Hoarding mother sending 20 boxes of books!

I agree, when we moved, I tried to sell books via some of the apps, so many were not accepted and those that were were worth almost nothing. I think you needed £5 worth in order to be able to send them for free and it was so difficult even to get to that figure that I gave up and sent them all to the local charity shop!

Agreed that the book selling websites are only any use if your books are in immaculate condition, which they won't be in this situation. Tip the lot. And agreed about photos - my mum's photos give her geat pleasure but about 99.5% of them mean nothing to us and even if they did, we wouldn't suffer from not having them.

Does your dp drive? Maybe he could take it to the tip for you.

Does your mother have funds ? Hire a skip , get delivered and they also collect it.

Tell the cousins there was something valuable hidden in the boxes.they won’t drip off again.

Phone the council and see if they will uplift it for you. I think they will do this in some areas and if you explain your circumstances you might qualify for it.

No way would I be going through all that. It sounds like you don't have the best relationship with your mum anyway so I doubt you are going to find any treasured mementoes in there.

I care for my autistic child too and it already takes so much mental effort you really don't need this. If the books are modern paperbacks Oxfam might take them but they won't want any musty old ones.

So the cousins were paid to do it, then dumped a load of it on you?! That's thoughtful of them!

House clearance is the best option. No need for any relative to do it themselves and you can ask the house clearance company to keep back any paperwork or photos if necessary.

Do yourself a favour and bin all of it.

Having to clear hoarding parent's junk is horrible. You feel guilty, dirty, annoyed, resentful about the job and generally wonder why the hell they haven't done it themselves.

Minimise the time you waste on doing it so you can get your living room back.

@TerfTalking I’m assuming the OP couldn’t do it as she doesn’t drive so couldn’t get there and couldn’t drop off boxes wherever they need to go but it’s not OP responsibility either. I get that other people do it for their parents and grandparents and such, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to or that it’s a child responsibility to empty the house either. it’s a nice sentiment and I get it but it’s not a given.

House clearance should have been used - I would not be at all grateful to your cousins. I’d have no hesitation in getting rid as fast as I could including using the tip.

@caringcarer if the photos were that important then the mother should’ve sourced them herself to be honest.

This!l the cousins have done the children a favour clearing the house for them. I can’t believe no one had given them any credit for their efforts.

I don't see that it's the cousins responsibility to go through their aunt's stuff.

They have done a decent thing by clearing the house, presumably so it can be put up for sale or handed back to the landlord.

The OP's cousins shouldn't be the ones to make decisions about what photos and personal items to keep and what to throw away. If the OP's mother won't or can't do it herself, the OP and her brother are the obvious people.

I quite appreciate that it is frustrating for the OP to be landed with loads of stuff she doesn't want, especially if her brother is not helping to sort through it, but surely this is something we expect to do for our parents?

When my parents died, my siblings and I spent hours clearing their houses and going through their belongings. We did the same when my husband's mother went into a care home (and again when she died).

It didn't occur to me to be cross with any of them for not de-cluttering enough - or to be annoyed with my cousins for not sorting out and disposing of the stuff.

Yup!

@Toomanysquishmallows similar situation although mother still alive. I’ve been blown away by a sibling who messaged me nearly a year ago about parents garage area. Hoarding situation. He is 54 . It has been a “shop” read for that hoarded boxes of shite for over 30 years. Now he notices. When my situation ends I’m literally putting everything in a skip. Went shopping for mother last week. Do you need anything…..yes I’ve no soap. Ok..what soap do you use? Took a couple of bars of simple soap. She goes to put it away ….4 bars in the drawer. She didn’t fight in the second world War but makes out like she did. She lived a comfortable life as a kid . It’s all manipulation. Her house is rammed with very expensive clothes and out of date food. Can I sort it? No. I’m exhausted. She tells me she is bored and lonely. I call but my time is spent cleaning washing and shopping. I suggest she sorts out cupboards etc. apparently she doesn’t know how to. So her. All beneath her. Yet she will let me clean for hours on end watching over me and then criticising my low standards…..regular declutter should be made a part of life.

It would be ridiculous to go through every photo, I have recently been clearing out my elderly parents' posesssions and it's a nightmare ... no one wants old photos ... I do sort some out but it was a thankless task and there's only so many photos I can hang on to until my own DC have to sort them out ... (I actually did find items from my own GPs born in the very early 1900s amongst all the stuff ... !).

And no one wants old dusty books, yes there might be a rare first edition but it's unlikely, I volunteer in a charity shop and we get inundated with boxes of old, dusty, stained books ... the vast majority have no value whatsoever and we have to pay to get rid of them.

It's an important lesson to all of us to regularly de-clutter.

20 BOXES OF PHOTOS. How long do you think it'd take to go through them all and take photos of them? Unless those boxes were the size of a box of tea bags that's literally months of work. And if they really were important why didn't the owner of the photos do it?

An old lady has died across the road to me, they’ve filled one skip this week. My MIL was becoming a hoarder of paperwork, when she wasn’t in the room, I would put some in a bag each week to take home and dispose of.

Then mum should have asked politely if daughter wanted then. And not burden daughter woth 20 boxes of rubbish. Not daughter to blame here.

That’s ridiculous

The photos might have been important to your Mum. I'd have taken photos of each photo first.

No, not pathetic, I understand.

Good luck