another seven tons of iron taken out of here since last June
June 17, 2023 2:05 PM Subscribe
Going through a parent's hoard after their illness or death or can be daunting. For five exhausting years, Thalia and Tara blogged at Tetanus Burger about whittling away at the 78 junk cars and mysterious piles left by their father at their family's residential lot. Reader beware, there are truly horrific stories about their childhood. But there are also cute kittens (scroll to the bottom of the linked post)!
The last update was in 2017, in the comments to their last post in 2015.
The last update was in 2017, in the comments to their last post in 2015.
My Dad passed (not well-planned) in November of last year, and it was my Sister who notified me of such.
It took quite a bit of effort on each of our parts--40yrs+ being estranged--to get-together, and dissolve the remnants of His life.
The benefit of that Time, was that he was an apartment dweller, and, thusly, very little material goods were involved.
Combining a prolific artist, writer and cartoonist with a non-sentimental sibling is a task Job would avoid ;)
I managed to box&compile as much as I could (which, I believe, was just about everything important(/sentimental)).
I proceeded to fit everything into my Honda, er, 'Fit' (these stories hold-true, btw), and the three+ cubic metres of "stuff" is now stored in my little house.
This little abode was already burdened by the sentimental items from my Mom, and--with the additional sentimentality--I guess I have finally achieved "Hoarder" status :/
Much of the 3m+ sentimentality I have recently acquired is US Letter-sized pen/cil drawings, so--considering that I have a multi-multi-TB NAS--I can scan&store much of this with little footprint.
The acrylic and oil artwork, however, is destined to remain full-sized.
Thank you, spamandkimchi, for your psoting...
posted by splifingate at 2:57 PM on June 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
It took quite a bit of effort on each of our parts--40yrs+ being estranged--to get-together, and dissolve the remnants of His life.
The benefit of that Time, was that he was an apartment dweller, and, thusly, very little material goods were involved.
Combining a prolific artist, writer and cartoonist with a non-sentimental sibling is a task Job would avoid ;)
I managed to box&compile as much as I could (which, I believe, was just about everything important(/sentimental)).
I proceeded to fit everything into my Honda, er, 'Fit' (these stories hold-true, btw), and the three+ cubic metres of "stuff" is now stored in my little house.
This little abode was already burdened by the sentimental items from my Mom, and--with the additional sentimentality--I guess I have finally achieved "Hoarder" status :/
Much of the 3m+ sentimentality I have recently acquired is US Letter-sized pen/cil drawings, so--considering that I have a multi-multi-TB NAS--I can scan&store much of this with little footprint.
The acrylic and oil artwork, however, is destined to remain full-sized.
Thank you, spamandkimchi, for your psoting...
posted by splifingate at 2:57 PM on June 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
There's a thing, Swedish Death Cleaning, that is a concept that I'm trying to take into my life here in my 50s, and I think my parents have been attempting to do for about 40 years but are incredibly inept at it.
I understand the pain of this. You start going through things from your past and you pick up objects and get lost in nostalgia and memory. And it's taking you ages to evaluate every object because of the baggage attached to it.
I think on some level, you really need an impartial person to stand there and force decision making about things. If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects. It's a really hard thing to learn, but it isn't impossible.
The more ruthless you are with cleaning out the sentimental from your life, the better your followers-on will be.
posted by hippybear at 3:20 PM on June 17, 2023 [22 favorites]
I understand the pain of this. You start going through things from your past and you pick up objects and get lost in nostalgia and memory. And it's taking you ages to evaluate every object because of the baggage attached to it.
I think on some level, you really need an impartial person to stand there and force decision making about things. If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects. It's a really hard thing to learn, but it isn't impossible.
The more ruthless you are with cleaning out the sentimental from your life, the better your followers-on will be.
posted by hippybear at 3:20 PM on June 17, 2023 [22 favorites]
The very last update in that post is from 2019.
My mental ears perked up when I read that a lot of the father's hoarding was centered around air-cooled Volkswagens; I assume that one of the factors in that may have been one of the most beloved DIY books ever, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, by John Muir (not the one you've heard of), a wonderfully-written-and-illustrated manual for working on air-cooled Bugs that can fool otherwise-not-mechanically-inclined people into thinking that they could do their own work on them. I have a copy, even though I've never had a Bug--someone once offered to give me one, and I turned them down, which I'm still kind of kicking myself for, even though it was one of the very few wise decisions that I made at that point of my life--and the fact that I have this book even though it's of no real use for me is a clue to my own lil' book-hoarding problem .
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:24 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
My mental ears perked up when I read that a lot of the father's hoarding was centered around air-cooled Volkswagens; I assume that one of the factors in that may have been one of the most beloved DIY books ever, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, by John Muir (not the one you've heard of), a wonderfully-written-and-illustrated manual for working on air-cooled Bugs that can fool otherwise-not-mechanically-inclined people into thinking that they could do their own work on them. I have a copy, even though I've never had a Bug--someone once offered to give me one, and I turned them down, which I'm still kind of kicking myself for, even though it was one of the very few wise decisions that I made at that point of my life--and the fact that I have this book even though it's of no real use for me is a clue to my own lil' book-hoarding problem .
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:24 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
I’ve read and enjoyed that book without ever owning a VW too. Possibly I enjoyed it only because I never actually had to use it…
posted by cali at 4:30 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by cali at 4:30 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's available at the Internet Archive.
Barely scratched the surface so far but this is where I learned of the Building #19 stores they used to have in New England.
posted by Rash at 4:32 PM on June 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Barely scratched the surface so far but this is where I learned of the Building #19 stores they used to have in New England.
posted by Rash at 4:32 PM on June 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
"For one thing, one does not clean up forty years worth of crap overnight. For another, it is very heavy emotional work which brings up all kinds of nasty memories and sets all kinds of negative 'tape loops' playing in the head."
Of course, the author is wrong here - you absolutely can clean up 40 years of crap overnight: you just walk away. Or you call the junk hauler people and have it all taken away, or you sell the whole thing in an estate sale, etc.
The idea that you must manage all this stuff is, of course, part of the same pathology their father suffered from.
I, too am curious how this all turned out.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 4:43 PM on June 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
Of course, the author is wrong here - you absolutely can clean up 40 years of crap overnight: you just walk away. Or you call the junk hauler people and have it all taken away, or you sell the whole thing in an estate sale, etc.
The idea that you must manage all this stuff is, of course, part of the same pathology their father suffered from.
I, too am curious how this all turned out.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 4:43 PM on June 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
Amusingly (kinda) this is one of the things my mother has lovingly-but-threateningly warned me about -- she's got a pile of utterly random crud in the basement (yay houses where it frosts), and almost none of it is actually worthless. That latter bit is the part that makes it a threat.
