To be so angry sorting out my parents stuff

[DazedorBemused]

I've just cleared another carload of stuff from my parents attic. They were born either side of WW2, and talked. Talked so much about rationing, poverty, striking, unions, etc.
My brother was occasionally ill as a child. To compensate he had fancy Lego, computers when they first came out, hand held video games.
The contrast between his pricy toys and my enjoy your family board game type stuff is obvious.
Then my parents got into collecting stuff - porcelain, dinner services, up scaled their Christmas decorations again and again.

I'm sorting through all this stuff and finding receipts for expensive trivial stuff in the early 90s when I was at uni, working two term time jobs and full-time in the holidays and I'm a 50 year old woman upset at having to go to the tip again.

I'm left feeling that most posters are wallowing in self-indulgent emotional whinges. It would probably benefit all of us if more people could row back to a stiff upper lip, sort what's needed and get on with life.

One might surmise that this exact philosophy of life is precisely what led to older generations quite literally “bottling up” all their emotions in objects; hoarding things “for best” that they denied themselves the enjoyment of at the time; and overvaluing the handing on of pseudo-“precious” trinkets to their offspring as tokens of self-worth and sentimental value.

Excellent post.

No need to be a total dick either.

I have found this thread both sad and useful.

We have started to get rid of stuff as newly retired and MIL house has given DH the kick up the backside he needed. He stayed with her for a week and he realised the absolute depth of her hoarding tendencies, she even has the bike she had in WWIl but hasn’t ridden a bike since DH was a small child. Also lots of hoarded cleaning products in one of her sheds that have deteriorated over decades they had to be disposed of.

Also lots of hoarded cleaning products in one of her sheds that have deteriorated over decades they had to be disposed of.

My father paid to ship about a dozen bottles of bleach from one continent to another, even though the place he was moving to had a septic tank and was therefore not compatible with bleach. Three decades later the bloody stuff is still there...

@InveterateWineDrinker It’s overall a huge waste of money as well. There is some New Year trend I saw on SM about using stuff up. One woman had laid out about 50 different bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. I get it’s nice to try new stuff but it was an eye opener. I have lots of allergies so have never been able to do this.

I refer you to my post above. This is why we need to educate children about the reality of the 20th century.

Housing wasn't' run down' - it was terrible for working people , 2 up 2 down hovels and back to backs, particularly near ports and factories where the poor lived, terrible over crowding made worse by huge tracts of housing being bombed in virtually all cities and ports. Whole families living in cellars or worse.

Many people's work was insecure so they couldn't possibly get a mortgage and buy a house. It was often extremely difficult for men ( and even more so for women) to get jobs. Understandably many men especially needed time to recover from the trauma of War or were exhausted by 12 hour shifts in factories followed by further hours unpaid as firemen etc. The pressure to increase output yet again was continuous.

Between September 1939 until Russia entered the War in 1941 Britain stood alone, horrified, terrified and watching the advance of the Fascist German armies across Europe In Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Russia etc. It wasn't until the defeat of the Germans and their Allies by the Russians at Stalingrad in 1943 that people been to believe that there was hope.

The poorer sections of society, almost all working class people, definitely couldn't buy a house on one wage or two! They didn't have savings for a deposit. This was why the postwar aim was to build council houses at a low rent.

The vast majority of working class families were not going on holiday but maybe affording a day trip to Blackpool etc. if they were in a skilled job.

The political agitation in the Forces and the determination by the returning troops etc that they were not going to be betrayed like the soldiers of the First World War were, lead to the defeat of the Conservatives and Churchill in the 1945 General Election and the Welfare State of the Labour Atlee Government ( NHS, legal aid etc. ) 'to fight disease, squalor, want, ignorance, idleness'.

Thousands of men came into the workforce from the forces post 1945, maybe having been recruited at only 18 + and having their lives disrupted for 5 years and came out traumatised at what they had suffered and seen. They were the lucky ones who didn't die. ( Dirk Bogarde said he never recovered from the horror of seeing the inmates of the Concentration Camp he helped liberate ). Many soldiers had been tortured and starved in Japan

The children born before or during the War were taken from their families , sometimes as babies or toddlers and taken to live with people who were forced to take them in but might have been less than pleased. Some were cruelly exploited.

(And we had it much better that the people of Europe who suffered from starvation, massacres from vicious, invading armies etc.etc.) The 'boomers' of the 40, 50 etc didn't just have to cope with rationing of food, lack of goods in shops etc.( which was stressful for the whole family ) but the traumatising psychological aftermath of a cruel war.

