Your children have left but their stuff hasn’t!

[Heatherweather77]

Perhaps this should be in housekeeping but thought others on here may be able to offer practical advice please?

My house is drowning in my adult DDs’ old clothes, books, possessions. My house desperately needs sorting out!

They say they will come and help declutter their stuff, but I have been waiting for two years. They will help with the odd item like a coat or a piece of luggage but as for the rest, I need several days with each of them, anf they are never available; there is always some excuse such as they are sitting exams, or travelling, or have something better to do!

What do you do in these circumstances? Is it ok to take the bull by the horns and go through every piece of clothing, box, bag, book of theirs and make the decisions to chuck them out or keep unilaterally? Or not?

Same! I just told them it's becoming too much to clean and dust their rooms so I'm going to do a big clear out, and if there is anything they especially want to keep let me know (or I will wait until they next visit if they want to do it with me).

My plan is to allocate 2 big plastic storage boxes each and I'll put anything I think is sentimental or they might want to keep in these. I can store these in the wardrobes.

Agreed. My dp did the same. It wasn't alll at once but they would bring 2 or 3 large boxes. All the books came in one load and other items were delivered in batches of similar things. To be fair there wasn't a huge amount, but I was pre warned they would be doing it. You could also collect up a bundle to take with them if they visit.

If they're students then I'd just make sure their stuff was all in their room rather than spread about the house. Coming home to a room taken over by stuff they never use or need might help focus them on getting rid of anything they don't want. And it will make it easier to pass it over when they get a permanent home after getting jobs.

If they’re students then I think it’s a bit mean to ask them to remove their belongings.

Don't chuck away their stuff - they are students and student accommodation isn't permanent and sometimes doesn't even cover the summer holiday.
It's important that they feel home is still home. I think you're jumping the gun a bit - if they were mid 20s with their own mortgages and their clothes were still cluttering up your house, then you'd have a point.
Don't make them feel pushed out, while they are still at uni.

On TV you often see adult children returning to their parents’ home and their bedroom is like a shrine to their young self. I used to wonder why people do that but now I understand.

It’s because they’ve never taken all their shite with them. So you can’t use the bedroom. You can redecorate it. It’s just become a big dusty storage container full of shit.

We actually downsized two years after DS moved out. He was very upset and accused us of “selling the family home from under him”. 😂

My parents turned up for lunch (they’d been invited!) with their whole car boot full to the brim of my stuff.

I’d probably ignored DMs polite pleas to come over and sort it out, so I was juggling cooking full on roast, a toddler and helping DF empty it at the same time.

I was Grrrrrr 🤬 at the time but I now fully understand what they did!

I boxed up all of one if my children’s stuff , drove it over and dropped it off. He was fuming, but I’d spent two years asking him to sort it out. I still have a lot of I e if my other children’s stuff in the loft but they live too far away to do the same!

Do what my parents did. Go through, keep what's important to you, drop the rest on them to sort out. Take it with you when you visit: "found these, thought you'd like the opportunity to sort through and keep what you want".

Them not having space in their homes (if that's the case) will be their problem. They'll have to prioritise.

DHs mum did similar except she told them to come get the boxes or she'd donate them without looking.

Why would they take it to their uni accommodation?

My parents moved to Australia when I left for university, you could try that?

Missed OP's update that her DC are at university which changes things. They could still have a big sort out though.

I was about 28 when DM said ‘if you don’t want it your house I don’t want it in mine. there’s a skip here for a month, come and get your stuff or it will go in it’. She still has a surprising amount of stuff I never wanted though!

If they're students they haven't moved out - and given the cost of renting, they'll probably be back when their studies have finished. I moved back in with my parents for a year, and that was 25 years ago!

My parents bought a box of stuff over every time they visited once we'd bought our own place. There wasn't much point when we were renting, because they own a good size three bed house with a fully boarded loft, and we were living in shoeboxes with no storage saving a deposit. I guess if you live in a tiny flat you have a point, but otherwise it's a bit weird. It's their house too.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to clear it out/take it when they are still students in student accommodation that's a bit of a drip feed. They probably still consider your house 'home' and presumably return in holidays. I think the point at which you can reasonably expect them to take it is when they have a proper permanent home of their own either an unfurnished rental or somewhere they've bought.

Dd1 is at uni. Her room at home is full of stuff that won't fit in her uni accommodation. Her brother is supposed to be swapping rooms with her as he has always had the box room. When she comes back DH is in at her to sort out stuff but she has ADHD so it's never going to happen. We've started sorting stuff into different categories. Definitely rubbish; definitely keep - either because it's actually useful or sentimental to either her of me; ask her. I've been sending her photos of stuff asking if she wants it, she mostly says no. Then there's some piles earmarked to make her go through thenext time she's home.

