(no subject)

[aadroma]

I've dreaded it, yet I've wanted it to be over and done with. It was my mother's estate sale.
I have to say, right now ...

It's hard to NOT feel like a bit of a tomb robber. Obviously I can't keep the stuff, and there's few options of what to do with it if I DON'T sell it, but that still doesn't change that feeling, especially as complete strangers come into your childhood home, fondle your parents' possessions, and walk off after paying a price for them. It was easiest to pretend that I just worked there, and that I didn't know who the stuff belonged to, lest I get emotional leverage. Mind you, with everything being buried, I hadn't seen easlily 60% of the items that WERE for sale. :: laugh ::

People like to kvetch. One woman crinkled her face and bitched -- quite a few times -- that the "fucking house smelled" (given the condition it had been in, I'm not sure what she's expecting!). Another guy walked in, and I asked if I could help him find anything. He looked at me, and simply replied, "No, no. This place? It's sort of scary," bofore walking out. Another man was there for literally two hours, complaining about prices and laughing at how people were idiots for paying what we were asking, because he only hits these up to make a profit, yadda yadda fap fap. Another person said he was a "tru" camera collector and that my mother's stash of 150 cameras were "crap" because they weren't from 1900. I didn't stab anyone, amazingly enough.

Along those lines, the house (and possessions thereof) seemed to confuse a few people. One woman came up, after seeing the menorahs, the Jesus bust, the Japanese dolls, the books on Buddhism, and the Ottoman empire coins and said, "... sorry if it's rude, but ... what the hell nationalities lived here???"

We made a fantastic amount of money ... which is going to paying the "surprise, Dad took a loan out on the house before he died" loan. And it doesn't quite cover that. We have stuff still in the house (clothing, some toys, a good chunk of the cameras), but what we DO from here is open to debate. Do we just sell it all for a flat fee? Try to auction stuff off? It would be nice if we could at least pay the loan off, before dealing with the house proper.