Should I encourage my dad to have a clear out or AIBU/ cruel

[AtTheCopaTheyFellInLove]

My elderly dad lives in a large 4- bed house. It’s our family home. He’s very fit and healthy so doing a bit of a declutter isn’t a fitness issue.

Every centre-meter of his house is full to the brim with stuff. He has hundreds of plates, cups, cutlery, he has 3 freezers full of food, 50 coats, 70 pairs of trousers, a million pairs of socks. Slight exaggeration, but there’s loads. It’s under every bed, every wardrobe is packed, the garage is full and the attic is full. Things are in packets unopened.

I’ve tried to encourage him to declutter but he does it, then says it’s too good to give away.

Going round there stresses me out. It’s not clean.

Should I just leave him to it? My dad is quite elderly and he’s very fit and healthy but I think at some point he’ll have to move out of this place, or he’ll no longer be with us and it’ll need clearing.

I know for a fact that clearing this place out will be left to moi, the only woman left in the family. It would literally take me months.

I feel bad encouraging him, but honestly it’s like a ransacked department store.

When the time comes, take anything you particularly want, and stick a very visible label on anything not for clearance (e.g. too valuable) and get a house clearance firm in.

We’re not hoarders but that’s what I’ve told dds to do. Because even if the house is reasonably uncluttered, I’ve done it and it’s a sad and horrible job

there will be nothing in my DMs house worth keeping at all, with the damp, and the mold, and the rats...

I'd burn it down if i had the chance

My MIL sorted her bungalow so well that when she and FIL died, it took me and dh only 2 hours to quickly go through it, get the photos and documents, pick up bits and pieces of theirs that we were going to keep and authorise the rest for clearance/sale/donation by a company - and it was essentially done. It was a very thoughtful thing for her to have done.

In your position OP, you shouldn't spend months doing it once he's gone. You can get house clearers - it won't cost you if there is stuff that they can take and sell - and there will be. For example all of his kitchen appliances presumably work. You could go in whilst the house clearers work and take photo albums and paperwork.

I would encourage him to have some sort of organisation, rather than asking him to chuck it. So you can find the important stuff. eg it doesn't matter if he has 70 coats if they are all in the same cupboard and you know there's nothing there that's valuable/necessary.

He doesn’t sound healthy to me. Hoarding is a mental health illness. Trying to get him to declutter isn’t as straightforward as persuading him. Has he seen a doctor or psychiatrist?

At the minimum I'd ask for a fire safety check from the local fire service.

If you are up to doing all the decluttering yourself I'd have a go. But if he just can't let anything go, don't make both of you miserable over it.

Absolutely agree that it’s really important to know where all the important paperwork is. I’d also suggest going through photos and anything else that’s sentimental with him.

Having been through this while clearing my mum’s house after she died, while you can get house clearance companies to deal with everything else in the house (furniture, crockery, clothes, books), it was up to us to deal with paperwork and photos. Unfortunately nothing was very organised so we had to go through all the drawers and cupboards ourselves to make sure we’d got everything useful/ sentimental. If you can make a start on this now, it will make the inevitable house clearance easier at the end.

Also think about if there is anything of yours that you could remove now. Again, I didn’t do that, and had to deal with old school and university papers while clearing mum’s house, which was extra work I could have done without.

Of course, if If the house is dangerous (fire safety issues etc), you’ll need a different approach.

Does your dad react well to tough love or does he become combatant?

I'd say to him "Dad, I love you very much but really, it's not safe having so much stuff around the place. There are so many coats and trousers and other bits and pieces. I'm going to be harsh here but we can either help you declutter the place now, while you're still alive or we'll end up donating it all to charity when you're gone. If we do it now, you can pick the bits to donate to charity or recycle and hang on to the rest, but honestly, how many coats does a person need and how many can they wear at the one time?? Let's start in here and see how we get on. I'll do the 'heavy lifting', you just need to sit in the chair there and when I ask you which item we're going to keep and which one we're recycling, you can tell me. Shouldn't be too exhausting for you, right?"

Would something like that work do you think?

I don't have much advice, but after my DM died 2 years ago, it took me and my sisters 18 months to declutter and sell - I was there pretty much 5 days a week for about a year.

She did try to declutter about a year before she died, and it was quite cathartic for her, but there was So Much Stuff. It was a lot of work for us, but in a way I'm glad we didn't burden her final year / months with badgering her to sort through stuff.

Thanks for the comments. I think I'm just going to have to turn a blind eye to it, until I have to deal with it.

