Cleaning Up

Jean Lee Brooks

My Mother In Law, who passed recently and I miss her.

She had dementia and was bed ridden for over a year.

She lived in a double wide mobile with Terry and now that she's gone I've been helping to clean out/up the house and let me tell you, its gross. 

It ALL stinks.

They were never big on cleaning and always had a lot of pets so the house, even though only 30 years old, it in terrible shape. Plus they were hoarders and he still will be. Dirt, pet hair, feces, filth, just junk all over. I've spent whole days over there and you can barely see a difference.

The bedroom she was in has their king size bed and her hospital bed, a couple chairs, dressers and her lifting thing. I've cleaned out most of her stuff, all her clothes are gone, I removed all her yukky old makeup and crap out of the bathroom and I removed the bedding off the bed. We've thrown everything away except a few things that can be saved or sold but they're going to need some serious cleaning first.

Terry was gone for 5 days and that's when I cleaned out most of her bedroom stuff, then night before last after he got back home and we were at our home in bed sleeping and he called, wondering where his bedding was.  OOPS.  Thinking super fast, I said we had brought it over here to wash

but it was actually in the trailer ready to go to the dump! We had to dig it out and I did wash most of it. Their comforter is too big for my machine so I'll take it over to their house and stick it in his washer. I'll put the sheets and blankets back on the bed for him.

The stink is on everything and its deeply embedded. She had a Disney sweatshirt I thought I'd like to keep but after washing it twice and using vinegar it still stinks so I threw it away too. This was our second load of junk removed from their house, this one weighing 1,380. Thats a LOT of junk.

The house still stinks but its getting a little better. He gave away the stupid pug that just shit wherever and a gal I know took the 3 horses that were basically neglected in the pasture. I gave her a couple of blankets for them and she's giving them all the care they desperately need.

I have brought home her nice jewelry but left most of the costume stuff, which she's got a large standing case that's full that I'm pretty sure she got when her sister died 10 years earlier.  There were over 20 of the tradable Disney pins and some solid gold necklaces, one weighing .9 oz of 18k gold.  I have no idea what happened to her wedding ring.  All these things will go back to Terry after her family gets done taking everything they want but some of the cousins are vultures and druggies and deserve nothing. One of those tried to take the China that Jean had promised to me.