Paperwork and files

Paper just accumulates. I can’t explain it. A lot of it comes into our homes every day in the mail and if we don’t have a system for handling it, it can quickly start to pile up. Suddenly a few pieces of mail have become fifty pieces of mail, then more.

Most of it is not important, but we have to sort through it all to find the things that are. This takes time, of course, and it tends to take a backseat to all the chores that hit us when we get home from work -- getting dinner together, walking the dog, maybe a quick trip to get groceries.

Many of our clients have had massive amounts of paper to deal with. We see a lot of junk mail, which is pretty easy to throw away, but we also see a lot of papers with sensitive information that needs to be shredded. The real issue is that there is usually, deep inside each file cabinet or each pile of paper, something with information that needs to be kept. This means somebody (often our staff) has to sort through all the files and papers to uncover the things that are needed. Then the rest can be shredded or discarded.

Maria

Maria’s brother, Jack, hired us to move her from her Brooklyn apartment to a residence near him in Maryland. The apartment was the same one they had grown up in. Jack left home to join the army when he was a young man, but Maria stayed and lived with her parents until both of them died many years later.

She was a solitary person. She had friends from church, but none of them were close enough to have been invited to her home. When we started working with her, she told us that nobody else had been inside – other than the building super – in twenty years.

She had kept people out because she was embarrassed for anyone to see how much paper she had accumulated. It started with her parents, eighty years earlier.  Her father was evidently a “pack rat” and neither he nor her mother ever managed to come up with a good system for disposing papers they didn’t need. They just kept it all and boxed it up over the years. Maria inherited these papers and well as these habits and eventually the second and third bedrooms became nothing more than storage for papers and files.

Maria was paralyzed by it all and, to be honest, I felt a little paralyzed when I first saw it. It felt like it would not be possible to sort it all, even if we worked for months.

But Sarah on our staff was able to get into a groove with Maria. When Sarah is not assisting our clients she is a yoga instructor. This gives her a calm, soothing presence. By giving Maria time to get used to her and trust her not to throw anything away carelessly, she managed to convince Maria to agree that some papers could be discarded. They made a list together. It started with things like “expired coupons, magazines from more than two years ago, and old grocery lists.” As they worked, Sarah would add to the list (all with Maria’s approval), until finally Sarah was able to throw away roughly ninety percent of the papers she found.  

The longer the list became, the quicker the work progressed. Eventually they worked themselves down to papers that had belonged to Maria’s parents. She had always felt it was disrespectful to toss any of their papers, but Sarah patiently showed her how much of their papers were things exactly like those on Maria’s discard list. Slowly, Maria allowed herself to part with these papers as well.

The best news was that they were able to find a bunch of papers Maria needed. By the end, they had a box of financial documents that Maria would need in her new apartment, and a box with tax records from recent years. They also had more than a few boxes of family memorabilia. It was a little more than we wanted her to keep, but a lot less than she would have kept if we hadn’t sorted so diligently with her.

If you have a lot of papers collected, you are probably beating yourself up for not tackling it. The truth is that sorting papers and files is excruciatingly boring. Don’t be hard on yourself if you’ve let it go. But please keep in mind that if you don’t handle it now, you may find that someone else has to do this chore for you one day.

Start by preparing a list of things you need to keep: tax records going back seven years, documents related to your property if you own it, records of stock purchases, etc. Everyone’s situation is unique, so you should consult with an accountant or financial adviser as you prepare this list.

With this list in hand, commit to sorting your files in 2-3 hour increments and stay focused on the task during that time. Keep anything on your list but try to be committed to discarding the rest.

You should shred anything that includes sensitive information like your social security number, bank account numbers, or health records. There are services that will shred on-site and do not cost that much, relatively. This will give you the freedom to shred a lot at one time.

And if you’re feeling discouraged, remember Maria. It took time and patience, but she managed to turn that

Loss of privacy and control

We are sometimes hired to declutter and organize someone’s home because of a new medical condition that requires changes in how they live. Sometimes, in fact, we are called because someone is in the hospital or rehab and cannot be discharged until they have a safe home to return to.

