Nancy gets accepted into the retirement country club community of her choice and Jeremy, her dutiful son, has eight weeks to get her six-bedroom house ready for sale so she can live happily ever after. The only problem is that after 50 years in the same house, Nancy has accumulated enough stuff to fit into king tuts tomb five times over. It's going to take more than rainbows and lollipops to make mom's dream a reality. Can he do it? Will Nancy get to spend the rest of her life in retirement bliss? Or will 50 years of fallout tear the two apart forever?
Nancy gets accepted into the retirement country club community of her choice and Jeremy, her dutiful son, has eight weeks to get her six-bedroom house ready for sale so she can live happily ever after. The only problem is that after 50 years in the same house, Nancy has accumulated enough stuff to fit into king tuts tomb five times over. It's going to take more than rainbows and lollipops to make mom's dream a reality. Can he do it? Will Nancy get to spend the rest of her life in retirement bliss? Or will 50 years of fallout tear the two apart forever?
Episode 4: The Purge
[00:00:00] Hello, this story you're about to hear is true. Any similarities to actual events are purely intentional.
Welcome to Tell That One Story an anecdotal podcast to brighten your day. I'm your co-host Liz
Jeremy: [00:00:34] and I'm Jeremy.
Liz: [00:00:35] Hey Jeremy, how's it going?
Jeremy: [00:00:37] Good. How are you doing?
Liz: [00:00:38] I was cleaning through my room today and I found this notebook, which I thought was a journal, but it appears that it is a writing journal, a journal of ideas I had to write about.
And this is amazing because it's reminding me of a scene in 30 rock. I don't know if you've seen it, but where Alec Baldwin's character was just writing the punchline to a bunch of jokes and making them come up with the jokes. Cause it feels like a little bit like that. So I just wanted to share this with you.
If you don't mind
Jeremy: [00:01:06] Go for it. I want to hear them.
Liz: [00:01:07] I'll put them out in public and then someone will steal them and make a movie and I'll be like, no, am I,
Jeremy: [00:01:11] these are your punchlines. That need jokes.
Liz: [00:01:13] Is that you're saying whenever she was in public with three or more people, a fight would break out. What? Why? Sexy, never sleeps.
What does that even mean? Is that, is that based on the previous one? Is that a different one?
Jeremy: [00:01:30] That's not a punchline. That's a romance novel title,
Liz: [00:01:32] right? Well, I've watched them, but I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm sexy. Sleeping time. Red beard. Is that like a pirate
Jeremy: [00:01:43] You just have red beard? The title?
Liz: [00:01:45] Just two words. Red beard.
Um, French fries are my superpower daughter of Popeye.
Jeremy: [00:01:52] Popeye had a kid? He had a kid. No, he did. It was a little boy.
Liz: [00:01:56] Yeah, the daughter in my fantasy and my fanfic. She eats French fries, and gains super powers.
Jeremy: [00:02:02] That's her power. Not spinach. I love it. I love it.
Liz: [00:02:07] I would be so strong.
The first comedian ever. And it's a lady,
Jeremy: [00:02:14] what is this?
Like a brainstorming page?
Liz: [00:02:16] Yeah. Cause it's so well lined out in pen. It might be like the best ideas from brainstorming rewritten on this page.
Jeremy: [00:02:24] Your best idea from brainstorming was. The first comedian was a lady.
Liz: [00:02:29] Yeah. Well, no, not one, but all of them sexy, never sleeps. Did you hear about Popeye?
Jeremy: [00:02:34] That is a, that is a good, that's a good, Popeye's long lost daughter
Liz: [00:02:37] who, the power of French fries.
What would be, what would be your super power food, Jer?
Jeremy: [00:02:42] Me if I could, if I could, so I can make anything my super power,
Liz: [00:02:48] I think based on the fact that like
Jeremy: [00:02:49] Garlic bread.
Liz: [00:02:50] Wow.
Jeremy: [00:02:51] Garlic bread,
Liz: [00:02:52] then what does it power.
Jeremy: [00:02:54] Everything.
Liz: [00:02:55] Oh.
Jeremy: [00:02:55] All of it.
Liz: [00:02:56] I'm afraid now,
Jeremy: [00:02:59] probably should have said that
Liz: [00:03:01] Explicit content warning.
Jeremy: [00:03:04] I love garlic bread. I don't know.
I will eat it all the time. I mean, I won't eat it all the time, but I would, if it was. No, there was no risk,
Liz: [00:03:12] no risk. Well, that's, what's great about this. I'm assuming, because I put French fries down. One of her superpowers is that she doesn't gain weight or get a heart disease.
That's the assumption.
Jeremy: [00:03:25] I feel like this is getting dangerous,
I mean, you're about to out me on my whole performance eating, why garlic, you know, bread it's because it costs too much. It's full of things that
Liz: [00:03:34] are delicious
Jeremy: [00:03:35] are delicious. Yes. But that costs a lot from a health perspective,
Liz: [00:03:40] but French fries as well. I mean, I think we all assumed that we would take ice cream or something.
It's okay.
Jeremy: [00:03:46] Oh my gosh!!
