What would you do with the stuff if you had to clear a family members house

[T181]

Bit of a back story my nan passed last year and i loved her dearly but boy she was an almighty hoarder im not talking rubbish, its effectively 80 years of stuff crafts dolls house boating stuff furniture bedding memrobillia records clothes cds scrap materials sewing machines house items it goes on and on....There is currently a 1 bed bungalow, shed, garage, summer house and loft absolutely filled with stuff, nan lived with another finally member who still lives there and though we are slowly sorting it the other family member is also as much as a hoarder!
anyway so we are selling on Facebook next door giving stuff away for free or to charity, we havnt convinced family member to do a boot sale yet(which would help loads! But we have to tread carefully as its still their home )

But basically I've been told constantly over the last few weeks by my mum that if we don't start to sort it now then it'll be me left to sort it when they all pass. And that's why im currently awake at nearly 2am thinking what the f### am I going to do with it all! It does seem sinful to chuck it in the tip and now im just finding this so daunting to look at in the future, there is so much stuff and though some is worth money its not on Facebook or the time taking photos advertising ect like nans got this certain good quality wooden furniture that cost a lot of money when she brought it but its so heavy and old fashion now i don't think itll be worth that much, im hoping by the time hat something happens to family member in the future it'll already be cleared but i don't think it will because of their attitude also towards it all, and now its stressing me out so much, have you been in a situation like this what did you do ?

Husband says were just have to bring boxes at a time back to ours to sort it but last thing I want it is loads of stuff lumbering our house up something good is the house is outrightly owned so we won't have banks chasing for mortgage so will have time but even now im in bed in my house and my anxiety is playing up thinking about it all. I can see now why my mum is so stressed out about all the stuff even though I've told her numerous times its not her house so she shouldn't stress about it

Anyway would love some views please

Homeless charities have very gratefully accepted a whole range of items various members of our family have donated in similar circumstances. Charity shops can be very picky so when there's lots to donate that can be tricky. When someone homeless is offered accommodation it's empty and they have to wait up to 6 weeks for benefits to kick in so bedding, kitchen items, towels, lamps etc etc are all required. They were also very grateful for all sorts of clothing. British Heart Foundation have furniture stores and will come and collect. I wonder if crafting materials would be useful to a community group or possibly a woman's refuge - you could put a post on a local Facebook group and see if anyone has any connections to one. If there's paper, pens, stock of very old cards for all occasions etc then a properly sorted box like that might be useful to a local pre school or primary school. If there are clothes/bedding/towels which you really fit for the bin they can be donated to charity shops for scrap as they get paid by the kilo for it - just make sure it;s really clear to them that's what it's for.

Even a well ordered small property can hold an inordinate amount of stuff never mind what someone with even the slightest hoarding tendencies can have. I will be facing you situation at some point - hopefully not soon but it's always in the back of my mind. Hope you manage to get some sleep.

I know a friend recently cleared 50 years worth of cross stitch stuff to networks of craft organisations.

but when the time cones I think I’d go through the things for what i want and then get house clearance in.

I spent months clearing out my Mum's house when she went into care, and gave most of her stuff to the op shops. When there was only the furniture left I gave the Salvation Army a key, thinking they would pick it over - when I got to her place that night they had taken everything (including a petrol can I didn't know what to do with, and her vacuum cleaner which I had been going to use for a final clean - both those were in a wardrobe). I was so happy, it was so easy.

If there is good wooden furniture a second hand dealer might buy it.

Go for clearing in bulk. Get a local auction house in, as they may well sell all the collectibles for you. If you have something specialist - like records you can go straight to a dealer. Then furniture to local charities etc. again ask them to take it all. Whatever is left house clearance people often take the lot and sort it out into saleable / skip stuff themselves.
remember to take what you want first - knock knacks, jewellery, photos, paperwork for example.

took photo's of large furniture pieces; offered it to all immediate family, first come first served (for 2 weeks). then onto nieces and nephews (again time limit 2 weeks) then non family neighbors friends and church or hobby group affiliated with the person (again time limit of 2 weeks). lastly donate to charity (although i was surprised the ones i thought would did not take furniture and many insisted you deliver the pieces to them...
then onto kitchen, dinner, flat ware.
then onto linen. then art work.
eventually you are left with stuff that's barely wanted and will most likely just go to the dump.
you just can not be emotionally attached, you need a pragmatic business like approach.

The more that gets gone, the less you have to sort.
Treasure hunters will find what they want.
Hold a free for all, "offer what you can sale", over two days.
Advertise hard on local market places, FB, and insta, and get what's sellable sold.
After that, box and donate to Sally Ann, or other local charities that offer pick up. As you can, get a local haulers to take the last to the dump.

I wouldn't be rushing personally, work through bit by bit and start by sorting, what has value or might have. Whst might people want but isn't massively valuable and what is low value or junk.

Start sith thr valuable stuff so that if ypu run out of steam you have at least dealt with that. Once you have the valuable stuff together you can make a start on selling those off. Do you have an auction house near you? If so sort these things to go to an auction.

Then the usable but not valuable stuff I would take to a car boot sale, you say someone doesn't want you to or something but how will they know if you are taking some boxes away with you?

