Hoarder in-laws want us to inherit their stuff

[Xmasiscomingsoon]

My in-laws in their 70s are serious hoarders. They have a massive house filled with stuff.

They have repeatedly told my DH and me that they will not sort out their belongings and expect us to inherit or sell everything after they pass, believing it's all valuable.
For example, hundreds of DVDs, crystal decor, old DIY tools, and casual "jewellery" that's not my taste and to be blunt, not worth inheriting, the quality of something you would see in Claire's or Accessorize.

DH has sincerely explained that majority of their possessions have little to no value, and we do not want them. We offered to help them declutter or sell items, but they refuse, as they are unwilling to give things away for free or accept low selling prices.

We live in a tiny terrace with no storage. I dread the enormous task of clearing their 4-bedroom house, annex, and workshop when the time comes.
AIBU to think what they are asking of us is very selfish?

I think there are two sorts of people. Those who attach importance to things and associate them with their loved ones and those who don’t.
I am afraid I am in your DBs camp - if DH lets me I will get house clearance in when the time comes as quickly as possible. There is nothing I want from their house and seemingly being the only person who cares if it’s at all clean and presentable means I will be delighted when I never have to go into it again. Thankfully for all concerned I am an only DC.

I understood that houses sell easier if they are full of furniture and some signs of life rather than completely gutted and I just couldn't see any point in being so hasty, especially as I was hoping to visit one last time. Tbh he got really funny about my parents towards the end of my dad's illness, was horrible about the funeral arrangements. I think he was projecting his anger onto the house.

oh I remember feeling bereavement anger. Its like having a hurricane inside you.

@Arran2024 I ask these questions not because you owe an answer on MN but so that an outsider perspective on MN might prompt some reflections that might help you make sense of things. Why was your brother the sole executor? Was it because you lived hundreds of miles away so he had to deal with more than you? Why do you think he was angry towards the end of your dad's illness? In what way was his experience of being the child of your parents different from yours?

You are understandably still upset that things felt far too rushed to you, but when an older person has died, no, it's not the case that leaving all their stuff in situ makes it easier to sell the house. Also, if you had thought you could stay in your parents' old house for visits (plural) from your hundreds of miles away home until it was sold, and there was no rush to sell a probate property, then perhaps that contributed to his decision to just get it done and gone given that the responsibility ultimately fell on him. You spent three days going through the house and took so much stuff that the car was packed and your husband had to take the train with an extra suitcase... would it have been much longer and much more if you'd had the chance? There's no right way to do these things so putting yourself in the other person's shoes might help you make a bit more peace with it.

Was it possible that your brother thought he was doing the right thing by sorting everything out quickly and by not involving you. He also might have thought that 3 days was more than enough time to go though everything.

My husbands family are very sentimental and tend to delay dealing with thing when someone dies. They take ages and ages to go through belongings and have kept houses for a long while before selling them. My family is completely different, we are all very pragmatic and we like to get rid of everything as quickly as possible. We cleared the house of most of my Dads belongings days after he died. We liked being busy and it was something to do. My Mum and I did it together. We did wonder what other people might think of us but we didn’t really care tbh.
Neither way of doing things is right or wrong. It’s just more tricky when it’s two people in the same family that want to deal with things differently.

Hoarding is defined as a mental illness in the DSM-5 and is defined as persistent difficulties in parting with items or collecting items to an excessive degree often creating large amounts of clutter which can lead to distress for the individual or their loved ones.

There's obviously stages to this and people can be affected to varying degrees in terms of how well they 'manage' their belongings.

Op is not terrible or selfish to be concerned about this. I'd also remember that when it comes time to deal with the items in the home, it's also going to be a time when op and her dh will be dealing with significant grief and stress.

We have tried to get my Mum to get rid of stuff but as a hoarder she just isn't capable of it and the tears and anger are awful. We have done what we can and the garage if full but have resigned ourselves to a big skip when the day comes.

It is both hard and expensive. Do you know how much a skip costs these days?

I think this is great advice. You are gratefully receiving (even though it’s not anything you would use) and assist in clearing the pile of junk whilst keeping the equilibrium of the hoarder. Far better than putting pressure on the hoarder. I would imagine you are an empath and have an understanding of their behaviour.
This comes from someone whose mother was a hoarder…it was a nightmare scenario for me. She had so much junk in her loft accumulated over many years…wooden framed and warped tennis rackets from our childhoods, hockey sticks, every annual we received as Christmas presents, 3 broken lawn mowers etc etc etc…it was packed to the rafters.
Downstairs in the living a wasn’t any better.
I really wished I’d adopted your techniques many years ago.

