Drew just called. He said it got crazy for him because of the holiday and he's running way behind. I get that about contractors but it is still frustrating to not get updated. I still have a good feeling about him, though, and I'll probably use him if the bid is reasonable. He said he would measure this weekend.

Fwiw, and I know this isn't really the to focus if this blog, but I think I'm incredibly impressed you can be this forthright about your parents and you relationship with them. Like, if you asked me, I'd say I had a normal upbringing, but equally I think there are a bunch of things that you've said that are fairly resonant to my experiencen, but that I (as a nearly forty year old) am not really comfortable putting into text.

Yeah, it's sort of a process coming to terms with family and the effects they have on you. The only hesitation I have is presenting them in a bad light. It sort of sounds like I think they are horrible but they are both good people.

So, my sister made a couple of trips to take care of "things". The first was to find a good place for Dad. The second trip was to actually move him.

My sister had a bit more of a strained relationship with Dad than I did and her tolerance isn't very high when she's dealing with him. She did succeed in getting him in his new place but I have no doubt is was not easy. So, when it came to dealing with the house I felt like I needed to give her a break and deal with it myself.

I flew in Saturday (before Labor Day). Just a little diversion about the flight. I walked into the Tampa Airport and it was pretty quiet. When I got to the security area there wasn't a single passenger to be seen. It was so surreal. I kept wondering if I was in the right place. Flight was on time and when I got to Dallas for the connection, my connecting flight was departing from the very next gate from the one I arrived at. If you've ever been to Dallas you'll know the odds of this are similar to flopping a royal flush. Although this was awesome, I feel like I used up a lot of airport karma when I really didn't need it.

I went straight to Dad's house. I opened the front door and was just sort of dumbfounded. There was stuff everywhere. My Mom apparently just pulled stuff out of wherever it was and just tossed it on the floor. I wasn't up for dealing with that so I went outside to check out his storage sheds.

My Dad has a large detached storage room. I'd guess it's about 20x20 and has shelves everywhere. It was bursting at the seams. About 10 years ago he ran out of room to put stuff so he bought a decent sized metal storage building. Then he ran out of space again and bought another decent sized plastic storage building.

I started with the older storage building. It was packed tight. Mostly just junk that he couldn't fit in his house, but also some garden tools. Mom wanted to keep a lot of the stuff out there so I piled it in his carport for her inspection. I put the tools in another pile. It took me a while to empty this one and I felt like I made no progress other than taking stuff out and putting it somewhere else.

About this time, Mom showed up and I had a heart to heart with her about all this stuff. I think she was hesitant to throw much away but I convinced her that most of it was almost worthless and unless it had sentimental value we just needed to toss it. She agreed to let me make the decisions since it was taking her forever going through everything item by item in the house.

In the driveway was a POD that she rented where we were going to store a lot of stuff for later review. Dad does have a lot of stuff that is worth keeping. He's an artist so there is a lot of his art. And he has a lot of books. Thousands of books. We didn't want to toss any of that.

So, my game plan became organizing everything in piles to be dealt with as needed.

Pile 1 - trash
Pile 2 - hazardous trash (more on this later)
Pile 3 - plastic containers (more on this later)
Pile 4 - store in POD
Pile 5 - keep for Mom (mostly garden tools)
Pile 6 - tbd (mom needs to decide later)

So the first shed was a mix of piles 1, 5, and 6. Mostly 6. I think a lot of the stuff in there was mom's anyway.

I finished the first shed and called it a day.

I'm finding the side stories pretty great. I could use more Dilbert hijinks and can't wait until you have to get the association to approve anything later on in the remodel. But this hoarderish situation is pretty entertaining. You are really doing noble work imo.

These stories are kinda filling me with dread. My father has Alzheimer's. He's mostly on the early side of it, is still independent and still drives (but not for much longer).

He has five sheds. Five. Plus the attic and basement. And another garage on another piece of property. All full. I'm going to have to deal with all of it some day.

forgot to ask, whats the total sq ft of the counters? $100/sq ft sounds absolutely outrageous.

I'm not sure. Maybe 100? I could be wrong.

When I arrived, my sister and my mother had pretty much successfully cleaned out dad's room. As you can see, much of it was bookshelves. They really didn't do anything with the books other than pile them in the living room. But, they got most of the other stuff out of there and although the net cleaning effect was zero, it was clear.

