Clearing the house of someone who died

[Zippyitdoodar]

Aibu to think you could at least wait until till after the funeral to clear the house of a person who's died?
A very close friend died a few weeks ago his neighbours who've inherited his house were straight in there, giving his stuff to their family & clearing it.
They were telling me what a difficult job it was at his funeral. I was a bit

Tell me I'm wrong & perhaps I'm being over sensitive but I found it very sad & I don't reàly know why.

My Step Mother couldn't get my Gran's stuff in the bin fast enough. She wasn't going to pay an extra weeks rent for council house in a million years.

In addition to the practicalities of how little leave many people can take and how quickly equipment has to be returned and council houses emptied (here it is a week), I think some people get an energy and instinct after a bereavement to get things done. Maybe it's a distraction technique or something like the "nesting" phase how some people go through before a baby is born.

Leaving it to do later would be so much harder, without the numbness of the immediate grief, which may be why some people never get the task done. Imagine the uproar regarding empty council houses if relatives did not clear them and hand them back ASAP.

If your relative is in a council house, you know this will need to be done (here you get a week) - having a private house where ownership needs to be established and a sale sorted taking weeks/ months/ years seems harder to deal with.

When my nan passed the housing association harranged us for the house to be cleared my aunt offered to pay a week extra they said no they had someone else who needed the space it was awful I mean I can understand it not allowing relative's loads of time because many would just keep paying the rent but she died Christmas eve we couldn't bury her till January and we had to clear out her home it just felt rushed

Well if they were neighbours, as opposed to family, presumably they weren't devastated by the death and were eager to get started. I appreciate it's a bit insensitive, but since the man didn't have any family then I don't think they were being U.

My MIL was clearing out all FIL's stuff within days of his death and before/after the funeral to anyone that wanted stuff. He died on the Tues, DH arrived on Thurs, I arrived on Sun and DH already had a huge holdall full of stuff for me to take back, funeral was on Mon and I flew home on Tues. At that point there was hardly anything of his left in the house - one week after his death! They'd been married for over 50 years.

A lawyer I knew from work said he hated sorting out estates as often relatives were in the house before the person died taking anything valuable. Way of the world ......

It took me months (nearly years) for a parent. But that’s because it was far away and lots of sentimental things that I didn’t really have space for but wanted to make sure I had seen everything.

If they were ‘just’ neighbours they probably have a much more logical attidutude and i guess they have no reason to just get on with it.

When I'm 50, I'm hoping to start Döstädning (Swedish death cleaning) which is a way for people to declutter and purge their homes and organise their belongings so that our loved ones left behind won't have to go through the huge task of clearing out these things, wondering what should be kept, what should be donated, what we would like to pass on, etc
I didn’t know there was a name for that but it’s exactly what my PIL are doing (they are in their 70s though and both have very serious health problems)

Yabu, we uncles were around to help at my grans funeral so we as the family went to her house and cleared the house with my uncles doing trips to a charity clothes they found. We did it in tears but it was something that needed doing as we were all too far but one uncle and aunt who begged for our help. Photos were kept, her special needlework box (given to me) and a few very special pieces. Everything was binned or given in a charity shop and that charity bin. It was a horrible job but needs must. Sometimes just after the deathis the only time you have to do things

I don't think it is the speed that would worry me, it would be the motive. In my families past a relative passed and some family members went in there ASAP and cleaned the place out of anything remotely valuable. It wasn't to 'help' anyone expect themselves.

I think it very much depends on circumstances. When my godmother died, it was just before Christmas and the funeral was on New Year's Eve so another godchild and I were off work anyway for the holidays so we did most of my godmother's clearing out then. It never occurred to us about it being disrespectful. It was purely a practicality that had to be done.

After my mother died, I cleared out a lot of things before the funeral. We had had to wait two weeks before we could have the funeral and to be honest, it gave me something to do.

An elderly friend told me I had to wait 6 months. Since her brother had done most of the clearing out after their parents had died and her husband was still alive, I told her she had no idea what she was talking about.

On the other hand, my elderly neighbour has waited 11 years (yes really) before clearing out his wife's things and this has happened only recently. He asked me if I would help him. I have no idea why he has kept things so long but I had pointed out to him that it was unfair on his own family to have to clear out both parents' things after his day.

All rather fishy. There seems to be excessive haste here, and I can't help wondering why.

Who is the executor of the will? Has it been proved/gone through probate? Were there any other beneficiaries? What about inheritance tax? What about final expenses and funeral costs etc?

Interesting, Brexit, about your planned döstädning; here's a book for you: in the original it's "Döstädning - no sad story" but that title was lost in translation www.amazon.com/Gentle-Art-Swedish-Death-Cleaning/dp/1501173243/?tag=mumsnetforum-21 Was thinking about reading it one day, I saw in an article it was a fun book to read. Maybe your PIL have read the book too.

@atilla there is one other beneficiary who is also the executor. Nothing fishy at all as far as I know.

Having cleared a few houses, I think it probably helps if you aren't sentimentally going through loads of family stuff. I'm definitely a chucker not a hoarder, but it can be difficult to let go after the sudden death of a family member. Neighbours wouldn't have this sentimental block so that probably makes it easier to get on with it. It is something that needs tackling head on and it also gives you something to do and focus on after the death. Clearing my uncle's flat last year, my mum and I both found it extremely therapeutic and a way of feeling close to him as we sorted stuff out. The reality is though that no-one can accommodate another person's stuff and actually it is not particularly helpful to just hoard it in your own garage or loft - there comes a point when you have to get on with getting rid. It can feel brutal, but as my mum always says: "Attack it before it attacks you." Did he have a huge house and loads of valuable stuff? If so I might be a bit more , but in my experience most people's personal effects are not worth much except to them. It's a bit sad really.

I was wondering about probate as well. We had to get everything valued for probate in my parents house, which meant things could not really be removed until that was done, apart from jewellery, which I took home for safe keeping, but had to bring back for the valuers to have a look at. Of course this just bumps up the iht (if payable) but probate still has to done if there is a will, even if there is no iht liability.
My brother was in a hospice dying of cancer, so I arranged the clearance of his HA flat, because he was never going home. It was very sad because he died a few hours before I handed the keys back. It was awful standing in his now empty home, waiting for the man from the HA, knowing that everything had suddenly finished on the same day. It was just so final.

When one of my friends was dying, another friend of hers was in there taking furniture she wanted even before my friend passed. She ‘asked permission’, but I thought it was a revolting thing to do. If the person’s already passed, I think it’s OK, and practical, to sort their things ASAP.

@VickyEadie
In my opinion, it's never too soon to begin Döstädning. For me, it's more of a way of being, to try to live as minimalist as possible so that ones belongings don't take over. I look around me and worry about who will have to sort through my stuff if I suddenly wasn't there.

None of us know when we'll go and our family will still have the burden of sifting through our piles of stuff.

I agree that if they were neighbours they may not feel as emotional about it.

But in any event, what does it matter? Respect after someone dies is much more for the family than for the deceased and if they had no close family then I don't see a problem. It is a bit grim sharing out personal effects (or binning them or charity shopping them) but to be fair it isn't any less grim whenever you do it.