Thinking ahead...

Our garage is full of ‘stuff’.

It’s reasonably neat, either hung up or on shelves and in boxes in old filing cabinets.

DH knows what is what, but we seem to have many jars of assorted screws, nails, and other paraphernalia.

If he goes before me, or we get so we can’t empty the garage ourselves…

Barmeyoldbat

Same here with Mr B, all in the loft, including hundreds of football programmes and over 300 medals for running. My problem is photos I have hundreds and just don’t have the heart to throw them away.

For years I ordered prints of all our photos, and we ended up with hundreds, many of them duplicated. I bit the bullet and spent a few days of the first lockdown sorting through and getting rid of most of them. Nobody will ever want to look at photos of scenery of places they’ve not been to - even we couldn’t identify many of them! I’ve still got a few boxes of photos that mean something, but at least now they’re sorted and in date order.

I even gritted my teeth recently and threw out those old pictures I’d inherited of unknown relatives/family friends - even though I’d love to know who they were, there’s nobody left now to identify them. And with that in mind I’ve written details on the back of those we do know.

ExperiencedNotOld
I once sorted a house with 130 elasticated waist skirts. All the same style. 😱

It's a hope that if you hold on to things you will hold on to a reality that is otherwise gone forever. Actually it's strange that anyone would willingly get rid of tangible signs of a reality that is gone, unless that reality were totally horrible.

The problem for hoarders is the impractical amount of stuff that can accumulate.

I was wondering, if your house mate/husband hoards stuff, perhaps you can beg one smallish item from them and maybe have it professionally framed and hung in a place of honour so it enshrines all of the hoarder's precious memories in one object.
Admittedly an antique motor car is a large shrine. However I'd have thought an antique or vintage car is rather a nice thing especially if it holds personal memories.

I’m an executor dealing with ‘stuff’. What to do with 220 screwdrivers (oh yes) and even more difficult, a classic car. It’s the time involved to pay my father the compliment of respecting his treasures.

We moved earlier this year and had to get rid of a lot of stuff. I took the approach that if we were never going to use it or enjoy it in some way or other, it would go. It was harder to persuade my Dh to part with stuff and if either of us really, truly didn’t want to let go of something we kept it. In the main, it was liberating to clear things out, especially stuff that had been in the attic since our last move twenty five years ago. We recycled/charity-shopped as much as we could and were pleasantly surprised to hear that our old DVD’s, kitchenware, clothes etc had raised more than £600 for charity.

That said, if children are going to inherit a property of value, clearing it out won’t be too much of a chore!

Same here with Mr B, all in the loft, including hundreds of football programmes and over 300 medals for running. My problem is photos I have hundreds and just don’t have the heart to throw them away.

When my parents died, after we had chosen what to keep in the family, books went to a college, we took items like clothes to charity shops, then called in a house clearance firm. They ordered a skip for things they couldn ‘t sell, like wardrobes, but the rest went into their junk shop. We also filled two more skips with junk from the loft and outhouses. It took several of us many weeks. We said never again, we won’t do this to our children- but we will, sadly.

Maggiemaybe, if I’m still alive, I don’t want the house cleared! But you’re right, and there’s a bit of hyperbole in my posts. In reality, lots of stuff will go to charity (whether it’s worth thousands or not; I refuse to sort it) but drawers and boxes full of genuine crap will, sadly, be going to a mix of recycling/landfill. As it would if he sorted it now.

In my one experience with contacting a house clearance firm, I was told that they would look through everything, take what had a value and leave the rest. Not what their business name suggests.

OH studied engineering science at Oxford university over 50 years ago. In our loft is a trunk containing all his text books and essays. Why? He never looks at them. In fact he can’t get in the loft anymore.

One of my brothers took a painting one of our greatgrandfather's had done. Another took a portrait someone had painted of our Dad.

One of the funnest things we found was a biscuit tin, carefully lined with cotton wool by Bro2 when he was eleven, containing owl pellets he'd found in the village graveyard.

