You kinda think that your parents will live forever, well I know I did anyway. I was very lucky to have them around until I was well into my adulthood. However, when dad died both my brother and I realised we were orphans. We also realised that we had to deal with so much more once the second parent died. The main job we had was clearing out mum and dads’ home which they lived in for 51 years. They never moved and they never decluttered. I remember dad sitting in his hospital bed dying and apologising to me for leaving the house in the state that it was.
My brother and I did not know where to start as we had never cleared a deceased estate before. It all seemed very overwhelming as there was just so much to do. It took us 9 months to clear the home, with my brother who is a teacher coming down for some weekends and time over the school holidays. At the four months mark I decided that I needed to quit my job so I could focus on clearing the house full time. We needed to ensure that the house had settled within two years of dad’s death so we did not incur capital gains tax.
Many lessons were learnt when clearing my parent’s home and many contacts were made. Three months after my parent’s home went through settlement I knew I had to face the prospect of going back into the workforce. I knew that I did not want to go back into my old corporate life and wanted to try something different. One Friday afternoon I saw an article on a decluttering business and I thought to myself “mmm there has to be something in this for deceased estates”. I then started to google “deceased estate clearing frankston” and “house or property clean out following death” and “how to clear my parent’s home after death” to my surprise I learnt that this indeed was a thing. I did notice though that most of the results I got back were for businesses who would quickly clear a home, or be in and out in two days. There were no results for clearing a deceased estate with care and dignity in my area. Hence Compassionate Home Clearing began.
I have since been out to mum and dads grave thanking them both for leaving us the house in the state that it was. I now have a small business and am able to help people in such a challenging time because they did.