Like she pulled some random fugly ceramic mask out of the depths of the pile and said "See this? it's hideous. It's also worth at least $5000 because it's a famous modernist artist. I checked; I know. I can show you his museum listings, and it's signed by him. I paid $10 for it at the garage sale for a dead professor in 1993. Everything in here is actually worth something. Have fun sorting it out when I'm dead because I have not written any of this down anywhere. You and your sister are gonna have a great time I'm sure."
...and I'm like "oooohhhh fuuuuuuu..... that's a couple months of retirement money gooooooooodammit I'm actually going to have to do all this."
posted by aramaic at 4:55 PM on June 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
Like she pulled some random fugly ceramic mask out of the depths of the pile and said "See this? it's hideous. It's also worth at least $5000 because it's a famous modernist artist. I checked; I know. I can show you his museum listings, and it's signed by him. I paid $10 for it at the garage sale for a dead professor in 1993. Everything in here is actually worth something. Have fun sorting it out when I'm dead because I have not written any of this down anywhere. You and your sister are gonna have a great time I'm sure."
...and I'm like "oooohhhh fuuuuuuu..... that's a couple months of retirement money gooooooooodammit I'm actually going to have to do all this."
posted by aramaic at 4:55 PM on June 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
It’ll be fourteen years since my dad passed away this July. I went from planning to be home for a fun visit for a couple weeks to suddenly needing to be the person who asked the doctor to stop care, or however it’s supposed to be phrased. I changed my plane ticket, and worked with my sister to arrange a memorial, and then I got to work, spending the month of august, 2009, going through the house he had largely stopped living in, having moved in with his girlfriend. There were so many things, so many books still in the boxes he’d moved in with thirteen years before that. The books? He was a heavy smoker, they were all covered in a film of tar, and the local used book shop only really took them because the only other option was the dumpster we’d rented. The model trains? His basement had flooded when a pipe burst. The company he hired to clean (and clearly didn’t check on) did nothing about all of the plastic cases and their foam inserts, and two years later, each and every case was still filled with brown water. All I could give it was a month, and I had to get back to work overseas. A month wasn’t even enough, and in the end, trying to fix up the house to sell cost us pretty much everything he’d left that had any value, and ended the relationship with the uncle who promised to have it done inside a year, but took four instead.
I remember far too much of that month. I had hoped I was done with that. Then, my mother passed away last September. She was an artist, and she had managed to burn through any and all goodwill that anyone had for her. When she lost her house about eighteen years ago, she moved into my sister’s one bedroom loft condo, bringing with her her entire life. I had already left the states, in no small part because I knew, if I still lived there, at some point that would happen, and if I was close enough, she’d had tried to move in with me. So, I’ve got that guilt for being the one to shove my sister in front of that disaster. And it was. My sister is low mobility, and lost essentially any chance of a social life from her thirties to her forties because of it. I had hoped, with my mom seeing how awful cleaning out my dad’s house had been, that she might have done something to make things easier for her kids, but she didn’t. The storage unit she had been renting, when we finally got to trying to clean it out, was an absolute disaster, and had clearly not been opened in years. There were pull out seats to the rear of a minivan she hadn’t owned in a decade. Random children’s’ toys from when I was still in elementary school. And, of course, books.
I tried, I really did, to help my sister. It was her home, though, and there was only so much I could do without her help, not knowing what could be thrown away, and what could be kept. Every time it seemed I made some kind of progress in clearing space, making a dent, creating safer paths for her, we ended up finding more. We brought back so much more from the storage unit than I had wanted kept, but my sister was adamant. Any sign of progress in her condo was gone. We fought. We were exhausted, and filthy, and visiting hours would have been over by the time we could have gotten there, so we decided to stay home, because we were just too angry to see her.
She passed away that night, alone in a nursing home we’d had to scramble to find. If I had been able to stay another month, I still couldn’t have gotten my sister’s condo cleaned and livable, and it was already becoming a source of stress and anger between us. Neither of our parents gave enough of a shit to think about what their kids would be left to sort through, and god help me, I hope I die before my sister, because I can’t bear the thought of trying to go through her condo alone. My feelings for both of my parents are forever tainted by the disasters they left behind, and the selfishness inherent in that.
I try to stay out of any kind of askme about storage units because my only answer is, if you have so little day to day need for it, is it still worth holding onto so that some day, a loved one has to sort through it, and find some way to dispose of it? The answer is no. It’s not. It’s just things, and those things are going to end up being connected in the minds of your loved ones when they’re already dealing with their loss of you. Don’t do that to the people you love.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:02 PM on June 17, 2023 [56 favorites]
I remember far too much of that month. I had hoped I was done with that. Then, my mother passed away last September. She was an artist, and she had managed to burn through any and all goodwill that anyone had for her. When she lost her house about eighteen years ago, she moved into my sister’s one bedroom loft condo, bringing with her her entire life. I had already left the states, in no small part because I knew, if I still lived there, at some point that would happen, and if I was close enough, she’d had tried to move in with me. So, I’ve got that guilt for being the one to shove my sister in front of that disaster. And it was. My sister is low mobility, and lost essentially any chance of a social life from her thirties to her forties because of it. I had hoped, with my mom seeing how awful cleaning out my dad’s house had been, that she might have done something to make things easier for her kids, but she didn’t. The storage unit she had been renting, when we finally got to trying to clean it out, was an absolute disaster, and had clearly not been opened in years. There were pull out seats to the rear of a minivan she hadn’t owned in a decade. Random children’s’ toys from when I was still in elementary school. And, of course, books.
I tried, I really did, to help my sister. It was her home, though, and there was only so much I could do without her help, not knowing what could be thrown away, and what could be kept. Every time it seemed I made some kind of progress in clearing space, making a dent, creating safer paths for her, we ended up finding more. We brought back so much more from the storage unit than I had wanted kept, but my sister was adamant. Any sign of progress in her condo was gone. We fought. We were exhausted, and filthy, and visiting hours would have been over by the time we could have gotten there, so we decided to stay home, because we were just too angry to see her.
She passed away that night, alone in a nursing home we’d had to scramble to find. If I had been able to stay another month, I still couldn’t have gotten my sister’s condo cleaned and livable, and it was already becoming a source of stress and anger between us. Neither of our parents gave enough of a shit to think about what their kids would be left to sort through, and god help me, I hope I die before my sister, because I can’t bear the thought of trying to go through her condo alone. My feelings for both of my parents are forever tainted by the disasters they left behind, and the selfishness inherent in that.
I try to stay out of any kind of askme about storage units because my only answer is, if you have so little day to day need for it, is it still worth holding onto so that some day, a loved one has to sort through it, and find some way to dispose of it? The answer is no. It’s not. It’s just things, and those things are going to end up being connected in the minds of your loved ones when they’re already dealing with their loss of you. Don’t do that to the people you love.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:02 PM on June 17, 2023 [56 favorites]
I wrote and deleted a ramble about a former friend who also hoarded VW parts and had the worst personality. He was a narcissist and a child inside. Manipulated everyone around him until he alienated them all.
