full breakdown – everything I spent, the offers we received, the offer we accepted, how my neighbor’s houses sold (or didn’t sell), where Dennis and I are living now…there’s SO MUCH to dive into. I’ve been keeping secrets! I CAN’T WAIT TO BLAB!

But more than that, I genuinely hope this series helps you think a bit about your home and your family and what you’ll leave behind when the time comes. My mom did everything to make this process easy for me, and it’s still the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life – if given the choice between 24/7 caregiving and having to clear out a home of this scale again, I’d go for the caregiving every time. Saying goodbye to this house (and to all the things in it) has really broken my heart again, but in a new, fresh way. Discovering pieces I’ll never be able to ask about stinks. Knowing I can never come back stinks. Realizing that I lost all definitions of home – my mom and the place I grew up – stinks. THE WHOLE THING STINKS! And I’ll speak from experience: anything you can do to help your loved ones through this process will mean the world to them one day in the future. 

In closing, though, I just need to say how much I appreciate all of you and how much your kind words mean to me. Seeing you talk about Brenda means the world to me. It’s hard to reply – I get weepy, and then the day is a wash – but please know that you have all helped me more than you’d ever know. AND THERE’S A HAPPY ENDING COMING NEXT WEEK! I’m almost done. THANKS FOR BEING HERE WITH ME. xxxxxxxxx