Some clients will now be using a walker or wheelchair, for example, and will need their home re-configured to allow room to maneuver these tools. Some will need a full-time caregiver, and will need to free up space to accommodate them.

For many of our clients this is an inconvenience or a sad reminder of their loss of independence. But they are eager for it to commence so they can return home and resume their old life as much as possible. However, for our intensely private clients, these changes can be emotionally devastating. These clients have spent years, even decades, making their home a personal sanctum, untouched by anyone else. Suddenly, they are helpless as others descend on the space, making decisions without our client’s input.

I often think of our client Dan as an excellent example of this. Dan rented a small one-bedroom apartment in the East Village. He was in his fifties and had fallen quite ill and spent months in rehab. His doctors were ready to discharge him and he was eager to move back home, but there were a few obstacles. He lived on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator, he was quite a collector, and his apartment was kind of a disaster.

Dan was an intensely private person, and he didn’t want anyone seeing his apartment, not even his landlord. As a result, his apartment had not been painted in thirty years and many things had fallen into a state of disrepair. At one point the floor of the bathroom had started to sink. Instead of having his landlord repair it, Dan bolted a heavy cable to the toilet and then secured the cable into the bathroom wall so that the toilet was essentially suspended from the wall and didn’t add weight to the floor.

Dan had not kept his home clean. It is possible cleaning was never a priority to him, or he may have cleaned more when he was healthy but found it too difficult when his illness progressed. In either case, by the time we were hired the situation had gotten really bad. The few pots and pans he owned were caked with grease and food remnants, his clothes and bedding reeked, and there was a visible layer of dust on every one of the thousands of books he had crammed into his small study.

He had managed to prevent anyone he loved from ever seeing this until, suddenly, he had no choice. He could not come home until the place was deemed suitable for him, and he would need a caregiver to stay with him. Home healthcare agencies will not send caregivers into homes like this because they are not safe or healthy work environments. Dan had appointed his father to be his power of attorney, so his father hired us to clean up his apartment.

As my staff bagged all his clothes to be cleaned and boxed up all his old magazine for discarding, I imagined Dan’s anger and embarrassment at suddenly having his home dismantled, cleaned, and re-assembled by complete strangers.

There is no way to predict when or if any of us will be taken ill. But I am sure, when Dan looks back, he regrets not putting his things in order. If his apartment had been uncluttered and tidy, his family would not have had to get as deeply involved as they did. He is home now. He is furious about some of the things that were discarded, but at least he is home.

If you are a private person like Dan, you may want to put a plan in place for how you want your things handled if you become incapacitated or die. It is not a bad idea to put together instructions in your will. You can even specify a few companies that you would trust to sort your things, and you can specify that your family not be involved. If you don’t do so, the courts will naturally turn to them first.

If you don’t designate someone as your power of attorney (something we should all do as soon as we are adults), then your state will follow a formal process of deciding who this should be. It could be a parent, or a child, for example. If you have other, non-relatives, who you would trust more to understand your wishes, you should designate them legally now.

You might consider putting into writing that your executor or power of attorney hire someone from an organization like the National Association of Senior Move Managers (of which we are a proud member), for example, or the National Association of Professional Organizers. The key is to specify these things now, before it is too late.

Disposing of prescription medications

Excess medication needs to be discarded carefully. If it is thrown out in the garbage, there is always the possibility that drug addicts will find it. If it is flushed down the toilet, the ingredients can get into the water supply and cause public health risks.

The best thing to do with old medication is to try to return it to the pharmacy that sold it to you. Some pharmacies have programs to take drugs back so it’s worth asking about this. Unfortunately, many pharmacies these days have opted out of taking back the medications, meaning it is up to you to dispose of them properly.

The best solution we’ve found for clients’ used medications is to dump the drugs out of their containers into a plastic bag – a garbage bag or even a small storage bag – and fill that bag with something gross. We often dump tomato sauce into it, or used kitty litter, or excess paint from an old can. The key is to make the contents of the bag so disgusting that a desperate drug addict will not take the drugs. Now tie up this bag and drop it into a larger garbage bag with your regular trash.

This may seem pretty extreme lengths to go to just to throw something away, but we’ve always felt it was important to do this properly. The potential repercussions seem too high.