I deleted after leaving and coming back to read a few of those blogger posts. The author describes my former friend better than I ever could.
His story has a happy ending. His baby-momma and child finally had enough after 3-4 years and abandoned him for a place as far away on the same continent as possible. After she revealed that his emotional and verbal abuse had become physical, his entire (formerly very close) family listened to her. His friends became her friends instead. Haven't seen him in years.
Hung out with his dad though. He had the same hoarder problems but on a much more manageable scale. Mostly just needed someone around to toss out old fast food sauce packets when the drawer got too full.
posted by shenkerism at 5:12 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I deleted after leaving and coming back to read a few of those blogger posts. The author describes my former friend better than I ever could.
His story has a happy ending. His baby-momma and child finally had enough after 3-4 years and abandoned him for a place as far away on the same continent as possible. After she revealed that his emotional and verbal abuse had become physical, his entire (formerly very close) family listened to her. His friends became her friends instead. Haven't seen him in years.
Hung out with his dad though. He had the same hoarder problems but on a much more manageable scale. Mostly just needed someone around to toss out old fast food sauce packets when the drawer got too full.
posted by shenkerism at 5:12 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I got excited when I saw this post because I thought Tetanus Burger had finally been updated, but no, it hasn't. I was very into reading it back in the day, and I kept it bookmarked and kept checking for updates long after the final post before I finally gave up on it.
Both my grandmothers had some hoarding issues (which probably had something to do with them having lived through the depression, and in my maternal grandmother's case, also with her being eating disordered), but my mother is basically an anti-hoarder who simply can't stand having stuff sitting around that she doesn't use, and I'm very much like her in that regard, so this isn't an issue I've ever had to live with personally. I never really understood why I found Tetanus Burger so compelling. I hate excess and waste so much it would stress me out a lot to have to deal with anything of the sort.
One of my closest friends is currently trying to help her parents move out of their house and into an apartment. Her father has rapidly progressing dementia, and her mother has very serious long-standing mental health issues, of which hoarding clothing and food is one manifestation, they never were good parents to my friend at all, and her brother is helping out but she's clashing with him due to his issues with their parents.
My friend's parents have 37 bricks of cheese in their refrigerator. They have loads and loads of food sitting around that's too old to eat, but that her mother refuses to get rid of. Her mother has an insane amount of clothing, shoes, and accessories stored throughout the house. Her mother had bagged up something like 20 garbage bags of leather clothing (what her mother referred to as her "Danier collection"), all with the tags still on them, to go to a thrift shop (my friend took them to a consignment shop instead).
It's a very difficult situation that I find overwhelming even to hear about. I just keep reminding myself that it's not my problem to solve, that my role is simply to support my friend by listening to what she has to say and offering her whatever useful insights or practical suggestions I can, and then my stressed, overwhelmed feeling evaporates -- but my friend has no such escape valve!
I definitely feel for anyone who has to deal with this sort of thing with aging/departed parents or other family, especially given that they probably never received good parenting from their hoarding parents in their own lifetimes.
posted by orange swan at 5:23 PM on June 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Both my grandmothers had some hoarding issues (which probably had something to do with them having lived through the depression, and in my maternal grandmother's case, also with her being eating disordered), but my mother is basically an anti-hoarder who simply can't stand having stuff sitting around that she doesn't use, and I'm very much like her in that regard, so this isn't an issue I've ever had to live with personally. I never really understood why I found Tetanus Burger so compelling. I hate excess and waste so much it would stress me out a lot to have to deal with anything of the sort.
One of my closest friends is currently trying to help her parents move out of their house and into an apartment. Her father has rapidly progressing dementia, and her mother has very serious long-standing mental health issues, of which hoarding clothing and food is one manifestation, they never were good parents to my friend at all, and her brother is helping out but she's clashing with him due to his issues with their parents.
My friend's parents have 37 bricks of cheese in their refrigerator. They have loads and loads of food sitting around that's too old to eat, but that her mother refuses to get rid of. Her mother has an insane amount of clothing, shoes, and accessories stored throughout the house. Her mother had bagged up something like 20 garbage bags of leather clothing (what her mother referred to as her "Danier collection"), all with the tags still on them, to go to a thrift shop (my friend took them to a consignment shop instead).
It's a very difficult situation that I find overwhelming even to hear about. I just keep reminding myself that it's not my problem to solve, that my role is simply to support my friend by listening to what she has to say and offering her whatever useful insights or practical suggestions I can, and then my stressed, overwhelmed feeling evaporates -- but my friend has no such escape valve!
I definitely feel for anyone who has to deal with this sort of thing with aging/departed parents or other family, especially given that they probably never received good parenting from their hoarding parents in their own lifetimes.
posted by orange swan at 5:23 PM on June 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Reading this brought up a lot of feelings. I'm about the same age as the sisters, and my parents were a similar age when they passed, with similar problems (although not to that degree) so it was an unexpected mirror to the soul, I have to say.
I'm three years into cleaning my parents house and it has improved - I can now open cupboards without being ambushed by yarn, and most rooms are now back to their intended use, including the garage and workshop. I can't sell or give away the furniture that's left, and I have still have enough plates and crockery for a dozen families, but a friend of a friend runs one of those "pay money and smash things with a sledgehammer" things, and I'm just trying to get myself together enough to call them and see what they'll take.
I'm too old and tired to feel guilt or anger about it anymore, so I guess that's an improvement too? But dealing with their possessions (and isn't THAT a loaded word) has made me utterly ruthless with mine.
And on preview: I keep joking that Metafilter needs to open a section for support groups, but given the number of people sharing hoarding stories here while typing up my comment, I'm beginning to think I really do need to put in a pony request.
posted by ninazer0 at 5:28 PM on June 17, 2023 [14 favorites]
I'm three years into cleaning my parents house and it has improved - I can now open cupboards without being ambushed by yarn, and most rooms are now back to their intended use, including the garage and workshop. I can't sell or give away the furniture that's left, and I have still have enough plates and crockery for a dozen families, but a friend of a friend runs one of those "pay money and smash things with a sledgehammer" things, and I'm just trying to get myself together enough to call them and see what they'll take.
I'm too old and tired to feel guilt or anger about it anymore, so I guess that's an improvement too? But dealing with their possessions (and isn't THAT a loaded word) has made me utterly ruthless with mine.
