I work for a company that provides cleaning services for families after a person passes.
Many times it is just too emotional for them or they are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that a person has collected.
Often times we have encountered homes that are so packed with useless items that we have to hire extra staff to help haul it all out. The agreement with many of the families is that items we remove will either be sold or donated and it can be sad to see family heirlooms go into the trash or to a local thrift store. We have made some unusual discoveries during our assignments and there is one that sticks out in my mind in particular. The house was very old and was so packed with stuff that you really couldn’t get into the basement. My crew was assigned that part of the house and as we hauled the stuff out we realized that there was an old furnace right in the middle of the room. I found this odd because most of these units were along the wall that I had seen. As we cleared the area I was shocked to see that it was an old coal burning unit and I couldn’t help but wonder when the last time was that it had been used. We live in a region that has mild winters anyway and the homeowner had simply used a space heater when it got chilly. Why had they installed such a large heater to begin with? Once the space was empty we brought in the family to show them and they were shocked as well.