For the bottles and boxes themselves, we recommend either removing the label with your name on it or using a magic marker to cover up your details. Do not dispose of the label in the same bag as the medication itself. The containers can usually be recycled.

It takes a few extra steps but it’s worth it to know you’re disposing of your medication properly.

The gift of giving your things to someone you love

I adored my maternal grandmother, Gladys. She was calm, smart, and thoughtful. She always wore a string of pearls, and I coveted them when I was a little girl. She had told my mom that she wanted me to have them so, after she died, my mom had the pearls re-strung for me. I love this necklace, and I always think of my grandmother when I wear it.

I think it was so kind of my grandmother to remember what I wanted and leave me that. And only that. If she had bequeathed me a lot of other things – furniture, china, etc. – I would have had to go through the guilt-ridden process of letting it all go. Or I would have had to pay to store it. Or I would have had to cram it in all into our Brooklyn apartment. Instead, I have one string of pearls that I love and no possessions which became, frankly, a burden.

My husband’s grandmother, Ruth, did something equally smart. In the last few years of her life, she offered jewelry to people periodically. I admired a clunky silver bracelet of hers, so one day when I came to visit she had bagged it up for me, ready to take home. When I wore it to a family wedding a few months later, she beamed with pride. I wore it to her next few birthdays. And I wore it to her funeral. I continue to wear it to this day.

We are always encouraging clients to make nice gifts before they die. This allows you to make sure you’re giving something your loved ones want. If you offer something to someone and they do not want it, you can select someone else who will really want it. Then you have not made the mistake of bequeathing something to someone who will not appreciate it the way you always did.

Or if there is a hobby that you loved but no longer enjoy, like golfing or sculpting, imagine how great it would be to know that your tools are being used by someone who wants to get into these hobbies but can’t afford the right equipment. Instead of letting your golf clubs gather dust in your basement, give them to a neighbor’s child who is just getting started. And if no one wants your jewelry or golf clubs? Donate them. Let a stranger benefit.

I am not suggesting that you give away things you need, like your bed or coffee cups. Or that you should give away anything you are still using. But if there are things you have always cherished and hope to pass along, like jewelry, you may find comfort by either gifting them now or making sure you have arranged for someone to receive something you know they will love.

And if you do decide to gift them, think about the joy you will feel getting to see your loved ones enjoy your gifts. Why wait until you’re gone to give it to them when you can both find joy in the gift right now?

Old paint cans

After a home renovation project, it can be helpful to save some paint cans in case of chips or wall damage. But, in time, these can really start to add up. They take up space and are a fire hazard. Unfortunately, getting rid of them is not as easy as just taking them out to the curb on garbage day.

In New York City paint cans can be recycled but the rules are tricky. The cans can have some paint in them, but the paint needs to be completely dried out and caked onto the can.

For cans with just a little wet paint inside, open them up and let them dry completely. This may take a couple of days. Once the paint is dry, toss the cans recycling.

For cans with more paint, the job is a little messier. We usually use two garbage bags – one nestled inside the other. This way if one bag rips, the other one is providing back up protection. Fill the inner bag with something absorbent, like paper shredding or cat litter. You can now pour the excess paint directly into this bag. Then seal this bag carefully and toss it out with regular garbage. Please be careful about the fumes and don’t put this garbage bag in your home.

Let the cans dry out and add them to recycling.

Many communities will hold events where you can bring hard-to-dispose of things like old paint cans. In New York, #lowereastsideecologycenter, among others, has community events to take old paints.

An artist’s legacy

We have been hired by many families who are emptying the homes of artists and, I have to tell you, it breaks my heart when a family is faced with a large collection of art created by someone they love.

I’m not talking about super-successful artists with strong sales records or artists represented by galleries. These works should be handled professionally. I’m talking here about people who created art as a hobby, keeping 99% of the pieces they created.

The art is often beautiful. The art is often moving. The problem? There’s a whole lot of it. We’ve had cases where hundreds of pieces are left behind. And the sad truth is that nobody loves a collection like this as much as the artist themselves did. Now the artist is gone but the collection remains.

