It was when her elderly neighbour fell at home and later went directly from hospital to a nursing home that Maura Rooney and another neighbour were tasked with clearing out the woman’s home and preparing it for sale. “And because she had lived there her whole life and her parents had lived there, there was so much stuff to be organised,” Rooney says.
At that time Rooney, who had previously worked as a banker, had been raising her children for a few years and was hesitant to return to the corporate world. So, having successfully cleared her neighbour’s home, she decided to start a business providing the service to other people.
She then brought Avila Molloy, a former schoolfriend, on board. She was the ideal candidate, Rooney explains, as she had experience of caring for her own mother who had Alzheimer’s disease – and “Avila was always the one when we were in school who, if the snow came, we weren’t playing in the snow, we were helping all the older people”. Their business, Seamless Moves, was born in 2018. “We’re not doing millions of houses every year, but we are growing all the time,” Rooney says.
The company, which is based in Dublin, tailors its process to the needs of its clients, whether clearing out a home for a family following a loved one’s death, or clearing a house for an older person who is moving to a nursing home. They also often prepare houses for sale, which involves cleaning, staging and sprucing up the gardens.
RM Block
The most important part of her job, Rooney says, is managing people’s expectations. “I know when someone says to me, ‘Oh, this cabinet of Mum’s, she said it was so valuable and she inherited it,’ and sometimes I already know it’s not going to sell for much, so you can let people down gently.
“But, fundamentally, people don’t actually care about selling things for a lot of money. The older people care more about someone else appreciating what they really appreciated and worked hard for, and the younger people – and when I say younger people I mean the 50-year-old offspring – care more about the sustainability of it,” she says.
Following a bereavement, the first step is for the family members or friends to take anything of importance to them out of the home. It’s better to leave people to it at this stage, Rooney explains: “It can be awkward. People need to have their little family rows over the picture without me looking at them.”
Rooney then spends about two days getting into the nitty gritty of the clear-out, organising things into four main categories: to auction house for sale, to charity, for recycling, and things put aside for family or owner to make a second call on.
“I find it’s a big weight off people’s shoulders when we go in and say, ‘Okay guys, your only job is to be satisfied that anything you want comes out of the house.’ Then I always find things along the way‚ but I have the cop on to know I’m going to keep this to the side, that it might be dad’s watch, or anything nice I stumble across, that they mightn’t have found, and then they can decide at the end whether it’s important to them or not,” Rooney says.
[ Thinking about a clear out? Don’t just chuck everything in a skipOpens in new window ]
Rooney has noticed a gap when it comes to everyday domestic items, such as lightly used pots and pans, for example, as charities tend not to accept them as donations due to health and safety risks, but there are undoubtedly families and younger people who would be happy to save them from going to waste. She is looking into ways of creating a scheme that could allow for longer life cycles of such items.
Priorities differ from case to case, and Rooney has found that some people attach very little sentimental value to items while they matter to other people much more. In some instances she has suggested a family member take photos of certain things, or that they take a teacup and saucer rather than a whole tea set, for example, as a memento.
She advises against putting items in storage. “The first few jobs I did, we arranged storage for people, and in two years’ time they’re ringing me having spent thousands on the storage and they just want you to get rid of the stuff anyway. Unless it speaks to you immediately, you actually don’t want it – and it’s so therapeutic to get rid of all that stuff.”
There are often children or the next of kin of the deceased living abroad, and oftentimes they are happy to pay for a service such as that provided by Seamless Moves as a way of doing their part while they can’t physically be in the country.
[ Wills and family fall-outs: ‘Money and grief bring out the worst in people’Opens in new window ]
Liz, based in Oxford in the UK, used the service when her aunt Anna died in Sandymount, Dublin. Liz and her sister were both born in the UK as their dad had moved there when he was young, and they were the executors to their aunt’s estate.
“Trying to organise Anna’s belongings from another country and not having had experience of doing it before, it was hard to know where to start. So, I did what a lot of people do in that situation and started with Google,” Liz says.
“And I was just looking around for house clearance services that weren’t simply about just getting everything out and into a skip but would treat it with a little bit more respect, for the things that she collected over her lifetime.”
The family took the items of Anna’s that they wanted after the funeral. “Because my dad had moved over to the UK, my aunt had the majority of the family history things and so those were important to keep. We kept a lot of photographs and various documents and books and so on.
“And then with other things it really came down to a few pieces of artworks and paintings that we just liked.”
Liz says it was great to have a friend or two of her aunt’s in the area who she trusted, and they were able to liaise with Rooney in person during the clearance process.
Another of Seamless Moves’ clients, Rachel, engaged the service to look after her mother-in-law’s property after she had moved into a nursing home. Her husband was the only one of her mother-in-law’s children in the country and both he and Rachel were too busy with work and family life to clear out the home.
[ My family lives abroad. Does that cause problems with my father’s will?Opens in new window ]
Rachel says the most important thing is to make sure older loved ones have the right paperwork in place so that power of attorney is clear. It would also be a help to discuss with family members who gets what before an older person passes away, as it provides peace of mind and avoids potential fallouts.
Being able to have a third party there to ease her mother-in-law’s transition to the nursing home was really valuable, she says.
Also, don’t assume people won’t want things, Rachel says. There were pieces of art, for example, that younger family members were happy to take that she would not have expected.
It would also be a good idea to get grandkids involved in sorting through photographs with their grandparents and older family members while they are alive to prompt stories and also sort things while they’re at it, she suggests.
Tips for clearing a loved one’s home
- Paperwork: Make sure you have everything needed for probate. A solicitor can provide a checklist.
- Security: If the house is not empty of belongings, secure it and advise the insurance company.
- Valuables: Identify all valuable items. If you don’t know what’s valuable, get someone in who does. Take photos of the items for auction houses.
- Communication: Communicate regularly with family members as emotions can run high.
- What to keep: Focus on what you all want to keep and try to be realistic about what you can take.
- Photos: Save the photos until the end and ideally sort them at a later date.
- Categorise: Once you understand what items need to go, separate them into ‘sell’, ‘donate’ and ‘recycle’. Contact the relevant parties.
- Avoid costly storage: If you don’t want or need items now, you probably won’t in the future.
- Think small: You don’t have to take everything of sentimental value. Why not take pictures of things or keep small mementos?
- Help: Take any help and support that is offered.