Except for this box



I asked Mom if she wanted it in the POD. "NO NO! We aren't keeping that!". OK, so I asked if she wanted me to take it to Dad. "NO NO! He is NOT getting that box". OK, I asked her if she wanted me to throw it away "NO NO! It might have something valuable in it".

Mom believes that Dad has a combination of valuable stuff and years of porn in there. Dad isn't saying. I guess I could cut the lock but that seems wrong. I put it in the POD while she wasn't looking.

I met John today. He was much less surly than the woman who answers his phone.

He told me that he actually worked on one of the crews that built the complex my condo is in.

I got the impression from him that he is probably going to be the low bidder. He talked a lot about buying materials at Lowes and Home Depot. It is my choice but it seems like he's used to doing low end remodels. I also sensed that he doesn't have a lot of work going on right now. He told me he needed to bring his main guy with him to look at the place (Monday) before he bids it.

I really didn't get any negative vibes from him but I think I'm going to do a little googling on him anyway.

Missed this.

He started falling a lot. I don't think the neuropathy had much to do with that, but having numb feet couldn't have helped.

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Regarding your remodel - competitive bids are a drag - just getting into a lot of work and phone calls and not necessarily getting the job. Drew could easily be more responsive if he gets the job.

My grandfather passed away pretty fast without much warning. He was an active farmer, loved garage sales, and lived in the same place his whole life. I think it took my parents the better part of a year to get everything sorted and ready for a sale.

It's definitely hard.

Day 2.

I really needed to make good progress so I hit it early.

I started with the second shed. Most of the stuff in it was from Dad's art room. Dad has a lot of art "stuff". He worked in a lot of mediums through the years. He primarily taught life drawing and some of his oldest stuff is pencil drawings. Then he went through a long phase of oil painting. Large oil paintings. My mom, sister and I have taken most of them through the years but he still has a lot at his house. But in his later years he focused primarily on collages. Because of that he collected materials. Lots and lots of materials. The second shed had crates and crates of papers, fabrics, cardboard, etc. I got a little sad here because I realize he'll never do his art again. It was hard to toss some of this even though it really isn't worth anything. I tossed some and kept some but honestly I'm not sure the decision to toss or keep was based on anything that made any sense.

As I said, Dad was a hoarder. He wasn't the same kind of hoarder you see on TV. It isn't like he just kept accumulating anything and everything. It was more selective than that. He had weird obsessions about certain types of items. He would go to goodwill all the time and if he saw a particular item he would buy it. For example, he had at least 30 of these lamps:



Another thing I started finding were boxes of used light bulbs. Boxes and boxes of them. He never threw away a light bulb. And, he never threw away a remote control. Boxes of them as well. He apparently had no problem tossing whatever they went to but he kept the remote.

I got the second shed emptied out fairly quickly and started on the large storeroom. This is where the oldest of the old resided. Not much had been moved in there for 40 years. Stored up high were old paintings (more on this later). The bottom was mostly garden tools, regular tools, and all sorts of containers of paint/paint thinner/poison/etc. It wasn't really a lot but most of it was 10 or 20 years old



I decided to eat lunch with Dad at his new place. It is fairly close to Mom so she can get over there quickly and his driver can take him to her house easily. It took me a bit to find his room, but it was pretty obvious once I saw it. He's very paranoid about his cat getting out even though he is on the second floor and the cat would have to learn how to use the elevator to go anywhere.




It's really a nice place but in the end it is what it is. It can't be easy for him to be there. He doesn't know anyone and he's not the kind of person to get out and socialize.

Lunch was fine. There was quite a walker traffic jam at the elevator. Dad can't drive well at all and he kept catching his wheels on the other walkers. Once the elevator doors opened everyone tried to get on even though there wasn't close to enough room.

They have a big dining area and the food was good. I still had so much to do so once we finished lunch and I got Dad back I had to run.

In online dating news............

My second date was with a woman that I was sort of meh on based on our back and forth messages but I really think meeting someone is a better indicator so we set up a date at a local pub.

She was ok looking and nice.

