Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child.
Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to use it. When the father died, the stuff in the shed was mostly junk to be sorted into scrap metal or put in the skip. A very few useful tools, a bunch of valueless obsolete tools, and a little antique/collectable stuff. The mother’s stuff was useful or precious to her, mementoes and knick-knacks. Plus some hoarder mentality that made sense given her background. Mostly valueless stuff to anyone else. What value is a drawer of your smalls?
I want my parents to pass their problem down to me and my siblings. I think forcing parents to tidy up or downsize can be cruel. Why be selfish and needlessly make my parents sad?
Back in school, when we were about 17 years old, another kid told me
that his Great Uncle had died, and caused him much stress. He'd never
met this distant relative, so I enquired, why was he worried? Great
Uncle Ben-Ali had named my school-friend, who he'd heard about only
through a grandparent but "taken a shine to", as the sole heir and
benefactor of his estate - 5 acres of harsh scrub land about 200 miles
into the mountains of Morocco containing a shack and two donkeys. He'd
received a letter, which was very specific that he was now responsible
for the welfare of the donkeys.
Today, this would probably be the start of a great scam, but this was
in the 1980s before people "had internet". Many people would have just
ignored the whole situation, but my friend, true to his conscience,
enlisted Arabic translators and sent letters back and forth to North
Morocco for months. Eventually the fate of the donkeys was secured.
It was agreed that Ben-Ali's neighbour, whose land they had already
wandered on to, would have the donkeys, and the shack would go back to
the village/local-government.
The article you linked I agree with almost fully, nice work.
The only part I have issue with is when the teacher says “we fix things by "switching them off and on again"” as if that’s a bad thing. I see and agree with your actual point, but a power cycle is generally step one for almost all debugging.
> the teacher says “we fix things by "switching them off and on again"”
as if that’s a bad thing
TBH, as an electronics engineer and computer scientist it's the first
thing I do too :) I think my point in that article was that we
shouldn't teach that it's the _only_ recourse, and after if it still
doesn't work then just replace it.
It's still one step better than the wisdom of my Grandmother's
generation:
"If it doesn't work bang it once on the top. If it still doesn't work
bang it hard on the side twice. If it still doesn't work, call a man."
Chip creep was the behavior for chips to walk out of their packages due to temperature cycling, percussive maintenance helped reseat things, sometimes enough to make them work again.
My dad always talked about lifting the front edge of a component up 2 inches and then letting it drop - he called it the "2-inch test". He said that either it would reseat whatever was flaky, or make it super obvious that it needed to be reseated.
> but a power cycle is generally step one for almost all debugging
If you're not the sysadmin and the debugging relates to a production server, stop power cycling it and causing it to fsck on the way up while I'm trying to actually fix it tho lmao. Bonus points: you're frying all the information I need to actually see what is going wrong, now I'm digging in logs and monitoring graphs hoping to catch a clue
Definitely not something that happened repeatedly this morning, haha
And an altruistic gift for friends and family: take away their useless rubbish.
Tell your aunt you need some wires from that old Pentium computer she has, and take it to be recycled.
“Drop in” at your friends on the way to the dump with half a trailer full of rubbish, and ask if they want to fill up the other half for free.
When there is a book market on, visit your friends and take away their old books to go to the market. Boxes of books they don’t really want but which are too “valuable” to throw out.
Tell your friends you are doing a metal recycling run, and does anyone have any old metal that they want gone?
One friend I took 3 or 4 trailer loads of stuff away, mess which was really depressing them, and it has really cheered them up over the long term.
Yeah, we had a lot of construction debris once, and rented a 30 cubic-yard dumpster (one of the big ones). After we tossed what we had, we told the neighbors to bring all they wanted. It was really helpful, especially since there were definitely a few that were down on their luck.
It was an awesome way to build good-will, since the price difference between a 10 and 30 cu.yd dumpster was ~10%. Obviously most of the cost is in the truck roll.
We also did the opposite once: we were demolishing a small vacation home, so we told some of the locals to pick through and take what they wanted. It was funny seeing our kitchen.. but in a different house.
This is great! I can recommend everyone doing this - it's weirdly satisfying to help out in other peoples places and not as much a "chore" as in your own home for some reason.
You can clean up, move stuff around, throw things out, get them a better vacuum, set up wifi, get them better lighting, decorate stuff, or whatever you're good at.
It's the same psychological mechanism at play when you can quickly give good advice and plan in other peoples lives but it's harder applying in your own.
I recommend trying to "optimize" your friends or parents homes if they are down / getting old - for me it's about getting rid of or organising their stuff stuff, making it easy to clean, set up good lighting etc. Always respect peoples history and stuff and history of course.
I've found books surprisingly hard to get rid of. Local recycling center doesn't take them, and they are pretty heavy so you can't set out a big bin full of them for trash collection. Used bookstores are extremely picky about titles, authors, and condition. Listing and selling on eBay is not worth the time for the tiny amount of money you may make, and most of them don't even sell.
I mostly just end up throwing them away a few at a time.
The unfortunate fact is that although we romanticize reading, most books don't have much trade value. And if it's already in the Library of Congress, it's as good as archived.
Still, my household(multigenerational) has too many books, and this is mostly an artifact of a childhood that gave me plenty to read. We even still have the incomplete Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia picked up from when the school library dumped them.
