To be so angry sorting out my parents stuff

Gosh yes that must feel tough, OP.

I always find it sad when I hear similar stories. My elderly mum never had much but she always made sure to help me out if I needed it and I'll do the same for my kids.

Of course I will expect them to stand on their own two feet and be driven and work for what they want.

But I always found it slightly odd when people with wealth didn't help out more in their lifetime. It's often when people are in their 40s/50s that they could do with a helping hand as expensive with kids and both parents often working (as opposed to earlier generations when perhaps only one income was needed).

I'll make sure to pass on any money when my children are in their midlife so they can make the most of their time then and with their kids. Plus it means any regular monetary gifts (if you can prove what you give is not needed on a day-to-day basis) are not subject to inheritance tax or tax at all!

The past is a foreign country
Your parents will have been brought up by parents who themselves lived through WW1, a society with workhouses, no safety nets or social security, mass and chronic unemployment, child deaths etc. Life expectancy in UK 1900 35. They lived through 30s 40s, 50s. WW2, bombing, fear of invasion by Nazis, no NHS till 1948 , wagw cuts if 5-10%, housing shortages. They would have been forever fearful that these times would return. This is why they hoard things and money against times when you can buy almost nothing. When getting a job is impossible. Again it was expected that men were responsible for keeping the family, which might explain why more was left to a son? After all women were often sacked when they married and usually if pregnant. I remember an aunt saying she was sorry for men having to work. This was a world with no safety regulations, sick pay, pensions etc. She'd lost her husband in WW1, her nephew in WW2. It seems shocking, unfair and illogical to us to discriminate against women and I was horrified when a friend was left nothing but the family business and house went to her brother so I sympathise Op.

Sounds like your parents fortunes improved as their family grew up, and they enjoyed spending their disposable income.

That happened in my family - between my and younger sis - so she got clothes that let her behind in and I had ones that marked me out as different not great in teen years. There was also a more relax attitude about doing things.

Same parents in same house hold siblings get different parents for a variety of reasons.

You do realise house clearance companies charge a fortune

IL found one local to them that didn't. They were doing Uncle house he going into home and sons NC and frankly IL weren't keen and had their own things - health and emotion wise going on. They though it was actually worth the money as their time and energy was limited at that point.

https://propertysaviour.co.uk/how-much-does-house-clearance-cost/#:~:text=While%20prices%20can%20vary%20significantly,)%3A%20%C2%A3450%20%E2%80%93%20%C2%A3600

While prices can vary significantly, here’s a general guide to house clearance costs in the UK:

• Small clearance (up to 500kg): £175 – £300
• Medium clearance (500-750kg): £300 – £450
• Large clearance (750-1000kg): £450 – £600

I don't know when these ^^ figures were from on that website and there's going to be regional and property size to take into account - but IL paid last year these sort of figures in their area.

Yes. That’s pretty much what I was saying. Maybe we are agreeing with each other?

Sorry you're feeling that way @DazedorBemused, it's hard enough having to go through your parents belongings without the multitude of thoughts and feelings that hit as you do.

Just to share my own experience I felt bad about how little DM had. A lot of her belongings were toys and games she had for her grandkids, who had outgrown most of them by a few years, and things she had kept from when me and my siblings were small.

Everyone is different and will have different feelings and ways to process things, I would say try not to be too hard on your parents as without them all you're doing is beating yourself up at a time you really need to be kind to yourself.

Normal to work at uni in mid 90s but I didn’t know anyone with 3 jobs (Op says 2 x term and in holidays) I worked in factories in my hols long hours but not term time. Others might have a Saturday job in a shop or bar/waitressing.
If Op didn’t get a grant she would have struggled. My bf was full grant and only needed to work in hols.

The OP’s gripe is that she was treated differently to her brother. If he’d also worked 2 jobs to get through uni, I doubt she’d be so upset.

Yes. Fully agree.

However I still maintain it was normal to work at Uni. It was the brother who was unusually subsidised, not OP treated unusually badly.

Yes, people still have these very outdated assumptions about the value of objects, but it's often not true at all. Charity shops aren't a repository for everyone's old crap.

If the single person still has a dishwasher, then they need multiple sets of crockery to fill the dishwasher and not run it half empty.

Make sure they know you’re planning to bring in a house clearance company

If there is a Franklin Mint snowy owl lamp, they sell on eBay for about £60-80.

But perhaps it'd be more satisfying to smash it all to bits!

Worth asking BHF to do a house clearing.

Nobody wants it. My local tip has a big and popular "freecycle" section and manages to sift books, cds, computer games for reuse. They really go to some lengths to maximise reuse. China however goes straight in the "china bin" because nobody wants it even if its good quality.

"Stuff" is just so cheap these days that where I set up home with hand me down furniture, mismatched china etc the equivalent now is to go to Ikea and buy a "house pack" or a "kitchen pack" - lessor quality but its new and modern designs and affordable.

The ‘worth something’ is very hard. My mil’s house is full of antiques and collectibles but any suggestion to get rid is met with resistance as they have value in her head. Fashions change and even charity shops won’t take items that don’t sell.

Her brother who is only slightly younger than OP didn't work while at University as he was subsidised by their parents. There has obviously been unfair treatment between the siblings which is still playing out as OP is doing all the work to clear her parents' home and her brother is nowhere to be seen.