The best solution we’ve had is to make the art a central part of a memorial service. Make the memorial a tribute to your loved one’s work. And ask everyone who attends a memorial service to select at least one piece of art to take home with them. Honesty helps here. People want to help after a death, so give them a very specific role. You can say something like this:

“Please bring at least one piece home with you. Even if you don’t plan to keep it yourself, please find a good home for it by giving it to someone who will love it or donating it to an organization you know who can make good use of it. You will be helping us out greatly with this act.”

If there is still work after the memorial, you can try donating what remains. We’ve had success with this, but it’s unlikely you’ll find a donation center that wants more than a few pieces from the collection. So, even after donating to several places, it’s likely you’ll still have pieces left. Sadly, at this point disposal may be your only option.

The families of these artists know how painstakingly long the artist spent on each piece. A spouse, child, or good friend of a deceased artist can often remember hearing the deceased talk about each piece as they made it. I always try to remind people to not get caught up in thoughts like “Bob would be mortified if he knew we discarded of some of his art.” Instead, try to remember that creating the art is what gave the artist pleasure and they reaped the benefits of that creative process while they were living. What remains, after their death, is just a physical memento. Sometimes taking digital photos of each piece can make the process less painful.

For the art supplies themselves, in New York City there is a wonderful non-profit called Materials for the Arts (www.materialsforthearts.org). They have a huge warehouse where art teachers in New York City can go for free supplies. They accept paint, fabrics, beads, craft supplies, canvasses, and much more.

If you are an artist yourself reading this, I have a hard truth for you: if you leave behind a lifetime’s worth of art you will be, without realizing it, putting a heavy burden on your family and friends. There are some things you can do to make this easier for them:

1. Start to give your art away now; if anyone has mentioned that they would like a piece of your work, ask them to come pick one out. They can either take it now or you can make a note that they will take it after your death.

2. Have an honest conversation with your spouse, children, or friends. Tell them you don’t expect them to find the perfect home for every piece you made. Tell them it’s okay to dispose of some of it. They will remember these words later and it will make them feel better if they do need to dispose of any of it.

Jewelry

Small, easy to move, and desirable – I have come to think of jewelry as the polar opposite of pianos. More often than not, when we are handling an estate with jewelry, there is someone in the family who wants to keep it. This is, by far, the best outcome for anything we handle. We love to see heirs happily accept gifts from estates.

If there isn’t anyone who wants it, jewelry can often be sold without a lot of effort. Fine jewelry – jewelry made of silver or gold or containing gems – is easy to sell. Even costume and vintage jewelry, which do not have the same inherent value, can be desirable and, therefore, sale-able.

If the jewelry can’t be sold, there are plenty of thrift shops that will happily take it as a donation. Jewelry doesn’t take up much space so shops can accept a lot of it.

Doris

Doris was a wealthy widower who died without heirs or many friends. She had a large collection of jewelry, including a ridiculously large gem that looked like a diamond but was set on a simple, cheap ring. We had a jewelry dealer meet us at the apartment to test it. She weighed it and found it to be 7.5 carats – quite sizable. Then she studied it and measured its density with a small portable device that measures the thermal conductivity of a gem.

The test appeared to show it was a genuine diamond, but as she studied the gem carefully herself, she began to have doubts about the accuracy of the device. The setting concerned her. A large expensive diamond would typically be set on a large and expensive ring. She was also concerned by the fact that the ring was kept in a jewelry box with an assortment of costume jewelry. She could not come to any final conclusions about it herself but advised us to show it to an appraiser.

We brought it to a jewelry appraiser at an auction house. He ran the same kinds of tests as the dealer but he had more equipment and better lighting and he was able to determine, with confidence, that it was real. He made an offer to buy it for $20,000. This was nice but we needed a second opinion before we agreed to a sale.

Next I took the ring to a private jeweler on Madison Avenue located a floor above a boutique clothing shop. There are no signs for the shop. You ring the buzzer just as if you are visiting a friend, and are asked to identify yourself before you are admitted upstairs. Inside, you find yourself in a huge apartment that has been converted into a private store. Jewelry cases line every inch of wall space, and the whole place glitters from the light reflecting off of gems.

