A Method to the Madness

I recently had the pleasure of digging through the basement of a closet hoarder. A friend of mine was hired to clear out the estate of a house on the east side of Cleveland. Due to the massive amount of items in the home she ended up holding two separate estate sales. I attended both and each time I was surprised at the amount of "stuff" in this house. You could walk through a dozen times and each time you'd see something that you hadn't noticed before... it was sensory overload! Needless to say, I left with tons of goodies on both visits.

A few weeks after the last sale she contacted me to say she was letting dealers into the basement of the home to dig but that it was too unsafe for the general public. It would be a private sale held during the week...would I be interested in coming? Of course I was interested and showed up bright and early the morning of the sale! To visit this home, you'd never know the dirty secret that was kept in the basement. The upstairs of the home was impeccable, stuffed to the limits with an eclectic collection of vintage and antique items, but kept neat and tidy. The basement, that was whole different story. The first time I went down it was hard to walk and move about the clutter. I spent three hours there, left with hundreds of treasures yet barely scratched the surface. It was a tedious task of digging through box after box of junk to find a treasure hidden inside. As I was digging I began to notice a system, even in all this clutter she knew what she was doing. Every box I opened had a theme from anything and everything cow related, to a box full of only pigs. Ceramic pigs, plastic pigs, piggy banks... if it was pig related, it was in there. There was a method to all this madness! It was insanity and I couldn't wait to open each and every box to see what the next theme would be! But after three hours of dust, dirt and mouse droppings, my allergies were pleading with me to quit so I called it a day.

I went back a week later to dig some more and was surprised at the progress other dealers had made. Paths had been cleared and you could actually walk through the mess without stepping into or over boxes. I only stayed an hour that day, I had specific goals in mind and a few pieces that I had buyers remorse for not grabbing on my first visit. As I was paying for my purchases my friend let me know this was her final sale at the home. After six months of organizing, cleaning and holding estate sales, the surviving family members had had enough. They didn't want to let go of any more of their mothers things. So it seems the hoarder gene will carry on, the children of the deceased will add to the clutter in the basement and in 40 or maybe 50 years from now someone else will dig through the same boxes I just went through. My only hope? That they notice that their mother had a system. In all that chaos she knew where each and every item was down there and I can only hope that they keep to her same methods because it makes it so much easier for the picker!

Til next time,
xoxo ~ Jenn