Clear away all trash, both inside and outside the home. Practically everything that's not nailed down. That's a good idea to pull everything from the flower beds and replace with mulch. Mow and trim everything neatly.

Make sure doors, windows, toilets, etc. are in good working order.

Then clean, clean, clean. If you meet resistance, I wouldn't press for new paint. If carpets don't come clean, pull them up and leave the bare floors.

Odor is an issue. Have you tried charcoal briquettes in an old dish under the sink? Or baking soda? Both should absorb bad odors. Do you need to get a cheap dehumidifier and leave it running?

Powerwashing the outside is great.

This problem is entirely dependent on the RE market where you are. Where we are now, homes are in high demand, and fixer-uppers are a great commodity, Yes you will get less money for the house, but you will not be paying for painting, appliances, cabinets, landscaping, etc. Add those thing up and know what you're spending. If you market is poor for sellers, you may want to do a lot of thing just to sell the house.

Talk to at least 3 agents and get expert opinions before you spend any more money.

And yes, concentrate on cleaning.

It looks like we're on the right track with both your comments. Thanks. I did order a used paperback on getting the house ready for sale for next to no money. recommended on another thread in the Cleaning forum.

Do concentrate on the cleaning. Not knowing how long ago those carpets were put down, there may be a wood floor or only subflooring. I live in a house that was originally built 50's and then added on either late that decade or the first two of the next 60's. The bedrooms and the little hallway between them have nice wood floors. The rest of the house only has the subflooring. Taking up the carpet may remove some of the smell because the smell may be coming from the padding that was used at that time. A suggestion for removing the smell is to place trays of coffee grounds in the worst areas and the rest of the house. A neighbor who worked for a mitigation team told me about this one.

Sushi is correct about asking the agents advice. However before that since it is your husband's family unless your husband is an only child need to decide what they expect from the sale of the house. By that I mean are they selling it to get rid of it or wanting the highest price they can receive. Once they decide that then they can discuss with the realtors things that they must do for either one.

One thing you need to be aware of if eventually your MIL would need to go to a nursing home that is partially paid by Medicaid, some states have other names for it. You need to keep all of the documents and receipts for any repairs you make over a small amount. I was told it was $500 here but you would need to check if there is any possibility that this might be needed. The timing is tricky because whoever is in charge of her will need to show documents for 3-5 years prior to the application to prove any large expenditures were for her benefit. Some people immediately throw these away when the sale of their former property is final. Lots of hints over at the Caregivers.

Thanks @mailfleur01. There is hardwood under some of the carpet but not sure which rooms. There is a lot of laminate flooring down in the kitchen/dinnette and the hallway to the bedrooms. I was told that the bedrooms have hardwood, so I was thinking the whole house would. Interesting that your house only had hardwood in the bedrooms and hall. Our house could be the same. I don't believe the carpets smell. Its only the kitchen area near the sink.

I have some old decaf coffee that I could use, or do I need caffeine coffee, lol.

If you have hardwood, that is considered more desirable than carpet these days, so do consider pulling up the carpet to expose the wood. Any buyer would do it anyway, but might discount their offer because they will have to do the work.

RE termites: walk around the house and make sure there is no wood touching both the ground and the house. Mulch should be okay as long as it is not pile up against the house. You can put some black plastic down along the house edge of the flower bed with a couple of inches turned up along the wall before laying the mulch. Any termite company should advise you about all of this though.

Clean, clean, clean! Air the house thoroughly and let sunshine in too -- gets rid of the odor often noticed in the homes of elderly, with many old belongings. Even if the appliances are old, if they are spotless (and I mean as spotless as humanly possible!) they will be a positive point. Use toothpicks to dig out grime if needed in cracks and crevices around the stove. Clean the hood inside and out -- another source of odor. Clean light switches and switchplates. Clean, maybe paint the interior of the medicine cabinet. Pay attention to the tub tile & grout -- make sure there is no mildew stain. If the tub and faucet fixtures look worn, buy inexpensive ones to replace them (it isn't hard, I have done it). Wash the basement steps. Remove cobwebs in rafters (if there is a basement with exposed floor joists).