It'll be the "great book downsizing", for us. Someday. Occasionally I look into scanning the ones I have sentimental value towards, and there are services to do so...but really, that would just displace the problem into "digital junk hoarding". It's hard to let go of things, especially in the gradual way that fits with our waste stream system.
The best tactic I've had to deal with it is to first make an explicit division of space (no piles allowed, at least have a tray or tie the bundle) and then use the divisions to create a ranking mechanism. You don't have to let go of things immediately, but whenever you have a day where you value space over stuff, the low rank stuff can be taken out with minimal ceremony: "thank you very much".
I have a big cinderblock set of bookshelves in the back of my garage. It's where the not quite ready to go out yet books go. I did some book downsizing during the pandemic. This summer I'm going to try to get some more books and a fair bit of clothing out of the house.
That surprises me. I've always been able to donate to my local library for their annual book sale. I've also seen donation containers in various parking lots around my area. Books are one of the easier things for me to get rid of.
>Listing and selling on eBay
Yeah, unless something is a big ticket item, eBay isn't worth the effort. You used to be able to outsource it to someone for a cut but nothing like that seems to exist any longer.
This is probably why a lot of book exchanges[1] have odd books. I remember sitting in a bar which decor were bookshelves with old books, I found a book about DOS 5.0 which actually amused me.
Your comment is cathartic to me for reasons I cannot explain. I hope, for my sake, that everything you mentioned really is something you're doing often. I love the idea of constant forward progress in downsizing not just your own possessions, but that of the near and dears too.
Oh, I definitely try to help, although it is very very important to be respectful.
One friend showed me a bag with a heap of kiwi fruit fluff they had collected a decade ago. Nothing to see here.
One friend had too many tables, so I thought it might help them to grok the absurdity of that if I gave them a bunch more tables (tables which someone else was discarding): that didn’t work because they now have tables stacked up on one another. Nice enough tables, but I feel bad. Also it is very likely I will help them move . . .
I am semi-retired, but I still need to take care I am not wasting my time.
The free trailer load to the dump is fun mental jujutsu because dumping stuff isn’t cheap: someone who just can’t pass up a bargain trying to choose stuff to throw out for free! Needs a believable reason why it is “free” e.g. neighbour already paid me, or work is paying for it.
I haven’t done the book one exactly, but I have done similar.
Careful with this, it's the thinking process which leads to hoarding behavior if unchecked.
Have you already refurbished a couple tables just for fun? It might make sense to flip some furniture as a hobby.
If you haven't, this is a recipe for being that guy with too many tables, whose friends drive by with a half-filled trailer and ask, politely, if maybe they want to throw something away today.
I think I understand your feeling. The thing that makes me most empathetic with my family and friends is visiting them at their house and witnessing their struggling with stuff. It looks like a physical equivalent to the emotions and feelings in which we often find ourselves entrapped.
A light dose of psychedelics does wonders for me in this regard. I’ll suddenly look at my place and see as if for the first time that thing that’s been laying around for weeks. “Oh, I put it there because I was anxious for this and that. Of course that’s not its place. Let’s move it where it belongs.” I love my mostly empty house, there’s so much space to move around and breathe.
>constant forward progress in downsizing not just your own possessions
Or at least keep it in a steady state past some point. I've been in my current house for 25 years and I find that I need to allocate time now and then to go through and clean out some clothes, books, electronics, etc. Especially with a fair bit of storage space it can be tempting to just toss something in the attic because it's easier than getting of it--especially for bulkier items.
I helped a friend move out. They loved to buy stuff and never use it. Anyone who came over to help left with some decently priced trinkets. I left with an instant pot, sous vide wand, console table, a bag of small electronics, expensive markers and pens, and other stuff I surely forgot. I couldn't believe my good fortune and felt I had to compensate them. But they refused. We had performed an extremely valuable service just removing the items, the value of which was immaterial.
I'm in a high foot-traffic urban area and anything that's too cumbersome to sell locally (I don't want to haggle over a $5 item) we just put outside on the sidewalk. Almost all of the time, it finds a new home.
Yup, I never turn down leftovers or anything my parents want to give me even though at least 3/4th of it goes right in the trash or recycle. They need help letting go and I'm here to take it off their hands.
I've been doing this with my parents, but for stuff I want. They have a lot of old computer stuff that they don't need. I've been taking some of it each time I visit.
It helps them declutter and lets me make sure they don't throw any of it away. I can always dispose of it later if I decide it's not useful.
My mom passed away unexpectedly and in her sleep last year. She had been depressed for half a year prior because she had lost her spouse to cancer. She had not yet gone through their items.
So between the household results of half a year of depression and two lifetimes worth of stuff it was so overwhelming that I only believed we could get through it all because there was no other outcome to believe was possible. My aunt has experience with this and she flew home to help. It took us about a month.
And now I have half a basement room, not even 5% of the things they’d had, waiting to be packed up and shipped to me. It was all stuff that at the time I could not imagine getting rid of.
Now, I know that I will have a ton of re-sorting ahead of me because after a year has passed I doubt I’ll want to keep all of that stuff.
Maybe but this is different. Computers are a hobby for me and this is hardware and software I used growing up. It's not like I'm taking stuff I have no interest in.
