The stuff that dead people leave behind them

BrianD3

A friend of our family died a while back, a widow in her late 80s with no close family. Her house went on the market seemingly exactly as she had left it. Like the houses of many of my deceased relatives and thousands of others in this country, it was full of ornaments, cabinets of china crockery, Waterford glass, National Geographic mags, holy pictures. No doubt that stuff was important to her during her life and now much of it will just be thrown in a skip or sold off for a pittance.

I'm not sure if "estate sales" are a thing here in Ireland but a chap called Norm Diamond (a former interventional radiologist and now photographer) has travelled the US photographing items in such sales and writing about it. He is quoted as saying

"There is nothing like an estate sale to remind me of my own mortality and life's brevity"

https://www.texasmonthly.com/style/estate-sale-studies/

My own parents had a lot of Waterford glass from golf competitions and wedding presents. I well remember the panic when one of a set of wine glasses was broken circa 1985 and it HAD to be replaced. Pattern was no longer available which caused consternation. Seems utterly absurd now. At least Waterford glass is somewhat aesthetically pleasing IMO, one thing that I don't get at all is lladro figures, ugly looking things and very expensive at the time if I recall.

Maybe I'm just more of an Onslow than a Hyacinth Bouquet type - were I to die tomorrow, I'd leave behind old rusty cars, computers full of porn, CRT televisions, VHS video tapes, CDs. all my notes from college, some copy books from school, a lot of home gym equipment, some lawnmowers etc.

Have you any stories about dead people's stuff, does this topic make you think WTF life is about.

L1011

There are house clearance firms here and stuff does end up in the "vintage shops" sector, but nowhere near like it is in other countries.

The value of the items usually ends up exactly equal to the cost of removing somehow!

Trying to think over what people would find if they went through our house if we suddenly all died.

It would be a lot of tools and gardening implements and hunting gear - a group of weapons and martial arts gear and sports gear - a weirdly large collection of sex toys - a serious amount of books - and a very well stocked kitchen and cooking equipment.

seamus

Yeah, it's a funny one alright.

I've an aunt who's approaching 80, her and her husband, and neither in great health. They never had kids, struggle now to get out of the house for a walk.

For the past couple of years, a number of us have been touching on the scenarios that are not "what if", rather "when". One of them will die (likely the husband), leaving the other rattling around a big house, struggling to even climb the stairs.

They've a large, well located house that would fetch a couple of million euro, we've suggested that they could sell up, buy a bungalow closer to family and still have a massive pot of cash left over to enjoy themselves.

"Where will I put all my stuff", is a common question. They have a lot of nick-nacks. Not cheap ugly stuff, stylish glassware and ornaments. Not necessarily worth money, but of strong sentimental value - to them.

They don't seem to grasp that when they die, we will go through all of that "stuff" and sell it or throw it away. Things of theirs that might be of sentimental value to us like photo albums or old medal or journals, we'd keep. But attic junk, living room ornaments, an old chest of drawers...nah. Goneski.

That's not to say that people should dispose of all their stuff, but it is sobering to come to understand that things which are important to you are unlikely to be important to anyone else. If you would like something to persist beyond your death, then you need to give it to someone before you die and explain why. Otherwise, no matter what it is, it'll be on the scrap heap eventually.

I personally find that there is little more depressing than surrounding oneself with sentimental treasures. Photos, great. Little mementos, awesome. But things like furniture, crockery, cutlery, vehicles, toys, linen. Get it tae fvck once it has passed its useful lifespan. Holding onto it because it was your first X or because it reminds you of your kids being young, is a surefire way to remind you every day of how old you are.

L1011

On the continent, you get sort of super-sized equivalents to charity shops - but often run as for-profit recyclers - that do house clearances. A college friend of my partner works in one as their art assessor and handler - valuing paintings, taking worthless prints out of frames and selling the nice stuff at auction, the generic stuff in the shop

The shop itself is two floors, each the size of a decent size Tesco or similar, full of furniture, lighting, books, clothes, homewares etc they've taken from those clearances and decided is worth something. The rest is recycled. As well as the professional artist, they have a joiner (for the furniture) and a sparks (for the lighting/appliances) on staff so there's a fair bit of professional cost to cover as well as the retail staff, recycling staff and truck drivers - so you can see why they don't pay for what they take in.

