What have you found clearing out the house of a relative?

[Gingerrogered]

I'm clearing out my Grandma's house. Very interesting. You can see it's a house belonging to somebody from the 'greatest generation'. Everything is neatly saved from threads to buttons.

I knew my Gran loved travelling, but I didn't know how much until I went through her stuff. Franco's Spain and postwar Paris. I even found a medal for someone who fought in WWI but I have no idea who that was awarded to.

Still sorting through the stuff. But I just wondered if anybody else had found something remarkable when they were doing the same.

A very old pistol wrapped in oilcloth in the back of a cupboard.

My Granny made patchwork.
Old fashioned hand made patchwork. She would take old fabric (eg an old skirt/shirt) and cut out hexagons, and sew them onto hexagon papers. Then when she wanted to make something she would chose the colours and sew them together.

When she died there was a box of hexagons ready sewn onto their papers.
It was so poignant, more moving to me than any of her personal stuff. Partly because she had been in a home for years, so this was a flashback to when she was still living at home.

I kept that box for ages, could not bring myself to throw it away.

I've also found a modified starter pistol that looks like a gun. Can I ask what you do with the one you found PP?

We handed it in to the police. Or at least my mum did - it was in my gran's house (assume it belonged to my grandpa)

A stuffed duck-billed platypus.

As a child, we moved in, for a winter, to our bachelor neighbour's house. He was in his 80s, it was his parents house.
Nothing had been removed. He just lived with all their stuff, mixed in with his.

I found set of wooden peg style false teeth.
Creepy af, but not scary.
Also a sealed off bedroom, scary and creepy af.
He said something had happened in there, but he couldn't remember what. So they (his parents?) had to seal it off.
As a kid, that terrified me!

We also found an old gun from the war. It was very sad clearing my grandparents house. Their son was in the airforce in ww2 and was shot down and killed at the age of 22
We found his whole flying suit complete with goggles ect. Also all his letters sent home and the letter from the king to say commiserations on his death.

Also my grandma had kept lots of clothes and shoes from the 30s and 40s. I was twelve at the time and found it all fascinating. I wish it had been kept. Everything was thrown away 

A birth certificate for someone that would have been my Nans brother. There was a rumour he went to prison and that was why no one spoke of him. Never did find out.

An old booklet on the 101 uses of Vaseline

A sextant from a German submarine that my grandfather sank. Also draft copies of top secret documents,

My other grandfather had 1000 round of live ammunition.

Vibrator. Aunt died tragically young and I knew she had one and didn't want anyone else to find it so took charge of clearing the bedroom and went on a vibrator hunt.

It was the biggest one I had ever seen.

liquid I am no incredibly intrigued by how you knew your aunt had a vibrator and no-one else did!

We found rather a lot of love letters from around forty different women across the globe when my great uncle died. He was in the Navy and it appeared he did have one in every port.
My great uncle remained unmarried and childless to his death but I often wonder if there are any of his children around the globe now.

A hand grenade in the attic! Bomb disposal came and blew it up in a flower bed.

I found my Dad's porn when I cleaned my parents house. Rather tame by modern standards, lots of boobs and 80s lingerie. I deposited rather swiftly in the bin. Shudder.

Hand Grenade in garage - bomb disposal army guy turned up, picked it up and shook it . Thanks dad and thank goodness it wasn't live! Dad was a young boy and collected treasures such as hand grenades in the war

The will, eventually.

While looking, we found loads of notes in amongst piles of paperwork, in the study, in the kitchen etc (memory was going) saying 'must tell Ariela, B & C location of will'

We also found a complete set of accounts for home expenditure from the 1950s to 1970s, detailing every item bought and every expense - electricity, coal etc. Knew finances were tight at the time, but it was amazing how cheap things were back then and how little they earned.

Steppemum What you've described is called English Paper Piecing. It's still very popular. Such a lovely thing to find.

Twelve sets of false teeth and a box of knives

Cupboard after cupboard filled with mail. Junk mail mixed with really important stuff and in no logical order - not even by date.

Clearing my Gt Aunt's house we found the wedding certificate for my great grandparents (her parents). The date had been rubbed away so there was a hole in the certificate. We got a copy and found that my grandmother was born before they married
.

Over 100 neatly wrapped poos under the stairs and a 3ft pileof liver in the back garden

Over 100 neatly wrapped poos under the stairs and a 3ft pileof liver in the back garden

Please please expand on this

I'm also really intrigued by the poos and liver!