The first time I had an appointment, I overheard another client ask if she could buy some “cruise” jewelry. It turns out she was looking for jewelry that was real, and nice, but not as valuable as her regular jewelry, in case it got lost or stolen during her trip. She paid $10,000 for a “cruise” bracelet.

The jeweler studied Doris’ ring carefully. He made a lot of notes and called over a colleague for a second opinion. They were also baffled by the modest setting, but they became convinced that the gem was real. Ultimately they paid Doris’ estate, close to $36,000, almost double what the auction house had offered. The Estate Executor agreed to this sale.

I don’t want readers to get lofty ideas from Doris’ story. Most of our clients have some nice pieces to sell or give away, but the values never come close to this amount. It was a once in a lifetime diamond for us.

The good news is that you have options with jewelry. If you don’t have time, you can store it somewhere safe until you can focus on selling it. Once you’re ready, there are a lot of dealers and auction houses interested in fine jewelry. Always get at least a second opinion before committing to a sale and consider hiring an appraiser if the value of the piece seems to warrant the cost of an appraisal.

Furniture

Furniture is the one common denominator among all our clients – everyone who moves and every estate we empty has furniture that is no longer needed by our clients. And furniture is, sadly, extremely challenging to sell or donate.

Many of our clients remember exactly how much they spent on their furniture. In some cases, they recall, as young newlyweds, saving for months to buy a bedroom suite or a dining set. We also often work with people who have inherited pieces from parents or grandparents. These well-meaning relatives had told them, with great confidence, that their furniture was valuable. But, unfortunately, being antique does not mean it is valuable.

The problem is that the original price paid for a piece of furniture has little-to-no impact on the price you can expect to sell it for years later in the re-sale market. The re-sale market is entirely driven by current trends in home décor.

These days people are mostly buying a style of furniture known as Mid-Century Modern or Danish Modern. This style is sleek, without any flourishes or embroidery. It is typically made of light wood, and has simple lines and profiles.

Danish modern furniture only has value because it is trendy now. That will change as tastes change. Nobody knows what will be popular in another ten or twenty years. Maybe children born in 2050 will grow up and develop a love for French country style sofas with striped silk upholstery, or maybe dark, heavy, oak furniture will make a resurgence. The market for re-sale furniture is as unpredictable as any other market.

One reason furniture poses such a problem is that it is expensive to move. So, even if you find an auction house to consign it, you will need to pay a mover to wrap it and transport it to the auction house. And once it’s at the auction house, the auction house staff has to be paid to move it around before, during, and after the auction. Then, once it sells, someone has to pay to have it picked up.

Also, and this is obvious, furniture takes up a lot of space. That’s what makes it furniture. If you run an auction house or a consignment shop, space is a valuable commodity. If a piece of furniture doesn’t sell quickly, it’s taking up space that could be used for other valuable items. The name of the game is sell things fast so you can bring in more to sell. Even with a piece of furniture that seems valuable, there remains the danger of it not selling and taking up space that would be better used for more easily sold items.

So, if you think about the crew needed, time involved, and potential risks, you realize that a single piece of furniture has to sell for a lot of money in order to make all these expenses worthwhile. And it’s not like one can put it out with the trash if it doesn’t sell. Disposal will have costs. For these reasons many dealers and auction houses will pass rather than take the risk.

Our clients sometimes tell us that their friends or neighbors saw a piece of furniture just like the one our client has selling for a lot of money in a high-end antique shop. More often than not the pieces that are available for sale at high prices are originals, by exceptional designers. There are designers that can occasionally buck the trends and garner high prices, so it’s always worth checking to make sure you aren’t holding one of these, but most people we meet tend to have reproductions, which can be almost value-less.

Donating furniture is also much harder than it should be. Again, a crew has to be hired. Each item has to be wrapped and carefully lifted onto a truck then delivered to the thrift store that will ultimately sell it and, hopefully, raise money for a good cause.

The thrift stores need to be picky about what they take for donation because they have the same space constraints that auction houses and dealers have. If they take a large, heavy piece of dark wood furniture, they know it might sit in their shop for weeks or months without any interested buyers, even if it is priced at a low amount.

Are you storing furniture in the hopes of giving it to your grandchildren or heirs one day? I am really sorry to tell you but there is a good chance they will not want it. Even if is well made and useful, if it is not popular, most people will not want it.