And on preview: I keep joking that Metafilter needs to open a section for support groups, but given the number of people sharing hoarding stories here while typing up my comment, I'm beginning to think I really do need to put in a pony request.
posted by ninazer0 at 5:28 PM on June 17, 2023 [14 favorites]
When my mom died, my dad closed the door to the upstairs of the house and never went up there again. I think maybe he figured he would take some time with his grief before he dealt with Mom's stuff. But then a couple years went by and he died, and I was the only one left, so I had to deal with both his stuff and Mom's stuff. And that's when I discovered that when my grandparents died 20 years ago, Mom hadn't felt up to dealing with their stuff, and had just boxed it up and put it away in the spare room. So there I was, doing an archeological dig through layers of loss in the midst of the covid lockdowns when the news was announcing the numbers of dead at the beginning of every broadcast. It was... not a really great time.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 5:45 PM on June 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 5:45 PM on June 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
... you absolutely can clean up 40 years of crap overnight: you just walk away. Or you call the junk hauler people and have them take it away, or you sell the whole thing in an estate sale
Walking away or holding an estate sale weren't options: Thalia (the sister who was blogging) was living on the property with the sisters' mother, who couldn't live by herself at that point.
Neither was "calling the junk hauler people and having them take it away."
Thalia was/is a freelance graphic artist, so she doesn't have money to throw at any problems. And I gather from her comments on this post that it is difficult to get even a junkyard to take an unregistered car that does not have a title, because they think it's stolen. So when the town wants Thalia to get rid of her father's unregistered, title-less cars, she has to cut them up with a Sawzall to get the junkyard to come pick them up.
And when the price of metal bottoms out, as it apparently did around the time of that post, it's not always worth the junkyard's while to drive out and collect cut-up junk cars.
posted by virago at 5:50 PM on June 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
Walking away or holding an estate sale weren't options: Thalia (the sister who was blogging) was living on the property with the sisters' mother, who couldn't live by herself at that point.
Neither was "calling the junk hauler people and having them take it away."
Thalia was/is a freelance graphic artist, so she doesn't have money to throw at any problems. And I gather from her comments on this post that it is difficult to get even a junkyard to take an unregistered car that does not have a title, because they think it's stolen. So when the town wants Thalia to get rid of her father's unregistered, title-less cars, she has to cut them up with a Sawzall to get the junkyard to come pick them up.
And when the price of metal bottoms out, as it apparently did around the time of that post, it's not always worth the junkyard's while to drive out and collect cut-up junk cars.
posted by virago at 5:50 PM on June 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
This is a good example of what I miss so much about the golden age of blogging: unique, extremely personal and intimate and reflective updates from folks' lives. Email newsletters just don't have the same vibe.
posted by johnxlibris at 6:08 PM on June 17, 2023 [34 favorites]
posted by johnxlibris at 6:08 PM on June 17, 2023 [34 favorites]
This is well put together and stresses me out immensely, both because I face this ancestral task in my eventual future and because I annoy my current partner with much lesser versions of these tendencies now. I have been in therapy to unravel a bunch of it, though. I think I'm much better at disposing of things (and in the good, recycle-y way) than I would have been had I not had a professional opinion involved. There's so much guilt and shame involved in not being able to invite friends over when you're a kid. We invite friends over now, at my house.
I do think there's quite a lot of undiscovered psychology still involved in the tendencies to hoard. It seems like there are different versions of it and different emotional causes. And just plain old ADHD executive function stuff. When I was a kid, my family had the phrases "not-untils" and "'cept-fors," which means things you want to do, but can't do until you do that other thing, and the things you've gotten done except for a couple last steps. They still get me. ADHD is real and it makes sense to me that people would try to keep a handle on it by making sure they didn't get rid of something that they forgot was important.
It's hard. I got your back if you grew up this way. Or if you are this way at the moment.
posted by lauranesson at 6:11 PM on June 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
I do think there's quite a lot of undiscovered psychology still involved in the tendencies to hoard. It seems like there are different versions of it and different emotional causes. And just plain old ADHD executive function stuff. When I was a kid, my family had the phrases "not-untils" and "'cept-fors," which means things you want to do, but can't do until you do that other thing, and the things you've gotten done except for a couple last steps. They still get me. ADHD is real and it makes sense to me that people would try to keep a handle on it by making sure they didn't get rid of something that they forgot was important.
It's hard. I got your back if you grew up this way. Or if you are this way at the moment.
posted by lauranesson at 6:11 PM on June 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
My father is a collector, thanks to my mom he’s never crossed into hoarder, and luckily some of his collections do have value (and the last 3 years he’s slowly realized that myself and my siblings have no space or desire to inherit his collections, so he’s been donating the more valuable items to save us the trouble of appraisal).
I need him to live long enough (and to remain mobile long enough) to complete the donation process. His stuff has value, but my god, I don’t have the time or ability or knowledge to get it to the folks who will appreciate it. Clearing out my grandparent’s home 5 years ago did help my mom realize that no one wants her stuff, if even she doesn’t want her moms stuff. But it’s bitter sweet, the fact that they realized they need to manage the collections and the stuff, the house is getting emptier, but my dad’s books were his solace, my mom’s multilingual book collection a reminder of her academic past, the embroidered textiles a link to familial heritage that’s near impossible to maintain…
I’m lucky that they’ve started, I know, and yet I still dread the day my parents pass and I have the rest of a three bedroom house to clear out.
posted by larthegreat at 6:21 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I need him to live long enough (and to remain mobile long enough) to complete the donation process. His stuff has value, but my god, I don’t have the time or ability or knowledge to get it to the folks who will appreciate it. Clearing out my grandparent’s home 5 years ago did help my mom realize that no one wants her stuff, if even she doesn’t want her moms stuff. But it’s bitter sweet, the fact that they realized they need to manage the collections and the stuff, the house is getting emptier, but my dad’s books were his solace, my mom’s multilingual book collection a reminder of her academic past, the embroidered textiles a link to familial heritage that’s near impossible to maintain…
I’m lucky that they’ve started, I know, and yet I still dread the day my parents pass and I have the rest of a three bedroom house to clear out.
posted by larthegreat at 6:21 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
(I should also qualify that when I say the house is getting emptier, it’s that hallways lined with books on both sides (and books double stacked on those shelves) are now down to just one layer of books… I grew up with paintings stacked behind couches, an entire basement room what was old records, that I have yet to see the back wall of, I didn’t even know the room was that deep… it’s getting better, but there is still just SO MUCH STUFF. And still so much yelling about stuff….)
posted by larthegreat at 6:32 PM on June 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by larthegreat at 6:32 PM on June 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I understand the pain of this. You start going through things from your past and you pick up objects and get lost in nostalgia and memory. And it's taking you ages to evaluate every object because of the baggage attached to it.
I think on some level, you really need an impartial person to stand there and force decision making about things. If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects. It's a really hard thing to learn, but it isn't impossible.
