to think it’s inconsiderate to leave a lifetime of clutter for your kids to deal with when you die?

[wirey]

My parents are in their 70s, both in good health, fully capable, still active. This isn’t about illness, frailty or anything like that.

They have a 5-bedroom house absolutely rammed with stuff. I’m talking decades of things such as old paperwork, clothes, random items, things they haven’t used in years (some of it honestly feels like it’s been there 30–40 years untouched).

I’ve gently raised it a few times and offered to help them sort through it. Not in a pushy way, just suggesting we could do a bit at a time. Every time the response is basically “you can deal with it when we’re gone.”

I find that really unfair. It’s not even about the physical effort (although that will be huge), it’s the emotional side too. Having to go through a whole house of someone else’s lifetime possessions while grieving is a lot. Plus trying to work out what’s important, what isn’t, what can be thrown away without guilt.
I get that it’s their house and their stuff, and they can live how they want. I’m not trying to control that. But equally, it feels like they’re knowingly leaving a massive job for someone else when they don’t have to.

I’m not expecting minimalism or a spotless house, just a bit of consideration in not leaving everything untouched for decades and then handing it over as a problem later.

AIBU to think that’s selfish?

I have reduced my own possessions by 75% as not to leave a mess behind for DH and my DC.

Also it’s often not when they die. It’s when they have gone in a care home and you are under pressure to get the house on the market to sell to pay for care home fees. It’s truly awful and it nearly ended me. Moving a parent to a care home is usually a seriously stressful time anyway. It’s more often than not following years of crisis and care refusal. And then you have to empty a huge house on top. It’s next level stressful.

You are being massively unreasonable. Why should they be without their possessions for potentially decades just because you're stressing about a clear out after theyre gone. Madness

I put yabu because you'll never change their mind. My mum had so much clutter in her house. When she died I took the paperwork home(which was basically everything going back years and some stuff from the 1960's) and all the clothes, furniture etc. went to a charity collection place. I had just accepted it was something I would have to do. Still not much fun though!

I wanted to reconfigure and sort out a storage space in our house a few months ago . Got my two adult daughters to go through things they had in boxes here, the result of post university and flat moves. Then it started a mission creep of examining, with my DH, all sorts of things in the attic eaves, our wardrobes , cupboards, a dresser and under bed storage. Things that needed to stay were more obviously labelled and stored and lots sent to charity shops or recycling etc after checking if the girls wanted anything. Even my beloved art equipment got a critical and ruthless eye passed over it. The whole house felt lighter, somehow - I think we had a degree of ‘hidden hoarding’ . the house looked tidy but there was accumulated and inherited stuff that was never used, never looked at and never needed

We have continued : did kitchen cupboards yesterday and this morning, in a spare hour, I sorted out an old cabin trunk that is used as a side table but which had lots of ‘put it somewhere to think about later’ stuff. Out - gone.

My next target is a step ladder accessed cupboard which has our beautiful wedding gift dinner set : only ever used for dinner parties and Xmas, we stopped using it because it was not dishwasher safe and our robust white standard crockery is fine for occasions.

And then next the shed, home to my DHs impulse tool buys……..

I was thinking charity shop, but I also think that some tat doesn't need to exist at all, not even in charity shops.

I think there are two sorts of clutter though one is possessions, photos and cards which have memories attached and the other is "crap" such out of date medicine, ancient bank statements, broken electricals or in FILs case a garage full of weedkillers so strong that the clearance guy looked genuinely alarmed. I'm sure the OP is hoping for a reduction in the crap element.

Yanbu, but you also don’t have to make this your problem. When the time comes remove photos and paperwork any thing sentimental that you need or want to keep. Then arrange
1- auction house to come and remove anything valuable that is sellable.
2- charity furniture place to remove non antique/valuable furniture/ornaments/paintings.
3- clearance company to empty the rest of the house, clothes, paperwork, non useful furniture etc.
no 3 will cost the estate a bit of money, but so be it. They won’t suddenly become tidy minimalists at their age, save yourself the arguments and let them get on with it!

I agree with this. I absolutely detest people throwing stuff away that somebody else would find useful or even treasure. It seems quite a privileged mindset to have.

If you don't want or need it, nobody is remotely suggesting that you should keep it; but don't be so selfish as to trash it so that it can't be of use to anybody. Actual dirty, broken, useless rubbish belongs in the tip; but the number of people I see - and read about on MN - who have decided they want a fancier dining table or a bigger TV to replace their perfectly fine old one, and their first instinct is to just fling it to smash to pieces at the bottom of a skip... I find that attitude abhorrent and unpleasant.

I’m in the same position OP.

My Mum has always been a hoarder. Over the years I’ve tried a million times to help clear stuff out for her, but she won’t let me. It’s not bad enough to involve social/medical services, but basically every room is full of junk. She’s nearly 86 now, and quite frail, so she couldn’t clear it out even if she wanted to. Every now and then she’ll tackle a box, and throw away a couple of old electricity bills from the 1970s, then she’ll be too tired to do any more.

What bothers me is that right now, if I was allowed to do some clearing up, I could be calm and objective about what was and wasn’t worth keeping. But when she’s died, it’ll be a much more emotional experience, and I’ll feel guilty throwing out the crap she felt was so important.

I’ve just accepted it now. I’m 58 so hopefully by the time she dies I’ll be retired, and I’ll have time to clear the house. But I’m dreading it for many reasons.