If you have pieces that you no longer use or need, I encourage you to start the process now of selling or donating them. If you have time, there are some reputable national online furniture re-sellers, like Chairish.com or Facebook Marketplace. Be aware that sales like this can take a lot of time to finalize, and please don’t allow strangers into your home.

Or consider selling very locally – put your furniture out front on the next nice Saturday with a big price tag on it and prepare to haggle with potential buyers. You might just find a neighbor with a truck willing to pay more than a dealer ever would.

Clothes and handbags

Until the day we’re hired to move a nudist colony, we’ll always be dealing with our client’s clothes. And it’s rare to have a client who does not have more than they need, in many cases they have many outfits that do not even fit them anymore. So, we’re constantly donating clothes and, in some cases, selling them.

The resale market is really only for couture clothing, and high end labels like Armani, Galliano, and Pucci which generally sell for a small fraction of the cost to buy them new. When it comes to sales, handbags tend to do the best. We had a client years ago who saved roughly twenty couture handbags. They were all in pristine condition and she had kept the original packaging. When we sold these bags, she made enough money to cover the entire cost of her move to the West Coast. This is rare. Most of our clients who are able to sell clothing make only modest amounts of money.

Other than couture, it is nearly impossible to make much money selling used clothes. For the majority of our clients, the best option is to donate. But even donating clothes has become more difficult as thrift stores have gotten pickier about the styles they will take and the amount of clothing they will accept.

Dorothy

We were hired by Dorothy’s children because she was on the hoarding spectrum and they were worried about her safety. She was a Level One hoarder so the conditions were not necessarily unsanitary or terribly unsafe, but – like most Level One hoarders, she was on the cusp of living in an unsafe environment.

Her main passion was clothing. She loved to shop. She shopped at the fanciest department stores and boutiques in Manhattan. A lot. When we met her, she had not only filled her closets with couture blouses, sweaters, and dresses, but she had also purchased and filled four eight-foot garment racks. And she had draped clothing on every surface imaginable.

Her favorite designers were Yves Saint Laurent, Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, and Chanel. And the vast majority of her clothing had never been worn. We know this because many of the tags, showing astronomical prices, were still attached. We handled blouses with prices higher than the monthly rent for a New York apartment.

Dorothy mostly wanted to keep her clothing, but she also recognized that she had too much of it. Since there is a market for couture clothing, we offered to consign anything she didn’t want to keep.

She was happy to hear this and agreed to sell a number of pieces. She felt they were too good to donate, but she liked the idea of making money by selling them. So, we shipped them off to Linda’s Stuff, one of the largest couture clothing re-sale shops online. We were relieved that we had found a solution to help Dorothy manage her belongings and take back some space in her home.

But, as the first sales on Linda’s Stuff were concluded and the results were reported to her, Dorothy realized that things were selling for much less than what she had paid. She immediately canceled all future sales. We tried to convince her to donate and she did donate a small amount but, ultimately, kept much more than she needed.

There’s no benefit to having more clothes than you need. Having more of it does not necessarily make getting dressed easier. The opposite, in fact, is often true. People with pared-down closets are not overwhelmed with options each morning as they reach for an outfit. There is a whole fashion movement steering people to maintain a small, flexible, wardrobe.

If you have a large clothing collection, I suggest culling it periodically and getting rid of anything that you do not wear regularly. You might find there is someone in your life who can make good use of the things you no longer wear, and you can have fun sharing your clothing with them.

In fact, a number of years ago I was part of a tradition where a bunch of girlfriends would get together regularly for a “naked lady party.” Everyone would bring clothes they no longer wore and it became a giant swap meet. All of our friends would try on one another’s discards and, in the end, quite a lot of the clothing would have a new home.

Even without a naked lady party (or “clothing exchange” or “frock swap” if you prefer a less scandalous name), the options for donating clothing are still pretty good. You just need to take the time to sort what you are donating and make sure you are not passing along anything damaged or soiled. Some places will only want a limited number of bags of used clothes, so you may need to donate to multiple locations and you may have to bring donations in yourself rather than relying on a pick-up.

