First visits with clients are always interesting. You aren’t always sure what you’re walking into. Will you like them? More importantly, will they like you? Is this going to be the right project for you? If you’re like me, you’ve had an initial call to discuss what they hope to accomplish, so nothing should be too surprising.
However, this week was one of those moments where the existing conditions would catch anyone off guard. I met with a couple who purchased the house next door, which hadn’t been lived in for 15 years. They had watched it slowly deteriorate, and when the opportunity came, they snatched it up. Except it wasn’t empty.
Nothing so extreme as someone forgetting to remove the previous owner—just the detritus left behind. A stack of ashtrays—thankfully empty—on the mantel in the front room. A partially made bed. An open closet with some clothes and possibly a wedding dress in a garment bag. Little pieces of this person’s life left behind that might tell you something about them, although not too much.
I suppose when we all go, there will be similar experiences for the people we leave behind. My sister and I have talked more than once about what cleaning out my mom’s apartment will be like, with all the tidbits she’s gathered over the years. Oddly, I didn’t give any of this much thought—not until I was sitting in bed this week and looked over at our dressers.
Our bedroom has rubber ducks. Not the bathroom—the bedroom. Disco ducks, to be more specific. Five, exactly. Ducks we brought home from Southern Decadence this year that the hotel found in their storage room from one of the pool parties our group has every year. The year? 2015. The event? The Disco Pool Party.
Except no one would know that but us. And if we were to suddenly go, no one would be here to explain what they’re doing on our dressers. Or on the bookshelves in my office. (Yes, we came home with six, and one mysteriously found its way to work.) Should we leave a note just in case? And what else do we have in the house that might need an explanation?
Lots of LEGOs but no kids to play with them. The stainless-steel gecko hanging off the bookcase in the living room. A random slinky. All of it means something to us, but the random stranger walking in might wonder about it.
Years ago, a colleague and his husband purchased a home from the relatives of a spinster couple (lesbians) in their 90s who were moved into a nursing home. The day they took possession, they walked into the kitchen and found an open jar of peanut butter with a knife still in it, sitting on the counter. As if in the middle of making a sandwich, someone whisked the spinsters out the door and on to the rest of their lives. But my colleague and his husband didn’t know what the real story was, and never will.
So have a look around your house at the flotsam and jetsam that stands out. What are the items that make sense to you, but down the road will likely cause some head-scratching from someone else? And whatever you find, be sure to hold on to. There’s nothing like a little mystery.
I’m definitely not getting rid of the ducks. I might even hide them in odd places later on just for fun—something for the nieces and nephews to look at and wonder just what the two of us were thinking.
Because I’m certainly not telling them.