Or it would be prelims and cream. Oh, total real thing. Or like rock or Rocky road.
Liz: [00:03:52] Your eyes just got so big. Yeah.
Jeremy: [00:03:54] Yeah. Wow. That stuff was free. I would be all over that. I would just be eating that all day. I just need that in like legends of Zelda and I'll be so happy.
Liz: [00:04:05] Ice cream fancast brought to you by Jeremy and Liz.
Okay. Oh, and my last one, I just want to say here, a post-apocalyptic lemonade stand. What? I don't...
Jeremy: [00:04:17] Cause that's, that's the first thing on my
Liz: [00:04:19] mind. Yep. Uh, pitched that idea a million dollars. That is the story. So those stories, aren't great. There's a little bit of edge that they might need to be workshopped a little bit.
Do you have a story you want to share in their stead?
Jeremy: [00:04:32] Are we ready for the big, the main event? The big story today?
Liz: [00:04:35] I am ready. I've just shared with you. I've buried my soul. On some of my best ideas I've ever had. Did you hear Sexy Never Sleeps?
Jeremy: [00:04:46] Yes! Enough of that, you need to weave that into the whole Secret Prince story.
That would be great.
Liz: [00:04:53] Oh, my and my spinoff podcast. Sexy princes never sleep. No, because they can't
Jeremy: [00:04:59] sexy. Secret princess never sleep.
Liz: [00:05:01] They don't sleep. They barely kiss. They don't sleep. Think there's just, there's so wholesome. They're such wholesome princes.
Jeremy: [00:05:10] I know that that wouldn't be the story that happens after 10:00 PM at night,
Liz: [00:05:13] they finally get up in the middle of the night and they're like, Hey, I'm getting some milk and cookies.
Jeremy: [00:05:20] There's a pig's head in the corner.
Liz: [00:05:25] Stop. I referencing other podcasts. It was just confused people. And they won't want to listen to anymore.
Jeremy: [00:05:31] Why not? They want to like listen to what all these
Liz: [00:05:34] know why there's a reference to a pig's head in the corner.
Jeremy: [00:05:38] What does that have to do with
sleeping?
Liz: [00:05:40] anything?
Jeremy: [00:05:41] Okay. Sorry. We ready for the story.
Liz: [00:05:43] If you are. I am I'm ready. I'm primed. I feel humorous. I'm ready to listen and make fun of you. I mean, listen with you.
Jeremy: [00:05:51] Okay. This is a big story. This was actually a huge big event when it came to my family. So years ago, you know,
Liz: [00:05:57] many years ago, how old were you?
Jeremy: [00:05:58] You know, this, I'm not going to date myself, but let's just say I'm a young adult.
Liz: [00:06:01] Okay.
Jeremy: [00:06:01] I'm an adult, you know this, but my family grew up. I have a big family. My dad actually renovated the entire house or has six bedrooms in it. My parents had lived there all throughout their life. My mom nearly lived there 50 years before she had to move.
Liz: [00:06:13] I did not know that!
Jeremy: [00:06:15] yeah. I think it was 49 years. She'd lived there.
Liz: [00:06:17] That's explains why there's so much clutter and like hoarding.
Jeremy: [00:06:22] My mom lived there for like 50 years and my mom, as I mentioned, I think her, her full name as we could give her is Nancy Whitehead?
Liz: [00:06:30] No Whitehead sounds like something on my face and
Jeremy: [00:06:33] we'll just call her Nancy.
Liz: [00:06:35] Nancy Hogbottom?
Jeremy: [00:06:39] So my mom, Nancy Hogbottom.
Liz: [00:06:40] That makes you Jeremy Hogbottom.
You even prefer to be Jeremy Whitehead?
Jeremy: [00:06:48] I bit that one Nancy, you were just gonna call her Nancy. So my mom, Nancy has lived in this house for almost 50 years. We mentioned before on the podcast that she was an occupational therapist and that matters because in all of her dealings with all of her work, she's, she's done.
She knew she wanted to always want to move into this one retirement facility. She's just known that's where she wanted to go. No questions asked. In fact, I had a conversation with her once I was like, Hey, you're probably going to need to move in to meet with me someday. And she's like, no, I'm going over here.
Thank you.
Liz: [00:07:17] Wait, you asked your mom to move in with you. And she said no to you. I
Jeremy: [00:07:21] told her, like, what's your plan? Like, you know, do you need to move into with me? Like you can. Cause I L I love you. That
Liz: [00:07:27] was your face like that. When you said it, it was like, I'm supposed to say this, but
Jeremy: [00:07:34] you're really easy to live with.
Liz: [00:07:36] I could put a little tent out back. You won't even notice you'll have your own space, plenty of room to run around.
Jeremy: [00:07:43] So she had her heart set on this one place. So she was getting of that age where I said, mom, do you really want to manage this whole. Six bedroom, huge house. Cause it's just more for her to handle
Liz: [00:07:53] at that point. Who was there other people living in it? Was it mostly her,
Jeremy: [00:07:55] there was a tenant in it as well.