For couture pieces, there are a number of online re-salers, including Linda’s Stuff and The RealReal, worth contacting. But set your sales expectations appropriately low. If you are comfortable selling for much less than you paid, these could be a good option for you.

Fur coats were once the height of fashion and a mark of luxury and wealth. Believe it or not, today you often cannot give them away. The issue is that the market has declined drastically, due to ethical concerns about treatment of animals. And, the small market that still exists is not interested in second hand coats. They want something new. So we’ve had donation centers actually turn fur coats away.

If you do have a fur coat, call some local animal shelters, such as an ASPCA. They may take your coat as well as your used linens or towels. They cut the coats into small pieces and line kitten’s and puppies’ cages with it. The animals, which are often weaned from their mothers too young, are said to sleep and eat better because they think they are cuddling with their mother, when in fact they are cuddling with a dead chinchilla.

Finally, whenever you are donating or selling clothes – either your own or someone else’s – please check the pockets. In some cases we’ve found more cash in the pockets than we earned selling the clothes themselves.

Hoarding

The topic of hoarding is too large to handle in a blog post, but I do want to touch on it briefly because we get asked about the topic often.

Hoarding is a psychiatric disorder and should never be treated lightly. Hoarders should not be discriminated against or judged. Hoarding is also not a word that should be used lightly. We have had many people described to us as hoarders who turn out just to have a cluttered home.

The Institute for Challenging Disorganization has published a five-level scale of hoarding. The two highest levels, Levels 4 and 5, are beyond anything we would ever attempt to help mitigate. In these situations, a home is often infested with animals (dead and alive), excrement, and insects, and is completely unsafe and unhealthy.

We have worked with hoarders on the first three levels of the scale. Most of the hoarders we have worked with are under threat of eviction and have been given a deadline to make significant progress. If a hoarder does not have this kind of impetus, we find it almost impossible to convince them to make any kind of progress.

Our time working with Sandy (not her real name) is a good example of our experiences with hoarders. When we started working with Sandy, her apartment was so packed that she had created a burrow from the entrance of the apartment to her kitchen and from the kitchen to the bathroom and bedroom. Each burrow was carved out from stacks and stacks of things.

Sandy had hundreds of packages, things she had purchased and never opened, such as small and large appliances and furniture that needed assembly. But the bulk of her hoard was comprised of newspapers, magazines, and grocery bags. These were stacked precariously everywhere. In many places the stacks were waist high or higher.

She had so many things piled onto her bed that she could no longer sleep on it. Instead she slept on a recliner that faced her small television set. We worked with her for roughly a year and it took almost ten months before we could even access parts of her apartment.

Her landlord had started eviction proceedings against her. Her lawyer convinced the judge to allow her time to reduce her possessions. Based on our limited experience, it seems that New York City judges in housing court are reluctant to evict people, so when they hear that someone like Sandy is taking active measures to reduce their hoard and make their home safe again, they will grant them time to work on it.

She was deeply ashamed of her apartment, and apologized to us constantly as we worked with her. She explained, repeatedly, that she had not always lived like this. Then she would start a long story about her health and other issues that had crept up on her. But every time she started to explain her situation, she would return to two incidents: her mother’s death and her uncle’s death.

Sandy and her sister had fought about everything involving their mother’s death. Her sister was the appointed executor and was so frustrated trying to work with Sandy that she ultimately basically cut her out of the process and made decisions on her own.

Sandy could list, tirelessly, many of the things that were thrown away that she knew had value or were useful. As she did, her voice would shake and she would get worked up into a rage. 

So, when her uncle died a few years later and Sandy had more control over the dissolution of his apartment, she could not bring herself to throw away anything he had owned. She had his books, his cooking equipment, and his clothes. She had most of his furniture and all of his files. She even had the toothbrush he had been using in his final days.

The toothbrush was in a plastic bag under piles of newspapers. When a member of our team pulled the bag out and showed it to Sandy they felt sick to their stomach. It was a used toothbrush that had been stored for years in a plastic bag below newspapers. But Sandy wanted to keep it. She took it and tucked it away in a secret spot so it wouldn’t accidentally be discarded.