Then instead of grizzing here, why don’t both of you pull the finger out of your backside and give them a hand to sort recycling and garbage out ?

She says in her OP they offered to do this but were refused, so that’d be why.

I will just link to this hoarding chart, and you can ask yourself how you would feel about going through it when you are grieving and busy. Do you think it might feeling distressing and overwhelming, obviously there may be a stench on top that which the pictures don’t capture.

Hoarding is not just more porcelain ornaments that you don’t like, and it is very unpleasant of you to dismiss the experiences of those who have had to clean up after it.

And don’t forget, loads of people have said if there is a peep of complaint out of you they’ll hide the valuables deep in the hoard. Some are so nasty that they would probably give their children the hoard and the valuables and house to the National Trust (well known for being vicious with bequests!)

www.compulsive-hoarding.org/hoarding-rating-scale-1-9/

In this world of eco-activism and climate alarmism, I find it strange how hoarders get such an easy time of things. Same with consumer types who collect hundreds upon hundreds of funky pops and Warhammer figurines, is there really any need to collect so much wasteful plastic that will become entirely redundant upon the day you shuffle off this mortal coil?

If the death of the person you think is hoarding will cause you grief, then you must care about them. If you care about them, and provided there is no safety or health issue with the clutter, them why would you hurt them by telling them they must get rid of stuff which is going to cause them pain to get rid of?

Assuming that the inheritance is big enough to cover the cost, this thread reads a lot more about making life easier for the people who inherit than it does actually caring about the individual. Even mentally ill people have a right to make their own decisions if they aren't unsafe.

Very selfish, but hoarders have no insight and so won't change. Years ago a college acquaintance with much older parents inherited a hoarded flat in big city in the north of England. There really weren't the same support or clearance companies then and so she started doing it gradually with friends. Most of the stuff was utter junk but she found thousands of pounds hidden in all sorts of weird places. If she'd left it to a clearance company I doubt they'd have gone through everything and the money would have been lost.

If they have no insight, how can they be selfish?

If it had been lost she would never have known about it and no harm would have been done.

I guess this fear of missing something valuable would be what drives a lot of people to take on the task of clearing. It's downright unreasonable to blame the hoarder for work you take on voluntarily in the hope of financial gain.

This company will assist with house & shed clearance, they can travel to your location

Old tools & sewing machines can be recycled & refurbished & sent to Africa so that people can earn a living

https://www.twam.uk/

He was sole executor because they were old fashioned people using a local old fashioned, elderly solicitor, who probably advised them to put my brother down. The will was made over 40 years ago, before I was married and moved away. I think they never envisaged how angry and bitter my brother would become towards all of us and that he would behave like this.

3 days is short notice if you are not expecting it. I had to cancel seeing relatives and friends to blitz the house. As it was now clear I would never be back, this was a huge sorrow to me. And I didn't do the contents justice.

I had to do a 12 hour drive on my own, all on motorway - it was extremely tiring and stressful and less than safe.

I had two large breed dogs in the boot and my daughter in the passenger seat. She has epilepsy. I was terrified she would have a seizure.

So we only had the back seats of the car for stuff. My husband's suitcase was mostly filled with our clothes which we had taken up with us, not possessions from the house.

I had wanted to come back at Easter, which was three weeks away. He wouldn't even hold on that long. In fact, he didnt get the house clearers in until June, so I could have gone back in May half term too.

I had wanted to offer some of the larger pieces of furniture to wider family or to the local community. My parents had G Plan furniture from the 70s. It is lovely and back in fashion. He wasn't interested. It all went goodness knows where.

I would have liked to use an eco clearer but he just went with someone who would do it cheaply. He didn't care what happened to anything.

Anyway, the bigger point I am making is am important one for the purposes of this thread. If you are not the executor, you have NO say about what happens. Many people wrote wills years ago - the person named as executor may be utterly disinterested, like my brother, and just do similar to my brother

I have realised that we need to change the executor of our will. It is currently my sister in law's ex husband. He won't be interested. Hecwas a big part of our lives 10 years ago when we made our wills and our daughters were under 18. It's not appropriate now. He lives hundreds of miles away - he is likely to do something similar.

Just giving people a heads up. If you think you will inherit, check who the executor is.

My brother did scrupiously divide all the money with me, but if he hadn't, it would have been incredibly difficult to sort that out. I had no say in the sale price of the house (the main asset). This is useful info for people.