Liz: [00:07:57] Okay.
Jeremy: [00:07:57] So she was renting the basement,
Liz: [00:07:59] but basically she was, she could up and sell and it'd be okay. Yeah.
Jeremy: [00:08:03] And, and the tenant was it's. It was a very informal arrangement. You know, they, they knew it was a short-term living situation.
So she's getting of age. I said, we should go apply. Right. Because it's going to take two or so years to get into this because there's a waiting list. That's a pretty common places. We get her signed up. Six months later, they call her back and they're like, Hey, we have an opening and I see my chance. Hey, we need to get you out of this place.
It's way too much for you to handle you. Can't keep up with it. As in my mom, as, as low as you know is a hoarder. And I say that with love.
Liz: [00:08:34] We love you, Nancy. You've been in the same house for 50 years, Nancy.
Jeremy: [00:08:39] It's not personal.
Liz: [00:08:40] So much stuff, Nancy. So much stuff.
Jeremy: [00:08:43] Yeah. So much you, and just to give the audience at home perspective, six bedrooms, not one of them.
Could you walk through consistently. There was maybe a eight inch and I'm not even kidding you like an eight inch path to get to maybe the window. If you had to, and maybe to the closet, there was a closet in there. Otherwise it was floor to ceiling boxes or at least boxes, five feet high.
Liz: [00:09:07] So, but they were in boxes.
There was not like just piles of newspaper or children's books or
Jeremy: [00:09:12] no, she at least put them in boxes, but they were plastic bags piled around everywhere. And there's, you know, there's brick, bricks, places like it was crap thrown on stuff and stacked neatly and bouncing on the bookshelves on top of all the other stuff.
Liz: [00:09:28] How did you, yeah. Okay, please keep going. I must know how the story ends.
Jeremy: [00:09:32] Yes, she applies. She gets the call and this was, I want to say it was November ish. It was towards the end of the year. And they're like, Hey, you're approved if you want to come in, but you need to be in here in eight weeks. And that is.
You had to be in and moved in to the place. And it was a one bedroom apartment in eight weeks and she had six bedrooms of hoarding.
Liz: [00:09:54] 50 years of issues, baggage issues, and just ready to go.
Jeremy: [00:09:59] And so we realized, I was like, mom, do you really want to do this? Or you might, you might miss your chance. Now she could have had another chance, but you know, we had a strike while the iron was hot.
Yeah. Like we had to get her out of there cause I was having to manage it and she'd call me, I'd have to come over there and fix her house. And I didn't want to manage a six bedroom house on top of another one. So I convinced her, we gotta do this. We gotta get out of here, but can we do it in eight weeks?
Do you think you can do this mom in eight weeks? And of course she's like, I sure can.
Liz: [00:10:25] Yeah, I sure can. As long as you do all the work
Jeremy: [00:10:27] right.
Liz: [00:10:28] And distract me. So I don't know the work is being done. And also, um, please don't I need to keep all of this for good reasons,
Jeremy: [00:10:35] literally. So there were just to give you some perspective, there were boxes of travel magazines, like 1980s through nineties, you can imagine a travel magazine is only relevant for.
Maybe a couple of years,
Liz: [00:10:51] if you want that snippet in time of what it was like in the eighties?
Jeremy: [00:10:54] You are starting to sound like her and I'm going to go crazy.
Liz: [00:10:59] I'm just trying to like you don't maybe, well, maybe she's like me and she just says it...
Jeremy: [00:11:03] No.
Liz: [00:11:03] to mess with you.
Jeremy: [00:11:04] That would be the ultimate ruse. He like shows up one day and says, I just wanted to mess with you for, you know, however many years I'd be like, That is it.
You, you are not getting buried. I'm cremating you!
Liz: [00:11:17] That's a hardcore threat.
Jeremy: [00:11:21] Um, but no, like, and so this is my second point about travel magazines. Are you have the internet now there's the internet, right? You can go online and you can like search anything, right, right. About anything. You can look at a website
Liz: [00:11:34] if you want the pictures in the magazine.
I think they're even digital ways to get it on your iPad and stuff like that. But. Yeah, all older folks, like tangible things, lets them know they're alive.
Jeremy: [00:11:45] You know, my mom like she, no one, no one will put anything past Nancy. You know, she wants to see every piece. She wanted to see every single piece of thing that was in that house.
She had to go through it one by one sheet by sheet. She literally want to see every single page of every newspaper. I was like, mom, this is not going to happen.
Liz: [00:12:05] Every single page of every single newspaper?
Jeremy: [00:12:07] Yes.
Liz: [00:12:07] In case something important?
Jeremy: [00:12:08] Yes. Have you met a hoarder before?
Liz: [00:12:10] There's like, did you have like a priest on hand?
Like how does someone communicate with someone who's going through all this? Did you have like a professional? Did you bring in a mercenary?
Jeremy: [00:12:19] I brought in someone.
Liz: [00:12:21] A mercenary!
Jeremy: [00:12:22] She was like one. Yes.
Liz: [00:12:24] What's her name? What's this mercenaries name. I'm sorry. I'm skipping ahead. I'm skipping ahead. I'm so excited.
