What do you throw away or absolutely keep when cleaning out a house after a relative or friend dies

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
1

Instead of continuing this on the estates thread, I thought I would start a newbie thread here. I’ll start.

Old slides, negatives and home movies. And no, I don’t think it’s worth the money to get these digitized.

Anything that has been stored in plastic bags…probably musty.

All silverplate and fake Crystal.

Clothing that has been stored in plastic dry cleaning bags for a long time.

For anything wrapped in newspaper, have fun checking the dates on the newspaper. If it’s been wrapped up a long time, there is a reason.

Anything that is broken, chipped or crazed dishes wise.

4 Likes
2

Can we talk about what NOT to throw out too?
Medical records, that the deceased had in his home when he died and then went to his “kid” who eventually died. We’re talking a prominent psychiatrist in the DC area who saw “important people.”
A couple of us each took some, and had them all shredded.
HIPAA wasn’t always a thing.

1 Like
3

Sure…I updated the thread subject.

4

Actually, important to shred anything with SS numbers or other personally identifying information. We went through SEVEN shredders with one relative!

6 Likes
5

I feel like we were all over the place about what we kept and what we got rid of (mostly donated and not thrown away, but we also did toss a lot). We mostly went by sentimentality which probably isn’t the best way to sort but we were pretty raw with losing both parents within months of each other.

We kept original art work (we had an artist in the family), photographs/albums, wedding silver and jewelry. There were also some furniture pieces that were collected on world travels that we grew up with that we couldn’t part with.

We had two college students in the family who were needing things for first apartments so both got a lot of every day kitchen stuff that otherwise would have been donated or tossed.

Anything chipped, damaged, or stained was tossed. The every day furniture was donated or sold. We were lucky that the big down size happened 4 years prior to my mom’s death so there was only a condo to sort through and not an entire house.

We shredded a ton of documents. My parents kept records that were 30+ years old. I even found my grandparents tax returns and the last grand died in 2008. All the current/relevant paperwork was saved and sorted and is in our home office.

6

My mother started new address books all the time. I found about 20. The first thing she put in were all the kids and grandkids name birthdates and social security numbers.

7

My mom had those too…because at the time, she needed them for savings bonds she bought for them. They were shredded!

1 Like
8

I definitely kept ALL the photos. Can’t bear to throw those away. It’s easy to scan them yourself. I shared with my sibs some great photos of mom and dad on vacation in Hawaii when he won a trip as an award at his work. We have an amazing collection of photos that go back to the late 1800s. Glad the kids cleaning out the house in the late 1800s didn’t want to throw those photos away.

Donated almost all clothing. Might’ve kept one or two pieces, but my mom and dad’s style was not my style.

Donated almost all the kitchen stuff, but some of the grandkids wanted some of it. I kept a few pottery items I liked.

Kept too many knick-knacks.

Rehomed most of the furniture, but I still have a few pieces.

The way we did it was my brother, sister, and I all met at the house after we moved mom to a CCRC. We then piled all the stuff she didn’t take to her new apartment in the living room mostly (there was a lot of really old stuff in the attic). We did a round robin each saying one thing that we wanted then passing the turn to the next person and then to the next until we were back at the first person. We did that until we didn’t want anything anymore. Then the rest got donated. I took a bunch of car loads to the Salvation Army.

3 Likes
9

I think there are 4 groups of items.

  1. Things to that you should keep
  2. Things that are valuable
  3. Things that have no value/ junk
  4. Things that should be destroyed

Group 1 should be very small, pictures + a few other items.

Group 2 is likely smaller than most people think.

1 Like
10

For us…it was a little different. We held an item up, and if I didn’t immediately say I wanted it, it got either thrown away or donated. If I hemmed and hawed at all…I figured I didn’t want it that much. I was the only heir…so no one to dicker with.

We didn’t keep all the pictures. Many were not in good condition, and another huge batch was unidentifiable people. No one knew who they were…and we did try to find out. They were tossed.

One thing I quickly realized…anything I thought was valuable (except the diamonds which actually were) was not nearly as valuable as I thought it should be. Example…jewelry. Selling it isn’t an easy task unless you have Diamond rings set in platinum. And even then, what you get for resale isn’t likely to be what you think you should get.

We luckily had no furniture of value. Not one piece.

5 Likes
11

What to keep- any copies of homeowners insurance policies you find.

We found a copy of a policy which had a rider on a “Persian” rug (it had sat under the dining room table forever). The most recent policy didn’t have any riders at all, even though we knew where our mom stashed her sterling in the attic, and the jewelry was mostly in the safe deposit box. But the old policy was bugging me. It wasn’t like my dad to insure something of minimal value (and he’d been gone a long time, so the existing bare bones policy was whatever my mom thought was valuable).

One of the grandkids wanted the rug IF it could fit in a minivan… but before said minivan arrived to take it to a crappy starter apartment I called an appraiser who offered cash on the spot for the rug.

So old insurance policies can be a clue to what was of value at the time of purchase. Yes, somethings (furniture) depreciate quickly and you can’t get rid of it. But occasionally a parent insured something because replacement value was very high… and sometimes those things appreciate more than you’d think.

