To ask you to ‘Destroy without reading’? (Bereavement related)

[Izzy24]

Would you?

So if you were coping with clearing personal belongings and you came across a package marked as above, would you respect that person’s privacy and dispose of it without reading? Even if it was unsealed?

You don't know though - not watching? - the curiosity would gnaw away!

I would like to think that I wouldn't read it, but in reality I definitely wouldn't be able to resist it. At the very least I would sneak a peak to see what kind of thing it might be.

I would look. And then decide if it needed further inspection.

When clearing out my deceased relatives houses I came across stuff (not marked as private), started to read, and went “nope, this isn’t something I should see” then put it aside to throw away. Diaries, old court case papers, letters to/from former partners and friends.

But I wouldn’t blindly trust it wasn’t something important that I needed to know about.

I would look, I couldn’t live with the curiosity otherwise and if the person so badly didn’t want it looked at they’d have disposed of it themselves

Whenever you feel like. I’ve destroyed anything I don’t want other people to read - and I’m in my 50s.

Don't do that if you have children as they would assume your memories might actually involve them too, such as photographs. Very ambiguous.

I'd destroy it. I keep therapy journals and I plan to either destroy them myself before I die or if he is still practicing, post them to my therapist to dispose of or read or whatever he sees fit.

But some people may not feel like it until much older than 50s and then there is an increasing risk of them dying before they get chance.

I write a diary but only the shit bits of life. I wouldn't want anyone to read them after I've gone but sometimes I have to re read them myself. (Hence why I still have them)
Reading all these replies of people saying they would read stuff like this I'm actually going to throw them out I think. I'd be mortified if my children/family members read about the times I was at my lowest.

Yes i would, looking would be wrong.

Wow. That's really interesting! Like a couple of other people have said, what was the purpose of leaving it there 🤔I'd like to think I would obey the wishes. It probably says something inside like A-ha! Got you! I knew you'd look! In short...I don't know.

I have ripped up photos of me taken when I was early twenties by my then boyfriend - topless and I'm in an exotic location and I look great! However I would hate for my son to see them 😂
When getting rid off MIL stuff we found personal love letters written to her during WW2 by her husband to be. They were lovely and tame but not for us so we destroyed them. It felt intrusive but at the same time showed us a young man in war thinking about his beloved. Thinking about it now and making that decision today I would not read them.
As regards your dilemma @Izzy24 what is your connection to this person as a matter of interest? I am a genealogist and know the ethics behind this kind of thing but human nature is a different thing. It's one thing when you are working for a client but a different thing when it is your own family.

My mum journalled, she also had poor mental health and it really nose dived the year before she died (her death itself was very sudden and unexpected). We all** agreed we had no desire to read her personal diaries, especially given how bad her MH was at the end. Losing her her was hard enough.

**we all were my dad and siblings.

@Love51 but what if the box contained eg a vibrator?!

Why was it kept though?

Me too

Ok so they risk others reading them.

Most posters say they’d skim to see what the documents relate to. If there’s key information about family that’s one thing, but if it’s just private diaries I think most people wouldn’t want to pry and anyway other people’s diaries are not very interesting.

I must be a bad person compared to the saints on mumsnet because I’d definitely read it.

My father was not as discrete but he did have his own dark room so imagine our surprize as we went through a slide show of National Trust properties, family weddings and my older brother's baby photos when we got a close up of the moment of conception! Although, without any faces in shot we're not 100% sure whose genitalia that was.

I would absolutely read it. 'DO NOT READ' makes it immensely tempting to read. Why write something, and then leave it in a box somewhere for people to find, if you don't want anyone to ever read it? That's ludicrous.

If that person didn't want the thing reading, they should have destroyed it themselves.

Daft. 😆

I'd want to see what it was, just in case it was anything legal. If it was just diaries and letters, I'd burn them without reading. I've already burnt my diaries from my teens and 20s because the thought of someone else reading them was mortifying!

Just a reminder to everyone disposing of private stuff that you don't want people to read - make sure you actually destroy it yourself don't just put it in the bin.

@OldTinHat

I took them to the local tip with a load of other rubbish.

@Peteryourhorseishere
Chucked them all away

• you should either buy a shredder and shred it, burn it or if you work somewhere with confidential waste disposal ask if you can get rid of it there if you need permission.

I'm probably more sensitive to this because I work with a lot of sensitive information where confidential waste disposal is very important.

But you do need to be aware people go through rubbish bins and tips. It's called 'dump diving'. Its the same reason that you shouldn't just put credit card bills or utility bills or anything with your name and address on in your domestic waste. Fraudsters fish for this information and people go through bins. Selling old diaries of strangers on ebay is a thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/18/secret-world-of-diary-hunters-buying-and-selling

Over the past 35 years, MacNamara has read more than 8,000 strangers’ diaries. As a child, her mother would take her “dump diving” to salvage objects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Pell

Benjamin Pell (also known as Benji the Binman;[1] born December 1963) is a British man who is known for having raked through the dustbins of law firms representing prominent people in search of incriminating or compromising documents that he could sell to the press.

In all honesty, I'd read it.

After my mam passed away I found all kinds of notes, half filled notepads, books with random pages written on. Even found a sober recovery forum she wrote on.

I think she only really wrote when she was depressed. I guess it helped her make sense of what she was going through. And although what she wrote got quite dark at times, I think it helped me understand her a bit more.

Even my mum, the nosiest person alive (if she's left alone in someone else's house, she'll tell me what she found at the back of their cabinets), followed her father's instructions to burn his and her mother's love letters after his death.

If I liked and respected the person I wouldn’t look, if I didn’t like them ( and not a family member ) maybe I would, hard to say until you are in the situation and know all the circumstances / facts