My parents certainly laid it on thick about the deprivations some people faced in the first half of the 20th century. But they didn't suffer it
Looks at the post war building boom, Swindon, Milton Keynes, most of Kent. The towns you see today with their spacious 1960s housing estates planned with bus routes and doctors surgeries within 15 minutes.
My parents had it good, the same good as millions of hourly paid others and a great retirement. They didn't need to spend the spare cash on collectibles and keeping up with the Jones's, that was on them.
Ever decreasing circles, the good life, Butterflies that was their world.

Except (I’m a historian), your posts aren’t that accurate, and don’t really apply to people born 1945 onwards - the boomers - who came of age in a period of the greatest boom in homeownership and social mobility in history. Vast amounts of the UK’s housing stock are still owned by them, and 1 in 6 boomers are landlords as well. They have experienced the biggest long economic boom in modern history, possibly in all history. Your posts relate to the previous generation born between 1900-1945; but things were very different for those born post-45, who became adults and entered the job market well after the periods of slum clearance, rationing, the wartime economy, the establishment of the welfare state and so on. That generation left school and started work in the sixties, seventies and eighties, not immediately postwar!

I've found most of the thread useful and sad that others have been here before me.
And I am also using it as the kick up the arse to get my own house in order and make my children think about stuff practically, and that emotionally possessions will never love you back.

We've had this twice. First with my parent's house a while ago and we're now going through it with OH's parent's house. There's just so much "stuff" it's a complete nightmare.

In both, the lofts were literally full of stuff going back decades - old clothes, old toys and games from our respective childhoods, etc. My father worked as a shop manager and in their loft there was box after box of things he'd "borrowed" from work, such as an entire box of balls of string, a box of small paper bags, an illuminated "open" shop window sign, boxes of shelf edge price cards. OH's father was a parts manager of a dealership garage - a box of garage key rings, a box of garage pens! And of course, several artificial christmas trees in each along with several boxes of tinsel, tree decorations, manky old wrapping paper rolls, and so it went on!

Both houses had full wardrobes in each bedroom, with clothes going back decades, a lot of which wouldn't fit anymore or was moth-eaten. Then chests of drawers with shirts/blouses, under the beds were boxes of shoes.

The travesty of it all was that as my mother was getting ill (not long before she died) she kept wanting to see her wedding photo album, but she couldn't find it, and we tried a couple of times to look in obvious places to see if we could find it, but none of us managed to find it. When we were clearing out the house, we found it at the back of the airing cupboard behind some ancient bed-spreads and old eiderdowns that hadn't been used for decades. Such a shame that she kept so much rubbish and that's what stopped her finding what she really wanted to see - her wedding album!

It's given us a kick up the arse to clear our own house ourselves whilst we're still fit and healthy. That way, we can see what we've got, get rid of all the old crap, and maybe get some benefit/pleasure out of the stuff that's valuable (financial or sentimental) and really downsize to the bare minimum. Our son is an only child and we couldn't bear the thought of him having to trawl through a house of stuff and having to dispose of it etc.

My parents are both boomers - they left school and university and immediately had better living standards than their parents. They bought a 2-bed flat on my dad’s training salary aged 22 - he was still essentially a student and it cost just 2 times his student training salary. Three years later they upgraded to a 2-bed sixties built house in decent area with big rooms and windows - 2.5 times his salary aged 25. Seven years later they bought a four bed house in the best area of our town on 3 times his then salary. Mum didn’t work. From being brought up poor, they shopped at Sainsbury’s, M&S and John Lewis, had a nice house, if not a lavish lifestyle, and they weren’t into collectibles, but it was a comfortable middle-class lifestyle - activities, church, holidays in the U.K. and occasionally abroad.

But even though they had both grown up working class, that was still after the period of regeneration after the war. Both grew up in estates of working-class sixties-built homes, went to grammar and comprehensive schools, free higher education, no debt, plentiful jobs around, work started at 9 and finished at 5pm, nobody worked in the evenings and weekends even in the professions. Their parents might have experienced hardship and poor living conditions, and both grandfathers fought in the war. But their children didn’t.