Before I continue, I need to mention a friend of mine. I'll call her Tess. I've known Tess for about 15 years. She's been a really good friend but she's sort of self absorbed. I think she sort of had a thing for me at one time but I just wasn't into her. Anyway, Tess has this look she does quite often. It's a sort of sarcastic look that isn't becoming at all. In fact, it sort of tilts me when she does it.

So, back to the date. About 5 minutes in this woman did that look that Tess does. Immediate turnoff. We talked for another hour but it was apparent to both of us that there was no match happening. So, we shook hands and parted ways. I went out to the parking lot in a fierce rainstorm and was drenched from head to toe. Symbolic?

LOLed a lot at that one. I know now, what is my problem with guys. This look!

John's surly helper called to tell me he and four of his helpers were coming through the gate. I think the helpers were really subs because she mentioned an electrician. So, John is serious about this and hopefully he'll give me a bid soon. Still no word from Drew.

Day 2 part 2

Got back from lunch and continued on the large storeroom. Mom stopped by to inform me that she had arranged for a helper for me. His name was William. I would have William for 2 hours so I planned for him to mostly haul books out.

Mom has this history of hiring people she knows. Mom mostly knows really weird people who aren't really equipped to do the job that Mom hired them to do. William showed up, back brace in hand, and immediately proclaimed that he had a bad back and couldn't do any heavy lifting.

The first thing I wanted him to do was to help get Dad's paintings down from the top shelf of the storeroom. Dad stored most of his older and bigger paintings there. They are all painted on some sort of material like wood so they are sort of heavy. William did fine and we got them into the POD.

Then I sent William in to start on the books in the living room while I finished the storeroom. I finished first and went in to help William. He was doing quite well actually. I talked to him a bit and cracked a couple of jokes that went over William's head. I'm pretty sure William was a bit on the Forrest Gump side. We got the living room books done and started on the back bedroom. All that was left in there was a kitchen table, an old trundle bed, and more books. Mom was insistent that we try to sell the kitchen table and the trundle bed (complete with 40 year old mattresses). I let this one go and put them where she wanted them.

William's two hours were about up and we got all of the books out and the back living room clear. A pretty good victory. I let William go and started on the second bedroom.

I was feeling pretty good about things since we had made great headway. Then I went into the last bedroom and it sort of sucked the wind out of me. The closets were packed full and he had a ton of art stuff and a big file cabinet full of decades of papers.

So, not only does dad save everything, he also labels everything. Of course papers are labeled - like this folder with evidence of the defensive driving course he took in 1982



But he also labels anything that has a mechanical part. All of his old remote controls had labeled tape on them. His oven is labeled, his computer is labeled, and the car he bought brand new a few years a go had labels on the controls within days.

Just so you don't think I'm making this up:





The other thing I should mention is everything he can put a lock on, he puts a lock on. He carries around a key chain that must weigh 10 lbs. And he has a box with the keys he doesn't carry around.

So the second bedroom has a door to the outside which would make it much easier to move stuff out of it. Otherwise it would be a pain to walk everything through the house and outside around to the trash pile.

And................... I found this:



Yes, that is a deadbolt on the INSIDE of the door. And of course I have no key. This was pretty much the point where I lost it. I spent the next 10 minutes cursing dad and his eccentricities and finally realized I just needed to call it a day.

Your Dad sounds a bit more than eccentric. Or he has been running the greatest long troll I've ever seen.

BTW, I can't stop looking at that picture. I don't even think they could pull that on you where you work. It's too brilliant of a troll.

At first I was like, "Ha ha, my father labels everything too!" But then I was like, "Whoa, my father never labeled the toilet. That's hardcore."

Genius

That is hilarious.

I like the fact Bigger's dad is in this world. I could use his skills when I struggle to find my keys every other day.

Drew sent an email telling me he was almost done with the bid and he wants to arrange a time to meet. I replied but haven't heard back. No word from John yet. The third contractor called to postpone our meeting tomorrow until next week.

Day 3

I had been staying with friends and I told them about the deadbolt. My friend said "just get a screwdriver and take it off". Duh.

So I headed back to Dad's and quickly found no screwdriver amongst the boxes of random tools in his house. I did find a phillips bit and a pair of needlenose pliers and managed to get the deadbolt off.

I was celebrating my victory over the locked door when I spotted this:



Yes, it was the key to the deadbolt, properly labeled, hanging right above said deadbolt.