Please will you kindly support and advise me, as I try to help a friend sort out his home?

[EatingTheElephantInChunks]

Yesterday I started to try to help a friend sort out his home. If I tell you that it took me nearly 3 hours to clear a space on the bathroom floor about 3ft x 4ft, you will probably understand how things are. Today I did a little better. In about 2 hours I cleared another space the same size, which meant I could open a cupboard. Two shelves were almost empty, so I was able to clean those and use them for storage. I will carry on next time with the other 2 shelves and continue clearing the bathroom floor.

It was very satisfying to get rid of a whole binbag of rubbish yesterday and a half bag today, plus a bag and a half of recycling, and a small bag of confidential waste to shred. There is a folding storage crate of things to keep so far, but I'll go through that again to see if I've missed anything that should be thrown out or recycled.

My friend has got into this situation after many years of serious illness and close bereavements, has no family left and few friends, certainly not really close ones. He has been at the stage for several years where he doesn't have visitors. He needs many repairs and much decorating doing, and is getting to the stage where carers visiting would be helpful. I am hoping to get him to the stage where that will be possible. He is such a nice guy, and it's a shame that life has gradually got smaller and smaller for him over the years. It must be terribly lonely.

I feel honoured that he has trusted me with the truth of how things are. I can't talk to anyone IRL as I know it's essential to protect his privacy, and I have changed my username in case anyone makes the connections. I could do with some mumsnet wisdom and support! I have never felt such a sense of achievement over a bit of floorspace 3ft x 4ft, but equally the enormity of the task hit me.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
The author - writing under the pseudonym EatingTheElephantInChunks - claims and owns the copyright of all her posts dated on and after 14th August 2018 as her intellectual property and as a moral right and which are all her own individual and original work. Reproduction in whole or part or any other use is strictly prohibited without her prior written permission.

[Edited by MNHQ at posters request]

Hello again everyone, and thanks to pps for your messages - except, of course, the grim spam bot! Just got back from a late walk with the family and I've got my feet up for a few minutes with a G&T. Just popping on to say I haven't done anything today because of family commitments and feeling very tired, EXCEPT I'm pleased to report that I dropped off 4 large black bin bags of stuff at the nearest charity shop. That felt good, as they won't be going into landfill and will instead help a good cause - and, of course, that's another chunk of free space and fresh air for my friend. 🐘

Hello again. Just sneaked off for 5 minutes peace with my feet up and the 2 pieces of chocolate left I'd hidden from the DCs - call me a bad mother if you must. Very early today I managed to do about 4 hours more extremely dusty chunking in a spare bedroom, and was then able to drop 4 black bin bags and 8 large items off at the nearest charity shop. It might seem like a waste of time, effort and petrol to go 2 days running, but I can only fit so much in the car at one time and I'm also finding that it's actually helping to see another chunk off on its merry way to its new life as soon as I've got it sorted, dusted and packed. It gives me more space to work, I'm feeling like I'm standing in a little less chaos, and it does feel like another small achievement too. I've been chunking using different piles for rubbish, recycling, rags, toys, books, clothes and so on.

Divide and conquer, allegedly - or that's the theory, anyway.

Looking forward to family time, breathing less dusty air, watching the guilty pleasure of Poldarkack, and a soak in the bath with a cup of tea. 🐘

Well done Ele, enjoy the bath you've definitely earned it!

Poldark, of course! That'll teach me not to Preview. Not sure where Poldarkack came from, though at least it sounds quite Cornish! 🐘

Thanks, Pash - and it was great to see you pop up again last week - really appreciated it. The heat has definitely been getting to me! I'd like to try to catch the programme you mentioned. I hope all's going OK with you?

How are you getting on?

You can’t have tea in the bath, Nelly - it has to be a lovely cold drink, it’s the law.

Well done on the charity drop-offs!

Nelly the elephant packed her (car) trunk
And said goodbye to the chaos
Off she went with a chunkety-chunk
Chunk chunk chunk!

Hi Ele, yeah all good, I have piles waiting for the charity shop too! I shall get them there this week. I got lucky when a friend took a huge bag of clothes to a clothes swap for me. I've been clearing my son's unplayed with toys/games (with his permission!) but I think I need to have a personal library cull. If your friend has any books or cds/dvds to get rid of music magpie is quite good. They only give you pennies but every little helps. There is an app and you can just scan in barcodes and they pay the postage. Our local tip also take books in the paper recycling, if you know it's something obsolete, DH has many text books which are very out of date 😁.

What a lovely thing to do - I only read your first post and felt I wanted to say that. Now going to read everything!

Hello again and elephant-sized thanks to pps 🐘 I'm taking a couple of weeks off chunking because of family commitments but will be trying to reply individually when I can.

Replying in chunks to try to outwit my ever-temperamental phone!

