92 year old nana pushing belongings on me

[Duemarch2021]

Feel a bit harsh here and wanting an AIBU or not check... also some advice... my 92 year old (young at heart) nan keeps trying to give me her things.. she has openly told me that she is preparing her house for when she is gone! Me and DP live in a tiny 1 bed flat with no storage and have a baby on the way we have NO room whatsoever for anything even things we need.. nan tries to give me trinkets and ornaments..and furniture and clothes.. i say no i have no room everytime but she doesn't learn and makes me look through piles of ornaments from the 80s, she says things like they could be expensive but i dont care and they're not anyway as u can tell... What do i do? She gave me flowery mugs from her cupboard for Xmas me and DP dont drink hot drinks and she sent them through a family member and knows id have said no if shed have offered them in person. She is pushing stuff on me and i feel awful cos if I take it id take it to a charity shop.. i dont want it! Lol help mee.. cant even take the mugs to a charity shop cos of covid..

She also has about 4 flowery sofas all mismatched in the garage from 1970s and asks me to help her get rid as it gets her down and depressed. I took a picture and offered to sell them on Facebook... she was disgusted at that and said she wants to keep them in the family!!... nobody wants them and we are all young and have modern houses that have particular decor... she doesnt realise that things arnt like they were in the 1940s where furniture was passed down for generations

@Lemons1571 - if you are interested in auction - find an auction house near you - they usually have on line valuations - so you need to take good photos - describe the condition as best as you can and any provenance ( if relevant ) & then they will give you a valuation ( conditional based on how the things look when they they turn up ) but this is what I have done & it usually works.

The sofas might be a problem due to modern fire regs.

Sorry not read everyone’s replies but I have a few family members who are and my Nan is one of them. They give me things so they know they can get them back if they need to and my Nan thinks that I must need to hoard too. They don’t want to sell them or give them away to strangers so they give them to me and I will wait a while to see if they ask for them back and then get rid of them to the charity shop - they are mainly cheap ornaments from the charity shop and they have thousands so never ask for anything back.

I would gratefully accept and then give them away/sell them. If she does ever ask say they’re in storage or something

Just wondering how many marbles your gran has? If she's actually still acute why don't you sit down with her and talk to her about why she's doing it and why she thinks some of it's valuable. She might be right about the value. Just because one floral plate is only worth 50p it doesn't mean another isn't worth a lot more. I for one couldn't recognise collectible porcelain.

If you can spare the time you could help her then to go through it all and you could sell the stuff that's not really worth much. Collect all the cash and talk to your gran about buying something you really like that has significance to her too and is a heirloom type of thing. You'll also really treasure the time spent with her and the tales she tells you whilst you're doing it.
I agree with pp though who say you should keep some of it. It can be a great and unexpected comfort to have kept small things you remember from your childhood with her or that you know she had a long time and were important to her. And if when the time comes you find it isn't a comfort then you can just dispose of them as you will.

It may be that you gran is an old dear who hasn't got all her faculties but I'm a bit dismayed by the general assumption in the thread that she must have lost them just because she's over 90.

Good luck with it. You both sound very caring and lovely.

To all the people saying old furniture is valuable - it really really isn't. Got some genuine family antique chairs reupholstered a few years back. They were worth less than the repairs. Same with our Edwardian mahogany dining suite - 100 quid all-in if we're lucky.

pop7777777777...... fabulously great idea, i totally agree.

I think you will just have to take it to charity shops and not tell her.

Accept gratefully and pass on to a charity when you can.

I imagine she is just trying to help her family and as you said when she was young families did hand down things to younger members. When she was young expecting her first child she was probably grateful for what was given to her.

If she doesn't visit you don't feel guilty about them being passed on. If she does visit and you think she will mention stuff it's slightly more difficult but I suspect she would just feel guilty herself about chucking stuff out.

As others have said though you may be glad of a few bits one day. When we cleaned out my grans, I kept her very ordinary drinking glasses because they reminded me of the evenings after school when we went to hers for tea while my brother had swimming lessons. Really odd that item that I never thought would prompt a memory in me. Had a couple of other bits more personal but I know my mum thought the glasses were daft.

How is your relationship with nanna? Sounds like she has a bigger place than you. Can you suggest you swap paces so you can enjoy her nic nacs?

You might struggle with the sofas due to charity shops needing to have fire safety labels on sofas to be able to sell them. eBay might be a better bet. I'm sure she wouldn't want you having a sofa which was unsafe. You might be able to come to a compromise with 1 or 2 small items that remind you of her and sell/ get rid of the rest.

My Nan died aged 91. I kept some of her books & trinkets that suited my house but charity shopped anything else.

What myself & my mum did do was make a memory box of stuff like her poetry, her recipes, her jewellery. We also kept photos and are putting them in new albums.

You could just take whatever makes your Nan happy for now but get rid of anything you don't want when you get chance.

But starting a memory box is a good idea. You could say to her, 'instead of trinkets I want to write down your memories of your life & have some old photos of you'.
Make it a project she can help with and maybe she'll concentrate on that instead of giving you worthless furniture!

My Nan had dementia but she still had long term memories which I wrote down, she hated having photos taken so I took them secretly on my phone & im so glad I did now. I really miss her!