My grandmother was an incessant collector. She collected anything in the shape of a chicken or with a chicken on it, and her house was lined with shelves of chicken nick-nacks. But she also had an impressive wind-up toy collection, a collection of cherubs, a collection of supposedly collectable porcelain dolls from QVC. Probably a few others that I've forgotten.
In the last few years of her life, she became very concerned with the work her children and grandchildren would have to undertake to clean out her house. She went through and added a note on a sticker on the backs of things for who she though should get them.
But in the end it was easy. My grandmother created an order of magnitude more grief for herself worrying about cleaning up after her than actually existed. And I wish that she hadn't had that burden on her.
Most of her children and grandchildren didn't have any sentimental connection to all of the things, and those of us that did went through and grabbed what we wanted. Once that was done, we called Goodwill and they came and cleaned out the rest.
Seriously could not finish the opening story. I understand a small tinge of disdain for the effort required, but surely deep down a sense of gratitude and nostalgia should be mixed in no? Do people really not have no love for their parents they inherited the belongings of? The fact of the inheritance occuring is a hint that we're already filtering for kids who did not have an amiable relationship with their parents, so assuming that, i cannot understand how resentment can "slice through" your feelings of loss. Perhaps it can be mixed in, sure, but if it fills your heart so much as displace your sense of loss, I cannot imagine a more selfish and ungrateful attitude towards one's loving parents.
Why can't you love someone, but not appreciate a new project they've given you that creates hundreds of hours of unpleasant work?
Sure, you might bear it willingly out of that love, but you don't have to like a new tedious, dirty, frustrating project just because you love(d) the person who left it to you.
To take it a step further, the junk is usually a result of your loved one's insecurities and fears. It's largely a reminder of a burden you wish they hadn't even had to carry. Now that you have to carry the results of it, it makes sense just to want to be rid of it all.
Indeed! I've got my own projects to be dealing with!
Honestly the way I see it my mum knows me well enough. If I'm instructed to do anything like a tidyup it will be done quickly, efficiently, and without emotion.
Take a picture of your nostalgia items and bin them, the emotion is in the memory anyway. You'll look at it just as infrequently but at least it's only taking up bytes now.
Extract the useful-to-you stuff and get someone to cart everything else away with a "you get everything for £500 if you take it ALL away" deal.
If she doesn't want this I imagine my sister will be in charge, haha.
I think you’re reading too much into the language of that one sentence. But also, if you’ve never felt true loss before, anger and resentment are absolutely a part of the grieving process. It’s very natural to feel anger when coping with the loss of a loved one.
My partner has inherited a big project and collection that meant everything to their Dad. He would always say, I want this taken on etc. But when push comes to shove, the prospect/reality of inheriting someone else's hobby/business, which requires years and years of work with no return just feels more and more bizarre and absurd. But you feel indebted and horrible not carrying through with wishes.
Never mind a pile of junk. You can just inherit a big pile of problems.
It depends what kind of relationship you had with the parent(s). I'll give you an example: I've not seen my mother in half a decade, I've barely seen her in twelve years. Perhaps that's for the best, after all, she did just leave my father and I over twenty years ago to pursue a man twenty years younger than her from the other side of the world that she met in a psychic chatroom. When I have spoken to her, as recently as last Christmas, we only argue. I've tried extremely hard.
Well said. The best strategy is to always just say "Yes, thanks!" whenever they offer you something they do decide to get rid of. My grandma used to bring boxes of junk to family reunions and put it on a free table. My sister and I would always be sure to take almost everything. She felt better that it was getting "used" and we just trashed/donated it as appropriate.
People forget that they kept this "junk" for a reason. When you tell them to get rid of it or call it junk, you are insulting them, not their possession. It doesn't matter that you think their reason is silly. They would think a lot of your stuff is silly too. It is so sad that we've lost (almost ?) all ability for empathy. We have become so selfish and it is sad.
I don’t necessarily look forward to this, but I imagine it’ll be very satisfying sorting through my parents’ stuff and finding all the little gems.
Of course 80% of it is junk, but 80% of everything I save is junk too, so I can hardly blame them for it.
My dad recently threw out a lot of his old school stuff that we’d gone through and looked at a few times during various instances of cleanup over the course of my life, and I think I was more sad than him.
I imagine he has all that stuff somewhere inside his head still, but to me the only tangible remains of the time when my dad was a boy/young adult have disappeared.
> to me the only tangible remains of the time when my dad was a boy/young adult have disappeared.
My parents, when they were young and carefree and enjoying life, used to make mix tapes. Loads of them. There was something almost magical about being able to listen to them in my old car, and experience a little window into what they used to listen to etc.
Sadly my car went to the great scrapyard in the sky and now I hold onto a plethora of cassette tapes I'm unsure I'll ever listen to. Silly really.
I'm also sorting through my parents things (the article is timely), here's a drive-by suggestion: pick up a Walkman on eBay.
My folks have a rack of VHS cassettes of their performances in plays, which they ripped to DVD at some point. I haven't started watching them but I'm lucky to have them.
Get a cheap tape deck and digitize them. They are just containers of information that will otherwise wear out. After that, get rid of both and enjoy the contents any time.
My parents recently died but before they passed by siblings and I were invited to help them declutter (it was Covid and a nursing assistant was coming to live with them). It took five trips to get things down to normalcy but the benefit I saw was that we got to talk with them about their mementos.
