A House of Clutter

After my mom died December of 1999, dad just piled stuff everywhere.  While my husband and I were visiting him, I was helping him with his Christmas cards and my husband got bored so decided to take a video tour of his rooms.   

Harry's Dining Room

He had two filing cabinets in his dining room (can't really see them in this shot though) and a whole lot of empty boxes on the floor between his table and the window seat from things he bought. 

Kitchen stove piled with junk.

Dad quite using his stove to cook but kept it as a storage area.  He used a microwave for his meals.

There was a poster on the cupboard door dated June 4, 2003 that he kept up.  I'm pretty sure he didn't even attend that meeting but wouldn't let me throw anything away of his.

Harry dated his cereal boxes with date he bought them.

I wonder why he bought this cereal in July if he wasn't going to eat it.  It was December and he didn't even open it yet.

Here we have more clutter, and clutter, and clutter.  All his desks and tables were covered with stuff (junk mostly).  At least he kept a pathway clear to walk.  I bought him this little sign I thought was perfect for him.  He laughed and added it to his desk admitting it was how he felt.

And here we have the master bedroom with no bed!  Dad said it was hard for him to get in and out of bed and his recliner chair was easier and more comfortable for him to sleep in.  He was just a very practical man and was always coming up with ways to make his life easier, even if it was strange.  Here is the video that my husband made with his funny comments:


I hope I don't ever get this bad at letting stuff out to be handy.  I can see how it could happen though when you don't have a lot of space.    Did you ever see anything like this? 

Have You Ever Seen a Porch Like This?

My dad's porch was small.  What you see in the picture shows just about the full length except for the space by the steps in front of the two front doors--one for upstairs where his cats Softie, Sweet Thing and Sylvester resided and one for downstairs.  At first he put up the heated "Kitty Motel" that had a swinging door at the end that the cats could push to go in and out.  Most liked the top where the food buffet was.

The home-made scratching post was added later.  He asked me to look for a comfortable light-weight chair so he could sit on the porch with his cats during the summer.  The green plastic chair in this picture is the one I found for him.  As you can see, the cats liked it too!  I think this is his favorite cat, Blackie, using it.  Blackie was the first cat that came around and followed my dad everywhere.

My dad, Harry, was a kind soul and he enjoyed the neighborhood cats.  He did everything he could short of putting out catnip to entice them to his porch and make them comfortable.

What do you have on your porch?  Ever see one like this?

Best post of the week--link up at Serenity Now.

To Sell or Not to Sell, That's The Big Decision!

Should I sell my dad's house or should I fix it up and rent it? Perhaps I could keep it and let the cats continue living upstairs and just rent out the downstairs. While my dad was still alive, we discussed this and his advice to me was to sell it.

After all, it was a double so I could get two rents from it but it needed some work. The thing is, renting is not an easy matter. My dad had several rental properties when we were growing up but he could do the fixing up himself, unlike me. My dad's house needed quite a bit of work. There was a major plumbing problem that had to be fixed which would involve breaking up the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom to get at the pipes. Several people advised me to sell who had bad experience with renters, including the plumber. It's very hard to find good renters who take care of the property and pay promptly. Since I didn't know anyone who was looking for rent, it would have been hard to find steady long-term renters. Plus, I already had sunk a ton of money into it so would have had to rent it for 3 years getting $400 per month just to break even, providing nothing else had to be repaired in that time.

Part of me wanted to fix it up real nice like the granddaughter did in Leota's Garden by Francine Rivers. It actually was looking pretty good once we got the clutter cleared out and I remembered some fun times there. I still liked the upstairs back porch and since that's where we were when Gerard proposed to me, it had some sentimental value for us. We wouldn't want to live there though because we like our house better and it's in a better neighborhood. Renting is a headache. I tried renting it for a month to someone willing to live there and take care of the cats on a short-term basis and found out that I wasn't comfortable with that.


Also, the cats played a part in this too. Obviously, I couldn't sell the house with them in it so I tried to find them homes, unsuccessfully. This was another reason why I considered hanging on to it at least for awhile and taking my good old time selling it because the cats could continue to live there and I could just keep going over a couple times every day to take care of them. After all, my dad let them live in his upstairs rent free for years. However, this was not a very practical solution and Gerard was not real happy about me having to run over there all the time--he wanted his wife back and I couldn't blame him.

Once I had the place cleaned out, I decided to follow my dad's advice and sell it, concluding that I'd rather put money into our house than that one. I priced it very reasonably, put it up for sale the last week of May 2007 and it sold within a week for which I was very grateful. We used money from the sale for a brand new Kia and to remodel our basement and still have a nice chunk left in savings. I think following my dad's advice was wise in this situation.