If you are not sentimental you can just pick out the necessary paperwork and let house clearance do the rest.

You often see notices on charity shop windows saying they are not accepting donations now. There's just too much man-made stuff in this world and it is bloody everywhere!

So you didn’t really do this for your children at all. In fact you suited yourself. Just like your parents are suiting themselves. I think it’s weirdly controlling of you to think you should encourage your parents to get rid of their possessions so as to reduce a future job for you. Just throw the lot on the skip when they eventually die. They might be in a nursing home by then and their house might be long gone. But let them live among the possessions they accumulated during their lives if that’s what they wish. Some people are the opposite of you- they feel minimalist homes are cold and their hearts are warmed by the clutter. Should you fill your home with clutter to make other people feel better? Would you do that for your kids? Because that’s what you’re asking of your parents

But you’ve said you aren’t sentimental, so you’ll just hire a skip and bin it all; a couple of days and job done.

It does sound more like you disapprove of the way they live because it is not minimalist like your lifestyle.

I’ve just watched my cousin do this for his DM’s house and it was heartbreaking. It was such hard work for him bagging things up, getting charity shops to pick up furniture, and the rest ended up in multiple skips. It was a council house and I don’t think she had any savings so I’m pretty sure he had to pay for the skips himself and no cash for a house clearing company.

My DP’s were horrified at the mess and the skips, I’m hoping it’s given them an idea of what me and DS will have to do when they’re gone.

DM has been very slowly getting rid of things, like one pair of unworn slippers every couple of months. DF gave me 3 bits of wood to take to the tip, the rest of his garage is still rammed with stuff.

They’re both early 80s with serious health problems, both nearly died last year but have rallied surprisingly well but we all know they’re not going to go on forever. Every time DM buys something pointless now I just see it as landfill I’ll have to deal with. She’s like a magpie but the shiny things do make her happy!

@user7463246787 you have to go through everything to find the valuable/sentimental stuff. How can you know that a box of old newspapers doesn’t have a family photo at the bottom?

Yes and there’s that whole ‘death cleaning’ movement! My mother was very organised and it was easy to sort through her things. I have way too much stuff and definitely plan on streamlining everything (I’m 64, but will be selling the house in about three years so it will be done before than).
But your parents may still enjoy the things they have and see no reason why they shouldn’t continue to do so til the very end!

I think yabu. You'll inherit a house, you could just pay someone to clear it all and still have loads of money left

But you ARE trying to control your parents by expecting them to sort through their possessions to make things easier when they die, which will hopefully not be for another 20+ years. We are in a very similar situation, with a five bedroom house that is full of treasures that we’ve accumulated during over 50 years together. Having cleared my mum’s house and mother in law’s flat that were both similarly rammed with a lifetime’s belongings, I know how daunting it can be. But I promised my mother in law many years ago thst I would treat all her possessions with respect at such time as she died, and that’s what I did with both house clearances. It took us a very long time to get both properties emptied and ready to sell, and neither my husband nor I had anyone else who could have helped, but when it was finished, I felt a great sense of satisfaction that we had done our very best to deal with their belongings.

when we die, we will only have our daughter and son in law to clear our belongings, and I’ve discussed this with her. She knows what is valuable, what is particularly sentimental, and where most things came from. She knows roughly what things I want to give and to whom, and Ive gradually been putting by stickers on the bottom of valuables with an indication of value so that she knows not to take them to the charity shop. Ive suggested that she gets someone in who runs an eBay shop to sell things for her. Im trying to make things as organised as I can for her, and we are about to move house so everything should end up being more organised for her, but there’s no way Im getting rid of loads of my loved possessions when I’m hoping to still be around for another 25 years!

I recently did this when my remaining parent moved into a nursing home. They'd lived in the house for 40 years but had been accumulating stuff before they bought it. I kept a few things which they asked for and could have in the nursing home, curated some of the tens of thousands of photographs (why keep out of focus pictures?!) into a few manageable albums but got a shredding company to deal with over 50kg of documents going back to the 1970s! It took a clearance company 5 days to clear the house completely- they sold loads at auction (which paid their cost and generated some profit) and anything they didn't sell they gave to charity and only tipped the truly disgusting or broken furniture. 4 bedrooms, a loft, garage and huge utility room filled with old, broken or never used things - and some brand new items still in their packaging. The clutter was so oppressive... I have LPA and the paperwork is all in one concertina file! I do as much as possible online and it will be very easy to pass details to the executors when the time comes.

We are quite minimal and when we die it will be very easy to clear the house.

If you didn't know it existed, does it matter if it gets junked?

@tripleginandtonic what about the things of sentimental value?

@fanOfBen are you serious? Wow.

Either you accept that you won’t get to keep “the sentimental stuff” (you’ll have lived most of your life without it) or you stop whining and do it yourself.
The OP is bragging how she has got rid of 75% of her belongings so if her parents took that approach, there wouldn’t be much sentimental stuff left. You can’t expect your elderly relatives to do a big clear out and only keep stuff other people might want to keep.

No, fan is right. I want to keep photos, but one photo at the bottom of a box of something else, come on...

Maybe they’re not minimalists. Maybe they feel comfort from being surrounded by their ‘stuff’ and it helps them feel younger and at home. It’s their choice. If they leave their house to you, you can hire a company to just bin it all.