Disturbing finds in house clearance

[Lockedboxed]

Clearing a hoarder’s house is not fun at all but the most disturbing find was locked boxes of all manner of books and sex toys. You really would never have thought it. Never felt unsafe with the owner (until their diagnosis of dementia, but meds keep them calm now).

I can’t unsee it (and I’m trying to be open minded about consenting adults). I think it might help if anyone has solidarity from their own upsetting finds, to make me feel less alone. Please tell me this isn’t the only time this has happened.

(Regular poster but name changed for this as combined my posts would be outing).

Right?

I honestly thought it was quite cute in a weird way.

👏👏👏

We found a stash or vintage porn vhs tapes stashed in the beams above the garage when we bought our house a few years ago. The house was being sold by the children of an old gentleman who had died. It was not an easy purchase and nearly fell through at the last minute. When we moved in we discovered they hadn't been honest about a number of things, either. We were tempted to ask if the family wanted back the "belongings" we'd found but decided just to get rid of them, we couldn't bring ourselves to do that to them despite everything.

My dps ex girlfriends (they are still friends) father died and she had to clear out his house (his girlfriend had died 6 months earlier)

She found sex toys,magazines,letters to each other using their 'sexy' nicknames to each other and a LOT of photos

She was telling us over a drink in the pub-we had a good laugh over it

I was just impressed that a 92 year old bloke could still manage!

She got rid of the lot-she did say that she didn't think he still had it in him but he obviously did

Good for him!Still at it at his age-i hope I make it,let alone still at it!

I've told my ds that if I go last,just to get rid of the lot-I think my other children would have an attack of the vapers (he's happy enough to do it)

I'm 60 and chuckling away at this. Can't wait to see my sons face when we've shuffled off this mortal coil and he clears out under our bed.
As I'm definitely going to come back to watch him. I can imagine his face already 🤣🤣

I had a tenant move out and she left loads of crap behind.

She had a boyfriend called Tim who she dumped and went out with Tom except that at some point she must have made a cast of Tim's cock as I was expected to dispose of the kit with the casting material and the compound used to make the dildo from same as well as the finished article!

I know it was Tim's cock as someone had written his name in the compound before it had fully set.

Having seen what I did that day, I think she was a fool to have dumped Tim but maybe she had a dozen of these things and poor old Tim didn't make the cut?

I doubled bagged that and a lot more besides. I didn't want that lot spilling out all over the road on bin day.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. When they were first brought out absolutely everyone had one! People were bought them by friends as joke Christmas presents as well as people buying them for other reasons!

Well I'm not planning on trying it and don't have the right appendage anyways, but thanks for the unnecessary warning I guess? 🤣

😂😂

Since the op has mentioned there may be undeveloped photographs, is it not safe to assume it may be how the sex toys have been put to use that has been unsettling? If the person they are helping to clear the house for is still alive and the op has an ongoing relationship then there are a number of things that could make a woman feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

As an aside, there appear to be a number of Mumsnetters who need a trip to Specsavers (or are maybe just obsessed by cleaning) 😀

A really sad message my MIL had written herself. It was inside a book she’d passed onto my son. Basically saying how overweight she was and how she hated herself and how she wanted to lose weight by a certain date. It was the kind of thing you might think in your head when you are feeling cross with your lack of willpower on a diet but it was so sad to see written down 😔

I know right?

If dh and I were to kick the bucket tomorrow I'm afraid the dcs would have a similar discovery upon clearing the house!

I can relate to your feelings of disgust and shock OP. I'm scared of posting this just in case I'm outed and I've changed username. But I need to tell someone who doesn't know me/my parents to get a grip of my feelings.

@Summerhillsquare and @Rainallnight agree with you too.

a few years ago, my parents both in their 80s had to start sleeping separately due to severe medical issues for DM. A year ago, DF went out for the day so I stayed to look after DM and whilst at their home, the carers asked for me to find her dressing gown as they couldn't find it. I eventually found it; it had been used by DF to cover over his porn stash. At first glance I didn't think much of it but then picked up one of the DVD's and found that it was Trans porn. Men that had boobs and their full tackle. I was a little stunned tbf!

Since then, DF had to go to hospital and I had to pack a bag for him, in a rush whilst paramedics were waiting to take him in. I was flinging open wardrobe doors, pulling out drawers, rummaging in cupboards in his bedroom to locate clothing and underwear items to pack. I came across quite a few things that showed that my DF dressed up as a woman, including fake nails, fake eyelashes, makeup, shaved legs, 4 inch fuck me shoes, wigs plus stacks of Trans-porn. All in full view if one opened a cupboard or pulled open a drawer. All this whilst panicking to get him into the ambulance as he was seriously ill. I couldn't look him in the eyes. I've recently seen remnants of nail polish on his nails and mascara around his eyes. so he dresses up as a woman and watches Trans women porn.

