Selling a house is rough!

Have you ever tried to sell a house while homeschooling and had 3 children at home at all times?  If you haven't, consider yourself lucky.  :)  If you have, I feel your pain.

When selling a house, you sometimes get calls 3 hours before someone wants to come and view your home.  Sometimes you get 5 days!  Neither of them are easy when you have kids.

It's been a few months since we listed our house, and I have learned a few things.

1. Get rid of as much as you possibly can.
2. Box up as much as you possibly can that you couldn't get rid of.
3. Only keep out a tiny selection of toys/games/puzzles and rotate them.  Less stuff, less mess.
4. Enlist help of the older child to keep an eye on the younger ones while you clean.
5. Start in the bedrooms, and work your way out.
          (My personal pattern is to keep the kids in the living room while I start bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen and dining room.  Vacuum/sweep/mop everywhere but the living room.  Then I throw the kids and the dog in the van, do a quick sweep of the living room, throw anything extra into a laundry basket and take it with us.)
6.  Always have laundry baskets handy for stuff you don't have time to sort/put away, or for dirty laundry.  Take it with you in your car.
7.  Turn on all the lights, open the shades, and make sure the house smells good.  Not overwhelming, just soft, and pleasant.  Clean.
8.  Make sure the toilets are flushed and lids are closed!

But the best tip I have is to find a friend, relative, or just a great place you can go at a moments notice.  We are lucky enough to have my parents up the road, so we can pop in there anytime and even have the kids nap there if needed.  It is still a pain taking the dog, because they have 2 dogs of their own, and we can't take the cat.  I think it would help if we could take the cat and her litter box out of the house, but right now, we are kind of stuck with that one!

And even though we are doing all of that and we have had lots of showings, we haven't had a single offer.  Patient, and optimistic!  Fortunately, we don't have any certain time we have to be moved, or another house on the horizon, so we can be patient.  But it sure isn't easy!

How do you cope with selling a house with little ones under foot?