Trying to de clutter after helping clear a relatives house...help!

[Raven08]

As the title, fhs relatives house has to be sold and its just...horrendous.
Decades of stuff
It's made me really think about leaving such a stressful mess for my dc 😞
Sadly, dh would keep everything, no matter how tatty or broken and I am the opposite - of it no longer looks noce or serves a purpose, it goes.
I try to donate most items other than broken things.
I've given away about 300 books in the past year (some I've read once and had for 30 years!)
I'm going through clothes and donating to a local pre loved charity shop.
I'm finding it really hard and am fighting a very strong urge to just get rid of everything and start again!
Any tips for how to remain married but have a relaxing, clutter free home?

My dh is the same, drives me absolutely bonkers I can’t function in a messy home. I do declutter sprees once every 6 months, if it’s not been used in 6 months we don’t need it and I will get rid by either donating or selling. If DH is desperate to keep something then fine, but I make a point we only have so much room and can’t keep everything it helps!

It’s really tough isn’t it? My friend has just had to clear out her dads flat after he died and found boxes of the most random stuff. My mum has a big 4 bedroom house stuffed to the gills and has talked about clearing it but my brother told her not to worry about it. 🤷‍♀️. We were discussing Swedish death cleaning ( which is what you’re talking about ) and I think she would feel a bit lighter in herself with less stuff but she’s a shopaholic so I guess that’s never going to happen. I would like to do the same in our house but have the same issue with DH. Maybe sketch out a plan and try not to expect miracles as far as timings go.

My DH is a bit like yours, though our latest house move brought him more around to my way of thinking - 3 large boxes of random cables and wires anyone?

Once I convinced him that if we ever needed that charging cable that we haven’t used in 11 years, we could buy one off Amazon and have it delivered the next day for £3 he reluctantly agreed to start letting some of this stuff go. We had a box full of old iPhones, again, I convinced him that if he ever found himself desperate for an iPhone 4 in the future, he could buy one on eBay for £10.

We only emptied the moving boxes of things we actually use, need or like, I gave loads of stuff away on local Facebook groups, I refused to keep hold of stuff to sell it because we never will, and the rest went in the attic and we are working our way through it.

I dread the day I have to clear my parents place out and I’m determined we won’t leave the same for our DS to have to deal with.

I agree that I would like to leave our house easy to sort through for our kids - my DH doesn’t think it’s a big deal - but I read the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning and found it a very quick and helpful read, in saying that we haven’t started clearing stuff yet but I have plans to chip away at the excess little by little!

Focus in your own stuff.
Then do shared items.

Was DH involved in the clear out of the relatives house and do you have children who will be left to do the same for you?

We cleared a relatives house and my DH brought a load of stuff home to sort out. We still have all of it and it drives me nuts, once in a while I ask and he says he's getting it organised, he's not! If I push he says don't you want me to do xyz, something urgent, which I do but there has been plenty of time to sort this junk very important stuff. At this point I would cheerfully buy it off him for what he thinks it's worth and then take it all to the tip!

We had to clear MIL house, she was born there, so generations of stuff to clear. There was damp and mould, just such a waste.

I am stealth clearing our house. A bag a week. I am also of the belief that if we need a cable, we can get it delivered (fully functional and clean) the next day.

No one needs to keep 250 (didn't count them, but God it seemed a lot) vhs tapes of Red Dwarf recorded off a very low quality TV signal! I bought a blu ray set for him and cleared a bookcase... and a boxed vhs recorder from the loft, and a broken one from the garage. And a number of related cables.

I find it easier to clear if I know where it is going rather than having half filled bags. For example, ring your local animal sanctuary and find out what they are taking (usually bed linen/towels/tea towels etc) and then have a big sort of all the bed stuff. Not just your towels but all the guest ones/spare ones etc- you’ll be surprised how much you have! Then drop it off same day or next day.

It will also stop your husband going through the bags and ‘rescuing’ items if it is out the house straight away. Get on Facebook and see if you have a local share and recycle group, we give away loads on there even if you think no one would want it. Old carpets and slabs for allotments, the local school takes random bits for crafting, old kitchen stuff for mud kitchens.

My DH is also the same. We are about two thirds through a proper Swedish death clean.

It was the loft, it was heaving. I hate going in there so didn’t realise just how much shit was in there. Well so far we have sold or got rid of 9 huge plastic crates of books and also various items. But it’s DH paperwork that’s the issue the stupid old fart has so much, bank statements from the 1980’s, ooh look a map of an attraction he went to in 1992. He has thrown out 11 crates of paperwork so far. It’s been making him miserable. Issue is there is some stuff to keep such as a random photo, his Grandfathers Corporals stripes from WW2. So you do need to look through.

