Reply to Parents finally downsized. Now what to do with all this stuff?

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "Parents finally downsized. Now what to do with all this stuff?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I’m not the OP, but I really needed to read this!  I’m learning to cope with the fact that NO ONE stepped up over the years to deal with a family home that should have been sold decades ago. Now, I’m left with the burden of figuring out what to do with things that have been in my family for generations. Time has taken a toll on a lot of things, but there’s still a ton of old photos, tchotchkes, and items like old furniture that might be valuable - but only for a very small market of people. Some items I’ve found bring me a smile, so I keep them, but I don’t want to clutter up my current home with excess stuff. I’ve had to be ruthless in what I keep vs toss.

It’s hard to not feel resentment that this chore has fallen to me, but I’m learning to do what I can and just let the rest go. It’s also been a learning experience because I really don’t want to burden my own kids in this way. There’s just so much stuff to sort through. I have no actual memory of the great-grandparents, etc. whose stuff I’m sorting through.[/quote]

I was the one who ended up dealing with my ILs' brimming house when they died (my spouse and his sibling were useless), and it was similar. There were letters from the 1850s, there was a ton of old furniture that might have been useful to someone if I'd had months to find that person, but my ILs believed that anything old was a precious antique, and unfortunately, that's not true. We kept a few things, but there wasn't time to give everything away, and we misguidedly thought an estate sale might at least pay for itself, which they almost never do.

Plus the useless relatives wanted to know where their money from the estate was. I told myself it was their way of grieving. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics