What's the weirdst thing you found when someone died?

[ferriswheel]

I was thinking of writing a diary. Something to help me figure out why i sabotage my weight loss success and why i tolerated the bad behaviour of my husband for so long.

I dont at all expect anything untoward happening to me but the idea of my inner most thoughts being read by whoever...

Anyway, have you ever found anything that you shouldnt have, but had to deal with because of the circumstances?

When my great grandfather died we found photos of the carer, in the sheltered housing, he’d been having an affair with. He was in his 90s and she looked to be in her late 30s. He’d always been fond of the ladies and we suspect he strung a line about money. There was none.

Great thread! Nothing to add but I definitely need a clear out. of my homemade sex toys!

What a interesting thread!

Every year I write a letter to my dcs on their birthday, just about the sort of thing they're up to, funny phrases they've coined or things we're doing as a family. I then seal them and put them in a box, can't remember what I've been writing about for the last decade or so! I'd wondered at what point I'd give them to them but now I think I'm just going to let them be found.

For context, my late uncle was born in the 1920s and there were too many kids and too little money to afford the University education this very clever man should have had ... so when he died we were surprised to find some course books and papers dating back to the 1980s

He never had children of his own and it turned out that, in later life, he'd paid for a neighbour's son - also from a family with very little money - to have extra help at Uni in the way of books, activities and more

My gran had hidden money all over the house, my grandad didn’t know she had been hiding money, they always pleaded poverty, not really that unusual.

Not something we shouldn't have found, in fact we were actively looking for it, but by great aunt, bless her, put her will into a plastic pouch and buried the lot under a potted geranium

Ah Puzzled - that brought a tear to my eye!

£3k in cansh in my mums dressing table....she had a bank account/ savings...so not sure if she meant me to find it as a way of paying for her funeral?
I also,found a stack of love letters between my mum and dad written in the early 60's , before their marriage and after when he used to go away on business and leave a love letter on my mums pillow....I was in tear reading them as they were obviously so in love...this was both second marriages for them as they'd both been widowed young and left with young children

My friend was murdered and returning to his house the next day there were 4 white doves on his lawn. They stayed in the street all that day.

Not weird but my mum died last week and we were going through her papers. She had her old medical card and the number ends with /3
We think that might mean she was the 3rd child. We know of 3 (her older brother died as a baby) and my auntie was born after her so that might mean there was another child.
Not sure how we can find out if that's what the number means

After my mum died and we were clearing her house, we found 100s of love letters from a 'friend' (obvs more than that) who at the time was in prison for a financial misdemeanour. He wrote daily, all stamped with a prison stamp, with an outpouring of love.

This man was an old bf of mum's who she went out with before she married my dad. When mum and dad divorced they must have hooked up again. I'm not sure what happened but they didn't get together when he came out of prison.

It was so sad and I felt very intrusive reading those letters. I decided not to read more. I still have them and not sure what to do with them. It feels wrong to throw them away.

My parents found a handgun when clearing out my grandparents' house after they had died. It was very old. Probably from WWII. They drove 150 miles down the motorway with it (thankfully they weren't stopped!) and then phoned up their local police station to ask what do do with it. They told them to put it in a bag and bring it up to the station. So the local bobby in Tunbridge Wells got a bit of a startle when my dad walked in and said "I've got a gun". He managed to calm him down and convince him it wasn't a stick up. Clearly whoever he had spoken to on the phone hadn't warned the chap manning the counter.

@Shodan snap! Polaroids with DF wearing stockings and leather, in restraints The 70s have a lot to answer for

A fully working WW 2 maching gun, with a box of ammunition. Found in my Great Grandfather's shed. He was a Sargeant in the British Army during WW 2 so I assume he kept it as a "momento". That was an interesting phone call to our local police!

Also, when my DH lost his mother, they found a bunch of letters which had been hidden inside a dressing table. They were between his mother and his uncle (his mother's brother). Basically his uncle lived in New York most of his life (left the UK in his late teens) but died a few years before. He was buried back in the UK. Nobody knew much about his life and aftet he died he was pretty much forgotten about.

Upon reading through the letters (127 of them) it became clear that uncle George had quite a life story which my DH mother kept secret.

George was gay and couldn't live with the stigma (1960's) so left for New York to start a new life. He worked as a private buttler to some very wealthy American families. He was with the same partner for 32 years before he died. He partied with a lot of late 70s early 80s American TV stars (we have photos!). And he didn't die of a heart attack, he died from Aids.

What a life he must have had!

My aunt was childfree by choice. Couldn’t stand children.

When she died we went over her financial stuff, she had been sponsoring 13 children in Africa and Eastern Europe for years. Totally at odds with the person she was (or made out she was).

We bought our house from an elderly lady with dementia who sadly died during the sales process. She had no family so there was some of her stuff left in the house. I found two sets of dentures, a load of silver cutlery and a strange little book about railway journeys.

My uncles full head mask that was used in the 60’s/70’s to focus radiation on his brain tumour. It was awful and freaky as fuck. He died when he was very young still and was my dads twin so very sad as well but jeesh that thing gave me the willies!

I haven't got anything to add to this, but I'm loving reading what people have found. I do remember reading something that suggested that you shouldn't keep things that you wouldn't want family members to find if something happened to you. I don't think I have anything like that I don't think.

We found a couple of sets of false teeth when clearing out a close relative's house. But the deceased had their own teeth. Who the false teeth belonged to remains a mystery.......

My mil swore she’d been in the circus and said we’d find her trapeze in the loft when she died! Of course it was a wind up.

My dad died when I was 18. He’d had a history of mental health issues (though died of cancer). We weren’t close but from notes we found in the house it seems he’d been trying to pass himself off as a decorator (no expertise in that area, he’d been disabled due to a back injury for probably 10 years and did not work). But we gathered he’d been telling people he did. We found a room, I mean a whole double bedroom stacked floor to ceiling with a path carved through it, of wallpaper rolled up still sealed. It must have cost thousands to buy.

The ones with cash are ironic - £1000 would be worth so much less today than 40 years ago and could have raised massive interest in a bank.

Parents are alive, but we know there is a postcard where DF refers to his then 18 month old DS as a little bugger for being sick. Think that has scarred DB a little bit.

When we cleared out grans house we found cupboards full of vases. Think we found 97 of them.

In her bottom drawer of her big chest, which is now at mine, I found a pressed corsage, a hand stitched dress and letters from her friend and my grandad. We worked out that her friend and my grandad were due to marry and the dress was her friends dress to be worn for the engagement do but she got sick and died and it was never worn and they never did marry but when he got back from the war gran and grandad got married.

The waist is about 22 inches and must have had a slip under as its virtually seethrough.

This thread is brilliant! Like a PP i have letters for my children.
Tempted to stash a few random things !