Once those are both completed, what's left? And thrn go through again.

Thid is how we worked through my husbands relatives estate, it was slightly different in thwt they werent hoardees and much passed to family in the will, however still 1 main house with lots of out buildings and 3 holiday homes in Europe. Quite daunting

@fallfallfall I really like this way of doing it.

I think you just have to let go of emotions ... house clearance might be the easiest route ... it takes a huge amount of effort to sort through stuff, find someone who 'might' want it, arrange for them to collect etc etc. We had to clear a relative's house who lived five hours away, it was just not possible to devote much time to it, I actually run a charity shop myself so could have taken more but it just wasn't physically possible ... we had to get house clearers in.
Be careful about giving to charity shops .. I can always tell when we get a 'deceased' person's donations, of course some might be wonderful but often you are just passing on the problem of what to do with stuff to someone else.

It is a real lesson to us all to think about who will 'deal' with our stuff when we die.

But marchitect how long did that take you to sort through your DH's relative's estate? It must have taken forever? When we sorted a relative's house we just didn't have that sort of time spare ... the house needed to be cleared and sold as per the terms of the Will.

House clearance company. They will sell anything that's worth something in exchange for a share of the value.

I know there’s a charity in Leeds that takes all the stuff that students dump at the end of the year like bedding and crockery and reuse them for people setting up with nothing, maybe there’s something similar near to you if you’re in a city.

i bought a beautiful dolls house for DD on eBay years ago, maybe sell stuff like that there.

my dad is currently doing the same op - he has collected valuables eg jewellery or anything specific like that but for general household stuff like kitchen bits etc he’s offered to family to come and take what they’d like. The rest we will give to charity. I think offering things to those that knew her is a lovely thing to do- even if it’s just a tablecloth etc I took some coasters and seeing them on our table makes me think if her each time Xx

I'd just pay a clearance company personally.

Pay a clearance company. Or if you’re employing a removals firm for the stuff you do want, ask them to quote separately for getting rid of all the stuff you don’t want. This is what we did with my Dads flat and all 3 removals companies we got quotes from were happy to provide the additional service for a fee. In the end you have to be ruthless about getting rid of stuff no one wants though it can feel a bit mean

We used a house clearing service for my grandma. They arranged to take her antiques and some furniture to auction though of course most of it was deemed out of fashion and didn't raise much.
They dealt with everything apart from bed mattresses which we did council collection for.

We had to remove all the personal stuff first, photos, jewellery and paperwork. And that was a task in itself. The paperwork what we didn't shred ourselves(burned out 2 shredders) we got envelopes from an office supply shop and filled them and they sent them off for commercial shredding.

We've just done this. Jewellery and papers removed. Friends and neighbours invited to help themselves, then house clearance for the rest. I didn't want to bring anything back to my house as it would then become ' my hoard'.I know that there were items that had cost a lot of money when new, but I didn't need them.

Beware of things that "cost a lot of money" back in the day - many things are now out of fashion and pretty much worthless....

If you have a look at ebay at large wooden dining tables, they go for next to nothing....

My gran had a set of figurines (ladies in fancy frocks) - each one cost £100+ in the 80's now you can't give them away, they were fashionable as collectables now are worthless as the fashion has passed....

We also used a house clearance company to clear my IL's large 4 bed house. We asked family if there was anything they wanted and gave them the date the clearance company would be going in to stop any faffing about. It was so much easier and less emotional for DH.

Thank you for all your replies some.good thoughts. I did manage to get some sleep about 3 hours if that but it's still on my mind, mother of mine has mentioned it into me enough times now its stuck

Pil are in their 70s and are hoarders. They are just about to clear out (move everything thing) to their house of another deceased relative. When PIL go I will be calling a charity who does house clearance eg BHF and paying them to deal with it.

My mum recently did this after her mum died. She, her sister, my sister and her finacee cleared most of it. We ended up with some stuff. They did get a company to remove most of it who threw out a lot of grandma's clothing, which was almost new.

Id get a local house clearance company. Or, box it all up, throw away any rubbish or broken stuff, and get it all off to the local auction house. They don't just do antiques, my local one sells the sort of thing you describe.

We've just had to do this. I wouldn't advise just giving it all away. I know it's a pain, especially if it's a hoarder situation, but there could be anything in there. We found my mum's engagement ring in a jar of copper coins. Birth certificates were in piles of old paperwork.

This is what we did:

Sorted through every drawer and cupboard.

Things went into piles or bags for rubbish, charity, keeping and shredding.

Took any rubbish to the local tip and recycled what we could.

Put all the furniture and "charity" items in one room so that we could clean.

White goods went on facebook and gumtree to sell.

Arranged for a man to clear the furniture.

It was time consuming, but relatively easy because my parents had no hobbies. It will be a nightmare for our children because we have hobbies coming out of our ears. Hopefully we'll be able to clear a lot before it's a problem for our children, but I'm not doing it now while we are getting so much joy from the stuff we own. (It's tidy, just a lot of it.)

My mum had lots of those figurines. My brother was convinced that they would be worth selling on Ebay. When he looked them up they were worth a few pounds at most. Not worth the hassle.