Jeremy: [00:12:28] We'll get to the mercenary. I try to actually PM this thing right. To project managers. So I'm putting up this whole thermometer. I was like, Oh, I'm motivated with that thermometer. Right. I subdivide it. So every room was like a square on the thermometer where every tick Mark is, Hey, we're going to get the kitchen, the living room, the basement, um, your bedroom, the bedrooms.
Liz: [00:12:44] Oh, that's great. You're too close to it. You're too emotionally close to it.
Jeremy: [00:12:48] I was.
Liz: [00:12:48] Because what if she doesn't you just, I mean, if it were me and it was by Mom, I would just start punching her, then I'd be like, well, now there's more mess.
Jeremy: [00:12:56] This is not helping.
Liz: [00:12:57] I love your mom. Sorry. I love you. I've just, this is my childhood issue.
Jeremy: [00:13:03] This is my issue. Ah, so that happened for a week because I would leave and I'd be like, okay, how much did you get done? She's like, well, I finished the kitchen. I walk into the kitchen and nothing's done. She's like, well, I went through all and got through everything I could, but. Yeah. She might have like two paper bags of garbage, you know,
Liz: [00:13:18] where does she think she's going to put all that other stuff?
Jeremy: [00:13:21] That's that's the problem. I was like, mom, you're not, you got one bedroom.
Liz: [00:13:24] What was she thinking? She was going to keep it. Yeah.
Jeremy: [00:13:28] Yeah. And get a storage unit and whatever. And I'm like, well, we're not paying for a storage unit.
Liz: [00:13:32] Wow. Yeah. I know. Tough love time.
Jeremy: [00:13:34] Well, the people at the retirement facility or the, um, I call it the country club because it's not really a retirement facility.
It's like, yeah, it's fancy. Yeah. Hence, why she wanted to be there. They're like, you need this. And they like slide this brochure across the table. This is six weeks to go. And they're like, you need this because we go into check-in. Right, right. And I'm like, well, we're getting there. And they, they have my mom pegged from day one.
Right. They've seen this before.
Liz: [00:13:57] They're like, no, no, no, no. You need the professionals. Did they come in out of a helicopter and jumps out? Sorry,
Jeremy: [00:14:05] I make the phone call, 30 minutes later. There's this whole team.
Liz: [00:14:11] I knew it!
Jeremy: [00:14:12] Black ops! Code red!
Liz: [00:14:13] Go, go, go. And they have like one of those giant suction tubes from the sky that just like sucks up all of the garbage.
Jeremy: [00:14:20] You are stealing my story.
Liz: [00:14:22] I'm sorry. Oh, you did this to me. When I tell you do not, you do not do this. I'm just really excited. Okay. I'm sorry.
Jeremy: [00:14:31] Okay. So the, this lady, I forgot her name, the head lady. She's not the mercenary. The head lady comes with her friend right on the phone. I said, she's a hoarder. I need to know how to do this. I want to save everything that is meaningful.
I think we have to work through this. And of course they have the whole thing down Pat. They're like, okay, great. Here's how we're going to do it. You know, here's how it's going to go. So they show up and they walk in and they are the most unassuming people you will ever meet. These angels, because that's what they do.
And I wish I could tell you the name of the company, because I thought it was clever. They come in. And one of them is this older lady, you know, she's probably 60 plus years old, super sweet. And then there's this young buck she's probably 40 or something, but a real kicker. In fact, one of the days I go out and she's like smoking a cigarette.
Yeah.
Liz: [00:15:15] I've seen stuff, kid. You wouldn't even know,
Jeremy: [00:15:17] but you would've never, she wouldn't have pegged her that
Liz: [00:15:19] It's part of the con she's like, no, honey, I'm just like you, I also have stuff.
Jeremy: [00:15:24] Oh. And they show up in this van and I'm like, Mm, that's going to come in handy. It's like a, there's no windows in the van. It's like a total.
Liz: [00:15:31] Yes. So. So you don't see the stuff that's being secreted away.
Jeremy: [00:15:34] So you don't see what they're taking away.
Liz: [00:15:36] Oh my gosh. Pros!
Jeremy: [00:15:37] So they meet my mom and they're like, don't worry. We're going to go through everything with you. We're going to make sure you have just what you need there. And you know, we're really good at this.
We've helped a lot of people and my mom's like, well, I need to go through all this stuff. And like, we'll work with your son. We'll figure this all out. Don't worry. We want you to relax. It'll be great. Right. So I get my mom to okay it. Right. We go out, go outside. What's the mercenary. We need the mercenary name. The mercenary name is
Liz: [00:15:59] Oh, Spartika!
Jeremy: [00:16:01] Spartika is out there. She's having a smoke. And she was like, first thing is we need to get a dumpster. Here's the number. And then I call them and they're like, what size do you want? I'm like, Ooh, I don't know. So I'm texting her. She's like get the nine by 16, which is the big one. Yeah. Okay.
