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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think my son should take ALL his suff?

156 replies

toconclude · 03/08/2020 13:27

DS(31) at last in position to buy his own house - been renting nearly 10 years. Aibu to ask him to collect all the remaining books/other bits and bobs amounting to a half dozen large storage boxes which currently occupy his old room and some other corners of the house since he moved out to live a considerable way away? He is reluctant as his DP has stuff too and he's right that technically we have space. Honestly, I would like to clear it. But us getting rid of it altogether obviously a nono without his agreement and it has sentimental value to him.

OP posts:

Frazzled2207 · 03/08/2020 14:18

Yanbu- give him a reasonable date and ask him to sort it. My MiL’s house is still cluttered with BiL’s stuff and he is 38 and has owned his own house for years.
Loads of stuff was left at my parents house for years but it was made clear that anything That was not collected would be got rid of. Is all gone now, from time to time though my mum would turn up with stuff that she thought would be of sentimental value.

GOODCAT · 03/08/2020 14:18

@billy1966 it didn't occur to me to mind at the time. I get on well with my mum and I think it was just her way of coping with my going. In her place, I would have given me the heads up, but I suspect she decided to just get stuck in and have a clear out on the spur of the moment.

TenCornMaidens · 03/08/2020 14:19

@Longtalljosie I am laughing so much at the thought of your 'life change' somehow being made 'all about the ILs' when it was your partner's stuff! Presumably they would have liked to not have eight boxes of university notes cluttering up the place either and saw an opportunity. As is a common saying in MN, this sounds like a DP problem, not an IL problem.

Lucyccfc68 · 03/08/2020 14:20

When I moved out of my parents, I took everything with me. Anything I didn’t need got binned, gifted or sent to charity.

If you have been storing stuff for 10 years, he clearly doesn’t need it, as he hasn’t looked at it or used it for that length of time.

He needs to come and get it and make up his mind what he does with it. You are not a dumping ground for the crap he has accumulated and doesn’t use.

FFS who keeps Uni notes for decades???

Lockdownseperation · 03/08/2020 14:20

Tell him he has until the end of the month to sort. Maybe buy him a copy of Marie Kondo. I can’t imagine their is much he needs in those boxes if he hasn’t touched them in 10 years.

AssamorEarlGrey · 03/08/2020 14:22

My friend has an attic and garage full of her son's stuff.

He's in his mid-forties and very proud of his spacious, minimalist flat, minimalist only because she's been storing his junk free of charge for years.

AskingforaBaskin · 03/08/2020 14:23

@Longtalljosie

Please give him time for him and his DP to get their house sorted first. My PILs elected to dump boxes and boxes of shit in our house both times we were clearing to make room for both new babies. It was awful. Just as I thought DD1’s new room was finally ready to be decorated so she could move out of the nursery in good time before DD2 arrived, I’d get home from work to another eight boxes of university notes with no room in the loft. It was so unnecessary and made our life change all about them. Don’t do that.

You know the entire blame of that shit show is only at the feet of your DH.

His crap is not your ILs problem.

Feedingthebirds1 · 03/08/2020 14:24

As far as he's concerned, it's out of sight, out of mind.

Maybe tell him he collects one box a month and takes it to his place to sort it? And if he doesn't, you'll pick one box at random yourself, go through it for anything he may really want to keep and get rid of the rest?

saraclara · 03/08/2020 14:25

It depends how it's stored.

We live in a fairly expensive area, so my daughters' places are tiny. My eldest lives in a minute terraced cottage, but while she was living with me, she accumulated some really lovely things, which when she can afford a larger house, she'll want to have again. Conversely I live in a four bedroomed house alone, so it would be churlish to make her take it all away (in which case she'd have to get rid of it all).
Her stuff is all one one room that I don't use, and mostly boxed up. I can deal with that.

However, I know my loft is full of stuff that belongs to my daughters, or to my late husband (and I don't get rid of anything of his without running it by my daughters first, because I don't know what items would have sentimental meaning for them). The loft stuff is bugging me because it's a mixture of everyone's belongings, rather than stuff that's boxed up and I don't have to feel responsibility for. So at somme point I want them to come and sort it and help me get rid of stuff none of us want.

Haffdonga · 03/08/2020 14:26

I was happily thinking how unreasonable your ds is being when I remembered I didn't clear my final belongings from my childhood bedroom until I was well up my 40s and my parents sold their house. (I'd been a home owner myself for over ten years by then . )

Why didn't I clear it out? Well, they weren't using the room, I didn't know what to do with the stuff with vaguely sentimental value and frankly I liked that it was still my room when I went to stay.

Best thing would have been if my parents had crated it up and brought it to me on one of their visits over to mine and dumped it on my living room floor I would have felt grateful, guilty and happily carted off the last bits to charity.

singme · 03/08/2020 14:27

I’ve only just bought a house of my own, before that was renting and moving around a lot. Now whenever I go home my mum has a bag or two of my old stuff for me to sort through- take or throw away. Works quite well as often I am on the train so can’t take too much.

