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.

My sister found viagara when they were clearing out her fil’s house but nothing ‘nasty’.
i arranged house clearance for a relatives house, so avoided having to go through personal possessions and find anything untoward!

Haven't RTFT, but there is a fine line between preserving a deceased person and families dignity, and potentially destroying evidence that might throw light on historic crimes.

My DH uncle fell out with his brother died suddenly aged fifty six. Twenty years later his aunt died. While clearing out we found uncles will together with an awful letter telling his wife that she was not to leave a penny to his brother or any of his children. She was a lovely lady that vicious letter must have been an awful shock.

Bless her she completely ignored his wishes.

I haven’t found absolutely hideous things, and I’m grateful for that. But there is something about death, particularly sudden death, which means you sort of get confronted with the whole person. I’ve found a few things out about my mum since she died that made me question who she fundamentally was and whether my interpretation of her was in some way curated by her. I also found out things that pointed to a fairly acute loneliness, and a level of financial irresponsibility that was surprising as it didn’t really match the outward impression.

i think finding out things in this way means that you end up reappraising everything, including who you are. It’s tough.

Blimey. Some horrendous discoveries on here.

I cleared out my parents’ home after they died. I found nothing interesting or disturbing at all. There was a big pile of their love letters and cards, but I didn’t read or even keep them.

In fairness, finding images of CSA (it isn't 'child porn') is going to change your entire view of the person and quite probably raise many questions about the whole relationship. Lots of other stuff, even if it makes you cringe inside out because these are eg parents, not so much.

It's totally inaccurate. It was 62 million hits on a mainstream porn site which featured some somnophilia content. The actual forum in which talk of such fantasies occurred - some of which AFAIK definitely was about drugging and raping women - actually comprised a much much smaller number of users, in the thousands not millions. Which is still terrible of course but is not anywhere like the headline figure of 62 million, not all of whom, as you say, are men and many of which would have been repeat visitors.

Mine is pretty tame but we found my mum and dad’s marriage certificate, dated 2nd August 1960. We’d never known the exact date, they’d not celebrated anniversaries or anything. Anyway, it came as a little bit of a surprise to my brother, whose birthday is 25th December 1960. I’m sure it’s a story that happened a lot at the time!

Something like 1/3 of sixties brides were pregnant at the time of marriage.

Oh my goodness, you have just described my childhood. I am so sorry you went through it too. My father kept documents and wrote a diary every day. My mother's executor destroyed the lot for which I am very grateful. My worst memory of that time is coming home from school at the end of term knowing that I was going to get the inevitable hour long lecture about how great a disappointment I was. I banned the word disappointment from everybody's vocabulary when I had children of my own.
Imaginary young me is visualising giving imaginary young you a huge hug.

This is why I'm okay never getting married it seems like they're all nonces in some way or another

No. That doesn't work for me. When men are fantasising over women dressed as nurses, they're fantasising about sex in risqué situations. When they're fantasising over women presented to look like children/young teens, they're fantasising about sex with a girl below the age of consent.
Thr wrongness of this should overcome the desire in a decent man and his self disgust should be enough to put him off. When a man manages to overcome this taboo, you can never be certain what other taboo he would overcome given the opportunity.
And loneliness is a desire for company, not for sex with a child.

Or mine.

I was just looking for a way out from seeing any further of these extremely distressing posts, when I saw this one.

I find it invasive and really disrespectful to see this post. Could the person concerned have been so unwell that they couldn't get to the bathroom?

Not all, but there are more than we realize.

What proportion is that of the World's population? How accurate are the statistics that the visitors were men? A visitor using a VPN would leave no reliable trace as to their location nor gender. How many of those "visitors" were actually robots searching the web for web directories?

When my grandad died we got his diaries, which everyone knew about, he wrote a diary everyday. They were so low key to be comical. Along the lines of Barney16 born at 2pm, sausage and mash for tea, read library book. He was a lovely man.

Thankfully found nothing awful - if I had I’d have been extremely upset.

Ditto!

How beautiful your great grandad's letters sound Op, in a time when too many men think sending you a dick pick is romantic his letters sound truly lovely

I've been thinking about setting my affairs in order quite a lot lately, but I didn't know it was called Swedish death cleaning.

In case you didn't know sildenafil can be prescribed for other things as well, so it may not even have been for what you're thinking. A female friend is prescribed it for a lung condition.

I threw out all my teenage diaries last year for this exact reason. I had kept them until now (40s) out of sentimentality but none of my sons need to find them after I die!! Cringe.

My DF was a terrible horder and we found every pay cheque and bank statement he’d ever received I think. It was awful - not because of the content obviously but because of the sheer volume.

I did also find some (very tame) saucy texts on his phone between him and a woman he’d connected with online I think. My DM had been dead a number of years by that point so I just felt pleased that he’d explored new relationships, although sad he hadn’t been able to tell me about them.

Not elderly but someone in my town died suddenly and his wife then found out he had a secret family- the stuff of soap operas!

This is so upsetting - I'm sorry.