71–80 of 461 posts
Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…
I watched a friend have to deal with this. There’s just so much to sort through or get rid of. My grandfather left dozens of model airplanes behind. No one in the family flies them. Most of the people he used to fly them with died before he did. Fortunately, my grandmother is still alive and we’ve found people who would appreciate the planes. We could have just burned everything but we have emotional ties to these th…
If you are in a niche, plan to get rid of it BEFORE you get old. Please, there are collectors, and stuff! I just got four new to me toolboxes, from my neighbor who was a diesel mechanic. Perfectly good after a bit of sanding and oiling. They're awesome, from the 80s, well made, and they'll keep me going for a long time. My father, a prodigious collector of oddities has done several wholsale removals of collections. O…
Does it? A museum for who?
On of my sisters in law moved in while her mother was dying; she was moving out of her husband’s home (he’d grown up there; his father had too). When her mother died, SIL simply kept living there.
I’d sometimes go into the attic and find weird old stuff. It appeared that stuff was discarded when house was renovated or repaired, but otherwise simply accreted.
It is the last bit that was hard for me, wondering if my parents would be "okay" with me giving this stuff to a person who is clearly just interested in making a buck of reselling it rather than cherishing it as they did.
I get this if one of your parents was a bad painter and filled the house with huge framed canvases. Otherwise, I'm just looking for stuff I want, and anything that I know was meant for posterity and few people would care about (my father updates a family tree, for example.) After that, call a professional and sell the lot to them i.e. the thing that these people mention not doing. You may "lose" your parents if you d…
I can't really think of much I'd want from my parents house. Maybe a few items with family history. But mostly, it is like you said -- they've mostly got their stuff for a reason, and if it serves them well for as long as they need it, then it has already met and likely exceeded expectations. On the other hand, one step removed I think it makes more sense, because you have maybe less direct contact with the person --…
I feel like these days, stuff is incredibly cheap and therefore it's very easy to accumulate a huge amount of it. Sure, we have out sentimental items and useful tools we use everyday. But a huge amount goes un-used, sitting in boxes, closets, attics and garages waiting to be thrown away. I try to "live small". My apartment is relatively small. I'm still wearing clothes from high-school. I still the knife, fork and sp…
I live out of a carry on bag mostly. My stuff is pretty minimal but the heaviest things I own are the books. I have some really weird old ones too, like one for learning german from 1939 and another on how to survive an atomic bomb from 1946. Just weird shit that's hard to find and hard to let go of. I tend to like doing book trades though so it pays off on my travels.
Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…
After having to deal with all the stuff my parents left behind I swore to myself that I would not do the same thing to my kids. It's easy to say "just throw it out" but so many items have nostalgia and memories attached. Yet if I hadn't had to sort through it all, I never would have missed that stuff. I need to get on it. I'm not getting younger.
What's hit me the most are a few keepsake items. I have a watch handed down, worthless. I have a old cigar tray from Cuba. I have some fine dishware we pull out at christmas and i say "this is from your grandmother when she lived in Cuba". However, I sold my grandfathers STHL chainsaw, and that guy still uses it.
I don't know anything about the man but his profession, and that he bought good tools. But I often think of him when I use them.