It’s nearly all done now! Now she can start on my brother’s stuff

Beautiful3 · 03/08/2020 14:27

He left home 10 years ago?! Drive over with a house warming gift and his boxes of stuff. If he protests, just tell him to sort through it and bin/charity shop what he doesnt want. I did the same thing to my parents. Now on reflection, I was cheeky to have left it there for so long. In the end my mum told me to take it or they'd bin it. I sorted through it all and most of it went to the tip!

bridgetreilly · 03/08/2020 14:27

If it has sentimental value to him, then he can keep it in his home. If he doesn't want to do that, then its value is obviously not that great. Tell him he'll need to collect it and agree a timescale for this to happen. It needn't be the week of him moving into his new home. You could even give him until Christmas, or something. But make it clear that it will need to be gone and set a date on it.

canigooutyet · 03/08/2020 14:28

@bumpyknuckles

Some of these responses are really harsh! I'm amazed you're all so cavalier with your children's stuff - I wonder if they'll be the same with your stuff when they have to sell your house so you can go into a nursing home?

Definitely give your son a chance to actually buy a house first and get settled in (I'd give him at least 6 months for this). Then it's fair enough to start asking him to sort it and take it away.

When the time comes for me to be in a nursing home I won’t really care what happens to my stuff.

Aside from the things I take everything else can be given away as far as I’m concerned.

I’m not sentimental about objects. I don’t keep crap for the sake of keeping it. The children’s things over the years they have taken what they wanted, gotten rid of what they didn’t, and I store some because of their circumstances.

Someone said let him buy, move in and settle first. The best time to sort through this crap is when moving. He moved out 10 years ago and had ample time to move the crap on ops way. Instead he’s acting like he still lives there and has any say in what op does with her home.

Blueeyedpixie · 03/08/2020 14:30

@Longtalljosie you sound like such a brat!! I don’t blame your In Laws for doing that at all - I think they did the right thing and the only one responsible for all that shit was your DH!

Bahhhhhumbug · 03/08/2020 14:30

My stepson eventually moved out at 26 yay and needed a suitcase when he next went on hols and asked presumed he would borrow one of his dads as usual. Seeing as I had bought DH and I a nice matching luggage set,to replace our old tatty ones, I didn't want him too. Caused a huge row between DH and I as I was adamant I didn't buy them to lend out to someone who takes no care of anything of his own or anyone elses. So in the end I agreed to buy him a case of his own and I bought him a decent one so he would have his own now had left home. Comes back off holiday ,brings the (large) suitcase back round and insists on keeping it at ours as he had no room for it (he did,he had a huge hall inside his flat and large fitted cupboards in bedrooms). I had been out when he came round or I'd have said no. It's still here years later and enrages me every time I trip over it in the garage or have to lean over it, especially as I always feel I was coerced into buying it for him really. Sorry rant over, but your son is being really cheeky I'm sorry ,he's an adult with his own place and is using you for free storage.

DuckbilledSplatterPuff · 03/08/2020 14:31

buying a new house is stressful, so I think its reasonable to give him a set date to move the boxes, point out that he has'nt opened them for 10 years and as people say a decluttering book. :Loads of photos and other memorabilia can go online or in a frame. uni notes can be scanned and put on a flash drive.
You would be doing him and his new partner a favour to get him out of hoarding habits and help him start with a clear home.
If you have given him very very clear requests to move it and he's had the opportunity, I'd begin a bit of pruning myself.
Also sending photos of the boxes piled up in the room might jog his memory.

You could ask him to stay for a nice dinner and go through the boxes together, its very helpful and quicker to have someone there when you are deciding.
It might take more than one visit?
And then after a reasonable date if he doesn't have time to do this let him know it will go into a storage space and he will be invoiced for it... that will soon clarify his mind about what is worth keeping.

DuckbilledSplatterPuff · 03/08/2020 14:32

@Bahhhhhumbug post it!

2bazookas · 03/08/2020 14:34

If he doesn't want his stuff , he can take it to the dump or a charity shop.

Give him a final date to remove it, then just put it in the back of your car and deliver it next time you visit his house.

TeeniefaeTroon · 03/08/2020 14:37

I'm 43 and I've still got old books in my parents attic, don't think they'd have been impressed if it was still in my old room though.

ChavvySexPond · 03/08/2020 14:37

Once an adult has their own home they shouldn't be storing stuff at their parents.

ChavvySexPond · 03/08/2020 14:38

I can understand that @saraclara

timeisnotaline · 03/08/2020 14:39

When I moved out (to a rental), on every visit home for a while mum would great me with a box or bag of stuff she had found that belonged with me- childhood dolls, that kind of thing. Fair enough, they weren’t her things!

Whenwillthisbeover · 03/08/2020 14:40

Absolutely not unreasonable, he is trying it on. DS did similar when he left, wanted to leave all his “Treasures” in our garage Ashe didn’t have one. After repeated requests to collect them I told him they would be in the garden Saturday morning and if they weren’t gone by Sunday night I was ordering a skip first thing Monday. I also added that rain was expected on Saturday evening.

They were gone in the afternoon, with much huffing and puffing.

Flynn999 · 03/08/2020 14:41

Yup tell him to either move it or chuck it. Tell him a date and if it’s not gone it goes to charity/skip/sell etc. If that date comes and goes be ready to actually throw it. He’s moved out, he’s a functioning adult, if he doesn’t have space in his new house then tough tits (assuming we are not talking about valuable heirlooms or something of huge sentimental value)

My brother still has an entire quadruple wardrobe of crap at me parents house. He has his own house and clearly doesn’t need any of the junk; old DVD’s, clothes etc. Hence why he’s not in the least bit bothered about moving it out. My brother moved out about 14 years ago.

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