On a really small scale, I'm grappling with this right now. I have what is objectively a fairly small assortment of mementos, like old family photos and keepsakes with meaning to me, but not to anyone else. (I don't have children or other heirs who would care about any of this. Currently my will favors a couple of local non-profits, which if I end up leaving any kind of estate seems like a good place for money to go.) It seems silly to toss it right now, but also I'm feeling very aware that at some point I need to do the sorting, as a kindness to others. So these things that have emotional meaning are going to be going to the landfill at some point, no matter what, and honestly that is a weird feeling.
Feeding into this is that I was the executor when one of my parents died, and while I didn't have to deal with any kind of hoarding situation, it was still kind of heartbreaking to go through papers and boxes and see the keepsakes that they had kept over so many years and across multiple international moves. After all that, in the end it was just stuff that got looked at and then mostly sent to the shredder or landfill.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:58 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
I think on some level, you really need an impartial person to stand there and force decision making about things. If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects. It's a really hard thing to learn, but it isn't impossible.
On a really small scale, I'm grappling with this right now. I have what is objectively a fairly small assortment of mementos, like old family photos and keepsakes with meaning to me, but not to anyone else. (I don't have children or other heirs who would care about any of this. Currently my will favors a couple of local non-profits, which if I end up leaving any kind of estate seems like a good place for money to go.) It seems silly to toss it right now, but also I'm feeling very aware that at some point I need to do the sorting, as a kindness to others. So these things that have emotional meaning are going to be going to the landfill at some point, no matter what, and honestly that is a weird feeling.
Feeding into this is that I was the executor when one of my parents died, and while I didn't have to deal with any kind of hoarding situation, it was still kind of heartbreaking to go through papers and boxes and see the keepsakes that they had kept over so many years and across multiple international moves. After all that, in the end it was just stuff that got looked at and then mostly sent to the shredder or landfill.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:58 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
You start going through things from your past and you pick up objects and get lost in nostalgia and memory. And it's taking you ages to evaluate every object because of the baggage attached to it.
If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects
I think what got me through both times, needing to go through and sort out, was essentially the understanding that, if none of the things held value to anyone but me, and I was incapable of finding a place in my life for them, then they simply had no value.
It was not, and is not, in any way a healthy mindset, but it gave me the agency I needed to let myself throw things away. With my father, I dreaded the weekends when my sister and cousin, free from work obligations, would come to “help” because they hadn’t reached that point, and every box took an hour to go through. Things were set aside that would never actually have a place to be put later on. It was agonizing, wanting them to get to work, or failing that, to just get out of the way.
What I’m left with, though, is the idea that the things I love and treasure are, essentially, worthless, as I am the only one for whom they mean anything at all, and if it’s just me, then what value can they possibly have? Even in death, my parents have found ways to do my head in.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:09 PM on June 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
If I were left all on my own, it would be a nightmare of "but this reminds me of" or "this is sentimental because of" or whatever.
None of those things matter to anyone who comes after you. These are your values you place on meaningless objects
I think what got me through both times, needing to go through and sort out, was essentially the understanding that, if none of the things held value to anyone but me, and I was incapable of finding a place in my life for them, then they simply had no value.
It was not, and is not, in any way a healthy mindset, but it gave me the agency I needed to let myself throw things away. With my father, I dreaded the weekends when my sister and cousin, free from work obligations, would come to “help” because they hadn’t reached that point, and every box took an hour to go through. Things were set aside that would never actually have a place to be put later on. It was agonizing, wanting them to get to work, or failing that, to just get out of the way.
What I’m left with, though, is the idea that the things I love and treasure are, essentially, worthless, as I am the only one for whom they mean anything at all, and if it’s just me, then what value can they possibly have? Even in death, my parents have found ways to do my head in.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:09 PM on June 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
I also have this to look forward to in my future and obviously it runs in the family, I have Tendencies, and someday will inevitably go whole hoarder, except there will be no one to clean up after me. Whee.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:09 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:09 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
*shudder* my dad has been an estate liquidator and antique dealer for 40 years.
He's got storage lockers all over the state, I don't know where. I'm at peace knowing the locker companies will just auction them off.
posted by constraint at 8:19 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
He's got storage lockers all over the state, I don't know where. I'm at peace knowing the locker companies will just auction them off.
posted by constraint at 8:19 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm reading this post from my mom's spare bedroom. My dad died in March and I've been coming back to see my mom more regularly. One wall of this room is boxes of papers. There's a storage unit downstairs with photos my mom wants to go through with me. "It'll be fun!" she asserts on no evidence. I'm finally getting some furniture shipped to California from here. But mostly when I'm here I look around and envision myself clearing out all of this stuff at some point in the not-too-distant future. I'm certainly not looking forward to losing my mom. I'm definitely not looking forward to dealing with the stuff either. And I'm still mad at my sister for dying and leaving me to deal with this without her.
And this is the better version of STUFF, the condo in the retirement community, not the rambling farmhouse I grew up in. Continually grateful my parents decided to move here and did most of the work of dealing with all the things they had there.
posted by gingerbeer at 8:39 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
And this is the better version of STUFF, the condo in the retirement community, not the rambling farmhouse I grew up in. Continually grateful my parents decided to move here and did most of the work of dealing with all the things they had there.
posted by gingerbeer at 8:39 PM on June 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I find myself utterly unable to stop reading this blog. Thank you, spamandkimchi.
Maybe it's because my BFF is a hoarder and I'm always trying to figure how I (not a mental health professional) can help her, even a little, let go of some things that aren't serving her now. And of course, there's my own parents, now in their 80s, who aren't hoarders, really, but have a lot of stuff in their basement that they haven't dealt with.
posted by tuesdayschild at 8:50 PM on June 17, 2023
Maybe it's because my BFF is a hoarder and I'm always trying to figure how I (not a mental health professional) can help her, even a little, let go of some things that aren't serving her now. And of course, there's my own parents, now in their 80s, who aren't hoarders, really, but have a lot of stuff in their basement that they haven't dealt with.
posted by tuesdayschild at 8:50 PM on June 17, 2023
Dang, I really hoped you had an update.
posted by whuppy at 9:33 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 9:33 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
A pal's nephew was helping the family clean out his [hoarder] grandmother's basement after she went into residential care. He made it worth his while by carefully emptying the many many shopping bags because these often yielded some folding change as well as an unused tchotchke. On the second day, after lunch from the deli, he was working on the far side of the cellar when he announced "I've found the cat". The creature had gone missing around the time his owner had gone into the care home. A quick forensic analysis revealed that the cat had gone down to the cellar for a quite nap and been crushed by a teetering pile of boxed magazines. It was now as dry and flat as piece of bacalhau.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:49 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:49 PM on June 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
My dad had a stash of interesting and potentially valuable old scientific instruments in the corner of the garage - the double garage that was so full of stuff up to shoulder height and beyond that essentially there was just room to ease the car in and open the drivers door. When my sister and I were cleaning up as we bullied him into leaving (he had dementia, the place was falling apart, he lived alone, we HAD to do it but he also hated it and we hated ourselves for doing it to him and we resented his stubborness that created the mess in the first place)... when I was cleaning up I made my way to that corner, where he told me these valuable things were... a rat had eaten its way through a decades old box of malted grains from Dad's home-brewing phase, then gone on to some pretty dodgy chemicals brought home from his lab at the technical institute... and its mummified carcase, nest, droppings and crystallised fluids were all there, impregnating the supposed valuables. I nearly threw up. And I was so angry. There were actual heirlooms in there that were destroyed because in "keeping them safe" he had consigned them to rot.