My brother is 45 this year and my parents' house is still full of his stuff because he's moved a lot, lived in small flats with no space and lived with them for a while after his divorce.

I don't think there's much of my stuff there, though I'm hoping there's some box somewhere in the loft with my school exam certificates in because I don't have them (luckily never been asked for them and am self employed)

Same here. I am going to make them help me go through the Cupboard of Doom at some point this summer when we can put it all out on the grass. There’s camping stuff and god knows what else.

I just can’t do it by myself (disabled) and need the space.

While was studying and then living in rented accommodation after uni (which involved moving every year for a few years), my parents kindly stored my abandoned stuff. But they did clear out old books, clothes and things, and boxed up other stuff and put it in the loft. They didn’t tell me what they were throwing away 😛

As soon as I bought a house, they brought a box with them every time they visited. Eventually they downsized/moved, so it was good that they had already managed to clear most of the clutter.

When I first detected reluctance around my son dealing with the contents of his childhood bedroom I sent him something like this message…

Hey kiddo, do you want your shite or shall I take it to the chazza?

He didn’t have a vehicle so I offered to take it.

He confirmed that he didn’t want any of it so he bagged it up and shifted it.

Message and say, ‘I’m clearing out the loft and taking everything to the recycling centre. If there’s anything you want let me know so I can put it aside, or come by and take a look before Sunday.

Thanks for lots more replies! I’m
grateful for the advice.

I should clarify for those who think I am drip feeding or unfair to ask my DDs to clear their stuff while still at university:

~they are both doing courses which are seven or years long at least and they will still moving location a lot after that

~of course they are both welcome to have rooms here as long as they want or need, containing reasonable amounts of stuff, but not an entire floor of our house piled high of junk that incidentally they keep adding to every time they come home; full of bags of clothes they haven’t worn in years, books they are not reading, school materials going back to primary, equipment for sports they gave up years ago, much loved toys, camping equipment etc. They have taken over a walk in wardrobe and another spare room on that floor too which I would like to use as a sewing room.

Both of them love fashion and the amount of clothes they have is insane!

Before anyone says, I did keep on top of it all prior to the pandemic and we had joint biannual chuck out sessions but it all went to pot during Covid when they moved back in and out several times.

Them still being at uni is a fairly massive dripfeed from OP.

Mine bounced back and forward both during and after uni, and between flatshares. I was fortunate in having the space to store their stuff until they settled down and had full-time work. At that point they knew what they wanted for adult life.

For the one who lived a greater distance, I took photos and he sent back a message of what to keep and what to dispose of. He took the keeps away when he visited.

A few weeks ago, when I thought I was done with all that except for one designated cupboard, a different DS persuaded DH to store several large boxes of stuff in our garage and attic. I can’t carry anything heavy, and not great with stairs, so I can’t move it to the designated cupboard. I could just spit!

I considered putting this on the teenagers board or in the house-keeping topic but my dc are well in to their twenties.

And the drip feed doesn’t change the fundamental question of how you get them to clear up their stuff!

As explained previously, they are free to hang on to a reasonable amount of things which can be stored in their rooms. This is still their home. That’s not the problem!

They each have a fairly big wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk, bookcase and under bed storage. All are full and stuff has spilled out across their floors and in to other rooms on the same flour.

It is virtually impossible to walk across their floors to open the windows occasionally because their boxes of possessions and bin bags of clothes take up so much room, and they have taken over other rooms on their floor too.

And they are away for substantially longer than three years and each time they come back, they dump more stuff on top of the old!

Edited: I should explain that I want to start the process of down-sizing before we retire in about five years time.

The problem is the advice you're getting is as if they have permanently moved out. So those solutions are not viable when they are staying at uni and "home" is still your house.

Both DHs and my parents were absolutely ruthless with our stuff. But only once we'd made a permanent move. Otherwise our stuff was in our rooms because it was still our room.

They stopped being our rooms once we actually moved out, with jobs and each other. At that point it was take your stuff or lose it.

With kids who's permanent residence is still with you, regardless of their age, the advice will be different. Tidy it up, organise it the best you can, so it fits in their space and isn't in yours. But til they have somewhere else to put it, sorting, chucking, it leaving the house, whatever you want won't happen.

They sound like they are taking the piss a bit though. Having their own room is fine, spreading into another room and wardrobe is too much.

seems very reasonable for them to keep stuff in their room and what doesn’t fit needs to go.