Probably results in a lot more items being sold to someone who actually wants them, and prevents other items going to landfill.

Yeah I think I do not tend to keep sentimental things that remind me of my past - so much as I try to keep things that will remind my loved ones of theirs. So there are a couple of boxes in the attic where I put things I genuinely think that - after my death - my kids or friends will pull out and go "Oh my god I had totally forgotten that toy/book/object/day/event!!!" and be thrown down memory lane.

Keeping things for my own sentimentality has never motivated me as much as that and the stuff I keep from their childhood is what I genuinely expect will be meaningful to them sometime in the future - not to me.

NIMAN

A good debate.

My own mother is a widow of 80, and bought a lot of crap in her life. A lot of it was important to her of course, and she thought she needed it at that time, but she has so many things still not even taken out of their boxes. Qvc used to be her favourite tv channel for about 15 years.

I do wonder about what will be done with the house contents when she dies. Of course some of it would be of interest to her kids, like photos etc, but outside of sentimental things, a vast majority of what is in the house will probably ended up on skips. And it'll take a few to empty the house!

Listing furniture and appliances etc on 2nd hand sites would also be very time consuming and could prove fruitless, so perhaps have a couple of charities visit and see if they want to take everything they'd be able to sell?

seamus

Listening furniture and appliances etc on 2nd hand sites would also be very time consuming and could prove fruitless, so perhaps have a couple of charities visit and see if they want to take everything they'd be able to sell?

Unfortunately there is just so much of this kind of stuff floating around and new furniture is so cheap (IKEA), that it's nearly impossible to give away second-hand furniture and appliances unless they're close to new condition. Even charity shops won't take a mahogany dining table or a couch unless there's some specific value in it. People don't want something scratched, torn, worn dusty and smelly when they can go to IKEA and pick up a brand new one for less than €100.

Thelonious Monk

Yes I always found the idea of leaving a load of junk behind depressing. I've always tried to own as little as possible but stuff does accumulate. I think when I reach about 70 (if I live that long) I'll start decluttering bigtime so that I know when I die there'll be feck all left for someone to deal with.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215305#Comment_118215305

Historically, we didn't buy or couldn't afford 'quality' things.

A lot of what gets left behind are a clutter of cheap framed prints, china ornaments, mass produced religious figures, spooky holy pictures, tacky holiday souvenirs etc.

lolokeogh

I was just thinking about this the other day,stuff my granny had in her house,and for some reason the older generation bought stuff and left it boxed,for example i remember my granny buying this ice cream making machine many many years ago,and it was still in her house in the box..lol.but also helped a gentleman some years ago clear out houses,he would buy the stuff as a job lot,and ofcourse the family would take what they wanted before hand,but on occasion he did get very lucky with some items,i also remember he took an old bedroom dresser,and there was a draw hidden at the back,in it he got a stack of jewellery,he did give it back.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215649#Comment_118215649

Yeah, this would make sense. You see in the UK you have things like antiques roadshow which the Brits seem to love, and everyone seems to have a couple of old family heirlooms that they believe might have come from way back.

For whatever reason that doesn't really seem to exist in Ireland. Very few people have rings or clocks or ornaments passed down from their great-grandmother with some backstory or rumoured great value.

Maybe people couldn't afford things that are worth passing on. Or maybe it's down to the Irish cultural aversion to being showy. That you'd be embarrassed to say you'd spent a few hundred quid on an ornament. Notions, etc.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215649#Comment_118215649

Sh1te in other words.

lucalux

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-swedish-death-cleaning-should-you-be-doing-it-ncna816511

Something I've thought about a lot, but the Swedes have a name for it - Death cleaning.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/how-to-practice

Good article here on the emotional aspect of cleaning a life out of a house, as that's what people have to do after a death.

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215770#Comment_118215770

There are a good few items in my parents house passed down from great grand mother and further back- rings, cutlery, pewter pieces, old solid 19th century mahogany furniture pieces, ornamenets, and clocks with real ivory including a 19th piano with ivory keys which my sister happily took a marker to when she was a toddler and most importantly- land...with frontage. All from my mother's side as they were well off. Some of the Victorian era furniture is quite impractical and unwielding.

My father's side back in the day were dirt poor farm labourers without running water in the house. There is only crap in that grandmother's house. Eff all will be kept when she dies....just the pictures.

