Six truths on decluttering after 60

[FourTeeFive]

LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE I'M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH IT YET.

That's part of my problem. I have lots of fun stuff and not enough time to play with it all. I really need to get serious about being realistic and downsizing.

 

[Unka-Boo]

Been cleaning/reorganizing my garage last few weekends...I found "car chemicals" ( grease, oil, carb cleaner, ect.) older than my kids...one is in college...

 

[Stomper]

Im going through this with my parents this very minute... both in their late 70's. We finally got mom (brain damage from strokes) in memory care a couple months ago with dad fighting against us tooth and nail... we literally just got dad (who has advancing dementia and is diabetic) moved into an assisted living 1 bedroom apartment facility that's across the street from where mom is at.... BOTH of them are stubborn AF!

We're trying to get the house they've been renting for the last couple years cleaned out... piles upon piles of STUFF, ranging from 20-30 DVD/VCR players, 14-20 computer mother boards, must have 12 sets of old cordless phone sets from years gone by... tax documents going back well into the 80's, piles upon piles of old canned food, etc, etc, etc....

My mother was a hoarder, and my hedonist (F 'em and feed 'em beans) dad has run their finances into the ground and there's a 10' deep smoking crater left... so we have to sort through their stuff for "estate sale", trash pile, and donation piles.... it's overwhelming.

 

[Unka-Boo]

Im going through this with my parents this very minute... both in their late 70's. We finally got mom (brain damage from strokes) in memory care a couple months ago with dad fighting against us tooth and nail... we literally just got dad (who has advancing dementia and is diabetic) moved into an assisted living 1 bedroom apartment facility that's across the street from where mom is at.... BOTH of them are stubborn AF!

We're trying to get the house they've been renting for the last couple years cleaned out... piles upon piles of STUFF, ranging from 20-30 DVD/VCR players, 14-20 computer mother boards, must have 12 sets of old cordless phone sets from years gone by... tax documents going back well into the 80's, piles upon piles of old canned food, etc, etc, etc....

My mother was a hoarder, and my hedonist (F 'em and feed 'em beans) dad has run their finances into the ground and there's a 10' deep smoking crater left... so we have to sort through their stuff for "estate sale", trash pile, and donation piles.... it's overwhelming.

I feel ya....it sucks big time. How people can be so blind to their situation and fight tooth and nail not to change it....in the end all we ( brother and I ) want is whats best for them, which isnt sitting around waiting to die.

 

[Stomper]

I feel ya....it sucks big time. How people can be so blind to their situation and fight tooth and nail not to change it....in the end all we ( brother and I ) want is whats best for them, which isnt sitting around waiting to die.

I swear to the Tom Cruise that I won't put my kids through this when it's my turn to wind down!

 

[Unka-Boo]

I swear to the Tom Cruise that I won't put my kids through this when it's my turn to wind down!

Ditto....
My wife's grandma passed last summer, 40 years in the house....each room was stuff from whetever came from previous relatives esstate...overwhelming is an understatement.

 

[Catbox]

Since I am only 49, I can keep on collecting random crap for another 11 years.

My Ma passed 22 years ago and in that time my Dad found a couple of gold diggers that took everything not bolted down away from him.
Then we got him into memory care for the last couple of years of his life.
He had a simple truckload of items we had to take to the donation center.

My kids on the other hand.
They will have stuff to deal with.

 

[dangerranger60]

Im going through this with my parents this very minute... both in their late 70's. We finally got mom (brain damage from strokes) in memory care a couple months ago with dad fighting against us tooth and nail... we literally just got dad (who has advancing dementia and is diabetic) moved into an assisted living 1 bedroom apartment facility that's across the street from where mom is at.... BOTH of them are stubborn AF!

We're trying to get the house they've been renting for the last couple years cleaned out... piles upon piles of STUFF, ranging from 20-30 DVD/VCR players, 14-20 computer mother boards, must have 12 sets of old cordless phone sets from years gone by... tax documents going back well into the 80's, piles upon piles of old canned food, etc, etc, etc....