It’s really stretching a point to excuse the boomers’ weird attitudes to money and hoarding because their parents lived through the war! The boomers were brought up assuming that just as they did better than their parents, their kids would do even better than them — and it’s taken them a long time to adjust to the fact that this just isn’t the case. Even now, though, all the nonsense about how kids these days should stop having smartphones and eating avocado toast and coffee out, and soon they’d be able to afford a house (that costs 15 times their salary), is more of a displacement activity: a refusal to acknowledge reality, rather than anything else. That age group statistically spends more on cars, travel, and consumer goods than any other age group (as repeatedly shown by ONS stats). That isn’t boomer bashing: it’s just fact.

Agree — this thread had prompted me to to a bit of decluttering and getting rid of things in the past couple of weeks, and I’ll do a bit more in the coming weeks. However, though we’re always fighting a constant battle with the stuff, we just don’t have the option that my parents did of just putting it all in a loft and leaving it to some future time. We have a teeny tiny house (it makes my parents gasp in horror at how tiny our house is compared to how much it costs), and just no storage room at all, so we simply don’t have the option to keep stuff or it just overruns our lives. Maybe our tiny space is a blessing in some ways.

Visited my parents today, whom those in the Cockroach Cafe will know are difficult with hoarding and chaotic tendencies. Mum is somewhat trying to clear stuff, but only stuff she thinks she might sell. By that she means, that I will sell for her, via Gumtree etc. It’s hard to explain to her that people don’t want crap from 40 years ago… I am trying to actually advertise stuff but as pp have said it’s a thankless task. The kicker is that she thinks she is doing me a favour getting me to do it now as “you would only have to do it after I’m gone anyway.” Mm. So that’s me, and, er, me doing the work then.

Today’s gem were peach china bathroom fittings (shelf and loo roll holder) from 1985 that we took out 5 years ago when we put in a walk in shower and new bathroom for them, and which I tried to persuade Mum to get rid of then.

I believe if they gifted your brother any money in the last 7 years then it should be brought back into the estate calculations and taken as a payment on account for his 50% share.

Also, keep a track of your time and costs and mileage for dealing with the house clearance - you're entitled to payment from the estate for that too.

Gifts in the last seven years are relevant to the value of the estate. I don't think they form part of his 50% unless the parents specified that in their wills. Dreadful if that decision is being made for the parents without it being their wish.

Good point about the mileage. I think we are going to be below the tax threshold unless that Franklin Mint Snowy Owl mentioned up thread turns up.

Otherwise it would be hard work trolling back through working out if paying Golden balls electricity bill was a gift and iht due from the estate.

Not sure if I'm following the generally acknowledged different emotions.
I'm less angry now now, more 'shrugging' and saying 'meh' quite a lot.
A friend lost her dad around the same path, she's still regularly in pieces, painted a rosy glow over some tough times. We're walking in the same direction but on completely different paths.

Really good work on this thread, OP. I think this whole thread may gave helped a lot of people reading/lurking or commenting look more thoughtfully on the process of acquisition and deaccession that we all seem to go through. It sounds like you benefited emotionally but I want to thank you so much for graciously sharing the issue with us all. I am really taking a good look at my own innocent collections of (perfectly lovely! Necessary! Valuable!) things and realizing I must begin detaching and deaccessioning so they don’t lumber my children.

We have told ours what stuff might be worth a bob or two in the event, and what won't be! We have apologised for not being able to sort and dispose of all the books ourselves, too difficult, but they are welcome to invite the dealers in...

@Juliagreeneyes Same here. Small flat. Makes us have 'sort outs' about 4 times a year. Still too much stuff but lack of space contains it - no garage etc. It is true, the more space you have, the more you end up filling it.

Interestingly, DGran was a bit of a hoarder (she had lived through WW2 as a young woman), tins in the kitchen dating back years, a box room full of photos, papers, all sorts. China she never used. It never felt cluttered though. I don't think she was a big buyer of stuff, more a keeper just in case.

Mum (boomer born 1948) is pretty ruthless about getting rid of stuff and always has been. Her husband died recently - he had wardrobes full of clothes, old travel books, papers and all sorts. Mum has the task of going through it all now, sending things to charity shops if they are in good enough condition.

It doesn't matter whether it's above or below the tax threshold (though, fingers crossed for the owl!), but it is important for the calculation of how much is due to each of the beneficiaries.

For example:

"Current" estate value = £300,000. You and DB get it 50:50, so you get £150,000 each.

Let's say your DB got given £50,000 5 years ago.

Revised estate value = £350,000. You and DB get it 50:50, so you get £175,000 each.

He's already had £50,000 of his, so gets £125,000 now, whereas you get your £175,000.