So she's literally like T-ing all this up next day, the dumpster comes. My mom's like, what's the dumpster out here for? I'm like, well, I think we're going to use it to get rid of all that garbage that we have. And that's when stuff started to happen. That was like black ops set up all around. Spartika is like, I'm going to talk to your mom.
We're going to get things into piles. Here's the three piles we're gonna go through. And she's, literally talking to me. Right. She had a little headset not a headset, but I'm the way I remember it was like, we had headset. We had walkie-talkies.
Liz: [00:16:37] Yeah. Did you have sunglasses and suits?
Jeremy: [00:16:39] Yeah. Yeah. She's like, what needs to happen?
I was like, well, there, you actually might come across some very expensive things. We need to save. You know, there might be some paperwork for my dad from stocks and stuff. Couldn't always find all that stuff and there might be stuff to throw away. So she's like, you go talk to your mom. I'm going to go put these in these piles.
You're going to tell me what matters. And then I'm going to give you a few things to show her, and then we're going to just run stuff to the dumpster. I was like, you think we can pull this off?
Liz: [00:17:02] Wait. So she's saying like, we're going to distract her or you're going to distract her.
Jeremy: [00:17:07] I'm going to distract her.
I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna have three people come the next day. Once her and I get a little game plan together. I hope my mom never listens to this podcast.
Liz: [00:17:17] I was going to say, Nancy may, if, so this is just a fiction made up by, did you hear the intro? Disclaimer? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy: [00:17:26] So what would happen is they would spend eight hours a day.
Liz: [00:17:30] I love how you're also like whispering a little bit, like you're afraid she's going to hear,
Jeremy: [00:17:34] I know this cannot be, this cannot get out. People can not know what's going on. She can never find out. So I had to work full time. Right. And so. Spartika would go in there with her three Ninja warriors and they would literally take down a room and they would put everything in three piles, right?
One is like the throwaway pile. One is the donate pile. And one is the Jeremy, you need to review this.
Liz: [00:17:54] And they're probably heavily trained too. So they know like
Jeremy: [00:17:56] they are seriously trained.
Liz: [00:17:59] This looks like a soccer seat. This looks like an angry letter
Jeremy: [00:18:02] this is just a magazine from leisure and whatever from 84. Um, and this is a broken chair, but this could be meaningful because maybe this is a little rocking chair from a kid.
I don't know. Yeah. Right.
Liz: [00:18:11] Wow.
Jeremy: [00:18:12] So I would come in there. I would just like point and nod, but we wouldn't even talk because if she heard us, the jig would be up.
Liz: [00:18:18] No. So it was like, like signals, like hand signals of like, Oh
Jeremy: [00:18:23] yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I would, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to grab that pile. So I'd grab the, the distraction pile.
Liz: [00:18:28] Oh, it's so it's literally put up for her to go through so she has something to do.
Jeremy: [00:18:32] Yeah. Like it's stuff that I know is decent that we should think about saving.
Liz: [00:18:35] So it's, it's oh, so, she's given a pile of stuff that she's allowed to save. It's already been pre-vetted. This is genius!
Jeremy: [00:18:41] It really is. Right.
I'm blown away by Spartika, like ah,
Liz: [00:18:46] and her minions.
Jeremy: [00:18:46] She. Genius. Yes. I literally took her out for drinks afterwards. I said, I'm buying you drinks and a very expensive dinner because by the end of it, we were just. Yeah, we were in it. So we would set Nancy up on her La-Z-Boy chair. Right. We get something on TV.
That was some, what
Liz: [00:19:03] was it like hoarders or something?
Jeremy: [00:19:05] No. That's another story, I have to tell you.
Liz: [00:19:08] Oh, right. Was she afraid? Okay. You know what? We'll save it.
Jeremy: [00:19:11] But this small segue, me and my sister when I was over college one year and hoarders was on and my mom was on the couch, resting her eyes because she rested her eyes. Eyes closed listening.
And all of a sudden hoarders came on like the TLC channel whatever's on. And me and my sister looked at each other. We didn't say a thing. And my mom and bolts up eyes wide open. If you ever put me on that show, you guys will not have a place here. She was not.
Liz: [00:19:39] Oh my gosh
Jeremy: [00:19:40] we didn't. I know, she was dead serious.
We did not, we didn't say a word.
Liz: [00:19:45] She could just feel your vibrations in the room
Jeremy: [00:19:48] Uh, she just knew. Right.
Liz: [00:19:49] Oh my gosh.
Jeremy: [00:19:50] Um, so where was I? I lost my place.
Liz: [00:19:53] You were talking about how great it was. So then you would be given a pile to show her Nancy as a distraction. After you came home from work, you would get that pile.
And then, then while she was being distracted,
Jeremy: [00:20:06] Yes. So we put Nancy on the La-Z-Boy. Right? I would, we would keep her fed with stuff to go through. That was legitimately.
Liz: [00:20:14] Oh, it's good. You continue to feed her. You keep her, you gave her some busy work and it looked like real work.
Jeremy: [00:20:19] He would keep her busy with a pile on the recliner.
And then I would talk with her a little bit over here in front of her. And then I would be like, Go go go. And they would train stuff to that dumpster
Liz: [00:20:32] chain. Isn't like hand, hand to the person next to them kind of fire line.