We did find our original joint accounts book from 1997. That was an eye opener. His Mothers house is hideous, she has crap like her Christmas card list from 1974 and her Mother’s clothes who died when DH was 10, he is now 58.

@CanaryLibra I raise your 3 to 5 boxes of cables, we now have one.

Oh God the cables. I think the answer is to label them when they come in the house so you have half a clue as to how crucial they are.

Just read ‘Goodbye, Things’ by Fumio Sasaki and you’ll be grand.

After clearing my Dad's flat after he died, and me stupidly trying to fit most of his stuff into our house DH and I had a serious conversation about not inflicting this onto our DC when the time comes. We've since emptied our loft, gone through the horror of the cupboard under the stairs, and made a big effort to clear the garage/rafters out there. We intend to downsize from the family home at some point, and accept that we will need to be fairly brutal in terms of letting things go then. I've also given away lots of Dad's things and just kept the few things that have sentimental value to me. That was tough.

I suspect I have enough books on decluttering.

:(

Inspired by the nightmare house my DH is clearing out I have sold three boxes of books to 'sell your books'. If I had the energy I would have videoed myself filling and sealing the box as twice they've said a book hasn't been in there. But the nearest charity shop doesn't want books at the moment.

I was relatively lucky with my late parents and their approach to belongings. My mum had always been someone who threw things out, even to the extent that if it was on a dressing table but not in a drawer it was in danger of being binned. My Dad was the king of organised paperwork, something I was very grateful for after he'd passed away.

Nevertheless, there were categories of stuff that could have been got rid of but were not. Every old kettle, toaster, tv and sound system were in one of their sheds. There were way too many CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes. Also, lots of crockery.

Part of the emotional processing of tge possessions of loved ones involves that period in time when many of us can't part with memorabilia. My mother's ruthless decluttering style made any item from childhood that remained all the more precious in general and to start with there was a box or three of stuff I just set aside. It became one box before gradual incorporation into my own belongings.

What the process has made me do in relation to clutter is organise my own things and document them as part of the process, not put old kettles etc. in the shed, revisit organised stuff to weed out and pair back. Unlike my mum, I don't want to obliterate every memorable childhood possession but it's a good idea to keep a capsule amount DC can easily discard if they don't feel the same. Like my dad, I aim to label things and be organised and - on a good day - I can find myself going much more like my mum and getting rid of books with more vigour than dad did.

Ive had this a few times. Books not in tge box, they were. I think it must be the isn't codes mot scanning properly. Scuse typos app won't edit.

Thanks everyone!
I don't feel so bad now 😀
Dh has two - yes, two - sheds. One is being extended this summer!
He has the conservatory, the study amd the loft.
There are things we really need to throw away (cables! Empty boxes for things we no longer own! Kettles, toasters...why, just why!?)
I'm going to have a chat with him later.
This weekend is go time 😀😬

I am slowly trying to get my dad to get let of things in his house. But it is hard going.

But he is coming around to my way of thinking but it is still slow. Every summer i get a skip and fill it to the brim but there is still so much

Oh, God. I’m dreading this. I tell my DM to declutter her house all of the time, but she doesn’t. Growing up, the spare room collected junk and DM still hasn’t made an effort to get rid of anything. It’s so bad, you can’t walk through the room.

Since I moved out over seven years ago, my childhood bedroom is the same.

I doubt DM will ever sort the mess out, so it’ll be all down to me. In my own home, however, I’m ruthless with the decluttering.

You have my sympathies, OP. I’d start with the items, which you obviously don’t want/need and go from there.

Your post really struck a chord with me. My mum is a hoarder, has her late parents house stuff and her late brothers plus other things that were too good to throw away given to her by various people. I would love to do what you mentioned, pay her X amount for all her stuff that she thinks is worth something and tip it all.
I am trying to be mindful of not leaving the same for my kids, especially as two are disabled and it would be unfair for them to have to deal with any of that

I'm starting to feel resentful tbh
So much stuff

The boxes should be easy if you have access to cardboard recycling 👍🏼 A quick win like that can be good starting point.

Re sheds, we are lucky we don't have room for two. It does become tempting to just see it as storage space. My parents had two with not much in the way of treasure in them. Mostly dead electricals that went to the electrical recycling centre.