You really want to make the place sparkle like nearly new, even though some finishes may be worn. It makes a huge difference.

Any coffee will work. It does not matter how cheap it is. I would suggest placing something under it because someone will hit the pan and spill some. While you may not recognize where the odor is coming from old carpet and the padding under it always has a smell.

DH has been vacuuming the joist in the basement. I'll discuss the carpets. One realtor suggested to remove, the other did not. I don't know what the condition of the floors are. There is one carpet that is really tired and RED. it is so old it is wrinkled. I think it was there with the in-laws moved in 28 years ago. They put new carpet in the other bedroom and living room.

tray for coffee is in order, as someone WILL kick it, lol.

Switch plates have been removed in the kitchen and cleaned. I don't think they were in the bedrooms though, I'll look.

I cleaned the pantry and it is spotless and smells good.

The basement is a disaster. It has old kitchen carpet throughout and on the steps to the landing for the garage. The one side of the basement is "finished" meaning it has an old dropped ceiling and the ugly kitchen carpet. It does have a small kitchen area, with sink and stove. I know the sink drain wasn't working, but am told it is now.

I'm staying out of the basement until the others have it totally empty. I don't want to get involved in the throwing out of things. It would be best at this point to just throw it all out. She had her sewing room down there and there is tons of thread. SIL is wondering if we should keep it or toss. there is a lot of fabric. Some local quilters will get that, to make quilts for Vets.

The termites are seen in the attached garage foundation. No wood is touching the ground. One termite exterminator says this part of town is known for its termites. To bad my MIL didn't know that because she would have taken precautions had she known. She's like that. The little critters made tunnels up the foundation block, inside the garage to the walls. She had so much stuff in there it wasn't spotted. We've been told that the beams used for the shallow coal mining in the area in the early 1900's is the cause of the termites, but IDK if that is fact.

Get several bids for termite treatment.

In general, you will get better service and a much lower cost with a local company rather than the large franchise type companies. At least it is that way here where I am. Ask a couple of Realtors for a recommendation. (Stay away from Terminix - I had a seller of mine use them prior to meeting the seller and they were ripped off big time).

Denita, We got a referral from one realtor and DH looked up another local guy to come out and bid. I'll be sure to pass this info on to DH.

Ooh, I hope the termites haven't done too much damage. I recently watched an episode of "This Old House" where the house had so much termite damage, they had to just tear down a portion of it.

@Raee_gw, we don't see the tunnels anywhere else in the foundation or in the basement. I hope the house is ok too. I hope the exterminator can advise us to the extent of entry areas for the termites.

A few easy suggestions for determining where the wood floors are located:

• If there are heating vents in the floors pull up one of the vent covers. You can typically see the sub-floor and the wood floor on top of it. Look for the tongue/groove of where 2 pieces of flooring come together.
• Go to the basement and look up. Sometimes in very, very old houses you'll see the original floors.
• Pull up a corner of carpet in a closet or elsewhere in a room.
• Do one of the above in every room. Depending on the house location I'd be surprised not to find hardwood in all rooms except the kitchen. Carpet became an "upgrade" in the late 40's/early 50's.

If you do find hardwood expose it in each room. Don't pull it up completely. A corner or a closet will do. Even if the floors are in great shape there will be holes from the carpet tack strips commonly used at that time. You don't want to have to remove and repair those since you want to minimize the expenses.

Nothing to do with selling the house but from experience have someone look through any bags or small to medium boxes of sewing stuff by dumping them into something. Sewers are sometimes known to leave change including bills in the bags or tucked into things rather than where they should go. By now the closets are empty or I would suggest looking through all pockets. Almost everyone I know who has gone through an elder woman's things to get rid of them have found money or jewelry in both types of locations. SIL found several hundred dollars this way.

What maifleur01 described happened to my SIL when her elderly aunt passed away unexpectedly. She only had a few days after traveling cross-country to deal with her belongings, kept finding cash squirreled away throughout her apartment and belongings, but had to leave after having found a couple of thousand $ but without enough time to finish searching through everything (so assumed that she was sending more cash to the wherever it was she disposed of the books, furniture etc.)

