..to think brother (and sil) acted like a knob

[SuperTiredAgain]

Mum died September. We need to clear out her house. "I might come up this weekend" said brother. "I don't know which day, I'll let you know" he said. I said, "ok, I'm free all day Sunday and can get there at 9am and spend full day with you sorting stuff". I said I was busy Saturday.

Next thing I hear is "I've got all weekend free so we (him, sil and nephew) are coming Saturday (🤷 yes he knew I was free Sunday so...) "We've hired a van" he says. "We want to put everything in storage".

Fine said I. But one request, please please leave all mums clothes which are in her bedroom, because I really want to look through them myself. Om another occasion I had specifically also asked him to leave her coats which were in downstairs cupboard.

Ok says brother. I reiterated this request several times and he definitely knew my wishes

There is loads of shit at my mum's house with no sentimental value that would have been really usefully sorted out while the van was there - old treadmill and arm chair needed driving to a skip or charity shop, entire contents of shed could have been taken somewhere (tip, charity, storage).

What happened? Sil decided to sort through all my mum's personal possessions - all the clothes - her pants draw, socks, bra drawyer, sorted all her tops and trousers and boxes everything up for storage. The whole.of the upstairs (mums bedroom and spare room) she boxed up and they took everything to storage. They also took all her coats and left everything else in the cupboard. I have no idea where this storage place is. I didn't want it, they did.

I am so so sad and was really really angry with my brother. He said "we worked our arses of Saturday" - yes I know, but I'd rather you hadn't. I'd rather you waited for me. I'd rather if you had done anything at all on Saturday that you had cleared the shit that I don't care about.

I hate the thought that sil has been through all my mum's stuff. All her private stuff. Brother thinks it's all fine, it's not like they've thrown the clothes away or anything.

I'm super sad. I wanted to potter round in mums bedroom, fold her things, sniff her smell on her jumpers one last time. Now I won't get to do that

Why the f couldn't they have waited for me. It's the only thing I asked them to leave alone

Why would the brother and sil be looking for "SOMETHING" 8 months after the OPs mum died. 🤷🏻‍♀️ That doesn't sound likely at all.

Also not sure why the OP is mad at the SIL, it sounds unlikely that the brother will have told her that the OP didn't want her looking through his Mum's stuff. She probably assumed the OP and her husband found it difficult and just thought she was helping. I'm not sure going through the OPs Mum old clothing was being nosy.

I also don't understand why the OP is so mad about them coming on Saterdsy. The OP has said that they didn't work well together when they tried to clear things before. It makes sense that the brother would try and come on a different day tbh.

OP, I'm sorry about your loss.

Of course they/he acted like knobs ignoring the ONE thing you asked them to respect for you.
There is no debate they were wrong to do so.
But there's several posters who hang around AIBU just to argue with any OP and try to put them "in the wrong", no matter what the topic.

This was never going to be a nice nor easy thing to do for any of you, however it has been 8 months and you mentioned previously you have popped in for a coffee from time to time, so you have had the oppportunity to do what you wanted to do with your Mother's clothing.

You must accept that you have had your time to do as you wish and that Your Brother has every right to go into the home when he could too..

Your Brother and SIL have arranged and paid for storage for your/his Mum's things. You also say the house is virtually sold, there is no more further time for this work to have been undertaken.

I understand it has been very confrontational for you but this was never going to be a happy task and I would suggest your SIL probably didn'ty know where to start and thought being a bit more emotionally detached from personal items, it would be an easier task if she packed your Mum's clothing. I doubt very much that there was any ill feeling towards you at all by her doing so, it was simply a practical solution.

However you need to move forward and along with your brother work out how to dispose of the unwanted items, whether it be by garage sale or skip bin.

Hopefully you can all sit down at the end of the task and share a drink together and give Mum a toast.

So sorry for your loss, and for this too, which must have felt like another small loss on top of the bigger one.
I understand - you wanted to be near to your mum one more time, by going through her most personal items, and now that's not an option for you. But I think your grief is overtaking your more rational senses (again, understandable) and since your B and SIL are generally nice people, then I think this wasn't a deliberate act.

I suspect what happened was that your brother heard "clothes" and did not hear/process "Don't touch those".
Brains work in funny ways - we tend to process the action first before the negation of it, so if we say to someone "don't fall off the chair" if they're standing precariously on one, their brain will go "fall off the chair" first, before processing the "don't" aspect, and they may well fall off the chair. Better to say something like "Take care on that chair, it's a bit dangerous".
In your case, I can't know exactly what you said to your brother, but if it was "don't touch mum's clothes" then he may not have remembered exactly what you said, just that you mentioned your mum's clothes. But I'm making excuses for him - you said you told him numerous times, so he should have "got it" by the time he got to the house.

Do get the information from them on how to get to the storage facility though - at least your mum's stuff is there, so you can go through her clothes there, and they might still have some of her scent on them still.

A friend of mine had awful problems with her brothers clearing out their mums house after she died. She had been round and boxed some things up and asked that they be left for her (not valuable things but sentimental things) and they put them in the skip. They were other things too, but their relationship is beyond repair now.

I think in this case, I totally understand why the OP is upset and I think she should communicate clearly that she is disappointed that they ignored her wishes on this. But, you can't unring a bell, so it's better to draw a line under it and move on.

I agree with the others that it's madness to put her things in storage but as long as the OP isn't paying, then I'd leave them to it. Hopefully, the rest of the clear-out will go smoothly.

Then don't fall out over it. The clothes are there for you to sort through. Let it go.

I read the section about you trying to work with your brother & his need to ‘handle’ everything before parting with it, & thought ‘Oh dear’.

Is this not exactly what op wants to do though and the reason for so many posters being horrible to the dB and sil?
Also the accusations they're only doing it to see what they can steal... are those being winged at the op too?

@SuperTiredAgain you are being very honest in your recognition that emotions are driving things and that they actually are good people.
Don't let posters on here whip things up and cause a fall out.

im wondering what the next step is. Are you going to leave all the stuff in boxes and pay for storage long term? If not you will have to sort and clear out unwanted stuff, send to charity/the tip/for sale..
All of which would have been done more easily from the house with s van.
There is little point paying to store stuff you don’t want.

I agree. In my personal experience relatives intent on ransacking for valuables get there before the funeral and trash the place while claiming they are looking for a will. They don’t wait 8 months, or forewarn you they are coming up on x day to pack out the house. And the belongings had to be dealt with on this case as the house has been sold and is under time pressure to be cleared.