Jeremy: [00:20:35] Well, no, no, they were individual, but they'd all have like a stack of stuff in their arms.
Right? Like, they'd be like, go, go, go,
Liz: [00:20:40] go, go, go, go.
Jeremy: [00:20:42] And then one of them thrown in the dumpster and another person would load up the van because the van was the donation van. Right. So the van went to the donations every day.
Liz: [00:20:49] I bet they had a lot of donations.
Jeremy: [00:20:50] Yeah. And that was the year of a crazy amount of donations and Spartika?
Brilliant. Okay. She knows how this works. She's like, Oh, you know what, this, you know, I could see the veterans association really needing this because it's veterans something. I could totally see this going for the blind. Like she had every type of donation
Liz: [00:21:09] Right, because Nancy would be like, Oh, okay. As long as it's going somewhere good.
She could be talked out of it.
Jeremy: [00:21:15] Yeah. Oh, it's for the children. They need blankets. Yeah, take this right. Or we had a monitor that, Oh, the people who were veterans who couldn't see very well could use this huge monitor. So it went to the veterans.
Liz: [00:21:25] But did it really go to the veterans?
Jeremy: [00:21:28] I have no...
I was going to say,
Liz: [00:21:30] You don't know, it disappeared is what was important.
Jeremy: [00:21:33] I don't know if Spartika was just that good or if she legitimately ran to these places, but I, you know,
Liz: [00:21:41] That's what you paid for. You didn't have to worry about it. As long as it left the building
I wanted the mess cleaned up.
That's right. It's not like you were giving her a child and like, please make sure the child gets a good home.
You were like this monitor, which is 50 years out of date. And two of the colors don't work.
Jeremy: [00:21:55] Yeah. She was brilliant.
Liz: [00:21:57] Wow.
Jeremy: [00:21:58] And I'm not gonna ask questions. Don't ask.
Liz: [00:21:59] I don't want to know. I don't, I don't want to know. They have like a wormhole that goes to a black hole in space is where they put all of their garbage.
So it's actually carbon neutral for them of how they process in space.
Jeremy: [00:22:17] There was one other motivator I should tell you that my mom was working against and. It was the real estate agent, because in order to get into this place, she had to sell it to get the down payment, to get into the place and you need to take pictures.
And so we needed to take pictures. It needed to be ready for sale. If we were going to time this right. Cause this is the end of November. She had to put it to market the first week of January and then have it open for a week, sell, sell it, and then be able to make the down payment. I think for February, right.
Something was there was when they needed the payment,
Liz: [00:22:48] because then you had eight weeks to turn us around. It's a good thing. There was a project manager, right? But sorry, what, what lies? I mean, what statements did she say?
Jeremy: [00:22:57] So the real estate agent comes in mid chaos from the SWAT team, doing their magic. Spartika doing her amazing stuff.
And she says, there is no way you're going to have this ready by January. And he was like 11th or something. There's no way you're going to have this ready. I don't believe you can do this. The last thing you tell Nancy is that she can't do something. She, so she asked me every time, me and Spartika were there like, do you think we'll get this done by January 8th?
Because she did not want to be shown up by their real estate agent.
Liz: [00:23:25] Oh no. She had like this grudge against the real estate lady that she needed to show her up, that she was wrong. Did you pay her to come in there and say that?
Jeremy: [00:23:37] Maybe?
Liz: [00:23:37] It feels like a con job. This whole thing feels like a con job. It's like an ocean's 11 set up the heist.
Jeremy: [00:23:44] There is so much opportunity out here for the right people to capitalize on.
Liz: [00:23:47] Yeah.
Yeah. There's a lot of hoarder ladies out there, or men or people just
Jeremy: [00:23:55] ripe for the taking ripe for the taking
Liz: [00:23:56] we love you Nancy, but this, you were part of an ocean's 11 style heist in your mom's home.
Jeremy: [00:24:05] It was insane. Every day there were troops running around hauling stuff out. We went through three like nine feet by 16 feet,
Liz: [00:24:15] through three of those garbage bins?
Jeremy: [00:24:17] The big ones we went through over two almost three.
Liz: [00:24:21] Did you find any dead bodies?
Jeremy: [00:24:22] Uh-uh, We could have put them in there though.
Liz: [00:24:24] Oh, good. I mean,
Jeremy: [00:24:25] Actually, one thing I did find,
Liz: [00:24:27] Whoa. Wow.
Jeremy: [00:24:29] I found about 30 boxes and this was under the stairway. We had the stairway and then you opened this. It was actually a little hole. You could kind of open into a secret room under the stairway. And then in the secret room, it was only the size of a small child, or you could fit two or three small kids in there because it was a little reading room when we were kids like a quiet one, but my dad had built a whole false back.
So there's a secret area back there. We open it and all we knew growing up is that it was boxed in their boxes. All it was packed boxes. We pull this in and I kid you, I thought this was maybe a two foot by three feet by five foot square that you could carry maybe eight boxes in. We pulled out almost 30 boxes and these are like, you know, those gallon boxes.
