Hoarder in-laws want us to inherit their stuff

I think this is great advice. You are gratefully receiving (even though it’s not anything you would use) and assist in clearing the pile of junk whilst keeping the equilibrium of the hoarder. Far better than putting pressure on the hoarder. I would imagine you are an empath and have an understanding of their behaviour.
This comes from someone whose mother was a hoarder…it was a nightmare scenario for me. She had so much junk in her loft accumulated over many years…wooden framed and warped tennis rackets from our childhoods, hockey sticks, every annual we received as Christmas presents, 3 broken lawn mowers etc etc etc…it was packed to the rafters.
Downstairs in the living a wasn’t any better.
I really wished I’d adopted your techniques many years ago.

It is both hard and expensive. Do you know how much a skip costs these days?

We have tried to get my Mum to get rid of stuff but as a hoarder she just isn't capable of it and the tears and anger are awful. We have done what we can and the garage if full but have resigned ourselves to a big skip when the day comes.

Hoarding is defined as a mental illness in the DSM-5 and is defined as persistent difficulties in parting with items or collecting items to an excessive degree often creating large amounts of clutter which can lead to distress for the individual or their loved ones.

There's obviously stages to this and people can be affected to varying degrees in terms of how well they 'manage' their belongings.

Op is not terrible or selfish to be concerned about this. I'd also remember that when it comes time to deal with the items in the home, it's also going to be a time when op and her dh will be dealing with significant grief and stress.

Was it possible that your brother thought he was doing the right thing by sorting everything out quickly and by not involving you. He also might have thought that 3 days was more than enough time to go though everything.

My husbands family are very sentimental and tend to delay dealing with thing when someone dies. They take ages and ages to go through belongings and have kept houses for a long while before selling them. My family is completely different, we are all very pragmatic and we like to get rid of everything as quickly as possible. We cleared the house of most of my Dads belongings days after he died. We liked being busy and it was something to do. My Mum and I did it together. We did wonder what other people might think of us but we didn’t really care tbh.
Neither way of doing things is right or wrong. It’s just more tricky when it’s two people in the same family that want to deal with things differently.

@Arran2024 I ask these questions not because you owe an answer on MN but so that an outsider perspective on MN might prompt some reflections that might help you make sense of things. Why was your brother the sole executor? Was it because you lived hundreds of miles away so he had to deal with more than you? Why do you think he was angry towards the end of your dad's illness? In what way was his experience of being the child of your parents different from yours?

You are understandably still upset that things felt far too rushed to you, but when an older person has died, no, it's not the case that leaving all their stuff in situ makes it easier to sell the house. Also, if you had thought you could stay in your parents' old house for visits (plural) from your hundreds of miles away home until it was sold, and there was no rush to sell a probate property, then perhaps that contributed to his decision to just get it done and gone given that the responsibility ultimately fell on him. You spent three days going through the house and took so much stuff that the car was packed and your husband had to take the train with an extra suitcase... would it have been much longer and much more if you'd had the chance? There's no right way to do these things so putting yourself in the other person's shoes might help you make a bit more peace with it.

oh I remember feeling bereavement anger. Its like having a hurricane inside you.

I understood that houses sell easier if they are full of furniture and some signs of life rather than completely gutted and I just couldn't see any point in being so hasty, especially as I was hoping to visit one last time. Tbh he got really funny about my parents towards the end of my dad's illness, was horrible about the funeral arrangements. I think he was projecting his anger onto the house.

I think there are two sorts of people. Those who attach importance to things and associate them with their loved ones and those who don’t.
I am afraid I am in your DBs camp - if DH lets me I will get house clearance in when the time comes as quickly as possible. There is nothing I want from their house and seemingly being the only person who cares if it’s at all clean and presentable means I will be delighted when I never have to go into it again. Thankfully for all concerned I am an only DC.

My parents made my brother the sole executor, though we both inherited equally. To my astonishment he decided that he was getting a house clearance company in almost immediately after the funeral. We don't live nearby - hundreds of miles away in fact - and I only found this out when we were at the funeral. I had three days to go through the house picking out what I wanted. My husband got the train home, with a newly purchased suitcase full of stuff, and I drove home with the car packed with stuff. I got some things to the local charity shop too. He didn't want anything.

I didn't want to fall out with him so I said nothing but I am still deeply upset that he did it this way. I had offered to go through everything on a later visit - i had thought we could stay in the house for visits until it was sold, there was no rush.

But no. I drove home and that was that.