At her age, it would be kind to thank her politely, then donate it to a charity shop (that she doesn't visit!). Yes, they are closed now, but will likely reopen soon. Otherwise you could offer it for free on Facebook marketplace.

This might help.......purchase one of the boxes from the WORKS and explain to Nan that you have no room but that if she has any small mementos that you can keep in the box you would love them as they will always be special to you.

We get less cognitively flexible as we get older. Just agree to one thing every time to make her happy and after that say 'I've no more room nan you've given me so many lovely things'. Then throw them away or recycle with a smile knowing you have made her happy.

@XmasBelle

How is your relationship with nanna? Sounds like she has a bigger place than you. Can you suggest you swap paces so you can enjoy her nic nacs?

That would be an extremely rude question.

Regardless of the ownership status of the house, its Nanas home. Where her memories are. You can't move people in their late 80s or 90s unless it's to a home for care reasons. They become too stressed out by the idea, and like the comfort of knowing the neighbours around them

I just take them, if I don't want I give them to charity or neighbour. Its not easy when you get to that point in your life. My mam has emptied her home onto me. She gave me some jewellery that I could never wear, I asked if I could sell to buy a string of pearls, which I've coveted for ever, she looked shocked but said yes. Mam saw them and bought herself some too haha

Aah - MIL is 93 and has just started having a big sort out of stuff - I'm dreading the same! She said to me last weekend that she had shown my husband which of her (many) horse brasses were extra special and had belonged to great grandad - or whatever (help....)! She then described two pictures which she has which are prints but she says she's been told both are valuable - so I said "DH, I think your Mum is making sure if anything happens to her you mustn't get rid of those" and she said 'yes - that's right'.

Bless her - She's now going through all her clothes. She has wardrobes full of 'best' stuff that was probably really expensive but has never been worn, or barely. At least she knows she can't pass those on - but she tried to give me some tupperware salt and pepper pots.....

It must be awful to reach that age and realise nobody wants your treasures. As PPs have said, I think you need to accept what you can, even if you don't keep it - but she'll have to be realistic about the sofas!

Second hand market has changed a lot..stuff from the 50's and 60's sells...mid century furniture...the other stuff is worthless...I gave away a house full of stuff. Charity shops don't want to know. It's tough but keep a few small items and clear the rest....it's suffocating to keep it all.

I'm only in my 50s and have got to the stage of only keeping things if they are useful or beautiful so hopefully it won't be too much of a chore when the time comes.

I don't have children but I have an agreement with a trusted niece that she can dispose of things as she sees fit but I have promised to haunt her if her first call is to a clearance company.

It would break my heart for someone who didn't know me just to chuck my stuff in a skip (although I'm under no illusion that much of it may eventually go that way).

So while your Nana is putting you in an awkward position, I can kind of see where she's coming from.

For goodness sake, just say, "Lovely, Nana! Thank you!" and give it to the charity shop (when open). Just the same as you would with a new gift you didn't really like. It is cruel to diss someone's treasured possessions.

Sil and I cleared the pil's house. When dh and bil tried to do it, they were sitting there saying, "Oh, no, mil loved this (hideous, cracked) ornament" and "I had those sheets in 1976" etc etc. It was much easier for sil and I to be ruthless and just keep the useable and decent stuff (ie hardly anything...).

It does grieve me that I suppose many of my things will one day land in a skip, but we can't impose our possessions on those coming after us. Our dcs may value things, but certainly not gc who maybe will have never known us. I remember reading somewhere about a test case in the US where a man had left his stuffed body to his dcs and they did not want it sitting in the corner!

I agree with a PP, charity shops really don't want loads of china ornaments and bric a brac - it just doesn't sell (I run a charity shop). I was just given a huge amount of china (pre lockdown), I have put a 70s Denby dinner service in the window ... it just might appeal to someone but probably not.

It is hard, I have a lovely collection of Emma Bridgewater mugs ... but no doubt they will be useless junk when I die .

My mum 85 does this. I have explained repeatedly that my house is full of my stuff that I could really do with clearing, and that I will willingly help her clear her stuff too. But I win't take her stuff to my house to keep!
But that appears to be all she wants. No other suggestions acceptable.

I'm glad to see other people have this problem too! We just don't have space for all the stuff my mum keeps trying to pass on to us and I have to take it all on the bus too which is really difficult with bulky things.

Some things I'll keep like granny's cutlery - it's old-fashioned but I think of her every time I use it, and I remember the room in her house and the woody smell of the sideboard it was in, the wonky clock that always lost time and the smell of the fire. The butter on the mantlepiece to keep it warm enough to spread.

I just don't have the heart to bin the other stuff as there's nothing really wrong with it, and it's not just mum's it was granny's too. Argh! It's piled 6 foot up in my cupboard. There's no room for my own stuff.

I am in my 60s, downsized and decluttered. DM 80s lives alone in the family home and never gets rid of anything beyond repair unless she can pass it on. This is a huge problem as she now needs somewhere more manageable but cannot move without letting go of her stuff ... almost all of it unsaleable.

I don’t know what the answer is but if I accepted her stuff I’d just be kicking the can down the road to my own children. When MIL died XH said “well it all meant something to her but it doesn’t mean anything to us”, the family took a couple of knickknacks each and called a house clearance company. Job done.