I did try and get him to declutter. He goes on about how much stuff he has, and how he can't move or find anything. I told him that loads of people are broke at the moment, and buying shirts/ trousers/ socks in charity shops that are in great condition would be a double whammy as in they get to buy great things for a few pounds and he will be supporting charities. He had a think about it, started to clear some things out, then said it was too good to give away.

If I was to say something like, can you clear some stuff out as we are going to be lumbered doing that later on, I think he would be vey offended. He sees himself as 85 going on 25 and to suggest otherwise wouldn't be very well received.

I think I'm going to have to let it go, and work on not being bothered by it.

If he sees himself as '85 going on 25' and doesn't want to give his excess clothing away, he could always give Vinted a whirl.

I know I'll get slaughtered for being ageist, but if he's not Internet savvy, is there a young adult in the family who could help him start off?

In addition to charity shops / vinted etc there are some places that work like a food bank - ie people who are in need come in directly and choose clothes for free. I quite like that idea as clothes are going directly to those who need them. I struggle a bit with the charity shop concept as they price so highly at times.

I know exactly what kick back the OP will get if she suggest Vinted/Ebay. Her dad is not going to be able to achieve anything like the price he thinks his clothes are "worth". Because he will remember what he paid for them, know that something has only been worn once or twice, and will want upwards of £50 for a very dated double breasted white dinner suit, bought in 1993 for a cruise and worn once.

(This may or may not have been the exact conversation DH had with his father last weekend).

My grandmother only started decluttering at 85, for her it was seeing things go to a good home rather than just charity shop donations where it could sit unused for ages because of the high prices. She gave a lot of clothes to her cleaner who passed them on to poorer elderly clients who could use them. A lot of kitchen and household things have gone to grandchildren.

Just to say if it's really bad hoarding you need to register with the fire service. They have a list of hoarders as they need to know for fire risk purposes.

Can you help him with selling the unopened stuff if he feels it is too good to give away? Or ditch the old stuff with his permission and open the packets of new stuff. I would try and do it in small steps with his cooperation each time you go there. Or as you say just try not to let it bother you. Is he not worried that the house is not clean? What about kitchens and bathrooms? Are they hygienic as you could say you are worried for his health.

Does the clothing actually fit him? Maybe start from the idea that if he doesn't fit into certain coats/trousers then that's the time to pass them on.
Maybe suggest that the stuff goes to "the poor people in Ukraine/Gaza who have lost everything". Pull at his heartstrings.

Is it your childhood home? Can you pretend that you are looking for something of your own as a cover story for sorting the place out.

My dad's exactly the same. House full to the brim. Garage piled high and right to the front. It will all be left to me to sort out. It's really dirty too and he smokes so it all stinks, the walls all nicotine stained etc.

Dreading sorting it out when he dies but I'm resigned to it.

At least he's finally agreed to a gardener coming who is going to do a two day clearance of the garden before regularly maintaining it.

I would leave it. I know it’s stressful to see it all, but it will be more stressful trying to get him to part with it.

When the time comes, either way, you’d still have the time-consuming, important stuff to clear. The obvious clutter will be fast to clear then, much easier than trying to wrestle it from him now.

I'm trying to do Swedish death cleaning, it's hard. It's hard for 2 reasons. Clearing he paperwork side of it is incredibly boring. Sometimes things have memories attached to them and you are not ready to let go of the younger person you were when those memories were made. Sometimes you grew up in hard times so you knew you would struggle to replace useful items if you gave them away but needed them later.

I'm doing it (slowly) because I want to make life easier for those who will have to sort it out. Tell him that and start the process with him now. Tell him what you'd like him to keep and what you will send to a charity shop.

Do you have a local Facebook page? Maybe he would give stuff away to local people or to a homeless shelter. Does he like animals - rescue places love old towels.

It’s hard work! I cleared out my mother’s laundry today and got rid of two bin bags before she poked her head in…she does want stuff gone so it’s okay as long as she isn’t there but as soon as she gets involved, getting rid of anything is a struggle.

PIL are like this. Stuff everywhere and even roped together on the driveway. Old bread makers, kitchen worktops from 20 years ago, rusty childhood fishing rods. FIlL has been saving some of it from his own parents to pass on to us.
No thanks. The best stuff will be auctioned and the rest in a skip.

I have HD and a life time struggle against it. There are various sub types. I'm 2nd generation with a parent who was a squalor hoarder. It's a MH disorder that no one chooses to have, and is very hard to overcome even with good levels of self awareness. It generally worsens with age and other circumstances when there is little to look forward to. Attempting to start tackling it very late on, can be a death knell.