The floor through the house was full of stacks of papers, completely random. Years of expired food in the kitchen, grease, dead vermin. Half the bedroom was full of my mothers things from when she died 20 years earlier, thick with dust. Dad had kept them all untouched.
This is not to say Dad was a hoarder or we were confronted with real squalor. He was heading that way, having been raised frugal and having lost any sense of proportion or perspective as the dementia got a hold. I can relate a little to the blog but recognise the sisters' situation was infinitely worse. The description of the solipsistic father actually sounds very much like my father in law, who simply cannot understand that other people don't think the way he does, even when they tell him what they think and feel, who throws tantrums at the slightest deviation from his routine and who cannot value or understand anyone's feelings or logic where they deviate with what he has felt and thought (naturally he's a sucker for conspiracy theory because experts are idiots and he is the only person who can think logically or understand things).
But. We dealt with 50 years of my parents' stuff and all the things Dad had retrieved from his parents' place and felt unable to throw away. The whole time he was desperate we wouldn't get rid of anything valuable, or sentimental, or useful, or whatever. It took a long time and It left me determined for my daughter that she won't be made to be the custodian of the Museum of Mum and Dad. Luckily I am not a hoarder (yet) and hope to be well decluttered before she's left to mop up.
I really hope Thalia and Tara are doing ok now.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:46 AM on June 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
The floor through the house was full of stacks of papers, completely random. Years of expired food in the kitchen, grease, dead vermin. Half the bedroom was full of my mothers things from when she died 20 years earlier, thick with dust. Dad had kept them all untouched.
This is not to say Dad was a hoarder or we were confronted with real squalor. He was heading that way, having been raised frugal and having lost any sense of proportion or perspective as the dementia got a hold. I can relate a little to the blog but recognise the sisters' situation was infinitely worse. The description of the solipsistic father actually sounds very much like my father in law, who simply cannot understand that other people don't think the way he does, even when they tell him what they think and feel, who throws tantrums at the slightest deviation from his routine and who cannot value or understand anyone's feelings or logic where they deviate with what he has felt and thought (naturally he's a sucker for conspiracy theory because experts are idiots and he is the only person who can think logically or understand things).
But. We dealt with 50 years of my parents' stuff and all the things Dad had retrieved from his parents' place and felt unable to throw away. The whole time he was desperate we wouldn't get rid of anything valuable, or sentimental, or useful, or whatever. It took a long time and It left me determined for my daughter that she won't be made to be the custodian of the Museum of Mum and Dad. Luckily I am not a hoarder (yet) and hope to be well decluttered before she's left to mop up.
I really hope Thalia and Tara are doing ok now.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:46 AM on June 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
Reasons to keep broken and worn out old crap:
- I could fix it
- it's a spare for if the new one breaks
- someone might want it. don't you want it? it's still quite good!
- I paid $500 for it in 1978 and it's therefore worth at least $500
- your mother gave it to me when we were on holiday in 1967
- it was my first [thing]
- [sibling] left it here when she went to university ("I don't want it Dad" "Don't you? Hmmm")
- in case I lose the other one
- ...
hmmm this is actually a bit more raw still than I thought.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:51 AM on June 18, 2023 [12 favorites]
- I could fix it
- it's a spare for if the new one breaks
- someone might want it. don't you want it? it's still quite good!
- I paid $500 for it in 1978 and it's therefore worth at least $500
- your mother gave it to me when we were on holiday in 1967
- it was my first [thing]
- [sibling] left it here when she went to university ("I don't want it Dad" "Don't you? Hmmm")
- in case I lose the other one
- ...
hmmm this is actually a bit more raw still than I thought.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:51 AM on June 18, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm sure this stuff was the logic behind my grandfather's storage unit being preserved for 20+ years after his death. SO much broken, unsaveable furniture. Stolen shopping carts. Moonshine or at least some kind of horrifying large mystery liquid. My mother took months to get rid of it all In a save-able, recyclable way when really all of that needed to hit a dumpster.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:19 AM on June 18, 2023
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:19 AM on June 18, 2023
I remember reading this blog way back, but assumed I had found it through Metafilter. One thing that stuck with me was right after her father passed, people would approach her and share their nice memories of her father, which apparently would be a charming and gracious person if you happened to be also interested in air-cooled VWs and knew him only superficially. It was a bit hard for her to navigate, and I can understand why.
My own parents are getting on a bit now, and while they have collected quite a collection of stuff, it's not hoarder-level, and they have started to downsize. I'm torn between being grateful for their consideration and being melancholy that I will lose them in not too many years.
posted by Harald74 at 4:22 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
My own parents are getting on a bit now, and while they have collected quite a collection of stuff, it's not hoarder-level, and they have started to downsize. I'm torn between being grateful for their consideration and being melancholy that I will lose them in not too many years.
posted by Harald74 at 4:22 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
My uncle died back in 2016. I had not seen him in at least 3 years before that as he had stopped coming around to visit my parents, and he ended up dying alone in his tiny house while deep in the clutches of mental illness. His house was a filthy disaster (ceiling collapsed in one room, only one functioning bathroom) that my mom (he was my dad’s younger brother) and my wife tried to straighten out and eventually gave up, with all the contents being thrown out or given away, and then the house was sold for some ridiculous amount when it really just needed to be torn down.
That experience led my mother to make the decision to not force that task upon me and my sister. With my father now in a care facility because he is also deep in the clutches of mental illness (dementia — my other paternal uncle also was suffering from dementia before he died of cancer) my mom has been slowly emptying out the house of anything she doesn’t want.
My parents were not hoarders — it is surprising how much stuff accumulates when you have a permanent residence you own for 35+ years and don’t actively cull(?) what you own.
I am also determined not to leave a mess for my wife and two daughters to deal with when I am no longer around.
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 5:20 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
That experience led my mother to make the decision to not force that task upon me and my sister. With my father now in a care facility because he is also deep in the clutches of mental illness (dementia — my other paternal uncle also was suffering from dementia before he died of cancer) my mom has been slowly emptying out the house of anything she doesn’t want.
My parents were not hoarders — it is surprising how much stuff accumulates when you have a permanent residence you own for 35+ years and don’t actively cull(?) what you own.
