empty house
Should we do something with Mom and Dad’s house? It’s been sitting empty for almost a year now.
It’s not the house I grew up in. It’s the house they moved to after they retired. But it has some of the same furniture that I remember from my childhood. And there are memories of family dinners and get-togethers on the patio out back. There are roses and trees they planted themselves and the flower garden out back my mother attended as long as she could. Curtains she sewed and family photos on the wall.
It’s a simple ranch house without much personality of it’s own. I remember thinking that the day I helped them move in. They lived there 20 years until it was time to “break up house-keeping” as my Dad put it the day he moved to a nursing home. In that time they left their mark on the place.
My brother feels the most attached to it. Maybe that is because he did live there briefly himself after graduate school and one of the bedrooms is still “his” room. Maybe it is because he is a bachelor and lives in an apartment so he doesn’t feel he has a place of his own. I think he still goes there and spends the weekend once in a while.
A year later and the clothes still hang in the closet and the car is still in the driveway. There is still food in the freezer. This might start sounding weird soon. I have taken a few things home with me and so has my sister. But it is really hard to think about disposing of the rest of it and selling the place.
July 23rd, 2005 @ 10:44 pm
My husband and I have dealt with similar circumstances within the past two years. It was very difficult, on many levels.
As to your inquiry about a good route through Kansas, I would highly recommend Hwy 56 following the Santa Fe trail. Baldwin City is especially beautiful in the fall, Overbrook has a wonderful quilt store, and Council Grove has many historical sites.
July 24th, 2005 @ 2:02 pm
You need to get it taken care of, There are taxes to be paid etc. Have a huge garage sale, and sell everything, then fix up the house if needed and sell it, Then divide it up amongst the estate, and bury your parents. OR you could get rid of all the stuff in it, and rent it out, but then you are responsible for taxes.
July 24th, 2005 @ 3:57 pm
We did bury them Mary Lou. We are not that weird.
July 25th, 2005 @ 5:53 pm
You probably do want to sell the home. If it’s vacant, you may enter the place someday to find that squatters had been there. Even if not, a leak, a spark, any number of things could cause severe problems.
And homes are meant to have people in them. I bet there would be people who would love what your parents started–the roses and trees.
Have a weekend with your siblings and other close friends and family and go through the house to find keepsakes, to chat, to share memories. And then donate the rest to a good cause and put it up for sale — for a new family to enjoy the roses someday.
Your parents will never be _really_ gone then. Not while one rose, one tree still stands.
Take care Bill.
(PS — but you know, weird is good, too.)