My mother was a hoarder, and my hedonist (F 'em and feed 'em beans) dad has run their finances into the ground and there's a 10' deep smoking crater left... so we have to sort through their stuff for "estate sale", trash pile, and donation piles.... it's overwhelming.

I just went through this with my parents. They were depression era, and never threw anything away that might be reused somewhere else. They did not trust banks, so among the 30 year old magazines I would find cash hidden in the pages!
It took me a year to sort through an 800 sq ft house! every page of every magazine, book, old Callander, and newspaper had to be searched before it could be dumped.
Mom collected cookie tins and had thousands of them. everyone of them were filled with something. out of them I filled a 5 gallon bucket of used buttons! but you could not just dump them, because mixed in I would find silver. Silver coins, silver spoons, silver thimbles, silver chains and jewelry.
My dad was a hobby gem cutter. so I found rings and pins stashed in odd places. the old house had ceiling light fixtures that he had hidden ring blanks in.
They had boxes of reel to reel tapes but no tape player. they had boxes of 8 tracks but no player!
I promised my kids I would dump my own stuff. DR

 

[Bobbygun]

I think I've mentioned this in another thread a while back, but I'm the proud owner of an 8mm film projector, a slide projector, and numerous slides and films from both my family and my wife's. I put up the screen and put on a slideshow from my family's slides for my wife and son. As we moved through the slides, it dawned on me how many of the folks in them were not recognized by me. I could only imagine how bored my wife and son must have been. A friend loaned me a converter so I could convert the 8mm films to computer files. After a few hours I had about 15 minutes' worth of video. I played it... and realized nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would ever bother to watch it. So, I returned the converter and now I'm wondering which of my deceased sister's boys I might be able to foist this stuff off on.

Just to give an idea of how bad I am, I keep my guns in a gun safe. But I still have my dad's old gun cabinet and my grandad's old gun cabinet, both built by my grandad. I also have my (smaller) gun cabinet from when I was a kid. Dad's now holds air rifles, blackpowder guns and some arrows/archery equipment. Grandpa's holds board games (many/most of which haven't been played in over a decade). Mine has been converted into a music CD cabinet.

My wife and I have been living in our 2000+ sq.ft. house with a 900 sq.ft. shop since 1992. My son will have his work cut out for him. At times I don't think he's as sentimental about old things as me (I'm really bad). But when we were packing up due to the forest fires and in an evacuation level a few years back, he pulled our European elk mounts off the wall and put them in the back of the pickup first thing.

 

[arakboss]

Since I am only 49, I can keep on collecting random crap for another 11 years.

My Ma passed 22 years ago and in that time my Dad found a couple of gold diggers that took everything not bolted down away from him.
Then we got him into memory care for the last couple of years of his life.
He had a simple truckload of items we had to take to the donation center.

My kids on the other hand.
They will have stuff to deal with.

My new plan is to find a couple of gold diggers towards the end of my life. Problem solved.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Everyone should declutter every 5ish years.
Nobody should leave their offspring with a mess to clean up. Why wait?

How about every 4 years? lool

 

[CamoDeafie]

My brother is dealing with my elderly mother's attachment to pretty much everything in her house. We are making some progress but not much.

 

[Catbox]

My new plan is to find a couple of gold diggers towards the end of my life. Problem solved.

One of the best things to happen was when the vehicle he bought the second gold digger got repossessed after we put him in assisted living.
With all their crap inside of it.
Since the loan was taken out in my dads name, the letter came to my brother who had power of attorney over pops.

He called me and we laughed about it and never told the digger what happened to it.

 

[Capn Jack]

I'm 85 years old and sometimes I look around in my garage and wish I had a dumpster in the drive way, but as soon as I throw something away..

I also need to go through the freezers and feed the gulls everything purchased prier to 2023.

 

[ActBlueDonor]

How about every 4 years? lool

We have enough decluttering every 2, 4 and 6 years to worry about.

 

[Brane Frees]

I guess I need to sell some more of my guns and knives here. At least I know they'll be appreciated.