Doing it while they are alive is important because you get to here to story behind it. Without that it’s just unlabeled and soon to be forgotten junk.
One of my parents is a hoarder and has filled up a 2500+sqft house with junk. It is so bad that there are aisles carved through the house so that they can get through it.
My siblings and I have been begging and pleading with them to sort this out for the past 20 years. We have offered to help. But they haven't, as said parent is "throw themselves in front of the car if we try to leave with anything" emotionally attached to this stuff and somehow maintains an inventory of everything, including how they bought it and how it made them feel.
Now they are getting old and infirm and are barely able to afford the house that they are renting, let alone put in the effort to clean it up. My siblings and I are going to be stuck with a quagmire where they only solution is to pay a professional to come over and clean out the house, and that will not be cheap.
I feel your pain. But they won't change. We cleared a house in a week, that belonged to a hoarder. It can be done. And requires a week, rather than years of pestering and agonising yourself.
Our neighbour died and the kids just paid not much for house clearance, which was a side line of the funeral parlor. For them it's a gamble as to whether they will find something of worth to make it worthwhile.
I have another slowly dementing relative with mobility issues. They need space, but will not give up piles of plates, and four knive blocks that litter their precious kitchen space. They don't even cook. It's impossible, and when I dare to help, it is just met with derision and scorn.
I chucked ten back issues of phone books/directories and have never lived it down.
It's important to note that anything too big for a vacuum cleaner to pick up off of carpet can, with a moment's practice, be picked up with a broom and a dust pan. Don't try to separate everything into boxes and trashcans by hand. It takes too long and it's hard on your back.
Importantly, if trash is a bulk operation, then the cost difference between keeping things versus throwing them out becomes more pronounced, earlier on.
I'm sure most of us have that experience of figuring out that our stuff isn't going to fit in the truck and/or car and all of a sudden things we really intended to keep become negotiable. Problem is that there are probably three other things you'd be more willing to part with, but they're already in boxes in the truck.
Thank you for this perspective. I agree, my parents have a lot of bad habits one of which is holding on to things that may be of value at some point for way too long. I help get rid of extra things occasionally but whenever I push too hard I can see the stress and anxiety it causes them. They've been through a lot, if having more things than they need soothes them, so be it!
I was having a tangential conversation with my parents this morning.
They're getting on, and are looking at selling a treasured holiday property in a warm country - I originally thought it was due to not feeling able, or wanting to, visit - but it's because when they die they're worried about me and my brothers having to sort out marketing it and paying the inheritance tax.
I pointed out that's not a burden, it'll be fine, we're all adults and can sort things like that out - only sell if it they want to spend the money on visiting other places, or doing other things, not because they worry about being a burden after they're gone.
Yeah I “de-thatched” my parents basement by filling up an enormous dumpster of shit. Literally things like “oh here are 9 CRT monitors that will never be used” etc. objectively it improved the basement and usability at zero opportunity cost. But it didn’t make them happier at all. My conclusion was better to let them do as they wish. I fortunately don’t have to live amidst the debris. (The basement has since then swelled to full capacity and spilled into two disgusting permanent tents outside).
You stumbled upon one issue some people have. You can declutter but they use that opportunity to refill and somethings grow even further. Sometimes it is best to leave in place. Unless you get to the root of the issue of why are they keeping it all.
I have this issue currently in my home. My wife does not want to go through anything but will not let me touch it either. "no dear my shoebox sized matchbox cars collection is not worth anything to me and I am not going to play with them lets get rid of it". I leave it be, as is, as it is at least in easy to get rid of boxes now. That was at least a step forward. My parents have filled every possible storage area in their house top to bottom with stuff. Some of it has not seen the light of day in 40 years. It is at least 'neat' but it will be an interesting challenge to pull it all out and sort it. I leave that one be as they have filled the storage areas and they have no more room to still be neat and tidy but grab more items.
I have the same situation with my parents. Their home is storehouse of stuff that my mom bought, mostly with the intent of giving them as gifts as special occasions come up, with paths carved through to get from one room to the next. She knows it's a bit much, but won't let anyone throw anything away. Some day going through it all will be a chore, but I don't think I'll find it difficult to sort out the keep/donate/trash piles.
I've been worrying lately about leaving too much stuff for my kids to deal with, but so far it's mostly things that they left in their rooms when they moved out. I'm trying to keep from acquiring more stuff.
Sometimes, the sentiment is nice, but this 'cruelty' is often times necessary. When your parent's health is in terminal decline and your family can't afford to hire a caretaker or your relative made poor life decisions and needs to live with you for awhile, downsizing and relocating may become necessary if you have to step up and take care of them, assuming there is a healthy relationship. Of course, trying to keep all of their things would be nice, but storage and extra space in the house are at a premium. The essentials and emotional items should be kept, but a lifetime of objects and memories cannot be kept in tough times in small quarters. Sometimes we don't have a choice when being cruel.
I have had to deal with this. Sorting through an entire lifetime's worth of knick-knacks, papers, Christmas cards, plaques commemorating achievements and milestones that probably wouldn't even make sense to a twenty-year-old, all of it.
Sure, it was hard. It takes time.