The children are going through everything. There were jars of coins, because late father in law collected a bunch of coins informally. Good to consider. So far no bank rolls found, lol.

Another thought I had was just take the carpet out in one room, the room with the RED rug that is from the 70's by the looks of it. Then wouldn't have to pay to have it cleaned. Not be much savings in that though. Call it a "feature floor". But I didn't think about the nail holes at the periphery. There isn't 1/4 round down either at the base board, and I'm not sure if the base board is covering all the wall/floor junctions.

Clean, clean, clean. Rent a couple of ozinators and close up the house with them running inside for a couple of days. Ozinators do a great job of killing orders.

We found money buried in brown paper grocery of junk mail in DH’s relative’s house. There were also stacks of unopened and opened birthday and Christmas cards with money and checks in them. Checks were stale dated but the cash was still spendable.

Carpeted houses are sometimes shown here in the listing with one corner pulled up in each room to show the hardwood underneath.

Depending upon the target buyer, if they are going to need to paint everything, they appreciate the carpet being left down while they repaint.

Charcoal will also absorb odors.

Jhug, there has been no cash so far, and we have been through just about everything; dang.

Palimsest, I got out voted, so the carpets stay, but the corner of the 2 bedrooms are loose to show the floors. Good point about keeping the carpet for floor cover while painting. The floor that I could see looks pretty nice.

Got the outside of the house washed, the little garden space remulched, and the 3 awnings washed down. Termite man has treated the house.

DH and his sister are still working on the junk in the basement. The area will need deep cleaning once thats out.

Main floor is nearly finished. Floors need cleaned. Stove needs deep cleaned under the burners, and in the oven. A couple of hinge repairs on cabinets.

I have been through the cupboards with Pinesol. I don't know if it is going to help. Most of the drawers are almost new looking, so have always been covered. The uppers are painted inside, but someone glued down a thick paper liner! It was troweled in. It is curling at the edges so I thought I'd pull it out, thats when I found the glue or mastic. I'm going to buy some liner for the uppers to cover the mess up. MIL had sheet vinyl covering the paper. I didn't know gluing down paper liner was a thing. Its thick, like a heavy card stock.

Check the undersides of the kitchen drawers and the inside of access panels for bathtubs- both suggested hiding places for cash/valuables.

You and the family are doing an amazing amount of work.

The thread can be given away with the quilting fabric, but old cotton thread can get very weak and is really not worth saving after the first couple of decades. Older Talon brand poly-cotton thread tended to knot up and its use resulted in frayed tempers. I would fling any Talon thread in the trash without a second thought.

A cheerful shelf paper is a nice touch, but if you feel like a quick coat of clear polyurethane would be easier, that's fine, too. Many buyers would remove replace shelf paper right away.

^apple_pie_order brings up an excellent point about photos. Things you don't see in person really jump out at you in the photos.

Watch those LED's some are not as bright as others watch for higher lumens sp? I buy the ones that say they are the equivalent of 60 watt bulbs and wondered why the light was so dim. Turns out it is not the wattage but the number of lumens was the difference. Now some brands sell as bright, daylight, or soft light.

Sorry about not finding money. Two years ago I finally went through my old work clothes and found almost $75 a few dollars at a time.

maifleur01 is absolutely right about the brightness of LED bulbs. I buy the 75-watt equivalents, not the 60-watt equivalents, for exactly that reason. Since they aren't stocked locally in my area, I order mine from amazon. There are also some LED bulbs that are the same length as a regular incandescent bulb instead of a quarter inch longer which is very important when fitting a bulb into a tight spot such as an exhaust fan/light housing. I prefer bright white 3500K to warm white 2700K or daylight 5000K- what we like is a matter of personal taste and age-related eye responses. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XYB7XSD

Ask the realtor about pulling the carpet. Old red wrinkly carpet will really pull down the whole house. Much better to have broom clean hardwood even if there are missing quarter round and nail holes. Even better get a quote for refinishing the hardwood. In an empty house could be very reasonable and could increase selling price substantially.

Kathleen, I love your ideas, but I was out voted. On realtor said to pull the carpets, the other one said to have them stay. Inlaws went with the realtor that said to keep the carpets :(