Agree about the jewelry- distributed to the grandchildren (male and female) in what we hoped was a somewhat equitable fashion. The hassle of selling the pearl brooch mom got on her 50th birthday… for $300 if you’re lucky… nah. Better the grandkids should have some keepsakes.

2 Likes
12

“Donate” is the long way round to someone’s landfill. Very few material goods have intrinsic value, even as donations. The work to locate a donate-ee and delivering donations, multiplied bypiles of stuff…so do your children and grandchildren a favor by not saving things that ultimately will be in a dumpster.

That being said, we are tossing:

Papers, newspapers, magazines, drinking glasses, kitchenware, really old books, LPs, watches, broken things, plastic containers, planters, old bedding, comforters, blankets, dishes, old clothes, all chemicals, paints, empty frames, hand crafts, most photographs because they are not identifiable, old greeting cards, china sets, fake crystal, real crystal, silverware, coffee cups, partial boxes of tile and flooring

We have been keeping:
Jewelry, good condition books less than 20 yrs old, any knick knack that someone wants, certainpatterns of vintage Pyrex, unopened sewing notions, functional lawn tools, cookie jars, old games still in a box.

1 Like
13

My town dump maintains a “take it or leave it” store…old unused tiles, building materials, etc go very quickly to the rehabbers. The household items ( even mismatched as long as toasters work, towels don’t have holes) go to the local woman’s shelter for the warehouse they maintain to set families up in apartments when fleeing a dangerous domestic situation. This stuff is not landfill material, it is easy enough to drop off and a trained group of public works employees unload your car or truck for you.

If the grandkids don’t want there are people who need…

Only thing which is landfill…even if brand new and wrapped…the town will not take mattresses. Those are automatic landfill due to bedbugs…

5 Likes
14

Right…no mattresses. Those are very hard to get rid of.

Sometimes shelters need furniture when setting up apartments for displaced people. I know some humanitarian groups were looking for things like kitchen tables and chairs, and dressers for displaced refugees. Worth a call.

AmVets will pick up usable furniture.

I know we threw away FAR more than we kept!

15

We used AmVets too. They wanted way more than we expected. We also had a family member’s housekeeper want some items.

16

Don’t agree with this attitude. It does take more work on your part to find a home for stuff, but homes for it are out there if you don’t want to add to the landfill. I found homes for a LOT of the stuff from my parents house.

Kitchen stuff is always welcomed at donation centers and goes pretty fast. Old bedding is useful for folks if it’s in good shape. If not it’s very useful for animal shelters. LPs are a pretty in demand item. Really old books are probably more useful than books less than 20 years old. If it’s vintage people do some cool art with it. Old photos even if you don’t know who is in it are valuable to someone. I have a friend who does great encaustic paintings incorporating old photos.

We have a great creative re-use center locally that took my parents’ set of World Book encylopedias from the 1960s! If you care to do the work you can find a place for it.

7 Likes
17

@sweetgum good job!

I think a lot depends on the quantity of stuff needing to be purged. I helped a friend clean out a borderline hoarder house. A dumpster was our best friend….there was just SOOOOO much stuff and she had little time.

We did reach out to folks for things like musical instruments and artwork. She donated a ton of tools and kitchen things to the resale shop where I volunteer. Linens went to our old dog groomer.

But lots of the old stuff was just that….old stuff. Triplicates of photographs. Things like that. Bins and bins of saved papers of all sorts. Old dance costumes complete with stains.

Really…it all depends on what you have…and how much of it you have.

She also found a guy to haul the remaining things away…and we are sure some were resold, which was fine.

The things we were looking for were things she wanted…not things to keep for future generations.

ETA…we have had the conversation with both of our kids about what they want…and what they don’t want. We do have one large Rubbermaid bin for each with mementos. Pics of grandparents, some special serving pieces, a lace tablecloth, things like that. It’s all well packed, and they can decide for themselves if they want it. It’s what we think they might want.

And furniture is already tagged for them, and will be given as soon as they really have room for it.

18

There was plenty I threw away, too, that was actual garbage, but I did try to donate or recycle as much as I could. I think I did a pretty good job.

2 Likes
19

I don’t disagree at all – but in our situation, the sheer size of the volume makes it difficult. Sure, the senior center might want some craft items, but I am dealing with something like 250 lbs of (for example) bias tape just as one example.

I think distance is another factor. The house in question is a 300 mile round trip.

1 Like
20

The house was not local for any of us and I had a deadline because we sold it. It wasn’t 300 miles away for me (more like 70), but it probably was 300 miles for my sister. There was So. Much. Stuff. My parents built it in 1957 and never lived anywhere else after that so there was 5 decades worth of stuff in there.

My mom grew up on a farm in the Depression so she saved every scrap of string, every twist tie or bit of wire, every pretty piece of wrapping paper to use again. She did crafts too, sewing, quilting, embroidery, basketry, etc.

She also inherited a lot from her family and my dad from his family so I had to deal with legacy items. Some of it I just couldn’t take (my great grandparents’ bed) but I found a cousin that wanted it. I did have to get it moved to my house and store it in my garage until my cousin could come get it.

I was happy recently to pass on a little walnut dining table that came from my grandparents to my 21 yr old.

1 Like