The first thing is you don't have to do everything this week. Take a breath. Walk through the house, make sure it's locked, and get the mail stopped or forwarded. In Sacramento County you can set up a temporary forward with the post office, and that buys you time to figure out whose name is on what. Grab the mail every few days if you forward it to your place. Bills pile up fast and some of them matter more than others.

Secure the house before you worry about anything else. Change the locks if you don't know who has keys, and that includes neighbors, handymen, and that cousin who always seemed to have one. Make sure the water heater and furnace are working, because a vacant house in a Sacramento summer or a cold snap in the valley can turn into a bigger problem than you'd think. Check the smoke detectors. If the house is going to sit empty for a while, tell the neighbors you trust and ask them to keep an eye out. Some people set lights on timers. That's your call.

Insurance is the piece people forget. Call the homeowner's policy and tell them what happened. A house that's vacant or unoccupied can have different rules, and the carrier may want to know who's checking on it. Don't cancel anything until you understand what the policy covers and what it doesn't. If you're not sure, ask. This is one of those places where a quick call saves a headache later.

Utilities are simpler. Keep the power and water on if the house is going to be occupied or checked regularly, and put the accounts in your name if that's what the utility wants. If the house will sit empty, ask each utility what they recommend. Don't shut things off in winter without thinking about pipes.

Now the paperwork. Find the deed and the will. The deed might be in a file cabinet, a safe deposit box, or with the county recorder. Sacramento County can tell you how to get a copy if you can't find the original. The will might be with the attorney who drafted it, or in the house. Don't start distributing anything based on a copy you found in a drawer. If there's no will, that changes things, and you'll want to talk to a lawyer about what happens next. Probate in California has its own process, and whether you need to go through it depends on how the house was titled and what else is in the estate. That's a lawyer question, not a neighbor question.

And here's the big one. Don't sell anything too early. Not the house, not the car, not the tools in the garage. You don't know yet what the estate owes, what the will says, or what the tax picture looks like. A CPA can help you understand the tax side, and a HUD-approved housing counselor can talk you through options if you're thinking about keeping the house or worried about the mortgage. The county can point you toward resources too. Give yourself the first ninety days to gather information and ask questions. Selling in a hurry is how people lose money they didn't have to lose.

A closer look is at the first weeks after a parent dies.