He didn't do anything quickly though. He just told me I wasn't getting back in - he said he was cutting off the utilities and cancelling the house insurance and getting clearers in.

But he didnt. It took him 3 months to organise the clearing company and he never cut off the utilities apart from Sky.

He is just someone with a huge chip on his shoulder who hasn't had much power in his life - and now he had some, he decided to wield it. Wider family members are horrified he did this. And the rest!

I agree, and earlier I recommended that the op inform herself about hoarding and support services and quietly make savings to deal with it when the time comes.

This response was specifically to the poster who was attacking op while minimising the impact hoarding can have.

Your post assumes that op is fully informed on the nuances of hoarding and the distress that parting from belongings can have on the hoarder and she may not be, while also being concerned about this. The other issue is that what is manageable now, may not be as they age, become less steady on their feet, less able to lift things to clean. If the house gets into a bad state it will be harder for people to get access to provide care and a hoarder is unlikely to willingly leave their home and belongings to go into another residential care service. So it's not necessarily just about inheritance or the clear up. It's about the potential for this to become unmanageable and unsafe very quickly.

But there's no need for them to tell you that. They could have stayed silent then just organised the direct cremation themselves if that's how they felt. It's incredibly cruel to tell you they've no intention of coming to your funeral, unnecessarily hurtful and gains them nothing. They've told you because they want you to organise and pay for it. If they're inheriting there'll be money to pay for it, the financial burden wouldn't fall on them. Even with care homes the resident can keep around £20k in savings, that can't be taken for fees. The council also pays for the direct cremation if somebody dies without any funds and hasn't prepaid and no relatives want to sort out a funeral. They don't just leave people's corpses in the street!

I wouldn't leave anything to people who've made it clear they can't even be arsed to organise my funeral, never mind attend it. It's not stupid to feel hurt by that. If it was me I'd leave almost all to charity, along with putting a letter in the will explaining why they're only getting a token memento each, if I was you. The letter and token gift helps with any attempts to contest the will, I believe, by showing you've considered them and have reasons for your decision.

Yes to prepaying your own funeral too because otherwise you know now that they'll just do direct cremation and there might be a friend or two who'd like to attend. Some carers from MILs care home asked to come to hers, so you never know who might want to say goodbye.

Or maybe they'll have children of their own eventually and you can skip a generation and leave it to them instead.

So weird that you'd admit to this. You could do anything you wanted with your money. Give it to anyone you wanted, spend it, put it in the bin even. But instead you'd try to use it to manipulate your hypothetical children into searching through every item you own to look for it in some weird kind of attempted revenge just because they'd told you they don't want to keep your old crap forever more. What makes you think they'd be grabby enough to care about hidden money? They could still just have the place cleared out regardless. The fact you'd deliberately try to cause them hassle and destroy any happy memories they may have had of you by revealing yourself to be vindictive is totally bizarre. I'm glad you don't actually have children, this kind of thinking is so dysfunctional and growing up with a dysfunctional parent is no fun for children at all.

All those saying “just get in a house clearance firm” - not always as straightforward as you think in some parts of the country. Especially if you live in a small town in Scotland. DH has been dealing with MILs house which was always a clean and tidy place. We thought it would be straightforward to clear. It turns out that even a tidy three bed semi can hold a lot of clutter and tat in the cupboards and garage and loft. It took many long weekends to clear of personal possessions (we live 300 miles away) and we left the furniture for the house viewings for the sale. The week before sale completion he took three days to go up and arranged in advance for a furniture dealer for some nice-mid century pieces, a well known charity chain for the rest of the furniture and the local council large waste service for the mattresses and other bits the charity wouldn’t take.

the furniture dealer and charity didn’t turn up and ghosted him, the council van turned up at 5pm on the last day and said their van was full so couldn’t take anything at all, even the stuff he’d told them about.

He couldn’t get a skip in time. No house clearance firm was interested enough to come from the nearest city. He ended up chopping up a load of really good furniture and taking it to the tip in multiple loads, and finally cleared the house the day before completion. It was exceedingly stressful, made worse by knowing his mum would have been horrified about the way he got rid of her beloved furniture.

The only good thing to come out of that experience was that DH has now realised that his habit of keeping old things “just in case” just means accumulating tat. He’s cleared our loft and is working on his office and shed and has new insight on what genuinely needs keeping. He’s also labelling all the old photos he found so that DSS will at least know who the people are when his turn comes to clear our things.

hilariious