Just a quick progress report for now, up until when I clocked off at the end of last week. I'm delighted to announce that - trumpet fanfare - the spare bedroom I'd been working on is almost completely free of unwanted items. Almost all that is left in there now is to be kept - bookshelves and a few favourite books, a bedside cabinet and bedhead, a couple of lamp bases and an airer. There are other things, such as a couple of bags of clothing and bedding, a couple of quilts and a sleeping bag, all worth keeping and washing for use or storage for winter use. There are a couple of items too big for the bin, which I'll either take to the nearest refuse site when I'm going in that direction, or get the local council to collect for a small fee. Everything else has gone to the charity shop or for recycling. I'm pleased to report that very little from the room had to go to landfill. The charity even happily took all the bags of clothing, bedding, quilts and pillows suitable for rags only - they said they actually make quite a bit of money from rags.... 🐘

As some might remember, the plan for this room is to make a temporary but cosy, clean, and tidy bedroom, especially with Autumn and Winter on their way. The new mattress and bedframe I'd ordered arrived last week. When I get back to it, I'm going to vacuum the walls, ceiling, wooden floor and paintwork, and wash them all down. I can then put up the bedframe, and set up the rest of the bedroom. I've found some curtains, bedding, lamp, drawers and rug that will all fit together very well. I'm also going to order a small oil-filled heater - unless anyone can recommend anything better? The room needs decorating, of course, but it will do for now, maybe with a picture or two up and some photos around. It has been an emotional ride at times, with a couple of small boxes of 'sentimentals' saved, and many things parted with. There is a nice view, mainly of ever-changing trees, from the window, and night time sounds of owls and other wildlife. My friend is looking forward to 'moving in', although he does feel it will be a big change, and we're leaving his existing room as it is for a while, just in case he feels that he needs to move back in for a night or too.

PS The new 'Henry' as recommended by a pp has been proving very useful indeed!

🐘

Two not too - these big feet make typing difficult! After the last post, I went away and realised that it's now a year and nearly a week since I started. That's quite a shock, and disappointing, that so much time has passed and - on the grand scale of things - so little progress has been made. I'm not denying that some progress has been made, but it's taken far longer than I ever imagined. I really thought that I'd have achieved far more. I've had less opportunities than hoped, although I've worked hard when there. I think the nature of the task is that it's incredibly slow. The only way it could've been different is if I'd been able to devote full weeks to it, had a team or just thrown everything in to a skip. None of these was possible or advisable, for various reasons, as some people will remember or understand. So I'll plod on, and continue to really appreciate any herd members, old or new, who are - miraculously - still sharing the journey with me.

Off to celebrate or commiserate - not sure which - the passing of the year - I think it calls for gin and cake! 🐘

Well done Ele a whole room sorted that is brilliant. Can't believe it's been a year. I can understand the wish that you had achieved more but I think you are still doing an amazing job given you are juggling this along with family life etc etc. A very well deserved gin & cake!

Gin and cake indeed!

Hi Ele, I've been lurking from the beginning. It sounds like you have done an amazing amount - delighted that you've got the spare bedroom clear!

"When I get back to it, I'm going to vacuum the walls, ceiling, wooden floor and paintwork, and wash them all down." - now that so much progress has been made, would your friend be amenable to paying for a cleaner to come in and do this particular job, just being in that room? That would free up another chunk of time for you to carry on elsewhere.

How are things going in the rest of the house? Are the areas which you have cleared already remaining so?

Will reply soon but just popped on to say I have noticed that a couple of links have appeared in some of my previous posts. These are nothing to do with me, and link to other sales/recommended pages on mumsnet - must have been added by naughty MNHQ

Hi ele, glad to hear you're still going strong, although I can appreciate your frustration.

It must be so rewarding to be taking stuff out of the house and seeing a usable room take shape.

Dusty greetings again everyone 🐘

I'm back on task today, and just taking a quick coffee, homemade soggy banana bread and loo break, three and a half hours in. Henry has been in full swing, as I've packed up the last of the contents to keep from the small spare room into 5 crates. I'm hoping shortly to be able to store the crates on the landing for now, once I can move the large chest of drawers there into the bedroom for my friend to use. First it's a matter of cleaning the room, putting up the bed frame, and unpacking the new mattress to get it back into shape and aired. I hoped to get all the cleaning done tonight so that the room can dry out overnight, but that seems a bit over ambitious right now! I've only really got another hour to go before I should be calling it a day, so unless my plans change I'll just have to carry on tomorrow. I should know by now, shouldn't I , that any timescale I estimate needs to be tripled, at the very least?!

It's hard to know when I should stick to the plan and when I should change what I'm doing. Tonight for example ,I've been putting some things in the crates still dusty, rather than cleaning everything fairly thoroughly first. I found it was taking me too long to be thorough, and I decided that the priority now is to get the room usable for my friend as soon as possible ,and certainly before the cold weather comes. I can fine tune later on, or as a few pps have reminded me, fine tuning is possibly a job for others in the future .

I've got the first of the year's colds and sore throats, picked up from one of the DCs returning to school .The dust isn't very good for it, but at least I can't blame all the sneezing and so on on the working conditions this time!

Hi Ele, well done you've almost got a room to be properly habitable without extraneous extras in it. That is fantastic. So yes of course it's taken longer than anticipated but as you said you kind of expect that now. I think you're right not to sweat the small stuff of dusting everything perfectly. Getting stuff away albeit in crates or out of the house is the main aim here. Stuff can live in crates for a long time but it's not cluttering up your friends space anymore.
Hope you have a nice big (medicinal 😉) G&T when you get home. Keep chunking. 💐💐

PS Please excuse any blips in punctuation and so on - not only sneezing, but balancing phone, coffee and banana bread on the step ladders!

Well done on your awesome work to create a good room.
You are a lovely friend.

Weld one Ele
Want to ask a question is your friend helping in any way

Thinking of you Elephant as I start restoring my house to order after leaving it in the hands of my student daughters for two months. Very minor compared to your task.

Well done, Nellie! Hope you got the bed all made up and the room put to rights.

Quite right on not thoroughly dusting all the stuff - don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

So you've cleared pathways through the house, a bathroom, a bedroom, made some headway in the living space - you're doing a good thing.

Now that a year has past, do see if your friend will allow extra help in. I don't like to think that you are being almost forced to work alone. Does your friend now get involved in any of the work at all too?

for you!