I am also determined not to leave a mess for my wife and two daughters to deal with when I am no longer around.
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 5:20 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
I really really hope T&T are doing okay. Like, an eager buyer came along for the property and they could just walk away. They deserve a happy ending (or at least closure) so much.
posted by whuppy at 6:02 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 6:02 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also hope they're doing OK, as individuals and as sisters. I know at least some of this is projection, but I was reading an increase tension between them as the blog progressed. My parents aren't hoarders, but they've been in a house for 30+ years and if they die here (as they seem to want to), there's going to be a lot of stuff to deal with and that's going to stress relationships among me and my siblings. So I'm trying to help them get rid of as much as they can right now. They're open to it, but it's not easy.
My uncle is unmarried and has no children and may be a hoarder, so that's going to be interesting for the family to deal with one day.
posted by EvaDestruction at 8:47 AM on June 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
My uncle is unmarried and has no children and may be a hoarder, so that's going to be interesting for the family to deal with one day.
posted by EvaDestruction at 8:47 AM on June 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
A wry take on how relationships are stressed when clearing up a parent's hoard (the full story is a tragedy, the couple split up and the blogger Sidney died way too young): "Do we need a..." (archive.org version) from My Mother In Law is Still Sitting Between Us... (Newsweek included them in a story about family hoarding).
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:33 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:33 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
I posted this because like many of us in this thread, I have aging parents who have a LOT of stuff packed into their apartment and my paper-hoarding and media-hoarding (books, zines, mementos from arts/cultural orgs I worked with etc) has been life-long. The stories people are telling of items that would have been useful or desirable to someone but had been stored until they were worthless, mice-ridden or otherwise destroyed are all painful cautionary tales to my thrifty treehugger soul.
I was fascinated by how Thalia and Tara still managed to sell some of the VW bits and bobs! And that scrap metal still has monetary value, even in its rustiest, mangled state.
On my most recent visit to my parents, I went through my college-era stash of cds and brought a stack back home for my own enjoyment. I know there's a storage cabinet out on the veranda that is full of my own paper piles that I should deal with on a visit soon. Some of it could be interesting, in all honesty, for an ethnic studies program or a university library archive that specializes in Asian American studies (primary sources for a graduate student researching early 21st century Asian American culture with an emphasis on diy scenes in San Francisco!) but I suspect most of it is mold-infused and just destined for the trash bin.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:47 AM on June 18, 2023
I was fascinated by how Thalia and Tara still managed to sell some of the VW bits and bobs! And that scrap metal still has monetary value, even in its rustiest, mangled state.
On my most recent visit to my parents, I went through my college-era stash of cds and brought a stack back home for my own enjoyment. I know there's a storage cabinet out on the veranda that is full of my own paper piles that I should deal with on a visit soon. Some of it could be interesting, in all honesty, for an ethnic studies program or a university library archive that specializes in Asian American studies (primary sources for a graduate student researching early 21st century Asian American culture with an emphasis on diy scenes in San Francisco!) but I suspect most of it is mold-infused and just destined for the trash bin.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:47 AM on June 18, 2023
these stories are heartbreaking and horrifying. I am fortunate that neither of my parents are hoarders and since retirement my mom has been actively working to get rid of random stuff that no one wants (my 25 year old niece's stuffed animal collection, yep). so grateful.
my husband though...neither of his parents are hoarders in the strict sense but they both have lots of stuff. so much stuff. his father is in academia and has boxes and boxes of papers in his (large) house. not to mention dozens of cases of wine, some too old to be good anymore. there is no way he's going to do anything about it all. he still works fulltime at 86. I guess wife #4 "I'm not a gold digger" can get that fun task along with the money and the house...
posted by supermedusa at 9:59 AM on June 18, 2023
my husband though...neither of his parents are hoarders in the strict sense but they both have lots of stuff. so much stuff. his father is in academia and has boxes and boxes of papers in his (large) house. not to mention dozens of cases of wine, some too old to be good anymore. there is no way he's going to do anything about it all. he still works fulltime at 86. I guess wife #4 "I'm not a gold digger" can get that fun task along with the money and the house...
posted by supermedusa at 9:59 AM on June 18, 2023
When my mother died she occupied the middle flat of three in the house she owned. She had evicted the upstairs tenants for wanting heat and repairs. The tenant in the bottom flat had disappeared. She had hoped to turn him into her boyfriend cum handyman and get him to repair the decaying old house. We were told he had gone to the country to do a job and when the days work was done drank an entire bottle of hard liquor on the porch. The owner found him there in the evening and assumed he was passing out drunk, but apparently he had drunk it all at once, so it was a sleep he never woke up from. He left his basement apartment dark, moldy, packed with possessions and full of the debris that an alcoholic with severe mental problems tends to accumulate - dirty dishes on the floor, boxes of mildew and the like.
My sister and I had to deal with the house, and her goal was the quickest sale humanly possible. It was, however, full of junk and painful memories and the love objects of our childhood.
In the basement was a chest freezer, the lid weighted with cinder blocks. It wasn't plugged in. We looked at this and looked at each other and thought of the tenant who had disappeared one day. We though about my mother and her tendency to have really, really, really bad judgement, and get really, really angry at people she wanted to rescue her, if they failed to do so. We looked at the freezer again with the pile of cinder blocks on top...
It took us over a week to open it because with my mother you had to consider the unthinkable. Amazingly there was nothing at inside it, not even rotted food.
When I was in that house getting it ready for sale - we took two thousand off the price if they took it as is, with all the contents still in it - I spent the whole time feeling like I was about to throw up.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:44 AM on June 18, 2023 [9 favorites]
My sister and I had to deal with the house, and her goal was the quickest sale humanly possible. It was, however, full of junk and painful memories and the love objects of our childhood.
In the basement was a chest freezer, the lid weighted with cinder blocks. It wasn't plugged in. We looked at this and looked at each other and thought of the tenant who had disappeared one day. We though about my mother and her tendency to have really, really, really bad judgement, and get really, really angry at people she wanted to rescue her, if they failed to do so. We looked at the freezer again with the pile of cinder blocks on top...
It took us over a week to open it because with my mother you had to consider the unthinkable. Amazingly there was nothing at inside it, not even rotted food.
When I was in that house getting it ready for sale - we took two thousand off the price if they took it as is, with all the contents still in it - I spent the whole time feeling like I was about to throw up.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:44 AM on June 18, 2023 [9 favorites]
My father passed right before covid hit so the process of emptying out his house and selling it off took the better part of a year given all of the restrictions etc.
He was nothing like a hoarder but did have a 3000 sq ft house of stuff in boxes and on shelves and in closets and in the garage, it was a lot to take on and accomplish for my brother and I. A family and personal archeology, just so many layers stretching back to before our Mom passed a few years ago, all of his suits and dress shoes from before he retired... just stuff, and more stuff, and then more stuff after that.