 

[flydipper]

I will speak to firearms. I collect High Standards, I'm in my late 50's. I was until last year the youngest member of the High Standard Collectors association. Then my son joined he is 18. Then a friends grandson joined and he is 15 and now the youngest! Only 2 younger than me. So the last 2 years or so I have witnessed a sell off of collections from what I call the first generation of High Standard collectors. The majority are estate sales running through auction companies. On average I would estimate a person to receive 50% of the current value of a collection at best. Smaller collections will pay a sellers premium. Larger likely not if negotiated correctly! The worst of the scenarios in my opinion is when the collection is left to a spouse/significant other to deal with. I know of 4 collections being liquidated at this moment in that situation! It's horrible on every level. 2 of which are being proctored by well meaning friends. It's an absolute disaster. Not to mention trying to legally navigate the current laws in Washington state if that is where you are unfortunately a resident. The friends have no idea what a collection is worth and even if they tried or had a remote understanding of the value of the collection it will take hours of research per gun to get an idea of what the value of (say for example) a standalone gun is worth vs a serialized boxed gun w/factory paperwork is worth. (Huge difference in the High Standard world on hard to find guns) Then dealing with the emotional aspect of it and the person left behind dealing with it. Afraid to make a wrong decision. Not to mention pieces that disappear along the way! I'm sure we all have been witness to what happens when the buzzards come out when someone dies. Obviously there will be circumstances where someone will die very unexpectedly and early in life and that will just be what it is. But as we get older do yourself and your family a huge favor and whittle down your collection if you don't have an obvious heir. I have been training my son in the fine art of High Standard not to mention he is a 2 division GM USPSA steel challenge shooter himself so at this point I have little worry about my collection. I just got off the phone with an 87 year old collector earlier today and he was asking me how to dispose of his 275 HS collection. He was planning on his heirs auctioning it off and has things all set up with an auction company as no one in the family has the inclination for it. But after watching another guys 300 gun collection auctioned off over 2024 and what I would term a unmitigated disaster on the amount received he is seriously rethinking that notion. Sell off the least desirable/used one's first and slowly work your way up. The least desirable are the ones you will lose the most money on. Likely and I don't mean any offense but because that is what a person owns the most of. I have my fair share! I bought a significant number of 500/800 High Standards on those auctions for 170/180 dollars. Just food for thought!

 

[Ruger Rich]

That's part of my problem. I have lots of fun stuff and not enough time to play with it all. I really need to get serious about being realistic and downsizing.

A worthwhile watch, thanks. And sadly I understand this, I think, better than those
family and friends around me. At 84 I'm so f'ing fortunate that my mental facilities
are still with me. My oldest daughter checks this out on her visits, and she would
let me know. I so remember watching my parents slip away and I now finally
understand, somewhat perhaps, the feelings they must have experienced. I sure
didn't at that time. My physical decline and atrophy occupy a large portion of my
thoughts daily. I'm in combat with a couple of potential life ending issues and I
have no way of predicting the future. To those of you taking the time to read this,
thank you. And I offer this suggestion, cut the old folks a little extra slack.

 

[Hammy]

Why? Purpose is the Key.

 

[Dungannon]

What a great thread.

My parents, and the wife's, were all depression era kids. While they were still living we joked about comments like "you never know when you'll need a good cardboard box" or "do you know all the things that can be done with an empty milk jug?"

There was a depressing amount of junk that went to the dump, and I burned for days their lifetime collection of bank statements, cancelled checks, social security and medical bills, etc. Cash was everywhere: in books, in the freezer, in old sweater pockets, in Christmas cards from years past. They couldn't possibly have remembered all the places they stashed stuff "just in case." The cars went to the college-bound nephews and nieces. Furniture and books went to Goodwill. Tools went to the kids or friends, as it was duplicative of what we already had.

Fortunately there was no squabbling or family drama involved. We've lived in our home for nearly 51 years, but my wife has had a yearly garage sale for at least the last 40 years because we don't like clutter. All the same, letting go of things is easier than letting go of family and friends.