My famly have just had to deal with similar.. it was a standard joke that they would get us all down "one day" to go through everything as they couldn't bear to do it - Hoarding is a mental illness which after looking at the state of the house can see why.

They had a dining room that you couldn't step into or see over the piles in there - it took 4 of us 4 days whilst living in the sliver of bedroom we cold get to and we found evidence of mice and all sorts.

The most upsetting thing I found is that there were so many things left to rot and ruin in a leaky garage or bottles of 1970s vinatge wine left on a window ledge - all with them saying "we're saving them for you as an investment" Its really sad.

Will you inherit the house too? Getting rid of a house full of unwanted things is not a job I would want, however if I was getting a 4 bed house I would just grin and bear it.

I wouldn’t upset them by telling them what you think, it’s up to them how they live so long as it’s safe. If it makes them happy to leave you all their things then so be it. Why are you worrying about that now anyway, and why be so stressed about it?
when the time comes, get house clearance people clearance people in.

If my (non existent) kids said this to me, I'd do the hiding money everywhere trick and tell them I had done it.

Just be clear that what they’re asking of you is selfish and unfair, and that if they insist on this you’ll put it all in the hands of a house clearance company. Though I would urge you to check for sentimental family items eg photograph albums, should you want them.

I’d also be voicing my concern about them living in a property at high risk of fire.

Doesn’t sound like much of an inconvenience to me!

This is important. My parents regret being too quick / not taking the time to properly review the contents of their parents houses / being too quick to dispose of things that they later regretted.

I also think you can ask your relatives to add value to items now, for example old family photo albums are much more informative if the people are named. I remember by great aunts and great-grandparents as very old people, I'd be hard pressed to recognise them in black and white photos from the 1930's and 40's , but I'd love to see them as children if they were labelled and look for family resemblance across generations.

But a skip is good for the rest, just because you inherit doesn't mean you are obliged to keep it

Get a clearance company

Incredibly selfish. My mum had a very sudden terminal diagnosis and all she was worried about when she was dying was the thought of all the stuff in the loft that we were going to be left to clear out. She had started but it was still a couple of days work for 3 adults and a skip.

Hope you’ve left them out of the will!

My DGM wasn't a hoarder really (she didn't keep rubbish) but she had lots of stuff in lots of cupboards in a massive house. And two sheds and a garage. It took us every weekend for a year to clear it all. But then there were some things we wanted in amongst things we didn't. Whenever my DF raises it she just said we can sort it out when she dies. But with her house you didn't see lots of stuff lying around so it wasn't noticeable.

We gave a lot away, tons of laundry detergent, furniture and food if we couldn't use it and people were grateful. We also had a skip and finally a clearance company.

It made me determined that my two wouldn't go through it. I continually declutter and buy much less.

With your in-laws you might find things of value amongst it or you can get a clearance company.

Good grief. As already pointed out, the OP's parents were not born during the war. The OP starts My in-laws in their 70s .... We marked 80 years since the end of World War II this summer. This is the same inability to do basic maths and join up the dots that results in care homes playing Vera Lynn to people who grew up listening to The Beatles and prog rock.

If your in laws leave you the house and contents, then you can just get the contents cleared after they die.

If they have to sell their house to fund nursing home care etc, then they will have to deal with their belongings.

You’ll be fine regardless!

Hi @Xmasiscomingsoon I sympathise. I had to clear a distant relative's house, where they were hoarders. It took a specialist team of house clearance people, also some biohazard clean up, and cost was ~ £8k (I got quotes from several firms, this was an average cost).
However, what worked very well, was that I could leave the house clearers to get on with it, they knew just how to manage things and what (if anything) could be recycled.
I had taken away any financial /legal paperwork already, so I told the house clearance people to put anything relevant they found (e.g. bunches of keys, or even loose coins) in a plastic box for me to sort afterwards.

Yes, the cost comes out of the estate overall, but it's a depressing and horrible job to oversee. However I agree with PP that if people really want to keep worthless clutter such as the trays that chicken comes on, there is nothing you can do to stop them.

I was incredibly pleased that there are licensed, useful firms who do house clearance, as I could not have done it all myself.

They are in their 70s - at most they were born in 1946 and entered adulthood in the 60s, but more likely born in the 50s (or the OP would have been calling them “almost 80”).
Besides I don’t think lack of fear of bombing or enslavement should mean your stuff gets slung out potentially 30 years before you die. I’m not the war generation but I’ve got far too many board games.