Project: Cleanup, Day X

I’m continuing with the overwhelming task of cleaning up what all has been left behind.  Since I work for a company that deals with foreclosed properties, I have seen photographs of what the industry calls “trash-outs”.  When a property is vacated and foreclosed on, the articles inside must be disposed of.  While my situation isn’t the same as having a pile of used diapers in the corner of a room, I do have piles of garbage bags, primarily of paperwork and office supplies.

Yesterday, I got a lucky break.  While my neighbor was over dropping off his lawn cut invoice, I explained my situation.  Turns out his daughter has some sort of charity for the homeless and might be willing to take some of the “donate” pile.  She came over within an hour and took all of the donate pile.  Well, she has to come back today for the rest because we filled her truck.  That cleared out a third of my staging room.  In fact, I’m going to try offloading some extra stuff in that deal.

That leaves the shred pile and trash pile to process.  The shred pile should be handled in a couple weeks and the trash pile will probably shrink over a period of months.  I had an epiphany a few days ago that I should just rent a dumpster and throw it all in there.  That solution is a bit too costly.  I could rent a large truck and haul it to the landfill and pay whatever surcharge they have for dumping.  Or I could just dispose of it slowly over time, which is the cheapest route.

I also tentatively brought out the vacuum cleaner to clean up the floor of the emptied bedroom.  Have you seen the floor of a room that’s been untouched for five years, except by a large, shedding cat?  It was a multi-stage process, for sure.  The trash pile gained 8 boxes of old business files yesterday, which will let me clear out another room in preparation of floor cleaning.

The project continues…