If it's just that she helped him out with some bills, it's probably not worth the argument it would likely cause, but if he had a substantial gift then it is worth making sure you're not financially hard done by.

But, definitely, keep a track of your costs for dealing with the house - it's the least you deserve!

I really think this is true. I said something about this upthread, but honestly? I have one modest cabinet for all the paperwork in the house (for example), so every time I go to the cabinet to put in something (like this year's tax returns), I have a quick root around and throw away some things we don't need, like instruction manuals for household items which are no longer in use or where the instructions could easily be found online instead, stuff like that. There is a limited amount of space and it can't be exceeded, so stuff gets decluttered and freecycled on an ongoing basis. If I had a garage, I KNOW it would be crammed full of crap - I am not that disciplined.

People born before 1960 gasping at their children's much smaller houses and making loud, shaming comments about it really annoys me, though, because it's just so clueless. All my mother's friends are still rattling around in multi-bedroom houses while their daughters are raising kids in terraces, little flats and cramped newbuilds. I know nobody's required to downsize and nobody's entitled to a property of a particular size either. But maybe read the room and don't sit there with your same-aged friends making all these laughing comments about "well, needless to say, Eleanor's having to get the smallest possible oven, because of that TINY LITTLE KITCHEN she's got, hahaha!" As though Eleanor has a smaller kitchen due to some sort of moral failing or general hopelessness on her part, rather than the fact that her generation is confined to far smaller housing on average.

@GreenTeaLikesMe

I have one modest cabinet for all the paperwork in the house (for example), so every time I go to the cabinet to put in something (like this year's tax returns), I have a quick root around and throw away some things we don't need, like instruction manuals for household items which are no longer in use or where the instructions could easily be found online instead, stuff like that. There is a limited amount of space and it can't be exceeded, so stuff gets decluttered and freecycled on an ongoing basis.

This is what I've been doing for the last couple of decades and what I preach to my clients. It's ALL about "weeding out" as the years pass, for both personal and business stuff. Knowing what is important to keep forever, and knowing what can be ditched after a year, after 5 years, after 10 years, etc. Things like documents for buying your house, or P60s, or property improvements (lifetime guarantees, Fensa certificates for windows, etc), need to be kept forever - property documents needed when the house is sold, P60s "may" be needed when it comes to retirement and you find HMRC/DWP have missing years and intend to reduce your state pension!

Good idea to keep utility bills for a year or two, but as long as everything is right, i.e. you're billed on meter readings not estimates, etc., then safe to ditch the older ones. Grocery receipts safe to ditch a couple of weeks later once you know you don't have to take anything back that's manky. Small electricals - keep receipt for as long as the guarantee period - i.e. some vacuums may have a five year guarantee, so make a note on the receipt and keep it. Likewise kitchen appliances, TVs, etc. But really no point keeping a receipt for a toaster with a 12 month guarantee for a decade! Bank statements and credit card statements etc - again, keep as long as you feel there's a need - weed out the older ones with nothing "special" on them, but keep the odd ones with special/unusual transactions like receipt of an inheritance, buying a car, buying/selling a house, big purchases such as property improvements, etc - again, keep it all for a couple of years then weed out the ones showing nothing of importance.

Most people can start off with a box full of papers for a year, but can weed it down after a couple of years to just an envelope full of the important stuff, then after a few more years, it may be down to just one piece of paper, and you end up with a single large envelope with everything "really important" which needs keeping for ever, i.e. house purchase, home improvement invoices, certificate and guarantees, P60s, etc.

Little and often is the answer. Make it become a habit. Like you say, for every piece of paper you put in your "current" file, box or whatever, take at least one of the older/less important things out.

PS whilst the above is talking about physical pieces of paper, the same applies for scans/electronic documents. Don't just save everything for ever as it will take ages to sort it out (you or some other poor sod) and also there's the risk of it getting lost/forgotten (would your next of kin know where you store electronic data, would they know your passwords etc?). Organise your electronic archives and weed it out the same way to reduce the unnecessary/pointless clutter.

I'm joining this late re the Uni. I went to Uni 1996-2000 (Scottish Master degree)

I had 3 jobs and the maximum live at home grant because my father was low paid and a single parent. I think I was amongst the last cohorts to get a grant.

I didn't want to stay at home but did because I couldn't afford to live out.

Not only did my Dad NOT top me up, but I gave him, as digs, a full third of everything I earned.