My sub type is an organized hoarder, possibly because of my childhood. Like with like, tidy, everything categorized and kept in a way it's easy to move and rotate to clean. (organized hoarders tend to need clean as well as tidy)

In case this is useful, I've successfully worked with other types of hoarders and go in with an 'I'm not here to get rid of stuff.' The aim is to get them back a level of control, order and cleanliness. In the process I know if it's is done well it will also result in them deciding to shift out some stuff, but that's not on the table until they put it there, then I facilitate it and ensure it works well for them.

'Organized hoarding' automatically helps overcome some of the more serious issues around general hoarding, and can be borrowed from by all types. (doesn't cure HD, but creates better environments)

So I'd advise you to head there in encouraging your dad to create a safer cleaner environment for himself, without hustling to get rid of things. You may be surprised how getting people organized without pressure to shed stuff, actually can cause them to decide to let go of some of it, especially when it's grouped together. They can see they're one person with a max of five visitors, who owns cutlery to feed 100 and they are likely to have only a few years at most left to entertain again. Being positive and keeping things light and getting to a point where they can laugh at things, can go a long way towards internal change.

I'm quietly glad to hear you're going to put the relationship first. Getting it cleared professionally when he's gone, can actually be done very easily and quickly and without stress. Fees for it should come out of the estate.

I can also tell you from the other side how heart breaking it is listening to older people with HD who have realized their children want them to loose the last few good years they have, going through misery throwing away what they want to keep, so their children can have an easier time getting their hands on the inheritance they feel entitled to, at the expense of the bequether's happiness.

It can also backfire.
One elderly lady become absolutely desolate as her family cheered on her spending her last year disposing of all that mattered to her. They consoled her, and told her how good she was being, and how relieved they all were for her.
She did it and with help, got to a point where it was a pretty normal home, but was so deeply saddened on may levels. She died as we got to the last leg.
The family were pleased so much had been achieved. But then furious to discover she'd been so hurt by their charade she'd changed her will and left the family home to a charity. They spent way more on legal appeals than it would have cost for clearance once she was dead, and lost. Her will was upheld.

It's very late on for him to try to elicit change without causing misery, so I'd say hold onto the good relationship you both have, while encouraging safety and a reasonable level of cleanliness and organization that is genuinely about him while he lives, and his quality of life, and while it's all a pain in the butt, you will come away happier in the long term.

We were lucky when my dad passed away that he didn’t really have much stuff to sort through. We wentt in, took out everything confidential for a proper confidential waste service. We took things we wanted to keep and paperwork we thought we might need then we just got a house clearance in to basically clear the whole lot. It was quite ruthless but I’ve nowhere to keep things and my sibling lives abroad. We have about 4 storage boxes kept in my garage and that’s all.

My DM on the other hand is a complete opposite. She’s not a hoarder bit does hang onto things ‘just in case’. I have been blunt with her and said I’ll be doing the same with a house clearance so if there’s anything she especially wants us to keep then she must sort through and put it somewhere labelled. Otherwise it will mostly go to clearance too. Her house was never my family home as she moved after I left home but it does hold alot of sentimental value to her and my children who stay there a lot. There are things we will definitely keep and some bits l’ll get rid of at my home so I can keep her better quality versions 😂😂😂. But there is a lot stuff that no one’s going to want. She has started to clear out. She does have fitness and mobility issues but she has been clearing bit at a time. She had some renovation work done recently which also helped clear one room. She has loads of kids stuff from when my kids were little and I’ve said just to take them to charity shop or put on marketplace etc. I’ve not pressured her into it though. She actually wants to sort through and declutter.

I’ve watched som of those hoarding programmes though and that is a whole level of mental heath that needs dealing with properly and sensitively. My dad’s lack of stuff was also down to mental health issues but was easier to deal with. It may well be easier to do as previous poster has suggested and leave it til he’s gone to get house clearance in. They can quote depending on how much there is and how they’ll get rid. Ours was really honest and found a couple of things which could have been worth money and left them for us.

It would literally take me months. It doesn't need to. There are house-clearing companies.

Would your dad notice if you thinned out some stuff? that would be outrageous behaviour and effectively stealing.

It doesn't sound like hoarding. He has a lot of belongings, but he's not got stacks of stuff blocking access to rooms or blocking corridors, and he's not hoarding rubbish like old newspapers or empty margarine tubs or toenail clippings.

I think I'm going to have to let it go, and work on not being bothered by it. that sounds a sensible approach.