I’m same age and it was grant no loan but only low income families or children of single parents got the grant. My parents worked modest jobs but no grant. Obviously no tuition fees. I worked every holiday. My catered halls were £58 a week. I was earning £123 a week in a factory the summer before I went (still have building society book I put my wages in every week) but without parents support it would have been hard, I was fortunate.
I can understand seeing all this tat is hard when they didn’t help her at all and could have. It’s a difficult time, lots of memories dredging up.

Collectables were a fantastic con job largely targeting women who had grown up with next to nothing and for the first time had a bit of spare cash. The marketing was all about "collecting for future generations" - something which had never been possible for them before. In my memory it was part and parcel of the shift to valuing people for what they had rather than what they did in the '80s.

I look around my own house sometimes and wonder what I'm keeping, thinking it will be of use/value to the DC but which will likely end up in a skip. I supposed if you have enough attic space you just pack it in trunks for the great or great-great GDC to dig out and sell as ephemera of a historical era, most of which was lost in skips 😀

No! I’d high hopes for my mother in laws lladro!

Having very much not enjoyed clearing our parents' houses, as we came up to retirement we moved to a flat and threw away almost everything, including DCs' childhood relics (with their blessing). We got all new furniture from Ikea, and sold or gave away our vinyl records and most of the books.

Now if (when) we both drop dead, DCs just need to open the box with the wills, and throw away two small wardrobes worth of clothes. But this something to do in your early 60s — you can't expect someone in their late 70s to do it, I think.

@Namechangefordaughterevasion

As one PP has mentioned there were boxes of gifts we'd bought her over the years, chosen with love and care and put away unused. That stung

Famous Pharoahs aside, if your DM was the pre war born generation (as mine were) I think it was incredibly difficult to throw off that "make do and mend", "It might come in useful" mindset and its old friend "save it for best". My parents both grew up with next to nothing and so throwing out anything which might be useful was genuinely hard. Come the '80s when they finally had some money to spend on themselves my DM certainly bought her share of crap from Bradford exchange thinking it would pass on to the grandchildren (whose only use for them would be as hardcore).

They both (but especially DM) sometimes kept gifts "for best" because they were especially valued. It took us years to get DM into the habit of "enjoy it now, there are more where that came from" because she grew up without there being endless replacements if a precious item was lost.

On the house clearing topic - my sympathies, OP! And the tales of the parents on this thread are hugely relatable (also remembering that they will almost certainly be boomers, not war generation, so have actually had great luck in life generally with house prices, investments, retirement ages etc.) PSML at the “looting Tutankhamen’s tomb” 😆 I used to go to a car boot sale near us for a quick look every weekend, but it just got far too full of boomers who seemed to think that their vast tables of old-fashioned repro tat from the 80s were priceless heirlooms. Week after week they would be there charging insane prices for some dusty old porcelain and ugly glassware and refusing to take any offers.

Thankfully my parents seem to be trying to make a bit of an effort to do some decluttering, and my mum in particular is very self-aware that she struggles with hoarding things, but it’s still an uphill slog. My MIL on the other hand is a bona fide hoarder with a loft full of previous generations’ tat as well, and the mentality that she is “saving” priceless heirlooms for us all. I keep trying to explain to her, gently, that no, we don’t actually want a loft full of not very nice but dusty heavy dark wooden furniture or yellowing watercolours of sheep, but she does not believe me because she is absolutely convinced that it might all be worth a fortune. Ditto the (literally) five thousand photos of now-dead people we never knew, and every piece of childhood artwork DP ever put to paper, which she is saving for us for “sentimental reasons”.

A friend of mine grew up in an antique dealer family and is very vocal that the bottom fell out of even the fine antiques market a long time ago, like twenty years ago or more! Pseudo-“collectibles” are even more worthless - you might as well not even bother.

Your MIL sounds lovely and what a kind thing to have done to make things easier for your DH and you at a time of grief.
My mum is like your MIL and when the time comes it won’t be a burden. Downsized, regularly gets rid of things to charity and doesn’t overbuy.
My MIL is opposite in an big poorly maintained cluttered house and will be a huge burden sorting.

I’m an antiques and vintage dealer, it’s mind blowing the amount of “collectibles” people have been hawked into buying since the 50s. People paying hundreds of pounds for royal doulton and Coalport etc figurines, or full collections of dresser plates thinking they would be family heirlooms worth thousands one day, and now they go through auctions chucked in mixed lot boxes that struggle to reach a fiver. Prized possessions consigned to the scrap heap.
House clearances are heartbreaking.

I am about the same age as you and this really jumped out at me

I'm angry and sad, I think, at the disconnect between what they said and what they did

I will never be as well off as my parents, am close to the age where my mother retired and had a well funded retirement - I am looking at another 10 years of work and desperate attempts to make sure I wont be in poverty. I know every generation can look at the other and point out foibles, but the 'we were/are so badly off' really grates. Sorry this is happening to you.

Totally get the resentment OP, as a daughter that was also always treated vastly different to my brother. My brother wasn’t unwell to even explain some of the guilt buying.

This is really shit and I’m so sorry.

As the mother of a child with a rare and painful disorder, I still strive to treat both of my children fairly. I would never buy for one and not the other.

I’m sorry you had to work so very hard. I imagine the resentment mixed with grief is really hard to process. Counselling has been invaluable in helping me sort through my own resentment towards my parents, it is a feeling many experience and please don’t feel bad.