This July marked the completion of a year since the family and I moved countries in search of better opportunities. Moving houses within a city is difficult, moving houses across cities more so and moving across countries is probably as challenging as it gets. The stress was caused by various aspects – the usual travel related items such as ticketing, visas, transport were relatively easy to manage when compared to the stress of discarding the items accumulated in the house over a decade. There was the emotional attachment to items in the house to be balanced with the reality that it was impossible to carry everything with us. The seemingly simple act of discarding items that made up the house was the most stressful act of all. The furniture, the electronic “consumer goods”, crockery, utensils, keepsakes… the list goes on and on.
What were some of the methods that we employed to empty the house? It started off with a garage sale – there were a large number of books, crockery (unused), keepsakes that we managed to sell off at the garage sale. The intention was to discard as much as we could, at whatever price we managed to sell it off at. Selling the appliances was another story altogether. There was a gaming station, a TV, fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, a keyboard, printer, microwave oven and an old iPad to sell off. We managed to sell off the dishwasher, keyboard and the dishwasher online (through the MyGate marketplace primarily) and the rest were picked up by friends and acquaintances. This was the relatively easy part.
The dining table, the couches and the mattresses found takers at no cost. There was a NGO that agreed to take a lot of items – enough to fill up half a small truck. I thought that would do it. It emptied out a lot of the clothes that included linen, sheets and heaven knows what else in there, a carrom board, various toys and numerous unopened stationary items that were lying around in the kids wardrobes. Then, there were even more utensils, shoes, tools, various materials that were hardly ever used and in great condition. All of this was given away.
We had plants – many of them covering the balcony. Many of these were given away to our neighbors and we were still left with some that were probably not very healthy looking. These had to be just left on the roadside without any takers. One mini-truck load was shipped off to our parents’ house that included a very nice, electric recliner couch and bonsai plants, new utensils and more books that could be donated at a library close to their place. Most of the kitchen utensils were given away to the lady who was helping us for almost a decade and a cook who was with us for years. Then, there were the vehicles. The bicycle went to the cook, the two-wheeler to my sister and the car, well, that was eventually sold off only after we moved out. None of the usual websites were doing any good in buying the car – quoting way too less for me to even consider giving it to them. It was eventual purchased by a neighbor at a price that suited both of us.
After all of this, when we left, I thought it was all done. Most of the items were accounted for and it would be relatively easy for our neighbor to clean the house and hand it over to the new tenant who was due to come in and occupy the house in about 10 days after our departure. Fast chance. It turned out that after we left, the help cleared the house to the tune of a filling up another truck that included a mattress, the washing machine and the dining table apart from the utensils and washing machine. Our friend then emptied the house and ended up having to dispose off a mound of garbage that needed a couple of trolly rides of its own! Then, finally, the house was clean and empty, devoid of any movable furniture (save for one study table) that remained there for the use of the new tenant).
Lessons learnt? I’d say
1. Keep things simple, do not accumulate items that you do not need.
2. Purging stuff from the house regularly – maybe once every year.
3. Donate freely.
If you have moved houses, what has your experience been like? No amount of AI can help with that.
Mithun's Musings 