Finding horrible things when elderly people die. ***Edited by MNHQ to add: TW: contains details some may find upsetting including details of CSA***

[Dappy777]

Has anyone else cleaned out a loved one’s home and found horrible stuff?

Last year my father in law died. He was 78, had lived alone for several years and died suddenly. After his death, we went through the house and found a hidden stash of pornography. It wasn’t illegal, but the magazines were called things like ‘Babyface’ and ‘Just 18’. In other words, the models were as childlike as it was legally possible to photo. We also found several pornographic books and stuff he’d printed off the Internet. Again, it was all young and underage girls. My partner was very upset. His dad had an old laptop but my partner smashed and burned it (he was venting his anger). He said he didn’t want to know what was on there and that it was best if his father took any secrets to the grave.

Anyway, a neighbour recently told me a similar story, only in her case it was even darker. After her partner’s dad died, they found photos he had taken of young girls playing in a nearby park. She said it looked as if he’d taken them from his car. There were a lot, apparently, and she and her partner burnt everything.

I wonder how common this is? When my own father died, I found a bit of pornography, but it was all pretty tame and adult. Even that upset me though. In all three cases the men died suddenly. I suppose people with a terminal diagnosis have time to destroy such things.

There is a movie in there somewhere.

My dad kept a “file” of documents with loads of information on it about basically how horrible and awful I was as a child.

i was miserable and did very poorly at school because I was bullied all the way through and I was a very lonely unhappy child until I left school, I could never concentrate and found being organised a really hard thing to do, so teachers just washed their hands. I always thought I hid it from my parents well and never told them anything because I was so worried they’d be ashamed of me and I’d get into trouble and be laughed at. They had busy lives and I had a brother who was ill and took a lot of their emotional energy.

obviously their observations were from a very different angle and they clearly thought there was something very wrong with me. I just had absolutely no self esteem or self worth and reading all that stuff was really, really tough. i know there’s have been times when I was a little shit because all kids can be, but I try to find humour in most things and I couldn’t find humour in any of that anywhere. It was all just very sad.

My mum knows someone who found a deceased relative's incredibly valuable stamp collection, completely by chance, each stamp in individual After 8 wrappers in an After 8's box! It would have been so easy to have completely miss them by just binning the supposedly empty old box of wrappers!!

Sorry to put it bluntly, but these examples are all within your family.
Your father enjoyed awful stuff and raised 2 sons who you say are both horrible. You went on to choose 2 partners who were both horrible, and I’m not saying that was in any way your fault, but there is an element of how you were raised when choosing a partner.

The majority of heterosexual men are turned on by sexual imagery of women, full stop.
But the majority of those who are turned on by awful abusive degrading situations are those raised by or whose only male role models are horrible abusive men, therefore they tend to attract each other in families and friend groups.
That’s why in some circles lots of men are awful, but in others it’s equally normal to generally only know good kind men.

When my DF died, his Will left everything divided equally between his 2 children & 3 grandchildren.
However, I found 2 earlier Wills from him & DM - thankfully superseded.
On the second death, everything was to go to my DB. At the time they were made, he was young, free & single with an excellent job.
I was going through a divorce, with a child & large mortgage to support, & I had just been made redundant - all of which my parents knew.
He was always the Golden Child.
Bloody nasty bastards.

One of my grandmothers was very prim and proper. She was very judgemental about the way other people lived their lives. One of my cousins was in a long term relationship with her partner, they just weren't married. She became pregnant with their much wanted and planned baby and grandmother went mad, saying the child would have no name and they were disgusting for having sex outside marriage. She never spoke to my cousin again (no loss, actually!).
When she died, my mum found her marriage certificate, that she'd always kept locked away. She wasn't married in 1927, as she told everyone, but 1928, so she was 6 months pregnant on her wedding day. I'd love to have found out before she died and let her know I knew!

Who are "they"?

@Flicitytricity I had something similar clearing out M's house when she went into a nursing home. I knew she did it, but the scale still hurt.

As did the diaries.

stayathomegardener I'm going through something similar,I find it quite unsettling how nice she is !

My DF was in the navy and posted overseas when I was born. When clearing out their house, I found a letter my DM had sent him, telling him she'd had a baby girl and that we were both doing well.

