Day 4

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
9:15:40 PM
Day 4

We finally got into the house a bit more today. Within the first 3 square feet of the floor we uncovered, we gathered up $41.00 just in change, mostly consisting of Quarters, Dimes and Nickles. Only $.50 consisted of Pennies. I also found a $1.00 bill, but that was the only bill found. In the master bedroom were tons of empty boxes piled up on top of what initially appeared to be stacks of filled boxes. Once the pile was dwindled down a bit, I discovered that the empty boxes were piled on top of a literal mountain of furniture. I uncovered the lower right corner of a twin bed, a partial end portion of an upside down coffee table and saw the very slight corner of an old couch/bed that once sat upstairs in our home office/den back in Massachusetts. According to my mom, this was a sofa that they'd had since at least their days in Rochester, New York, when my father was in seminary at the Rochester School of Divinity.

I worked on the inside, while Jerry worked on the outside. Since it was not possible for me to continually climb over obsticles to remove boxes and garbage bags from the home, we set up a 'hand through' system. I'd fill garbage bags and boxes, and hand them over to Jerry when they were full, letting him know the contents of each container so that once outside the home, he could put each item into their prospective areas. We worked non-stop from around 10am until 12 noon. We then took a break for lunch and resumed working around 1pm. We then worked non stop until around 4pm, when the sun began to set over the mountains and the cooler air began rolling into the area. All in all, we managed to fill 15 large garbage bags, 20 large shipping boxes...and only cleared out approximately 5 square feet of space in one room.

During this time, my mother was sitting outside, going through garbage bags, insisting on keeping anything she possibly could. Once finished, her truck was filled to near capacity, and most of the boxes we filled remain inside the home in the master bathroom, which, at this point, holds the only free floor space. I did manage to get into the master bedroom closet. In here is where many of my grandmother's clothes are still hanging, as well as a safety metal box of my grandfather's as well as a small travel sized cosmetic case, which is estimated to be from around the 1940's or 1950's. I was not able to get into that container today, but plan on doing so on Friday.

Given the fact that Friday is also Halloween/Trick or Treat here, the bulk of the work we do during the day will be in the basement, making room for more boxes to be stored. The bulk of the items to be stored down there will consist of old magazines, newspapers and such like items. All the clothes and Beanie Babies will be removed and stored at my mother's house in Camptonville until we can get out to her house and help her clear that all out. All in all, we're looking at about a year's worth of work, with the bulk of the clearing out and cleaning being done within these first 2 - 3 weeks.

I was so tired today that around 2pm my legs were literally shaking so badly that I had to side swipe an area off the bed just so I could sit down and rest my legs for a short while. The leg pain did not thoroughly set in until later tonight, around 7pm. It is now 9:30pm, and I have pain killers in me. Going to bed now.