But so did changing my diapers. And dealing with infant-me crying through the night. And watching toddler-me be picky and waste food, which is a big deal when you get most of your groceries from a charity. All the scrounging and saving for Christmas presents, all the hours spent answering every question that I had as a boy, all the trips together to play in the snow during the winter...
What's unbelievably crass is the idea that children are obliged to respect and sift through gigantic heaps of stuff just because their parents had some emotional connection to some small parts of it - because most of it is guaranteed to be absolutely useless junk they did not actually value but merely couldn't bring themselves to throw away because of hoarding instincts.
The idea that this obligation is some kind of way to repay for what the parents did for the children is completely absurd and idiotic. It does nothing for your parents.
If you want to repay them, spend time with them. Do something for them which they actually experience.
When your parents are dead, sorting through their stuff out of a sense of obligation is basically self-castigating for your failure to do the above. Sure, if you enjoy it, if it helps you deal with the loss, do it. But not because you feel you have to.
> The idea that this obligation is some kind of way to repay for what the parents did for the children is completely absurd and idiotic. It does nothing for your parents.
Thank you for saying this. I can't believe the points people are making here. Your parents are already dead at this point. Of course it does nothing for them. Taking care of them while they're still alive does something for them, but once they're dead nothing can ever affect them again.
I think the 'what is being done for the old parents' is them not having to confront and part with their stuff while they're old but alive. By doing this after they have passed, they get to bypass this possibly mentally taxing task. The value add is debatable. I personally love to get rid of stuff, so it's hard for me to imagine how much of a burden it is. But the point makes sense.
You don't have to sort any of it. You just have to not make them sort it. You can just pay to have it hauled if you don't want it. Or sell the property as is or forfeit the property to the state.
I have to say, you described my mother perfectly. I was the last of five to go to college. I came home for Thanksgiving my freshman year and she said; "I am glad you were not like the others, calling me and writing me all the time. I raised you kids to go off in the world like I did."
Having done both sides I'd say the kids are getting the better deal :-) Palliative care for a parent is draining and can take years but it utterly pales compared to how much effort raising kids is. Doing both at the same time is not recommended!
For some reason you've just reminded me just how much archeologists love midden heaps. I guess pretty much everyone gets to be an archeologist of sort at one time in life.
I see it in a slightly different light: it's a gift they're giving you. In the cleaning, sorting of junk, I've found countless treasures of my dead relatives. Handling it helped me process my grief, reminding me of the good times and the bad. I leap at the opportunity to help clear that stuff out, because it's a powerful grief ritual.
Like the folks in the article, most of what my relatives considered valuable wasn't, by and large, I only kept little worthless trinkets. Like folks in the article, some of my cousins got weird and fought over the stuff, but for me, it's just stuff, and I've got too much of that already.
I agree. My parents should enjoy life to the fullest all the way to the end. Wasting their golden years cleaning up, planning for death, and likely emotionally parting with a lifetime of possessions is not something I'd like to foist on them. It will be time-consuming and painful for me to do, but so what.
Having cleared out 3 parents and a grandparents house, it gives a very stark vision of the destiny of my "stuff". Simply, the bulk of it is going into a landfill.
I have no children, I don't think anyone is really going to be interested much in the pictures of my cats. Or my family. Or my parents. Or any of it.
So, long term, it's all for naught. No museum for us, no trust to maintain an estate for strangers to pay tickets and walk through to take photos for their homes.
But that doesn't mean tossing it away now. Or ever. I'd like to hope I pass surrounded by my home and memories, rather than a sterile empty box already conveniently cleaned out for whoever becomes my estate administrator (whether it's a friend, or some complete stranger).
That said, if you have a collection of anything you deem of value, and you care that it does not end up in a landfill, you'd be wise to distribute it yourself while you can. Otherwise those years of Slurpee cups, Pez dispensers, collectible cereal boxes, etc. will not be cared for properly.
I see this all the time on vintage computer forums. Someone with an estate of stuff they "think" is "worth something" and want to dispose of. Meanwhile, there's always some young Indy posting "that belongs in a museum!" and "don't sell it to those vultures on eBay, they'll just part it out!".
"Well, perhaps, but if it's not out of the house by Friday, it's going to a landfill."
When clearing out an estate house, most people don't have a lot of time to do it, much less deal with it properly. It's one thing if your loved one is nearby, but quite different if you live far away. I had to clear out my fathers house. I live on the West Coast, he lived on the East Coast. There were a lot of mementos in there, things that have been part of my entire life. I even found the TRS-80 that I cut my teeth on in high school, but boxing it up, shipping it home, just wasn't practical.
I had a service come in, we cleared it out, I took the important papers and a few nicknacks. The rest they hauled off to auction, and that was that. I was done in 2 days and on a plane home. Just a stark reality.
So, anyway, keep your stuff. Enjoy it. Get more stuff if that suits you. Clutter is its own thing, and thats different. Just know that at some point, someone is going to come along and most of those things will be meaningless to them, and they'll treat it that way.
Another example. There is a house in Pasadena, the Gamble House. Craftsman home to nth degree, very well preserved. Visitors look upon it in wonder today (I certainly did). The key point is that it's not like this was the only house done like this. Several houses were done, by "important figures" in the field: architects, artisans, etc.