However, she described me, her precious first-born thus:

"She's an odd-looking little thing. Her nose is all squashed and for a minute I thought I'd had a boxer puppy". Thanks, Mum!

To make things worse, I mentioned it to my aunt (DM's sister), who just laughed and said "Well, you did, a bit".

I found my late DF’s Playboy Club membership card from the 80s while clearing out his house. It wasn’t a surprise but he was married to DM and had me by that time so it makes me feel a bit queasy, especially as it meant enough to him to keep it.

I suspect women visited that site because they were suspicious about their husbands and wanted information.

This is why I will be practicing Swedish death cleaning. It’s like spring cleaning, except the whole time you’re thinking: do I want my loved ones to have to deal with this when I die? I’m hopefully young enough to not have to worry about it yet, but I’m planning on doing it anyway yearly, starting this year! And I might write my kids letters too.

ETA when I say “this is why” I mean the whole thread, not the Op!

Everyone has secrets and some of them are poss shameful or illegal. Those people have died and nothing can done. Finding your father watched child porn isn't the lasting memory you want but before that was he a good dad? Do you have great family memories? Those are the things to focus on

My mum always had a thing that dad was gay for various reasons. They married in the 50s and she always said they only ever had sex 3 times 🤔 They divorced once me and my 2 siblings reached our teens. When we cleared out his flat I found a magazine with photos of near naked, legal, young men. Not massively shocking but msybe mum was right. My sister and I never told our brother.

My god, some of the things found on this thread are awful

My eldest sister was a nosey child and probably discovered every secret my mum had a long time ago.

Clearing out a house recently I found a large latex member attached to a torso...
The person who left the house full of horrors is still very much alive.

I did scream a bit when I saw it. And then fell about laughing.
It was put in the bin after careful wrapping up in several layers of bags.

Those were nightclubs not lap dance places. Yes in hindsight they weren't great but somehow they were glamourised and Hef was a hero in those times. Trump would have loved him. The Rolling Stones stayed at the Mansion in 1972 and top footballers of the time were regulars at the Playby Clubs in London and Manchester

But I will counter by sharing a lovely thing I found when clearing my GP’s house. My GF lost his wedding ring at home during a medical emergency - he and my GF searched for it for months afterwards but never found it. When we sold the house after they both died, we had agreed to leave a number of items of furniture with the sale. On the day we left, I just had an overwhelming flash of intuition to put my hand under one of them, a large cupboard. Tucked into the corner, behind one of the feet, was his wedding ring. He and GM had wished to be buried together with their wedding rings, so we were able to do that for them.

This probably says more about how little pleasure and consideration they received during sex than anything else. If you have a partner who thinks sex is for his orgasm and women are not supposed to enjoy it then its always going to be something to endure not enjoy.

Looking at the “finds” on the thread, they don’t all equate to the OP’s finding. Elderly aunts with g-strings, prescriptions for viagra, vibrators etc - all things at which if they were 50 nobody would bat an eyelid. It may feel a bit weird to find such things but its more a sign of pleasure in a sex life than anything else and entirely normal. Finding out about adopted siblings, parents married after birth or that your “big sister” is your mother - also a shock but not weird and unsavoury.

That third category of images of child abuse/pseudo child abuse is completely different to the other two and would leave me feeling quite sick.

I had similar. Stuff I'd given her without the labels even removed. Useful things, like nice clothes.

This would amuse me, I think! whisper it All newborns look a bit odd!

Ex DH was given a big bag by his 85 yr old uncle with strict instructions not to open it, and to dispose of it after his death. It was chained up and padlocked and it lived in our garage until his uncle died then was taken to the tip.
I can only assume DH’s mum wasn’t meant to know about it.
I dread to think what manner of porn was in there.

My dad died recently and he also kept all the letters and cards I sent him. I had not been sure what to do with them, but I really like your idea. (It's a bit late to do the same as he's already been cremated, but I think I will do a nice bonfire with paper things once everything has settled down.)

I only found nice surprises, with some sad surprises, when clearing his things. The nicest thing to find was the pile of letters indicating how hard he had tried to relocate near to where my mother moved us to after they divorced. The saddest thing was learning some details about his childhood that he had never told us.

As I don’t want sex toys to be discovered (I’m ancient), I’m sticking with an electric toothbrush.

Oh Lord - my eyes are watering!