I want my parents to get rid of junk so I don’t have to!

[Anonymous]

OP - When they are gone it is easy to get rid of the stuff. The only constraint will be how sentimental and meticulous you want to be. You can have a dumpster delivered. Or you can hire a service that comes in and does estate sale/donate/dump. It actually is easier, in a way, after they have passed. You aren't discussing every little thing. At this time I would focus on paperwork and having copies if needed. And are their special possessions that should be safe guarded. If they need to move prior to passing, it usually works best to move them first, then deal w/the house (as mentioned above). If you're just frustrated because they are old and not doing what you think is responsible - -well, you have a lot of company. Unfortunately, it's pretty typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents are the opposite. I moved out of their house when I was 19 and could take only a couple of bags with me because I moved by train (it wasn't in the U.S.) Immediately after I left, they through away or donated the stuff I left behind - my clothes, my childhood collections, the notebooks with the poems and short stories I wrote, my school report cards, all of the Christmas toys, etc. I still can't understand that and fully forgive them, but they see no wrong in what they did. They don't care about anything that belonged to their parents or children. I guess all of those things were just clutter to them that they had to dispose of. They don't have much stuff of their own either - easily dispose of it too.

Sounds like you and your parents have different styles of being in the world. If you have your own kids, this might be a good conversation to have as they are approaching the age to leave the house.

It's always good to remember that love for a person isn't equivalent to attachment to their items, although some people express and understand love that way, too. It's hard if you expect to be loved in a way that isn't the way those you are intimate with express love.

I have 2 teenage kids and don't intend to throw away their stuff without asking them first. There was plenty of space where my parents could have moved my stuff if they didn't want it on a particular shelve. There was no necessity to throw it away. My parents are not attached to people in exactly the same manner that they are not attached to things - they don't care if they don't see their children and grandchildren for years, don't miss them at all.

[Anonymous]

Our parents are like this and we have given up trying to get them to declutter. It is getting worse as the years go by. Older relatives pass away and they take their things to pack even more in their basement. Someday when the time comes, my sister and I decided that we will hire a company to clean out the entire house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents are the opposite. I moved out of their house when I was 19 and could take only a couple of bags with me because I moved by train (it wasn't in the U.S.) Immediately after I left, they through away or donated the stuff I left behind - my clothes, my childhood collections, the notebooks with the poems and short stories I wrote, my school report cards, all of the Christmas toys, etc. I still can't understand that and fully forgive them, but they see no wrong in what they did. They don't care about anything that belonged to their parents or children. I guess all of those things were just clutter to them that they had to dispose of. They don't have much stuff of their own either - easily dispose of it too.

Sounds like you and your parents have different styles of being in the world. If you have your own kids, this might be a good conversation to have as they are approaching the age to leave the house.

It's always good to remember that love for a person isn't equivalent to attachment to their items, although some people express and understand love that way, too. It's hard if you expect to be loved in a way that isn't the way those you are intimate with express love.

I have 2 teenage kids and don't intend to throw away their stuff without asking them first. There was plenty of space where my parents could have moved my stuff if they didn't want it on a particular shelve. There was no necessity to throw it away. My parents are not attached to people in exactly the same manner that they are not attached to things - they don't care if they don't see their children and grandchildren for years, don't miss them at all.

Are you willing to hear that they do not want you to keep things, even if they were gifts from you? Even if your kids keep things now, they may come to a sea change and value the objects less.

Be ready for it, if it happens. It doesn't necessitate that they don't love you, even if they don't have problems parting with items you expect them to value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Are you willing to hear that they do not want you to keep things, even if they were gifts from you?

Yes, totally. I'm not attached to every random thing. I just don't understand my parents' need to throw away stuff like my collection that I spent several years on putting together. It was in a shoebox, didn't take much space at all.

At least people in the OP's situation will get to choose which items to keep or sell, while I have no choice of that nature because pretty much everything from the previous generations and my own childhood had been disposed of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens when both you and your spouse each inherit about 50 boxes of medals and bibles from both sides since you're the only kids? It's just too much crap to display.

You keep a few things and get rid of the rest.

Yes, and this is exactly how those medals ended up in the dumpster, sad as that may make PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Are you willing to hear that they do not want you to keep things, even if they were gifts from you?

Yes, totally. I'm not attached to every random thing. I just don't understand my parents' need to throw away stuff like my collection that I spent several years on putting together. It was in a shoebox, didn't take much space at all.

At least people in the OP's situation will get to choose which items to keep or sell, while I have no choice of that nature because pretty much everything from the previous generations and my own childhood had been disposed of.

I'm really saddened it worked out that way between you and your parents. I'm glad it sounds like the same dynamics won't lay out with the next generation. You are doing well with transforming that pain into a better circumstance for those that follow after you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Are you willing to hear that they do not want you to keep things, even if they were gifts from you?

Yes, totally. I'm not attached to every random thing. I just don't understand my parents' need to throw away stuff like my collection that I spent several years on putting together. It was in a shoebox, didn't take much space at all.

At least people in the OP's situation will get to choose which items to keep or sell, while I have no choice of that nature because pretty much everything from the previous generations and my own childhood had been disposed of.

Why didn’t you take your crap with you when you moved out? I throw my kids crap out. Baby crap, gone. School drawings and crap. Gone.