But, in the end, those houses were sold to...people who wanted a house. A roof, kitchen, bed and bathrooms. They weren't looking for a museum, or an art piece. Many of those houses were torn down, remodeled, etc. "OH NO!" some may exclaim, but, that's just the truth of it. Like movie makers crashing classic cars, people view things differently.
I have some things like a fairly big laserdisc collection and some vintage (1980s era) computers and probably various other things that are presumably worth something to someone. But it's honestly not worth my time to pay matchmaker between the stuff and that someone.
Totally agree. I don't want my parents in their golden years to worry about having to "clean up" or becoming a burden after they're gone. I don't want them to have to think about that at all, I want them to have fun and do what they want and spend their time and money how they want.
I'll be quite happy to spend a modicum of effort sorting through material possessions when the time comes, if it means they get to spend just one extra minute creating happiness and joy with their grandchildren.
I don't see what the big deal is to be honest, just a harmless hobby to collect random trinkets, it gives people joy, and you can just get rid of it when they die. I don't see what the harm is
Buying random trinkets that are mass produced in a factory overseas and shipped across the ocean is not ideal.
When you fill your house with it, to the point where you're a hoarder and can't see your floors and walls, that's a health hazard that attracts dirt, rot, and pests.
Alternatively, one really should stop to think about what they care in life at least once or twice each decade.
Lots of people never do it once in their whole life. There's a world of optimization levels between "randomly doing things" and "min-maxing life". There's a huge-ass chunk of people who never leave the 0-optimization level of randomly doing things.
The son in the article, nine months into the process of clearing his parents' house, estimated he is one-third done. That's a lot of mental and physical work he inherited, or alternatively signed up for.
I cannot believe it is necessary to be so persnickety about it that it causes you stress and bitterness. Give your siblings a day to grab anything they want, then rent a dumpster and a wheelbarrow and go to town. Throw away everything you can force yourself to, one room a day. Dad's dead, he won't care. If it takes nine months, you're doing it wrong.
In that case it's a good argument for you to buy a smaller house, but if you accept that it's a matter of preference and not something that can be generalized then it's not a valid argument for other people.
Yeah I think this war on consumerism and boomer lifestyle is a bit exaggerated, and I mean, if you take away all the benefits and rewards you have to take away some of the demands too. I can recycle and share and rent and downsize if I can also downsize my working hours accordingly. A bit weird that the middle class now wants to get rid of the carrot and just have a bigger stick, that doesn't really add up for me.
I think you'll find for the generation being discussed they likely didn't buy "a house as big you can possibly afford". Their houses were sanely priced, decent sized accommodations before the property market went bonkers at some point in the 80's.
My father hoarded all manner of stuff in the garage. It took me days of work to clear it out. And yet I basically understood why each thing was saved.
That chunk of metal was used to repair the car when the front quarter panel rusted from salt. That brass got brazed onto that fixture. Those were the washers for the kitchen sinks. That leather chunk repaired his briefcase. That stuff was used to fence in the garden. That stuff was used to stake the tomato plants. He held onto furniture from my room until I was out of grad school and needed it. etc.
We flat out didn't have the money when I was growing up to just buy stuff from a big box store (and they didn't really exist yet). If we didn't have the material, it didn't get fixed.
A lot of children didn't grow up like this. None of the younger generation in my family want any of the furniture. They have the disposable cash from their parents that they can buy something "new". I would have killed at their age for the stuff I now throw out. C'est la vie.
> I want my parents to pass their problem down to me and my siblings. I think forcing parents to tidy up or downsize can be cruel. Why be selfish and needlessly make my parents sad?
Lots of people downsize before retiring because they don't want to be encumbered by a bunch of junk. It's a lot of work to live in a house surrounded by stuff. It's work to maintain the stuff, it makes it harder to clean, you have to have a larger living space to house it, etc. All of these things are harder on the elderly once they can't move around or do physical work as easily anymore.
It's also not just parents to children. Parents don't typically pass away at once. Often enough it's one spouse leaving a pile of their things for their partner to live with. That can be a weighty reminder of grief and once they pass getting rid of any of their things can be too emotionally heavy to cope with.
This attitude of acceptance is probably the most helpful attitude the vast majority of the time, but I was lucky enough to have parents that radically minimized their possessions in their early 60's and moved into a retirement community, and it has first and foremost been a favor to them. As they've aged a few years, they're just enjoying a wildly unencumbered existence with the bare minimum of regular maintenance chores. They're focused on spending time with the people they want to, not puttering around the house. You're right that this kind of mindset can't be forced on senior citizens and it bespeaks a certain level of affluence, but it is a wonderful way for the elderly to live. I'd encourage children to lay the seeds with their parents before they're elderly and more resistant to change.
A NiCd-powered cordless drill would be my first thought, clearly obsolete since the widespread adoption of lithium battery tools and the rapid degradation in NiCd cells over time. A radial arm saw also comes to mind, replaced for most tasks by the more portable and generally safer compound miter saw. Tools made before modern safety devices, such as table saws without anti-kickback fingers or riving knife. Some tools rely on wear parts like specialty blades or belts that are no longer available. Analog multimeters and fixed-resistance soldering irons.
I've inherited my share of obsolete tools, including but certainly not limited to the above examples.
I inherited a high quality NiCd cordless drill from my late grandfather. I was able to cheaply buy some new cells online, solder them in, and it's good as new! It has a multi-speed gearbox with a ton of torque... useful, but not a common feature on a drill.