Every time I hug him hello or goodbye, I feel very sick. My DM is the most prudish woman you could ever come across. DF is the kind of man who sneers at Trans people, doesn't 'understand' gay people and people would believe him to be a real 'man's man' IYKWIM.

So yeah, try telling me not to be prudish on that find!!

😢

I get why OP might feel 'unsafe' in these circumstances. My father died this year, and while the revelations we as his surviving family (all adult children, all nc) have had to deal with have not been as sensational as OP's - it's still a very disconcerting time. We haven't cleared the house yet but I expect that to be grim. On top of this OP has had to deal with feelings of embarrassment and I dare say shame and repulsion around the dead person as well. That would mess with most people's heads.

But as OP says about Swedish Death Cleaning - in the end, all you can do is shrug and think well one day someone's gonna have to do this for me. How do I want them to feel?

You need to give your head a wobble 😊

This elderly person with dementia wasn't elderly in the past or had dementia. He's a hoarder which means he wouldn't dispose of private stuff when age caught up with him like he didn't clear out the rest of his possessions because of his mental health problems.

Be kind. It may be shocking for you to find all these sex toys but there is nothing disturbing in them.

My (very old) great aunt and elderly cousin died within months of each other. When clearing their house, my mother found an Edwardian photo of a very lovely young lady, really beautiful, huge hat, piled up blonde hair, looked sort of familiar. We then remembered that my grandmother (aunts sister) had talked about a photo she'd had taken of her when she was 16, which had mysteriously disappeared decades before..

Showed it to Nan who was nearly 90 and very frail physically but memory wise fine. The explosion was nuclear. "Oh (x) the jealous cat, that's where it went. I knew she'd be behind it!" The photo was sepia but she was able to describe the colour of her suit (navy) and the flowers on the hat (pale blue) the rather grand photography studio where it was taken, even the weather on that day in 1911. (Nan would have been a selfie queen if born 100 years later)

It is a much treasured thing now.

I hope you’re doing as OK as you can be, OP. I found clearing out my dad’s house a deeply emotional experience. Having to decide what to do with all of his things took a lot of energy. He was also a hoarder, a collector of treasures and junk. But all of it meant something to him at the point he brought it into the house. I also found similar items to you. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I did feel unsettled.

Please try to do something nice for yourself today. Even if it’s just five minutes to drink tea and get fresh air.

My Mum had plenty of warning she was going to die so spent ages having a clear out, sorting photos into albums for various family members etc, it was really helpful.

However she must have forgotten about one box in the attic, which my poor unsuspecting brother opened to find a bunch of sex toys, porn and a bunch of very explicit Polaroids of my mother.

Even that paled in comparison to the gun we found in my great grandma's cellar though!

At the recycling centre after my father died, dropping off all sorts, I flipped through a coffee table type lingerie book he had hidden at the back of his wardrobe. Amongst annotations of all sorts the best one had added cocks and hair on the back of the thighs to a couple of real women in suspenders who were arm in arm, walking away from the camera. It had been very carefully done. As not much c would have shown in reverse view.

this was a man who was regularly outraged by gays on tv, it’s not natural, I am disgusted etc. ha ha I always thought it was suspicious the way he wanted to bring a lot of conversations round to Julian Clary but couldn’t think of his name apparently. I always pretended I didn’t know who he meant “Do you mean Michael Aspel?”

He was a bully, we disliked each other intensely so I was not upset. I made sure to show DH who was helping with probably our 40th trip over the years, before the book went into the dumpster.

I used to work in a caravan park in my late teens/twenties and used to clear out the mobile and clean them up for resale. The amount of people who would leave sex toys, pornography (dvds and magazines, it was a while ago) behind were legion. Personally if I was selling my caravan and knew someone was coming to clear it, the first thing I would remove was personal stuff and sex toys but they were frequently left behind even when most of the other effects had been taken.
Just grab marygolds, black bag and dump them.
Some people (pervy old men), I got the impression left such items as shock value or some kind of kink. But I always thought them as rather pathetic than dangerous.

I've just read the tatler article about her. Disgusting that she had to go through that publicly and be labelled "immoral" and have her sex life dragged through the press. Thank god we have no fault divorces nowadays.

😂😂😂I think she said 'clearing them'.

One of my relatives found a sex doll under the bed of their elderly relative when they died. The relative had been living in a care home for a year or so before they died, I wondered whether they ever considered that this would be found after their death during the house clearance by someone in their family? Or whether they left it on purpose to freak the relative out. All v strange anyway!