Can’t wait to get rid of the toys and crap one day.

De clutter is wonderful

[Anonymous]

DH will have a huge hoard to clean out someday. ILs have lived in same 4 BR colonial for 35 years with an unfinished full basement that is quite literally floor to ceiling packed with semi organized...stuff. The rest of their home is very organized and updated, but the basement gives me shivers. A true firetrap.

MIL moved her then elderly parents and quite literally put the content of their home in her basement. Once a year, MIL makes a half hearted plea to please take possession of at least one of her mother's three sets of china. No one wants it or anything that's been sitting in a dusty and damp basement for decades. MIL passive aggressively comments that WE need more storage space so we could take possession of the amazing and valuable and cherished items from her basement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As far as the "treasures" mixed in ... I guess I feel like if I don't know about it, I can't miss it. I would far rather they go through it and do most of the work, and keep what they think is most important, even if I would have made different selections.

Once upon a time, there weren't nearly so many family possessions to pass down; people didn't have as much stuff, they didn't have as much space to store it, and fires, weather, and large numbers of children destroyed and dispersed it. These days, you can almost be guaranteed to receive your baby teeth and a pile of clothes no one has worn in decades. Unless you move a lot, it is really easy to accumulate so much stuff these days.

This is my theory. For the most part, even wealthy people in the 19th century didn't accumulate as much "stuff" as we have now. My parent's generation was the first to really deal with cleaning out lots of stuff from their parents' houses when they died, and my generation has an even bigger job to contend with (because we have the accumulated stuff of our grandparents and parents, and people have even more stuff now). Because of that, I am very cautious about what I keep. I don't want to do that to my dc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why didn’t you take your crap with you when you moved out? I throw my kids crap out. Baby crap, gone. School drawings and crap. Gone.

Can’t wait to get rid of the toys and crap one day.

De clutter is wonderful

Because I moved to the capital city of my country by train (26-hour ride) and had no place to live there - just a bed in my relatives' apartment. After I found a job and rented my own apartment, I would have been happy to take everything from my parents' home, but everything was already gone by that time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why didn’t you take your crap with you when you moved out? I throw my kids crap out. Baby crap, gone. School drawings and crap. Gone.

Can’t wait to get rid of the toys and crap one day.

De clutter is wonderful

Because I moved to the capital city of my country by train (26-hour ride) and had no place to live there - just a bed in my relatives' apartment. After I found a job and rented my own apartment, I would have been happy to take everything from my parents' home, but everything was already gone by that time.

It sounded like you most missed the shoebox of items. Knowing your parents as well as you did, you couldn't manage to take the shoebox amount of precious things with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As far as the "treasures" mixed in ... I guess I feel like if I don't know about it, I can't miss it. I would far rather they go through it and do most of the work, and keep what they think is most important, even if I would have made different selections.

Once upon a time, there weren't nearly so many family possessions to pass down; people didn't have as much stuff, they didn't have as much space to store it, and fires, weather, and large numbers of children destroyed and dispersed it. These days, you can almost be guaranteed to receive your baby teeth and a pile of clothes no one has worn in decades. Unless you move a lot, it is really easy to accumulate so much stuff these days.

This is my theory. For the most part, even wealthy people in the 19th century didn't accumulate as much "stuff" as we have now. My parent's generation was the first to really deal with cleaning out lots of stuff from their parents' houses when they died, and my generation has an even bigger job to contend with (because we have the accumulated stuff of our grandparents and parents, and people have even more stuff now). Because of that, I am very cautious about what I keep. I don't want to do that to my dc.

Of course they did. But they had a lot more kids to whom to distribute it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know it’s selfish but they aren’t getting younger and soon my dad isn’t gonna be very mobile. They have a house full of junk but they don’t want to go through it to de clutter. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have to be the person who cleans it up either when they are too weak to or when they’re gone. Anyone been there?

Two years ago, my sister and I and our families made a final trek to my parents home and spent a week going through everything. We filled 50 extra large contractor bags that went either to the dump or donated to a local charity that ran a thrift shop. In addition to that, we also each took what we wanted. At the end of itwe still had enough stuff still in the house to rent it out as a full furnished rental. Which we did for a year until it sold. Luckily the buyer took what was left and we did not have to deal with it.

My mother inherited her grandmother’s house from her Uncle. It had never been sorted and gone through since it was built in the late 1800’s. She did not throw anything away and just packed it all up and took it with her. It was too emotional and she had too many personal ties to it to be able to let it go. It was all Victorian crap worth about $1-$10. My sister and I were bel to let it go for her.

Sometimes you just have to wait. You can’t force it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Are you willing to hear that they do not want you to keep things, even if they were gifts from you?

Yes, totally. I'm not attached to every random thing. I just don't understand my parents' need to throw away stuff like my collection that I spent several years on putting together. It was in a shoebox, didn't take much space at all.

At least people in the OP's situation will get to choose which items to keep or sell, while I have no choice of that nature because pretty much everything from the previous generations and my own childhood had been disposed of.

Why didn’t you take your crap with you when you moved out? I throw my kids crap out. Baby crap, gone. School drawings and crap. Gone.

Can’t wait to get rid of the toys and crap one day.

De clutter is wonderful

Are you OCDish?