House clearance heartache

[Fluffythefish]

Mum died of cancer in March a few months after diagnosis. My father who is now 91, following a series of falls was helped to make the decision to move into a nursing home. He is mentally acute but physically frail and couldn't look after himself properly. He is thriving and is settled and that is brilliant. But it is down to me (and my amazing DH) to dismantle the house. Its not my childhood home by any means but my parents kept EVERYTHING and mostly in plastic wallets. every piece of paper in a different plastic wallet. I can't keep it all and so have had to get rid of tons of photos etc. Most of the photos there are other copies of in photo albums but it is still such a hard thing to do. I don't live near the house so have to do it all almost at once. Just needed to write down how I feel and having lurked here and been helped I know this will resonate with others. (and yes, I am thinking about what I need to do when I am a little older than I am now :) )

It is awful. My parents both died in a car crash earlier this year. We had to clear it in two weeks as it is a council house, literally the day after they died we had to start. I am still not over it.

My mum died 5 years ago. She kept a diary for years and years. I have them all in a box in the loft. Don't really want to read them - but have dipped in and out. I don't know what to do with them as they are so personal.

Oh my goodness, how tragic. I can't imagine the grief.

Oh, I finally found the Lionel Shriver column -- it was in The Telegraph on Oct 3 and pops up if you do an internet search for her name, the newspaper and that date.

There's also a nice column by Janice Turner on "the pain of clearing my parents’ house" from 19 September 2019 in The Times.

Janice Turner's account is incredibly loving and moving - it mirrored my own experience almost exactly, and I found it really helpful during the weeks of sorting and remembering and trying to discard.

OP, do what you need to do to get you through it. DSis and I ate a LOT of Lindor.

I have a box of Mum's diaries and don't know what to do with them either. They take up space. I have read them and find them fascinating fond memories starting the year I was born. I have nobody to pass them onto so guess I will have to shred them one day, just not yet. She has been gone 8 years but I still find comfort in reading her thoughts.

It’s awful. I have a ‘crying’ box in the loft full of stuff from my mum’s house.

The hardest thing was throwing away the little individual apple crumbles she’d made for herself in the freezer. That and her scones😢

Oh, @ArseInTheCoOpWindow , it's little personal things like that that just kill you. 😢

Oh some of these stories are heartbreaking 😢

@antelopevalley you must still be in shock.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow the individual crumbles 😢

My mum moved house this year to something more manageable, she's in her 80s and is generally in good health but she can get a bit confused and forgetful.

We did all the house moving stuff for her and I'm ashamed to say I did get frustrated as she couldn't make a decision about anything when I asked if an item was "to keep or to throw out". My lovely OH took me aside and said "just pack everything and don't ask her, it's too much emotionally for her to cope with". He was right. That's what we did, the plan being that she or us can work our way through boxes when there is less pressure.

Feeling motivated to sort my own home I set about it all guns blazing when I got back but I've stalled, it's so bloody hard!!!! So many sentimental things I want to hold onto. Solidarity to all of you on this thread.

@roselemon I am. I had to get rid of so much stuff without a minute to think about it. I prioritised photos though. They are irreplaceable.

I don't know how you did it, @antelopevalley ! Every decision is so hard but to have to work that quickly on top of the shock and grief of a double loss.... My heart goes out to you, it really does.

Yes, so hard. Can only say that I'm glad we went through my dad's stuff when he went into a care home so a lot sorted before he died.

He was a real hoarder. And a keen photographer. I still have huge bags full of slides that I need to think about what to do with.

@MarshaMelrose I had no choice. It was very hard.

thank you so much for all your messages. I knew you would understand. <3
Dad has most of the albums already, I have some and the others will eventually come to our house. but then there were the thousands of loose photos - many identical ones. they had to go.
@InvincibleInvisibility We are going to be replacing our ikea table with the parents rather lovely one!
@antelopevalley I'm so sorry that is an extra hard loss to cope with
@ArseInTheCoOpWindow it was the last Welsh cake... although when I turned up last time the freezer had broken and it is much easier to throw away gone off food....
I will look up the newspaper columns too

I had to do this with my Dad’s flat nearly 2 years ago and am just about to start on my
mum’s flat. I was quite ruthless, I took home about 2 car boots worth of stuff. If it gave me a feeling that I needed to keep it then I didn’t overthink it and took it home. I kept all my DF’s photos and albums and enjoy using a lot of things such as his sewing kit and massive stash of tin foil and cling film oh and also a mini Xmas tree that I put in the kitchen.
As he lived far away from me it made things easier in a way as I had to be practical and get on with things in as few trips as possible.
It is a slightly different situation with my DM as she’s going in a care home so I’ll take some bits for her room there.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow, it's definitely the small, insignificant (to everyone else) stuff that makes it so hard - it's more personal, somehow than the big ticket items. My Dad's beanie hat and lawn bowls made me cry buckets when we were clearing his things.

