Hoarder in-laws want us to inherit their stuff

Early Laura Ashley turns up on the Antiques Roadshow, I wish I had kept mind.

Inspired by this thread, as a collector with hoarding tendencies, I know I have too much stuff. It depresses DH and now Im disabled and cant tackle it, I am limited to when DH can go through it. I know he has worried about things like clearing the garage, which whilst isnt full to the rafters, has got stuff from when we moved from our last house still in boxes that we havent touched. We moved 20 years ago. I have cleared things with his help but we are both overwhelmed and I get easily fatigued.

So I have emailed him a google search of house / building clearances places with a "lets get them to clear out the garage and loft".

I have a collection of paintings and china, that DS has said he will keep only the most special ones. I can think of 2 paintings (one was my 21st present and one our wedding gift from the artist), and one or two of the china I would like him to keep again of sentimental value but certainly not the vast majority, I dont want to burden him with this. I dont want to part with them yet but I do want to make it easier for him.

I know I inherited this from my dad, who talked about the 4 broken sinclair spectrums he had in the loft. They were all broken and he was going to fix them. He had the ability to do so, but they were still broken when he died.

Mum has bits she wants to get rid of now, and talks about selling them. We are talking laura ashley dresses. Ive said charity shop them but she believes they are worth what she bought them for new 40 years ago so wont let them go. She now talks about my young niece will wear them which I very much doubt unless she is going to a fancy dress party. When she goes, I can only think of 3 paintings I would love, and the rest my brothers can have to sell, I no longer want the things I used to.

And just to clarify, 🙄 I was commenting that it was daft to invent a scenario: "inheriting piss stained cushions" and then react to that: "oh how terrible to have that".

Which it is. Daft, that is. We could all think of a thousand terrible things but, like piss stained cushions, they too wouldn't be part of the OP.

I agree. Leave them to it, accept you will need to get a clearance company. There's probably some stuff you can sell, maybe enough to pay for the clearance.

😆👌

You can decline an inheritance. If you don't want to deal with clearing the house. Don't take the house.

Stop stressing OP, house clearance will take care of it. Don't add to their stress by announcing your intèntion, say you'll take care of it when they're gone. Hoarders have manifold issues, don't try to change them now. And when the time comes, don't take anything home with you. Don't be the next generation.

I wonder what Gen Z will do when the time comes. They don't seem to own as much.

It's not selfish because they genuinely believe the items have value. I would not say anything more about it and sort it out when you have to.
My mum has quite a lot of hoarded stuff from decades ago that she puts off sorting out even though she could, so I know I'll have the same issue one day.

In what way is it disgusting to live in your own house the way you want to? I genuinely can't understand your thinking. You'd probably be surprised to see that my own house is very much uncluttered and all my paperwork is in order. I have a horror of clutter. But I know that other people have different priorities and enjoy having stuff. It would be very sad if we all spent our lives worrying about how other people would deal with our homes and affairs when we die.

To the best of my reading ability the OP hasn't said, in any way, that she is being asked to inherit piss stained cushions. You can extrapolate or go down the what-if, what-about route as much as you like, or you can stick to the facts of the OP, which seems the better choice.

It was a comment on you saying it was daft not to want to receive piss stained items. If you haven't experienced an elderly relative thinking you should be grateful to receive them, it is probably hard to understand or believe. And it is all part of the same spectrum of behaviour which I have posted about earlier on this thread.

Indeed he is!! There's a likelihood no one will find the cash and it will go up in a house fire as the place is dangerous. He repairs electrics with tape and has a fuse box about 80 years old immediately above a shelf of flammables, adjacent is a shelf with boxes and boxes of old magazines and papers. It's a tinderbox, worse thing is these high shelves are in a storage room immediately under his bedroom. We can only hope he isn't there when the place explodes.

The OP hasn't said any of that is happening in her situation so the comment about inheriting piss stained pillows was indeed daft.

Your situation is yours it's not the OP's. As well as talking about a different type of problem you are talking about care and concern for the health and well being of a living person not clearing a home after death. Again, that's your situation not the OP's.

Nod along a bit but detach from this nonsense.
When they go you’ll get house clearance people in and the whole lot carted away.

Yup,
Clearing a hoarded property while the rent has to be paid
and the landlord is breathing down your neck
because the tenancy cannot be inherited
is beyond the ken of most Mumsnetters

There was an old gent down my parents road whonwas a hosrder and he had a bloody huge house. He was so bad the emergency services crawled through newspaper to get to his body when he passed.
A clearance company came and cleared his house when he was gone. My dad said he had been once before it got really bad and there were loads of actual valuables, paintings and jewelry, they must have made a mint from the clearance. But they had it all cleared in a day or two.
You could just tell them you will take it on and just dont say you are planning to get it cleared.

You obviously haven't had to deal with several decades worth of soft furnishings which have been used by mice and other wildlife as their latrine and the larder as their all you can eat buffet. And your parent wants to salvage things, wash and keep them 'just in case'. You cannot leave an elderly parent who you love living like that because they don't like you throwing things out and cannot accept that eating food that has been shat on by mice is not safe.

And no, they do not have dementia or any sort of cognitive decline.

Not everyone's parents owns homes. Many rent. Mine did.

Don't worry about it or even think about it any more.
It's very simple. When they die you get a clearance company in and they bin the lot OR you do it yourself with a skip (which obviously will have to be taken away and emptied several times).
If they have to go into a home beforehand and the property has to be sold the same will have to happen. Clearance company. End of story.

I have a relative in exactly the same position as you. He keeps trying to help his hoarding father sort things out but whenever he feels like he's getting somewhere his father brings more junk into the house, either shit he's bought online or stuff other people have given him because it's shite and they don't want it! My relative was getting very distressed about it but we've had several discussions now and he's decided just to leave it and he'll skip everything himself with help from friends and relatives when his father has died.

This has got to be a contender for daftest post of the year.

Why? Why be so cruel?

OP stop stressing, put a plan in place that makes you feel calmer - get some quotes from clearance firms and ask how the process works then bank that info and never mention to your PILs - just nod and be nice - as others have said why should your PILs be forced to get rid of their possessions just to make your life a bit easier once they've died?

Don't be ridiculous, no one knows when they are going to die so it's all clean and tidy

This is a disgusting attitude and disrespectful to other people and their time.

It is a reasonable expecatation that if you make a mess, you clear it up.

PIL said similar, items involving two old grandfather clocks, pictures, canteens of cutlery, silverware etc etc. We auctioned off the valuable stuff and the remainder filled five skips. It took four of us every weekend six months to finish and left a very unpleasant legacy. Very very little was kept and MIL now in care never ever asks about any of it!