I'm trying to give you guys a good sense of the size. It was like a three foot by two foot by two foot box.
Liz: [00:25:16] Wow.
Jeremy: [00:25:17] Stuffed with seventies clothes. Woah! Legitimate. Yeah, they were my mom's mom. Like they were my grandmother's clothes. When she passed away.
Liz: [00:25:27] Aww, she couldn't let go of her clothes.
Jeremy: [00:25:31] Well, she could now she's like, let's get rid of them.
I mean, my mom didn't have sentimental, but I regret it because we were looking at it and they were cool clothes that were authentic and she was kind of
Liz: [00:25:40] stylish.
Yeah, you could have, if you were doing it, not on D-Day, you could have actually had a moment to look at the stuff and find something. Cool. Wow.
That's so cool.
Jeremy: [00:25:50] So that's one of those things I wish he would, would've loved to have more time to go through, but at that point you're just racing the clock we're right against the clock.
Liz: [00:25:57] What was the other most surprising thing?
Jeremy: [00:25:59] Um, the only other thing I was, I was actually hoping to find my long lost, stuffed animal.
So I had lost, I lost a stuffed animal, my, my favorite stuffed animal, which I'm pretty sure my mom
Liz: [00:26:09] donated. Yeah. She threw that one out because it's like here about that one.
Jeremy: [00:26:12] Yeah. Should we care about that one? But I always thought it was going to be in our, our big toy cabinet in the back. Nothing, nothing else surprising.
Liz: [00:26:21] Jeremy, do you know where that gift box that you made for me in high school or junior high was the treasure chest with the gold, rope. Do you have that?
Jeremy: [00:26:31] Mmm-hmm. It's in my garage.
Liz: [00:26:32] You're supposed to give it back to me. It's supposed to be a gift exchange.
Jeremy: [00:26:36] Too bad.
Liz: [00:26:37] Okay. Well, if you need to start your hoarding early, you can go ahead and to it.
Jeremy: [00:26:44] I'm sure that will pop up again, given this conversation.
Liz: [00:26:47] Yeah. No, it's great. I mean, I am living a very mobile life right now. Like I have room for stuff to store you. Honestly, Jeremy, I was just hoping it wasn't me who lost it. Since we're supposed to give it back and forth every year. Uh, I'm glad to know that it was with the responsible party.
I wouldn't say he was hoarding it. He was keeping it.
Jeremy: [00:27:05] Keeping it safe. Yes. In fact, I'm trying to find an appropriate gift that can fit inside of it. That's all.
Liz: [00:27:11] Oh, great.
Jeremy: [00:27:12] Then it will come back.
Liz: [00:27:13] Is it a new man? Or you could probably put his number in there.
Jeremy: [00:27:18] Is this podcast like your conduit for finding someone?
Liz: [00:27:21] Oh my gosh.
No, that's my other spinoff podcast "Liz Needs a Man!" that's a different podcast.
Jeremy: [00:27:28] Um, so do you want to know, do you think we actually hit it? You want to another dramatic?
Liz: [00:27:32] Oh yes. I do want to know. Did you, okay, so you have special ops, you have Spartika and her team. Okay. You have three bins.
Jeremy: [00:27:42] Three dumpsters.
Liz: [00:27:43] You have like a weird kidnappers van with no windows.
That's just kidnapping donations. So no one can see. Okay.
Jeremy: [00:27:52] I forgot about the tenant. And then there was a tenant, right? Who was all?
Liz: [00:27:56] Oh yeah. Was he still alive?
Jeremy: [00:27:59] Well, this was the other, like, so we were all ready to go and he was aware of the situation. And two weeks before everything kind of ready to go, he's like, I'm not moving out.
You know, and we're like, this is, this has got to, you don't have a choice. You have to move out. The house is going to be sold. So luckily, you know, there was that whole, you know, wrench in the wheel and the person was just intimidating. Some of the workers who were trying to get done.
Liz: [00:28:24] Oh, wow. The special ops team?
Jeremy: [00:28:25] Yeah.
Liz: [00:28:26] They could throw away your stuff before you even knew it was gone! Don't piss those guys off!
Could you imagine? You're like, it'd be like one of those movies where they're like, and I'm just going to sit down in my bed. And "where'd it go!?" It was here a second ago. Yeah, exactly. And it's gone. Yeah.
Jeremy: [00:28:45] Yeah. You don't mess with Spartika.
Liz: [00:28:47] I was wearing pants.
Jeremy: [00:28:48] Those need to go to the veterans.
Liz: [00:28:50] Those veterans need pants. Think you're the only one who needs pants?
Jeremy: [00:28:55] The Goodwill. They're going to Goodwill. Oh, go, go, go. Long story short, my mom totally rallied. We got the house ready to sell the day before the realtor was coming to take photos.
Liz: [00:29:06] And the realtor showed up and she was like, *gasp*
Jeremy: [00:29:08] She was blown away.
And to this day, and she said nothing. She didn't even remember that. She made that statement to my mom and my mom was waiting for an acknowledgement. And an apology, like she was waiting for credit
Liz: [00:29:21] an apology? I mean.