We're quite lucky in a way that we cleared my parent's house when DM moved in with us so she was able to make decisions about many of her belongings and much was disposed of while she was still here. However, she had some lovely furniture which we couldn't give away because it was 'brown' and no-one wanted it - we had to pretend a charity had taken it because she would have been heartbroken to know it ended up at the dump.

It's made us realise that we can't put our family through same, so we will be paring our lives down as we get older.

Beanie hat and lawn bowls ( gulp) 😢That’s heartbreaking.

@antelopevalley - I’m so sorry. That’s so cruel.

I asked my DC if they wanted anything. My Dd only wanted a little tin that my mother used to have toffees in by the side of her armchair.
I have it at present. It makes me cry just looking at it.
I still have Dad's gardening hat, though its too big for me. 😭

Although some people state the 'contents go to charity'....

I didnt find this at all with DF's house a few years ago. 5 bed house with 50 years of junk, damaged furniture, his clothes, my DGM's clothes, fur coats, beds that were truly disgusting. What charity takes contents 30-50 years old? I had the house cleared. It was floor to ceiling with old newspapers and in the end it wasnt possible to be a finger tip search. His post is redirected to me and I thought eventually the sender would find me.

It was truly horrible (siblings didnt help (as normal!).

Now going through Mum's house. Hers is just tat. Why do older people do this? My DF before he moved stated it didnt bother him and it was for someone else to sort out. We had the fire service, and various medical services come into the house but they said as he had capacity he could live how he wanted.

I did this for my DGM and it took a long time and was at times so hard. It was a huge house filled with stuff.

She had many duplicates of everything so I was able to give some of it away. We kept sentimental things and donated the clothing. This was before the give stuff away free Facebook sites so we hired a clearance company to move the furniture we didn't want.

We hired two skips and encouraged everyone to take whatever they wanted.

Sending love x

I’m just about to start this for my beloved dad’s house. Luckily? probate is probably going to take ages as it’s not a standard house, so I’m hoping I can do it gradually. There are barns and outbuildings to clear too. So much stuff.

We took a while to clear out my Mil’s house before we sold it as she was in a home. I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to have to do it all in a short time.

My sympathies to you OP and everyone else. But let this be a lesson to everyone. There's such a thing as death cleaning. You all have said how painful it is to go through a relatives' possessions, so don't put your own children through it.
I first heard about it on a radio 4 program. A Swedish woman explained how to sort all your life crap out so your children/relatives won't have to. Declutter, organise paperwork, write a will and explain how you would like the funeral to be, (cremation, burial what have you). Make clear list of all your accounts, investments and anything of value. Have a folder with marriage, birth, divorce certificates. Just make it so clearing your home after your death is full of lovely memories rather than a depressing and heavy chore.
My mother was very organised until her last couple years. But she took care of her things and believed in quality over quantity. Going through her things was relatively easy. A few surprises- a savings account we didn't realise she had, bundles of photos she had made for each of us (now all scanned and I will make photo books from them). Her paperwork had become a bit disorganised but we got through it, and it was very helpful when going through probate.
Do it now, keep on top of it, your children will thank you.

Monday - very wise words. But the vast majority of people dont do they? Is it laziness (definitely in my DF's case!) and then it gets far too much and others have to do it. Do people not care that 'someone' else has to search through your belongings? You end up not being able to have people to stay or indeed anyone to visit. My DF had to move to a care home because doing up the house was a massive task and wasnt possible. You couldnt even get carers in. No one would want to have stayed in the clutter and mess.

Still dont know why people would take stuff over 50 years old....

For those of you with family diaries PLEASE don't bin or burn them... they are such important social and historical documents. While you want to respect your loved one's privacy, please think about sending them to something like this
www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk/
where they will be treated with respect