My father has been living full-time with his lady friend for the last two years, and his house has been untenanted save from a weekly checkup by either himself or the neighbours. He had been thinking about selling the place but after consulting several brokers he decided to hold off on it because he couldn't get the price he wanted.
Now his memory is failing and I fear that his lady friend, as wonderful as she is, has been more involved in his decision-making as perhaps she should be. I don't want to come straight out and say that she's manipulating him, but the more recent communications I've had with my father just didn't seem quite right to me.
The weekend is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Canada. But instead of spending it with my husband and daughter I'll be at Dad's house with my brother so we can have some serious discussions about what will become of the family heirlooms there. It was the wish of both our grandfather and our mother that they remain in the family.
The biggest trouble is that both I and my brother live in different provinces and we have our own fully-furnished households, and have no room at this time to take on much more. So there will be the issues of divisions, transport, storage, insurance, and the like.
If I could I would live in the house myself. But that would open up a whole other can of worms, not the least of which is the fact that the house is in a small community and pretty much requires having a car to be able to get anywhere (I don't drive). Not to mention the prospect of leaving my hometown, uprooting my family, and moving to an area where jobs in my husband's field are rare - particularly difficult since he finally got a job recently after spending almost a year and a half being unemployed.
Yes, it might be better to do this now, rather after Dad passes who knows how long from now. But I still don't like it.
Sounds like a tough weekend. But much better to deal with this now than later! Are some of the family heirlooms small enough that you could incorporate them into your home? Or give away/sell a few of your own things to make room for them? Are some of them things you can use? It would be a shame to have those special things locked away in storage. Good luck and I hope you and your family are able to make easy and unified decisions together :)
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