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The great junk transfer is coming

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Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#251

Post by mattlondon »

basisword wrote: post #217

Is it just me or is that article written by, and this thread full of, assholes? Your parents are dead and you’re complaining about having to sort through their stuff and deal with their horrible taste in furniture? If you don’t want to deal with it have it all collected and sent to landfill and get on with your life. I’m genuinely surprised at how miserable and selfish sounding a lot (not all) of the people in this t…

I think the point is that people are obviously sad and grieving about their parents' death, and that then having to deal with their possessions is additional grief.

Someone kept something useless and valueless for decades. It clearly meant something to your recently-deceased parent, so if you just bin it without thinking then that feels like a betrayal to me. Imagine if you walked into your parents' house when they were alive and just started binning their momentos/prized-possesions/favourite cups/tools/etc right in front of their face - what would the reaction be from them?

I don't think people begrudge the time and effort so much, just that they are upset at having to make decisions on what to keep and what not to keep, especially if they are already grieving.

I've got some of this on the horizon for my in-laws. I feel like if I do the clearance and not my wife we can find a happy medium - I know the in-laws well enough and long enough to treat it with respect and deference, but I am also distanced enough to not get all tied up in sorrow about old childhood memories or whatever, and hopefully be able to move quickly(or if nothing else to genuinely clear out the trash and leave the personal stuff to the wife to look through)

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#252

Post by pfdietz »

flybrand wrote: post #233
paganel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully all of my (by now many) physical books will get donated to the village library from where my mother grew up and where my parents live right now. I remember I borrowed a David Copperfield translation and never returned it, that happened about ~30 years ago. I still feel guilty about it from time to time.

Libraries Are over run - few take donations.

Here in Ithaca, NY the "Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library" has a book sale of donated books twice a year. Each sale goes over several weeks with prices declining, with the last day being "$1 for a medium sized bag full of books".

After the sale a large dumpster is parked out front and the volunteers fill it with things that didn't sell, to be sent off for disposal (recycling, I think.)

https://www.booksale.org/

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#253

Post by noneeeed »

basisword wrote: post #217

Is it just me or is that article written by, and this thread full of, assholes? Your parents are dead and you’re complaining about having to sort through their stuff and deal with their horrible taste in furniture? If you don’t want to deal with it have it all collected and sent to landfill and get on with your life. I’m genuinely surprised at how miserable and selfish sounding a lot (not all) of the people in this t…

My father passed away suddenly last week.

I would love to be able to just get someone in to clear the house and "get on with my life", but it doesn't work like that when someone dies.

Instead of being able to just grieve I spent all weekend digging through 40 year old bank statements and other crap trying to find all the documents that we need to be able to register the death so we can actually bury him.

And no, I'm not going to just get someone in to clear the place out, because in all the crap is stuff that matters. Some of it will be paper, like his hand-draw schematics from when he worked on Concorde, some of it will be objects like his first camera, or the model of a ship he built when he was young that's in a cupboard somewhere, some will be photos. But all this stuff is buried under all the meaningless objects he filled his house with (how many torches does one man really need?).

The problem with accumulating crap is not the crap itself, it's the way it acts as a barrier to all the stuff that mattered, both to him and to us.

I had been slowling trying to sort all his stuff out before he died, and as we did so we'd uncover little mementos and memory joggers (great for a man in the early stages of dementia). Each one would spark a conversation and his eyes would light up and his voice would get all excited and I'd learn something new about my dad, some new story.

But 95% of the time was just going though tax returns from when he was 30 and insurance documents for policies that expired in the 90s, and pointless objects that were only there because my parents couldn't go into a garden center without buying some nik-nak.

So no, I'm not complaining about all the crap because I'm an asshole. I'm lamenting all the time and effort lost, that could have been better spent with my father when he was alive, and with his memory now he's dead, but which I and my siblings instead have to devote to trying to excavate what's important.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#254

Post by pfdietz »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #123

Generational differences in tastes will take its toll on some of this more than other bits. I don't know anyone under the age of 40 who cares one bit about fine china and china cabinets. As more and more people who collected china die off, there's a bigger glut of it. Collections that took a lifetime and thousands of dollars to accumulate end up going for pennies at estate sales while the cabinets end up in a landfil…

At least old silverware can be melted down and recycled (and used to make PV modules!)