I have never understood why anyone would throw useable items into a skip (ie, into landfill). As others have said, house clearance firms will be happy to take the lot, including the rubbish, if you don’t want the trouble of sorting it yourself.

We’ve just been doing a bit of thinking ahead and have taken a full carload of boxes of football programmes, sets of magazines, old children’s comics, annuals, etc, over to a specialist Oxfam book store. I did check first that they wanted them and that none of them were worth thousands - many would have sold for a few quid but I didn’t want the hassle. I’m sure the charity would have collected them if need be, and we’ve gift aided so will get to know what they’ve raised from our stuff. One person’s junk is someone else’s treasure.

My parents were hoarders, having grown up with little during the war. Three of my siblings and I, plus one of my daughters, actually enjoyed sorting stuff out after Mum died, twenty-six years after Dad. That also meant we could stay with the brother who had been her carer for years in the house we had all grown up in.

A lot went in skips but we all found small items, interesting items (like grandfather's stamp collection), useful items (old but good tools – garden ones and leather-working ones – that you don't find nowadays), clothes (DD3 wears her grandma's sheepskin jacket a lot). Etc, etc.

So I don't quite understand why people worry about leaving things for their offspring to deal with.

Cabbie21

It is the collectibles which are the real issue. Household stuff is easily dealt with, but collectibles have a value: it just takes some effort to advertise and to know where to do so, to realise the best price.

It’s only an issue if one lets it become so. I know my spouse has a number of things that would interest collectors and/or are worth a few quid, but I made the decision a while back that that’s not my concern. He can dispose of them while he’s alive if he’s bothered about their intrinsic or financial value, or they are all junk when he’s dead.

Obviously, I may die first. Either way, his stuff isn’t something I have to fret over.

It is the collectibles which are the real issue. Household stuff is easily dealt with, but collectibles have a value: it just takes some effort to advertise and to know where to do so, to realise the best price.

We I have a lot of stuff; ornaments, dinner services and tea sets collected over our 42 year marriage displayed in glass cabinets which I still get a lot of pleasure from, and will only get rid of, if and when I don't want it anymore.

It all contributes to making our house a home and as LOUISA's posted, if it's all still here when I'm no longer around, a house clearance firm could clear out the whole lot in a day or two.

I knew a lady once who was in this position and her one rule was that it did not encroach on the main living areas of the house and was kept to one spare bedroom/shed/garage. Also, once one is left with item such as cameras, books etc there are many people on FB groups/collectors etc who may be interested. A man I knew had a collection of cameras and one enthusiast was delighted to take on some really old cameras for his hobby.

Thank you all. You are all right about not worrying about it in the here and now. x

You are not over thinking at all you are being realistic as many do at this time of life. I have many times suggested a clear out but it has been ignored.
If my DH goes first I will hire the biggest skip and delight in throwing football videos and cd never looked at since the 70/80s in it.

I wouldn't worry about it til he's dead...and if you dir first you won't have to worry about it at all....your DD will be fine...if she can't be bothered she can just get a house clearance firm in...it will all be done in a couple of days ....plenty of things to worry about in life...but not this

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

This is a very common problem. I am endeavouring to de clutter, to avoid my children having to deal with it. My OH is convinced he’ll go before me, but hangs on to everything! Our children are from separate marriages, but we all get on really well and I know they would only like personal items, not a shed load of old tools, books, records etc. 🙄

Mine has thousands of vinyl albums, even more thousands of extremely good photos, and literally shedloads of tools, as well as endless other paraphernalia. It’s all bequeathed to me, apparently.

I’ve made it clear that the stuff that is worth money needs to be sold fairly soon, and most of the rest be taken to charity shops, or the day after the funeral, I’m hiring a skip and throwing the lot away.

I will too. Life is too short to deal with other people’s clutter, valuable or not.

I have a large number of books, but what is to happen to them is clearly set out in my Will, and my executors are happy to deal with matters accordingly.

Another one here. Conversation on the subject gets nowhere.