Strumms

If I died the only personally owned physical stuff of worth would be a couple of decent guitars one worth about 1400 the other about 800. I have a reasonable vinyl collection but I’ve never valued it, there are some original Beatles/Stones including an absolutely mint Stones Big Hits High Tides & Green Grass which I’m reading is worth about 220 euros, I paid £30 for it at a vinyl sale upstairs in Wynn’s hotel about 20 years ago.... collection would or could be worth about 1800-2300 euros...ballpark.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215770#Comment_118215770

We are showy, but in the tacky sense, at least in the last 50/60 years.

'Traveller chic' is probably the extreme of this.

Only lately, less is more began to catch on.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215774#Comment_118215774

If you want to put it that way, yes.

Stuff like that that made its way to second hand shops used be called 'dead pluck'.

partyguinness

Personally, my whiskey collection albeit small is worth about £2k. A couple of watches around the £5k mark.

Of course there is my U12 'C' Championship medal which is priceless.

Like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon - "every day I wake up and try to find a reason not to kill myself".. I suppose thinking what folk might find in one's house, would be a very good one 😁

Sleepy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215770#Comment_118215770

Also, the UK would have had stately homes, an aristocracy and a relatively large middle class in the 17th - 19th centuries which would, even adjusting for population size, have eclipsed that of our own. Even well into the 20th century there would have been a much higher percentage of the population in the UK that was "comfortable" if not well off compared to here.

Consequently, there would have been much more items of value worth being passed down through families in order to be considered Antiques today in the UK than here where the population was overwhelmingly impoverished. Add in the destruction of the Irish country houses (largely by fire) and it's no great surprise that there are so few antiques in Ireland when compared to the UK/France or other former colonial powers.

mrcheez

I'll leave behind a considerable backlog of unplayed games on Steam and PS4 :(

...and Wii U.. and Switch... and Rift / Quest... and Xbox 360

yagan

I noticed years ago living in England that clear out brown furniture that filled warehouses there could sell for multiple times more when shipped to Ireland. Ireland simply didn't have that large comfortable middle class who bought stuff so there'd always been a shortage of and a premium on furniture.

Stuff that they cherished then is so much junk now by it's eventual ubiquity.

I still like rummaging the odd time in charity shops though. I've spent hundreds on new guitars in the past yet the guitar I play the most and am least likely to part with was brought in a charity shop for €10!

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118216753#Comment_118216753

I suppose there is a risk that shows like the Antiques Roadshow give an unrealistic or skewed impression of wealth. There was plenty of dirt poor regions in England right up to the 70s- and far worse than Ireland in many inner city slums. But on the whole relatively speaking due to the huge population difference there would be a higher number of middle class.

That's what irritates me when I visit 'stately' homes in England. There is never any mention of how it was paid for. "We bled the natives in the far off lands high and dry" is not good optics.

dresden8

My stuff is cool. Everybody else's stuff is tat.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118216872#Comment_118216872

Always recognise the slave owner estates by the stone pineapples!

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-hidden-history-of-the-housewarming-pineapple

miamee

My grandmother has been doing that 'death cleaning' for the last 15-20 years 😂 she's always clearing out cupboards in the kitchne but still has no space left in them. She would have a large amount of kitchen appliances and gadgets and sometimes would have two or three of t ahting without realising it. It is not a big kitchen.

On this very subject (the stuff dead people leave behind them), I thought this was a very good thread on Twitter a couple of days ago. I actually thought the OP might be about this when I saw the title!

https://twitter.com/PajamaStew/status/1462620572140007428

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118216806#Comment_118216806

Brown furniture was slow to shift the last while, it's starting to pick up again lately.

Humble Irish cottage furniture is disliked as reminders of bad times and dumped or left to rot.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118217104#Comment_118217104

What I find most amusing about that is how people fall for brown furniture that's been stripped and sanded to look like French rural poverty furniture! Fools and their money!

Mam of 4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215418#Comment_118215418

Local Auction House if there's one near you ? Had to do this a few years back , donated a lot to charity shops , then boxed up everything else and out to the auction house . No reserves on them , they all sold , money went towards new electrics, plumbing in the house .

arctictree

I had a relative that was very accomplished in a particular field. He amassed a room full of trophies and awards. It's very sad but after he died they were all just flung in a skip...