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#255

Post by donthellbanme »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #186
robocat wrote: post #70

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…

You don't have to be old to experience this problem. This was my take on techno-clutter from a few months back: https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/techno-clutter-farnell... A more funny story: Back in school, when we were about 17 years old, another kid told me that his Great Uncle had died, and caused him much stress. He'd never met this distant relative, so I enquired, why was he worried? Great Uncle Ben-Ali had…

No post body was provided.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#256

Post by beowulfey »

noobermin wrote: post #205
robocat wrote: post #70

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…

Seriously could not finish the opening story. I understand a small tinge of disdain for the effort required, but surely deep down a sense of gratitude and nostalgia should be mixed in no? Do people really not have no love for their parents they inherited the belongings of? The fact of the inheritance occuring is a hint that we're already filtering for kids who did not have an amiable relationship with their parents,…

I think you’re reading too much into the language of that one sentence. But also, if you’ve never felt true loss before, anger and resentment are absolutely a part of the grieving process. It’s very natural to feel anger when coping with the loss of a loved one.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#257

Post by FooHentai »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #246
FooHentai wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found out overnight my dad passed away. Here's the thing - I might come here and post some thoughts about the big clutter horde at his place that'll need to be sorted out. I'm certainly not coming here to talk about how I feel about my dad passing away. Because.. why would I do that? Who are you people to me? Who am I, or my dad, to any of you? It would be pretty weird to do the latter, not the former. One is a sha…

Am I reading this correctly? You're saying it's NOT relatable that your dad died and you're sad, but it is relatable that your dad died and left behind a mess?

You'll have to forgive me that my thoughts are a little muddled on the whole issue right now. My core point is that one aspect of the situation feels quite appropriate to discuss here, while the other more intimate (and central) one does not. The outcome, assuming most other people also feel that way, is that the discussion here is not representative of the grief experienced when a close relative passes away, and shouldn't be taken as any kind of indication about people here 'all being assholes'. And that this is expected and fine.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#258

Post by squeed »

robocat wrote: post #142
robocat wrote: post #70

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…

And an altruistic gift for friends and family: take away their useless rubbish. Tell your aunt you need some wires from that old Pentium computer she has, and take it to be recycled. “Drop in” at your friends on the way to the dump with half a trailer full of rubbish, and ask if they want to fill up the other half for free. When there is a book market on, visit your friends and take away their old books to go to the…

Yeah, we had a lot of construction debris once, and rented a 30 cubic-yard dumpster (one of the big ones). After we tossed what we had, we told the neighbors to bring all they wanted. It was really helpful, especially since there were definitely a few that were down on their luck.

It was an awesome way to build good-will, since the price difference between a 10 and 30 cu.yd dumpster was ~10%. Obviously most of the cost is in the truck roll.

We also did the opposite once: we were demolishing a small vacation home, so we told some of the locals to pick through and take what they wanted. It was funny seeing our kitchen.. but in a different house.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#260

Post by dgellow »

noneeeed wrote: post #253
basisword wrote: post #217

Is it just me or is that article written by, and this thread full of, assholes? Your parents are dead and you’re complaining about having to sort through their stuff and deal with their horrible taste in furniture? If you don’t want to deal with it have it all collected and sent to landfill and get on with your life. I’m genuinely surprised at how miserable and selfish sounding a lot (not all) of the people in this t…

My father passed away suddenly last week. I would love to be able to just get someone in to clear the house and "get on with my life", but it doesn't work like that when someone dies. Instead of being able to just grieve I spent all weekend digging through 40 year old bank statements and other crap trying to find all the documents that we need to be able to register the death so we can actually bury him. And no, I'm…

Sorry for your loss :(
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