I like the connection to previous generations, and remembering these people by using 'obsolete' tools passed down to me.
> A NiCd-powered cordless drill would be my first thought, clearly obsolete since the widespread adoption of lithium battery tools and the rapid degradation in NiCd cells over time.
On the other side, as long as it's something brand-name like Bosch, these things are built to last - and there are still shops around selling new battery packs for them (or you can replace the cells yourself - no fancy BMS required like with modern lithium batteries and no risk of things exploding or going up in blazes if you mess something up!). I'm still using power tools from my grandfather, meanwhile a friend recently complained to me that one of his "new" drills broke less than two weeks in his house renovation.
The thing is, what you can buy in construction stores these days is optimized to last for the two years warranty period aka six or seven times of being used. Keep that "old" stuff, it will likely outlast you. And if you go and buy lithium-based tools, please buy brand name (=Makita) and don't buy knock-off batteries. These are fire hazards.
ETA: The worst thing you can do with NiCd packs is using them while they are nearly empty or squeezing out that last bit of power. That will drive one of the cells into reverse charge and by then it's effectively forever toast [1].
This is probably better described as "not from an algorithmically generated name on Amazon", I think. Makita is great (I have their track saw, it's amazing)--but so are DeWalt, Milwaukee, Bosch, Festool, Metabo HPT (formerly Hitachi), and a bunch of others. Even the relatively "budget" flavors of those (Craftsman for DeWalt/SBD, Ridgid/AEG and Ryobi for Milwaukee/TTG) are solid tools these days; Ryobi still has its reputation from the days before they went neon green, but you'll see professionals using them these days because the battery compatibility guarantee is valuable. Even some of the more ancillary brands you'll see out there, like the new cordless Skil stuff (made by Chervon, who own the EGO line of garden power tools) are quite reliable; I have DeWalt and Makita stuff in my shop, but Skil's 12V tools live in the house and are fantastic.
More important than the brand name is usually the product tier, which is related but not distinct from the brand. Most of the brands above sell cheap tools, often as part of a set, and they're value-engineered until they scream. A bottom-tier DeWalt and a bottom-tier Makita and a low/mid-tier Ryobi probably aren't that different in terms of reliability, nor would the higher tiers of the above. (With some occasional exceptions; the DeWalt oscillating tool they currently sell is the best one I've ever used from any brand, with affordances that I appreciate more. Apparently they've sold particularly good ones for a while. But a drill's a drill, mostly.)
Power tools above the basement-tier have just all gotten really good in a relatively short period of time. Lemons exist for sure (though every time I hear about somebody breaking a drill during something as relatively easy as a house renovation I find myself asking whether they'd bought the cheapest one they could, as before), but overall? We're at a point where you can even make a decent argument for a Harbor Freight blue-flavored cordless set. I wouldn't, because old habits die hard, but you could. And whatever you buy is probably lasting two decades and not costing you a whole heck of a lot.
Agreed about the batteries, though. Don't buy cheap batteries.
I still wouldn't go for HF tools (or any store brand... Tool Shop, Master Mechanic, take your pick) for anything I want to keep forever. You just can't get parts for most of that stuff. I only get HF or MM if I'm buying the tool for one job and need to fit in the budget, otherwise pretty much everything else I've got is pre-owned DeWalt et al. (The warranty-period breakdown is no joke, but a lot of times if they survive much past that they can be good for a while.)
I'm also still not totally sold on cordless tools. I've found corded tools generally much easier to repair. Extension cords are cheaper than batteries, and for my typical applications they're essentially interchangable.
I get where you're coming from, but their modern tools are pretty much in line with everyone else's--bear in mind that there isn't much of a cost savings from them, either. The Hercules portable table saw with a rack-and-pinion fence is a good example. A friend has one, I've calibrated it for him and gotten up into its guts. And it's built pretty well! But, by virtue of being built pretty well, it costs in line with what a Metabo HPT or DeWalt model does on sale, while having a slightly smaller table. Similarly you'll see pretty equivalent motors, bearings, etc. in those as in mid-range "name brand" cordless tools. I'm sure they shave here and there, but it isn't anywhere near what it used to be, and for light use they'll be fine for quite a long time. (Plus? Good return policies.)
There are few tools I wouldn't rather have cordless, though. Corded drills don't step to an impact driver for screw-driving (the only corded drill I have is a low-speed drill/mixer). Cords on an angle grinder or a jigsaw or the like get in the way more than they help. About the only corded hand tools I have are routers, and I wish my track saw was corded mostly so as to be able to pair the dust extractor with it (but I use the track saw outside a lot too, so it's a wash). All the corded tools in my shop have been retrofitted with either a Festool pigtail or a NEMA L5 locking connector to not have to deal with cords on the tool, and that helps, but it's still not great.
Cordless is a dream on construction sites without electricity though. No more danger of tripping over a cord and suddenly you have at least two injured people... a colleague back when I was working in construction had a nasty incident involving an angle grinder and some poor sod lugging a heavy bag of cement who tripped over the cord where the angle grinder was attached to.
Analog multimeters can surprisingly be useful with more complex or short signals. Sometimes providing significantly better results than digital equivalents.
Specialty tools that fit vehicles you don't have. Specialty tools for operations that no one would perform by hand anymore. E.g. a cylinder honing tool.
