Day One Actions to Help You Quickly Clean Out a Parent’s Home

by Susan McCarthy
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Let’s face it, even if you’re parents were organized, chances are that you stepped into the house and felt overwhelmed. Where do you start when you realize that you’ll need to sort through everything in the house? If you are cleaning out a parent’s home after a death or because they will no longer live in the house, this list of actions will get you off to an efficient and effective start.​

In this article, I’m not talking about actions to take if your parent or parents are still living in the house. The steps here aren’t about decluttering their living space so you have an easier time emptying it when they are gone. To follow these steps, you don’t have a parent living in the house. Either they’ve passed away or will be permanent unable to make decisions about their home. If you have a living parent who has moved into a apartment, communicate with them about the actions you are taking and get their approval because, remember, all this stuff still belongs to them.

When you will be cleaning out a parent’s home, you can take some decisive actions on your first day of work in the house to lay the groundwork for future tasks. If you have siblings, each person can tackle a different task, or better (to avoid potential heated questions), have everyone work in pairs. If you don’t have siblings, you can invite cousins, other relatives, or friends to help you.

Keep in mind that the idea of free stuff (that may be worth something) can highlight behaviors you may not have suspected of others, so be mindful of inviting in too many people to help out.
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Action One: Change the Locks

As quickly as possible, the executor should get the locks on all the doors changed and limit who has a key. This is particularly important if your parents had people who came in to help them in any way. Also, a neighbor or two may have received a key in case of emergencies. Changing the locks controls who has access to the house and its contents.
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Action Two: Remove Valuables

The executor can remove valuables and keep them someplace safe. If they live nearby, then they could keep things at their house. If your parents had a safe deposit box, that might be an option. If these things need to be appraised before distribution or sale, removing them from the house can separate these things from the general contents of the house.
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Action Three: Collect Important Papers

You’ll want to gather important financial paperwork, papers connected to insurance policies, taxes, current bills, medical care, etc. You can ask a lawyer, accountant, financial advisor what papers you should be on the lookout for. When in doubt, hold onto it.

Gather these papers together in a box(es) and label every side with “KEEP – Important Papers!” Although at some point, you’ll need to go through these things, unless someone has asked for something (beyond the will or trust document that prove you and the family have the right to go through all these things), starting off by sorting papers will be an energy-draining time-suck.

Don’t worry about grabbing everything all at once. Depending on your parents’ filing system, you may find important papers throughout the house. Gather what you can but know you may find more papers later.

Collect important papers but don’t sort or organize them.
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​Action Four: Gather Photographs

This is another category where it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to find everything in one go through the house. Grab a box or a few and collect every framed photo that’s on the wall of set on a flat surface like a tabletop, mantle, or dresser.

If you know where the family photo albums are, add those to your box. If your parent stored pictures in photo storage boxes, collect those too.

When you encounter video tapes, DVDs, film reels, or audio cassettes of the family, add these to the box as well.

What you may not be able to collect right now is the photo processing envelopes, loose pictures, and pictures tucked into books or cards. Don’t worry about gathering those things right now. Don’t waste time pawing through drawers looking for photographs. When they are discovered, have a centralized location where they can be set aside.

Again, label that box with big letters proclaiming the importance of this stuff. You might not want to close the box or seal it, even if it’s full, so the contents are clearly identifiable. Make sure you keep this box someplace where the contents won’t get damaged.

Photographs take a lot of time to sort through. While the family may be feeling nostalgic right now, looking through photos isn’t the best task to become involved in right now. Not to be heartless, but if you have a house to clean out, focus on those tasks. If you have the energy in the evening, you can reminisce while looking through photos.

But since you’ll likely be considering additional tasks like scanning photos and figuring out how to share them with everyone in the family, looking through pictures can be a distraction. Choose when you’ll take time to look at pictures.
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Action Five: Gather Trash and Recycling

You can move this task higher up on this list if your parents had so much stuff that it will be difficult to move around the house. If you must squeeze your way through narrow aisles of stuff, you may want to clear through trash and recycling early on to create a safer work environment.

Unless your parents were minimalists, you can probably collect newspapers, magazines, junk mail, catalogs, flyers, etc. that are out in the open. Right now, it isn’t necessary to sort through the contents of drawers, closets, and cabinets. You want to clear some space to work while removing distractions.

Shake out magazines and other such things just in case your parents used cash or other important things as bookmarks.

You may find a large collection of jars and bottles that were kept for potential reuse. These can likely go right into recycling. You may want to keep both plastic and paper shopping bags as well as cardboard boxes that can be used to wrap and pack items that will be shipped out or donated.

If you find broken, damaged, stained, unusable items, these can also go into the trash.
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Action Six: Discuss Items Family Members Want to Keep

Anything left to someone in a will should be given to them (if your parent has passed). Bequeaths mentioned in letters or conversations may have no legal binding, so talk to a lawyer if there is disagreement in the family.

Chances are that family members have items they would like to keep for financial or sentimental reasons. If multiple individuals are interested in items, those individuals should have conversations, perhaps away from the house to create some emotional distance.

If items are or seem valuable, then you may want to call in an appraiser so that the estate can be accurately divided according to your parents’ wishes.
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Action Seven: Decide if You’ll be Selling Items or Donating Them

All these different trips around the house doing these tasks have also introduced you to the contents. Before you delve into sorting items, consider if you want to donate them…and where Or, would you rather hold an estate or yard sale?

Making this decision early on means that you have some guidance as you sort through the contents of the house. You’ll better know how to box up items if you know where they are going. Also, you don’t want to be filled boxes and bags and having them pile up in corners because you don’t know what you’re doing with this stuff.

Don’t waste time, cleaning out closets and cabinets only to then have to go through the boxes you filled in order to direct these items to a sale or donation center.

If you’re trying to figure out what to do with what you’ve inherited, check out my guide, Rehome Mom & Dad’s Stuff which covers specific ideas for selling and donating as well as other options that are available to you.
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Other Tasks: Collecting Personal Papers

Personal papers can include letters, cards, diaries or journals, the family bible, newspaper clippings featuring your family, etc. Again, gather these things in a box that is well-labeled and set in a space where things can be included as they are discovered.

You may not be able to do this as a dedicated action because personal papers tend to be tucked away in boxes, drawers, and other out of the way locations. Instead, things will get found during the cleaning out process. However, you will want to create a box for collecting these items, so they don’t get lost because they get moved from spot to spot.

This is also stuff that shouldn’t take top priority due to the time-consuming and potentially emotional quality of the task of sorting these items.

If you have a family member who is into genealogy or who has already organized family photos and memorabilia, they may have the skills for sorting through these things and knowing how to best present them. If you have a lot of letters and photos and such stuff you may want to consider hiring a Photo Manager to bring order to this project.
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Why Your Day One Actions Can Help You Quickly Clean Out a Parent’s Home

So why spend the first day in your parents’ home doing these tasks? You’re creating an environment where you’ve cleared out both the least important and most important items.

This can help you work more quickly because you’ve already removed items that will require more time, energy, and attention to sort through. Also, you’ve created some more space in which to physically do the work. This makes the house a safer work environment.

On day one in your parent’s home, work through the following actions:  

• Change the locks.
• Remove valuables.
• Collect important papers.
• Gather photographs.
• Gather trash and recycling.
• Discuss items family members want to keep.
• Decide if you’ll be selling or donating items.
• Keep an eye out for personal papers.

If you’re looking for more guidance on how to begin clearing out a parent’s home, including a PLAN for action, get the free Empty the House Starter Guide.