Jeremy: [00:29:23] I shouldn't say apology, but
Liz: [00:29:24] wow, you guys did it. I said that you could, and you did versus she's like, wow.
Jeremy: [00:29:29] Yeah, she was waiting to be recognized the whole time.
My mom was like, well, can you believe, can you believe I did it? Like I did it. I told you I could do it.
Liz: [00:29:37] Well,
I like the I in that I like, at that point, you're like, whatever. I'll just suck it up then be, yeah, it's amazing. You did all this on your own by yourself. Against your very nature.
Jeremy: [00:29:49] I don't care at that point, the end is in sight.
You know, she feels like she owns it and the real estate agent forgot that she's had the whole thing. And so she didn't even respond to it. She was just, wow, here we are. Like for her to say you'll never make, it was something she just said flippantly. Yeah. But for my mom to get that all done. And then to say that, can you believe we made it?
We did it up by January 8th. We're ready to go. And she's like, Oh great, congrats. You know, like took her photos. We sold the house in, I think two weeks we had some buyers. My mom picked one and. Within four more weeks. She was, we were moving her into the apartment and she was stoked.
Liz: [00:30:27] It's it's, it's a miracle it's like, so it was new year.
So it was a new year's miracle that your mother magically, all on her own, bravely went through her things. She went through her things all by herself bravely. And you were like, no, mom, you should keep all these things. And she was like, no, Jeremy, I must give this away to the blind and the veterans,
Jeremy: [00:30:46] I must do what's right.
I only have one room in that apartment.
Liz: [00:30:50] Yeah. And that is amazing because that's a lot of stuff you hit a time vault in the middle of that. And to the 1970s. So now that she's moved in, how are things going now? Does she like her new place?
Jeremy: [00:31:05] You know, she's been very comfortable in her place. She, she likes it.
It's home. That's home to her.
Liz: [00:31:10] Congratulations on the miraculous accomplishment. And I'm just, it's good to know. There are people out there like Spartika and her mercenaries to come in and do that. I just don't piss them off. Oh my gosh. What if I have like an ex boyfriend or somebody I want to just. I have a job for you.
It's not your usual job.
Jeremy: [00:31:28] Does your ex boyfriend hoard?
No, I just want to
I don't think you're really understanding what the point isn't to kill somebody it's to surgically understand hoarding.
Liz: [00:31:35] I don't want him to die, just to feel it, you know, a little. And maybe all of his belongings get donated. While he's asleep. He just wakes up on the floor.
Jeremy: [00:31:47] Four, four crates, right. His mattress on four crates.
Liz: [00:31:50] He's on the floor, like what his shoes are there, he looks up and he sees one exposed light bulb hanging down because they took even like the lamp shade, light fixture. That's beautiful. And he like rents a room somewhere. So the rest of the house, they didn't even know what happened.
He's just suddenly got nothing, but his underwear and a pair of shoes. Oh, excuse me. I need to go write my fanfic of Spartika and her adventures.
Jeremy: [00:32:18] So what, what do you think the moral of the story is?
Liz: [00:32:21] Throw away your stuff, throw away the things that you no longer need.
Jeremy: [00:32:24] Got it, got it.
Liz: [00:32:25] Otherwise, mercenaries will come into your home, and take your things from you.
Jeremy: [00:32:31] Mercenaries will come into your home
Liz: [00:32:32] and you won't know who to trust
Jeremy: [00:32:34] and burn it all.
Liz: [00:32:36] Even your own family members will turn on you.
Jeremy: [00:32:38] Yeah. Even your own son will turn on you.
Liz: [00:32:42] Some mercenaries will come. It's like the Vikings who would like pillage homes and take things with them. It's like that. Your son will hire vikings. So throw away your stuff. Or mercenaries will break into your home and take your stuff.
It's a good moral,
Jeremy: [00:32:59] totally good moral, good moral. I love it.
Liz: [00:33:02] I love it. I feel like I've learned a lot today about, you know, your like ethical code with honesty and your parents
Jeremy: [00:33:14] does this make you see me differently.
Liz: [00:33:16] It's just you know mercenaries. That's just really cool. I kind of want to be one now. Okay. Well on that note now that we've all learned to fear mercenaries if we have clutter. That's been our podcast. Thanks for listening. Hope you've had as much fun listening as we have had talking about clutter mercenaries. And I'm Liz.
Jeremy: [00:33:37] And I'm Jeremy.
Liz: [00:33:37] And remember to go make some stories.
Jeremy: [00:33:39] Go make some stories.
Liz: [00:33:41] Bye.
Sparta! This is Spartika!
Jeremy: [00:34:00] That was awesome. That was awesome.
Liz: [00:34:06] I can just imagine her standing over the garbage bins. This is Spartika! And she does the Spartan kick of like whatever garbage into the bin. AAAAAA! This is a broken chair and no one should have it! Aaaaa!
Jeremy: [00:34:30] Take that!
Liz: [00:34:30] AAAAA!
Jeremy: [00:34:30] AAAAA!