@Creekland - so sorry you have to deal with all of that!
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tkoparent - I love everything about the Avignon house you picked! The climbing flowers, the indoor courtyard, the heated pool, the quaint charm (making an expansive property seem more intimate), the stone. And less than $2mil! 
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I’m pretty sure cleaning it would cost more than the lot/house.
This whole experience (dad → sis) has showed me that Hoarding is definitely a mental disease. If the choice is to get nothing from the estate or inheriting that disease, I’m glad I won the “get nothing” gift. I feel sorry for her TBH. I’ve asked medical lad if there’s a fix and he tells me not really, and only then if the other person is totally on board with it. She’s not.
One of her last texts to me is that I live in a fantasy world and she lives in the real world.
It adds to our humor and the sadness.
As long as the disease is out there, so are ugly houses - real ugly, not just “not my style” ugly.
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Sad. As soon as I saw the house, I wondered if there was a hoarding issue.
Sorry you are going through all of this. After my stepmother died, my Dad spent 6 months working 8 hours a day on getting rid of every single thing he didn’t want to take with him to his new retirement community. I offered many times to come over and help him, but he refused. After it was all done, he said “this is my gift to you and your brother and sister.”
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Is the boarding in the dilapidated house your Dad’s or your sister’s?
Both. Dad had as much cwap in there and sis has added her own. I think she might have gotten rid of some of dad’s actual trash like used cat litter or junk mail and she tells me she’s taken a bunch of his clothes to a thrift store, but that’s it. In three years she’s sold one brand new bed comforter that hadn’t been opened and some of his guns. When we were there even his prescription med bottles were still on the dresser heading into the bedroom. I have no idea why she can’t part with those. It’s likely part of the illness.
She has old armchairs from my dad and grandfather. They’re super worn out and need to go to the dump. Instead, she tells me she has pictures of how they looked when we were kids and plans to get the Amish to restore them someday. There’s nothing valuable about either. She just can’t get rid of the past.
I’m not sure where they’ll fit in the house. Both are at my nephew’s place because that’s where dad had them.
The couch in front of the garage was my mom’s. It didn’t sell in the estate sale and sis wanted it because it was better than the one she had. No problem - have it. And there it sits, outside for over two years, totally ruined. She never cleared a place for it inside. I asked her if her trash guy would take it and the mattress on top of it and she told me she didn’t have enough stuff for him to make it a load. WTH? She’s probably planning on getting that restored too someday in her dream world.
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That’s so sad, @creekland. I think people just don’t see things after a while. I doubt she even notices your Dad’s prescription bottles.
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Yeah, I know if I sat in her chair looking at her computer I’d have the heebie jeebies and have to get up to clear/clean some thing just to quit twitching. But she evidently doesn’t share the feeling. I have some clutter in my house esp since old farmhouses didn’t have closets and our games, etc, have to go somewhere, but no paths at all unless one considers the attic. That’s at least out of sight, so out of mind. One doesn’t need to clean off any of our chairs to sit somewhere either. Even if we had wanted to sit and chat inside her place, it wasn’t an option. There was her chair. Everything else was loaded with stuff - and the paths are one way traffic.
When these come up for sale and someone buys them, do they always tear them down or do they just get a dumpster and start flinging? This place needs to be torn down due to the floor/roof/foundation, but assuming those were ok - what does someone do? Do they usually get cleaned out, then sold, or just sold with contents?
@Creekland, often a local fire department will burn down a house like that for training purposes
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I suspect that if the house itself had something of interest – wonderful architecture or moldings or whatever – it would be clean and restore. But I don’t think that’s the case with your house.
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If you are interested in uglies turning goodies, google “Saving Etta” by Pretty Handy Girl. It is a blog so can’t be linked here… that’s a very interesting transformation of a very ugly house!
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Sadly it will be likely be used for fire training like @somemom said (which is a great cause and really helps the local departments) or get hauled off and torn down. I can’t remember, are you in PA? 
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@tkoparent I LOVE that Avignon home. Maybe we can get enough CC parents together, and time share? 
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It’s too close to the neighbor’s to be used for fire training or I’d gladly volunteer it if I ever actually get the title to it.
I’m in PA. This house is not. It’s near where I grew up in NY and not a high COL area of NY.
Here’s another one for the castle-loving buyer. Also great for people who love the color brown.
https://www.ebby.com/ListingDetails/3716-N-White-Chapel-Boulevard-Southlake-TX-76092/14693947
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Every time I see a Texas castle like this, i figure it’s something Jett Rink would have built in Giant.
Wow that is indeed a lot of brown of all possible shades! Lol.
Lol, probably so. Or Jed Clampett.
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That is obscene.
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If I was going to build a $5 million castle, I wouldn’t put it in the middle of field with a view of little league diamonds (which is what it looks like to me).
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