Whitworth wrenches, sockets, taps, and dies. My dad had a British motorcycle shop around 1980 and I'm pretty sure there is still some of this in his tool boxes in the garage.
Homemade jigs whose purpose you can't even figure out.
I think the dominant category would just be extra or broken or cheap tools that aren't worth hanging on to. For some reason I have like four stubby Phillips #1 screwdrivers. Cheap hatchets with broken handles. Mushroomed lead mallets. A whole drawer of dull drill bits.
Ooh, those are good. I have a few homemade (or home-modified) specialty tools for my old cars, and some I'll certainly never have use for again.
Those are one reason I've never yet had a British or German car, though I do have one with a British-derived engine and a German fuel injection system. (I'll have to remember to pass on all the custom tools when I get rid of the car. The chances are slim to none that I'll ever own another one.)
A eggbeater drill is as obsolete as it'll ever get. Good ones are worth hanging on to for those occasions when you need to drill a couple of holes some ways from the nearest outlet. Plus, kids love them and will happily spend a ridiculous amount of time drilling holes in scrap.
They also work in tighter spots than an electric drill. There's usually less bulk off the axis in at least one direction, generally opposite the crank. If you're in a corner, you're usually boned though.
The drills that are guaranteed to be trash in 20 years are the battery ones. I have a set and love them for when I need to drill more than a couple holes, but I have no illusions that I'll be passing them down to anybody because the batteries will be unavailable.
Oh no, Dad's old all-steel table saw that was designed and built to be repaired, and which has the same tolerances as a "precision tool" today, doesn't have bluetooth to pair with your iPhone? Guess you'll just have to toss it, then.
Unfortunately it probably also doesn't have all the safety features like a riving blade, either. That doesn't mean it's useless, but it does mean it needs more care to use it and novice woodworkers shouldn't rush in blindly.
They are. A proper one goes up and down with the blade. A saw without an in-built provision for that is a surprisingly tough retrofit [0].
A riving knife that doesn't go up and down with the blade is just a pain in the ass that gets removed the first time you aren't making a through cut and rarely gets reinstalled.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4CuchotcM_4 If you've never seen the inside of a Unisaw, there's a lot of parts in that video that weren't there when the saw left the Delta factory. Even if you mass-produced a kit, it would require reworking some of the original parts, possibly at machinist level tolerances.
Someone in my town started a tool library. It's a collection of tools that people can borrow and then return. At the moment it's just in a storage locker. Some tools can be obscure and rarely used like a toilet wrench for the "spud nut" for the gasket that's under a toilet tank.
I've seen the guy from "my self reliance" (Youtube) use manual hand drill in the building of his remote cabin. No power for electric drill. A battery operated drill would probably fail rather quickly boring through a log with a large drill head. If I remember correctly, proper wood working chisel sets are still very highly priced. And the antique ones can be of higher quality.
"Highly priced" should be taken in context, for a retired person who has no other income it's worth to go to the effort of selling them on eBay or the like. For the type of crowd on HN who probably have relatively well paying jobs, probably not.
He prefers 80+ year old American chisels due to quality of steal. "The older the better".
But anyway, just to confirm, I did an ebay search and top of the line Japanese chisel set is listed for $8.5k.
I was thinking "highly prized" but wrote "highly priced", but I think it can stand.
Look at what gets put out at jumble/rummage sales and charity shops. In addition to what others posted, I see a lot of rusty screwdrivers (Phillips and slot) which everyone already has (and most of the time you're using Pozidriv or Torx anyway) and rusty spade drills.
Every once in a while you spot a good one before someone else does (pincers, a good vintage cast-iron hacksaw frame for €5, a pristine sheet metal clamp for €1), but most of it is crap.
Which does make me wonder where all the good tools go.
> Which does make me wonder where all the good tools go.
Now I'm imagining tool companies sending people around to garage sales and estate sales to buy up good used tools to landfill them so that they can sell not so good new tools.
Snapped up by collectors if they are desirable enough, check out the going rate for pre 1960s hand planes or vintage Snap On socket sets in obsolete sizes!
A brace and bit can be really useful if you're working with very soft or delicate woods. Also a bit and brace is fairly cheap, but good bits for them are lot pricier.
I’ve done this twice for parents in this year alone.
Yeah, sure, it’s a gift I can give. But also, it took valuable time away from other care I could have given, not to mention the time it took away from my own family and work.
Overall, it’s a consumption problem that everyone should address routinely. We as a society would benefit from editing our own lives from time to time, and make this burden less for all parties involved.
> Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child.
This is contextual per family; but absolutely not. There are parents who make it known to their children that they were never wanted so when a child goes no-contact, the onus of cleaning up after them post mortem can be handled by someone else.
Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to use it. When the father died, the stuff in the shed was mostly junk to be sorted into scrap metal or put in the skip. A very few useful tools, a bunch of valueless obsolete tools, and a little antique/collectable stuff. The mother’s stuff was useful or precious to her, mementoes and knick-knacks. Plus some hoarder mentality that made sense given her background. Mostly valueless stuff to anyone else. What value is a drawer of your smalls?
I want my parents to pass their problem down to me and my siblings. I think forcing parents to tidy up or downsize can be cruel. Why be selfish and needlessly make my parents sad?