Random stuff to report in the aftermath of my MIL’s death at the start of Sept:
- her house is getting sold and closing date is definitely on 11/10. House is in my & DH’s names. Glad to have that mortgage payment off of our backs.
- DH finally decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle to sell Corningware and Royal Copenhagen plates, so the estate sale company is going to handle all that instead. Thank goodness.
- probate is going ok so far.
- it’s a good thing that DH is handling probate instead of his sister because she can’t make a decision on anything to save her life. Even on simple stuff like what do you want for dinner.
- movers are arriving at my house today w/MIL’s furniture that DH & SIL are keeping.
- SIL still hasn’t decided or figured out how she wants to get her portion of the furniture shipped/delivered/transported from our house in AZ to her place in southern CA. Meanwhile, it’ll all get to live at my house, which apparently is going to become a free storage unit for her…until DH gets sick of that, which will be at the end of December. In fact, he’s already told her that she has until end of Dec to get her stuff or it becomes ours to do with as we please.
During this whole process, SIL has been clueless and a little demanding and DH & I are tired of it. For example:
4 wk ago, we were all at MIL’s house sorting through more stuff. At the end of the day, we were all headed back to my & DH’s house to spend the night and as we headed out, I noticed that SIL had gone through MIL’s vanity drawers and dumped all of the remaining contents on top of MIL’s bed. Not in an organized way. Tons and tons of costume jewelry and clutter. And random piles of books left on the floor. And more piles of costume jewelry on the floor, too.
so annoying.
On the bed also was this small cardboard tray with some old-looking South Pacific style of treasures. I asked SIL if she wanted that, she said, “No, I’ve taken everything I want.” The following week, I asked her again about the tray of South Pacific stuff (some shell necklaces & bracelets, tropical wood carved forks & spatulas & spoons, and 3 small coconut pouches…1 even contains military insignia of a WW2 Japanese uniform). Since she was so big on confiscating all of MIL’s father’s WW2 merchant marines stuff, his service medals and all that, I wanted to be sure that she didn’t want this stuff, too.
Again, she said no. She asked me about some nesting boxes that apparently belonged to MIL’s father, had I seen them. Nope. I’ve looked all throughout that house and I’ve never seen wooden nesting boxes anywhere at MIL’s house. Looked through every single box, bin, nook, and cranny. Nowhere to be found.
Guess what? SIL’s revisionist history strikes again. She told DH last week that she’d asked about the coconuts and that I’d said I was still looking for them AND that she’d told me that she wanted one.
Nope, she never said that she wanted one. I told her that I was still looking for the nesting boxes, but that I HAD found these 3 coconut pouches.
Now she wants one. “Oh, just one.” Fine. It’s DH’s decision, not mine. But at SIL’s house, none of this stuff is going on display anywhere. It’ll sit in a box or a bin for another 25 years never seeing the light of day.
Right now, the coconut pouches are hanging in our Enchanted Tiki Room themed bathroom and the other WW2 South Pacific stuff is in our Jungle Cruise guest bedroom.
I went ahead and put 1 of the 3 blessed coconuts in 1 of SIL’s bins of stuff.
She even told DH that she’s still deciding if she wants this particular table/desk that MIL had in her entryway. Nope, SIL…statute of limitations has ended now for that. It’s going to be at our house, not yours. You’ve had plenty of time to decide.
This is a woman who doesn’t have any common sense. Sometimes, I wonder how it is that my DH ended up normal yet his sister has her head so far up her rear end that I wonder how she ever sees the light of day. For example:
- she spent $100k renovating her 1950s-era CA bungalow house 17 yr ago. House inspection said it needed city sewer hook up replaced (was original to house being built). Inspection also found termites. House also had no insulation. She chose to only insulate half of the house, not to address the termites, and not to fix the sewer connection. Now the termites are worse and they can no longer use their garbage disposal because when they do, the garbage disposal stuff ends up in their washing machine.
- half the house still has non-grounded electrical wiring. She chose not to do anything about that 17 yr ago. Last year, she & my idiot BIL had a beer fridge parked outside on side of the house, plugged into a non-grounded outlet outside. They stupidly did not put the fridge in a spot where it’s covered by an awning. It rained one day. Rain got on the electrical outlet and sparked a fire. Caused some smoke damage in their roof. Entirely because of homeowner negligence. SIL & BIL are refusing to do anything to make repairs.
- a few months ago, this small-ish window in their laundry room (faces the street) broke. Sort of window where the movable part is on the bottom half. Well, the movable part was up and all of a sudden, slammed down and window shattered. They both refuse to replace or even fix it. won’t even put up plywood to cover the opening. So it’s entirely open to the elements. “Oh, but it’s ok because there’s miniblinds there, so you can’t really tell.”
- instead of fixing any of the above, SIL is taking $8k of her inheritance and signed her DD up to go on a high school photography class trip to Spain and Portugal during spring break and SIL is going as a chaperone. Have they obtained passports yet? No.
I didn’t know it was possible for an adult to be this dumb.