Lesson learned: freedom from stuff is a blessing
posted by djseafood at 10:49 AM on June 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
He was nothing like a hoarder but did have a 3000 sq ft house of stuff in boxes and on shelves and in closets and in the garage, it was a lot to take on and accomplish for my brother and I. A family and personal archeology, just so many layers stretching back to before our Mom passed a few years ago, all of his suits and dress shoes from before he retired... just stuff, and more stuff, and then more stuff after that.
Lesson learned: freedom from stuff is a blessing
posted by djseafood at 10:49 AM on June 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life by Matt Paxton is pretty helpful in my opinion! (plus the list of resources)
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:12 AM on June 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:12 AM on June 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
One helpful tip my smarter friend gave me once was: sometimes, when people want to give you a thing, they're actually saying, "Here, YOU throw this away." And it's an act of mercy to do so. Full mitzvah.
The combined power of generic ADHD drugs being available in my area again and this thread led me to a lot of useful activity in my lil apartment today, so thank you. Moppings were had and baseboards were scrubbed. Stuff was tossed and recycled. I appreciate you all.
posted by lauranesson at 4:19 PM on June 18, 2023 [15 favorites]
The combined power of generic ADHD drugs being available in my area again and this thread led me to a lot of useful activity in my lil apartment today, so thank you. Moppings were had and baseboards were scrubbed. Stuff was tossed and recycled. I appreciate you all.
posted by lauranesson at 4:19 PM on June 18, 2023 [15 favorites]
My mother-in law has had at least 4 strokes, and dealing with “stuff” has been a non-scientific symptom of her decline in mental processing. A stack of mail is now indecipherable… junk mail, bill, or letter from the IRS? She doesn’t know how to prioritize and sort anymore. The pile of puzzles she can’t do is a healthy piece of who she’s been, I guess.
So, I’m trying hard not to be irritated; I don’t get upset about her needing another blood test or mobility device. I am learning to honor her perspective (but dang, it’s hard some days.) A perfectly clear eye still cannot see clearly through a blurry lens.
It’s somewhat helped her using the tack, “let me just take a picture of it with your ipad, so we can remember it while it’s in great shape,” but it’s slow going. It’s a nasty combination of the brain being broken, the memories/history/nostalgia/personality montage, and facing mortality.
P.S. If you marry or move in with a genealogist, convince them that digitized archives are searchable with OCR and therefore *the best.* 😂
posted by beckybakeroo at 8:24 PM on June 18, 2023
So, I’m trying hard not to be irritated; I don’t get upset about her needing another blood test or mobility device. I am learning to honor her perspective (but dang, it’s hard some days.) A perfectly clear eye still cannot see clearly through a blurry lens.
It’s somewhat helped her using the tack, “let me just take a picture of it with your ipad, so we can remember it while it’s in great shape,” but it’s slow going. It’s a nasty combination of the brain being broken, the memories/history/nostalgia/personality montage, and facing mortality.
P.S. If you marry or move in with a genealogist, convince them that digitized archives are searchable with OCR and therefore *the best.* 😂
posted by beckybakeroo at 8:24 PM on June 18, 2023
I’ve been reading the archives starting at the beginning. I think this is where the dam broke.
posted by bendy at 8:38 PM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by bendy at 8:38 PM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Like she pulled some random fugly ceramic mask out of the depths of the pile and said "See this? it's hideous. It's also worth at least $5000 because it's a famous modernist artist. I checked; I know. I can show you his museum listings, and it's signed by him.
Haha. Sure. My wife's family said the same thing about her father's vintage tools. A cursory google search shows that something close to this thing in absolutely impeccable condition sold for $5k. Well, I just had to pay $400 to tow yours to the dump because no-one at a yardsale would even carry it away and no-one in the 2nd largest metro in the US on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist thought it was worth a look.
That's a quick crash course in economics for you.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:33 AM on June 20, 2023
Also the number of people dealing with this is so staggering that junk haulers with trucks just hang out in the local Home Depot parking lot, because they get walk-up clients who just can't deal and are willing to pay someone else to clean up the mess. Staggering.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:36 AM on June 20, 2023
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:36 AM on June 20, 2023
Does anyone want 300+ Bed Bath and Beyond coupons dating back to 1991? Yeh, am cleaning up my parent's house. (they are alive, in a retirement home for now)
posted by Sophont at 1:18 PM on June 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Sophont at 1:18 PM on June 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've only gotten a few paragraphs in but I'm not sure I can continue. I divorced my child's father for a host of reasons, but many of them had to do with his hoarding of used Volkswagen parts and building materials. Everyday I had to fight to keep the living space from being overrun. I'll try to finish the article but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be able.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 7:46 PM on June 20, 2023
posted by pleasant_confusion at 7:46 PM on June 20, 2023
Haha. Sure. My wife's family said the same thing about her father's vintage tools.
Eh, you may absolutely be fully correct, and further if you wanna claim the Sōdeisha group wasn't important that's your prerogative, but in that event you may want to check your western privilege. I would disagree, but I'm biased, and Bizen stoneware isn't everyone's thing, after all. It's ... uh ... idiosyncratic.
...there's a quick lesson in Japanese ceramics for you. Say hi to Hoshi Shinichi. I'm sure you've met.
posted by aramaic at 9:25 PM on June 20, 2023
Eh, you may absolutely be fully correct, and further if you wanna claim the Sōdeisha group wasn't important that's your prerogative, but in that event you may want to check your western privilege. I would disagree, but I'm biased, and Bizen stoneware isn't everyone's thing, after all. It's ... uh ... idiosyncratic.
...there's a quick lesson in Japanese ceramics for you. Say hi to Hoshi Shinichi. I'm sure you've met.
posted by aramaic at 9:25 PM on June 20, 2023
So I'm reading the Matt Paxton book I mentioned above, and the idea of a "legacy list" -- the items that actually help tell the family stories you want to remember and pass on - didn't really make sense to me until the story of the roll of Richmond VA trolley tokens that embodied his great-aunt's working class thriftiness. She had hung onto the tokens long after the city had switched to transit cards, certain that someday the city would switch back and wouldn't she be sitting pretty with her stash then, and Paxton not only kept the tokens as a delightfully specific keepsake, he turned them into cufflinks for his wedding party.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:01 PM on June 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:01 PM on June 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
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But good lord, those additional bedrooms and the entire basement of the house have turned into disturbing, soul-killing ceiling-piled nonsense that I just don't want anything to do with, but which I will be responsible for and will resent every minute of cleaning out.
Since this has been going on, I now think of every purchase as "will someone need to be responsible for this when I die?" to try to go out with only practical things that can be easily disposed of or sold when I go.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 2:32 PM on June 17, 2023 [17 favorites]