This is one thing all of the hoarders we have worked with have in common. They tell us they started hoarding when someone they love died and they could not bear to throw away anything that belonged to that person. Instead, they brought all their belongings home.

Eventually we were able to discard enough of Sandy’s belongings that she was able to fight off the eviction proceedings. But it was incredibly sad working with her. Despite the accomplishment of creating a more functional home and saving her from eviction, it was clear that Sandy was more focused on all the things that were gone. We could remove as much as we can, but if Sandy did not explore the roots of her hoarding, it seemed likely she would fill the home up again.

There may be hoarders reading this post. I am not an expert, and can only speak based on the cases I have worked with. But it is worth remembering that however hard you try to hide your hoarding, it will eventually come to light. At some point, due to illness, death, or legal action, someone will take control of your belongings and they will not handle them with the same care and devotion you give them.

If you take some steps now to address your condition, you can avoid having someone else step in against your will. You might start by seeking support from a therapist or psychiatrist, and consider hiring someone to sort through your belongings with you as you work on your mental health.

A couple of good places online to understand hoarding and find help are the International OCD Foundation (ICODF.org) and the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD). There’s also a terrific book called The Secret Lives of Hoarders, by Matt Paxton, that takes this topic much further than I can in this blog post.

The Importance of Having a Go Bag Ready

Our experience was similar to thousands in the New York area. There was construction being done in our apartment building, so, at first, we both thought the shaking was related to that. But something felt different. “Was that an earthquake?” It felt like we said it simultaneously. The continuing shaking and increased barking by our panicked dog confirmed it. We speculated whether the building was safe and if we might have to leave. “Just to be ready,” said my husband, “you leash Piper, I”ll get the Go Bag.” Calming down poor Piper and getting her leash on was not easy. But getting the bag took seconds.

Fortunately, as we all know, damage in the earthquake was minimal and we did not need to leave our building. But it was a reminder of why one should have a Go Bag. In our line of work, we help people move their entire homes. Furniture, clothing, knick-knacks, a lifetime of memories and accumulation. In other words, things impossible to fit into a backpack. But it’s not unlikely that at some point you will need to leave you home quickly. Not a move, but an evacuation. If you have a go-bag ready, this will be much easier.

A few years ago, when my husband and I made our bag, our friends joked that we preparing for the apocalypse. And while there are some who may see the bag as protection against the downfall of society, this article is not about how to survive in the woods with a pocketknife, 2 eggs, and match.

There are many reasons you may need to leave home without a lot of warning – a small fire in the building, a gas leak, or maybe a family emergency that requires you to leave town quickly. You may have time to pack but think how much easier it will be because you’ll have a head start.

So what should be in your bag? There are tons of resources on-line and you should ultimately decide based on your needs. But some things are basic:

• A few bottles of water

• Food (power bars are great here)

• Food and other supplies for your pets

• At least a week’s worth of any daily medications you take

• A phone charger

• Comfortable, lightweight but warm clothing. Bring something you will not mind wearing for a few days. You may be able to pack a few changes of clothes but go sparingly so you don’t over-stuff the bag.

• A first aid kit

• A toiletry bag (toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, painkillers, etc)

• Hand sanitizer

• Cash

• Copies of your important documents in a waterproof container

The bag itself should be portable and not too bulky. I would suggest a backpack since it’ll free your hands. In my case, this will allow me to walk Piper while carrying the bag. But you may prefer something with wheels.

Finally, think about where you will put the bag. You don’t want it interfering with your day-to-day life, but you also don’t want it so tucked away that it’s hard to access.

So, make this a multi-step process. First, set aside some time to prepare your bag. Check out a few websites, (such as NYC Get Prepared) for suggestions. Consider what you would need and want if you had to leave with no warning. Make a list. Next step is shopping for supplies, which may include the bag itself. Finally, pack the bag and find a home for it.

At Paper Moon we’re all about rewarding ourselves when we do something to help our future selves. And let’s face it, there’s nothing fun about packing a bag you hope to never need. So, when you’re buying your bottled water, power bars, back up phone charger, etc, throw some cookies or a bottle of wine in the shopping cart. But don’t open it until you’re finished with the bag. That way, you’ll be prepared to celebrate.