How To Clean Up After an Older Relative Passes Away

It may happen today, it may happen tomorrow, but it will happen. If you have a relative or other loved one in their older years, perhaps even in hospice, they won’t be around forever. After their passing comes mourning and healing. Those are the mental and spiritual forms of cleaning, however. Eventually, physical cleaning up comes into play.

Before your loved one departs, have a talk with them about what they want done with their worldly possessions, the location of keys and important papers, and so forth. If you don’t have that conversation beforehand, it leaves you to decide what to do after. If you’re feeling lost, use this guide to learn more about how to clean up after an older relative passes away.

Look Around

Before you do anything else, look around the property and assess what you need to tackle. This is also a moment to “collect” and recollect the good times and what you loved about the person. Take your time. As for the physical side of things, carry a notepad. Write down what you need to toss or donate, what to set aside for loved ones, and what necessary repairs or deep cleaning tasks are ahead. Ask relatives and friends to help out by doing the same and meet to discuss what you found.

Be Careful With Medical Waste

Before you break out the vacuum, rags, and cleaning products, review your list and see if anything requires special handling. Handle items stained with bodily fluids handled carefully, wearing gloves and masks. Consider hiring professionals for larger and more hazardous clean-up jobs and materials. For example, it’s best to get help from medical professionals who know how to dispose of medical waste. The various medicines, tools, implements, and other things that kept the person healthy aren’t of use to you, but you can’t treat them like ordinary trash. Check local laws about the disposal of sharps containers and unused pills. Don’t simply toss them in the trash or flush them down the toilet.

Sort Through Everything

If the deceased hasn’t made specific requests in their will about what to do with their possessions, prepare to sit down and sort through it all. The family should appoint one or two people to the job of organizing—sorting the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Set aside valuable items and items that might need to appear in the estate’s paperwork. Sort everything else into bins for keeping, donating, selling, or giving away. This process can be emotional for some families, so take time to see who wants what. Consider doing multiple rounds of sorting.

Deep Cleaning

As our final bit of advice on how to clean up after an older relative passes away: once all the items are out of the home, prepare for a deep cleaning. It’ll be much easier without all the stuff in the way. This task will typically boil down to cleaning the walls, floors, and ceilings. If you intend to sell the home, follow up with some basic maintenance, such as fixing dripping faucets and addressing flickering lights. Deep cleaning will ensure the selling process goes more smoothly.