I don't suppose anyone has ever walked into what I found when I was designated to clear our mother's home of 28 years. (I'm sure some have!) Four BR, each with large walk in closet; there were paths through the piles. I was told, when I phoned my bro in despair, that others had already removed 17 garbage bags of stuff.

"Don't you throw away a single piece of paper." I didn't: I spent 3 weeks going through interminable piles of junk mail, cash register receipts, personal letters, newspapers, magazines.... "junk, junk, personal,junk, junk, junk...." Every piece of paper that had ever entered that house was still there! I took station wagon loads to dumpsters, put garbage bags full in a neighbour's garage. Found my father's suits in one of the walk in closets; he had died 20 years earlier; someone could have used them.

A few students helped load a 24 foot U haul truck. As we neared the end, she asked, "What about the cellar?" I never went down there. I gave up. I drove us back to Pennsylvania where her 2nd husband was in the VA hospital with Alzheimer's. I got on a bus and returned to my peaceful home in Ontario. My poor brother put everything in storage and gradually managed to disappear stuff. His second wife never saw what I saw. She complains about him being a pack rat. HE should have been the one to clear mother's house; just possibly it might have helped cure him.

I have about 4 file boxes of my personal archives. I am mindful of not wanting my children to have to deal with "mother's stuff" - not like I did!