Admiral Beez
Superstar
My wife and I have been encouraging our boomer parents to speak with our kids about anything they would want.
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The great stuff transfer
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
- Start date
My wife and I have been encouraging our boomer parents to speak with our kids about anything they would want.
lenaitch
Senior Member
We've already gone that route. We moved (long distance) a couple of years ago and used that opportunity to cull. Part of the problem was we were so organized that ours 'piles o' sutff' didn't look all that bad. When we have the old farmhouse, basement moisture was a problem so I built raised shelves and we put everything in large Rubbermaid tubs. If it had looked like an unholy mess we might have acted sooner.
When my dad passed, the house was for my step-mom's family to deal with but the contents were our. We sort of lucked out as the wife's family had just built a new cottage, so a lot of the furniture found a new home. Strangely, we were down there (Scarborough) one weekend trying to organize and had stuff out on the lawn just making piles of what I was taking, what my brother was and what we were going to unload. We ordered a pizza and the delivery guy bought a bed; which got us thinking and we whacked up some signs and ended up selling quite a bit in an impromptu yard sale.
Our kid is mid-35s; they already have their own 'stuff'. We gave her first refusal on anything but a lot of the stuff we had nobody wants. Things like china and dining room sets you can't give away. Between FB Marketplace, a garage sale, Value Village or simply giving it away we've culled it down to a dull roar.
To be clear, once we kick off or go to a nursing home, they will still have a bunch of stuff to deal with. I still have a bunch of tools (that the SinL likely won't want) and we're not prepared to wait out our days living like monks.
Jonny5
Senior Member
I don't have kids, but my sister has five, so I am hoping to offload stuff on them as time passes and they get out on their own. They are all teenagers now, and the oldest is 20 year-old, so it won't be long until someone needs stuff to furnish their first apartment, and then I can gift them the crappy stuff I bought at Ikea 20 years ago to furnish my first place and replace that with some high quality furniture now that I can afford that. And all of that will be left to my relatives decades from now who will probably not want it. As they say, "all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again."
jje1000
Senior Member
Good opportunities for liquidators and auction sites like Maxsold.
In the end though, I think a lot of people in North America just have too much 'stuff'.
In the end though, I think a lot of people in North America just have too much 'stuff'.
gabe
Senior Member
We used an auction site for my grandma's house when she passed. Her house was full of collator plates, dolls, knick knacks, art, and other junk. After my grandpa died she filled her days with shopping. Every room in the house was packed with stuff. She had new small appliances not even out of the box. We didn't know what to do with all the stuff. So we auctioned it all off. We got a few thousands bucks out of the sale, what was left over went to Value Village.
gabe
Senior Member
Myself and my boyfriend helped a elderly neighbour of ours recently with his house. His daughter died and he had no family left. He had so many antiques dishes and tea sets that he thought were worth big bucks. I brought in an antique dealer who's a friend of mine. He basically just told the guy the truth. All the antiques he had were all worthless. Some of the art and hand carvings he spent big bucks on from Tanzania, India and other parts of the world, turned out to be made in china knock offs sold to gullible tourists.
lenaitch
Senior Member
It is sad. When we lived in Durham Region, I went through a phase of going to auctions (in addition to on-site farm auctions, there were a number of auction barns within a reasonable radius). There was always tableware, tea sets, etc. sitting there forlornly.
I helped a friend clean out his in-laws place after both passed quite close to each other. He called an anitque/used furniture place about selling a dining room set and was told don't even bother putting it on the truck.
The trouble with art is it is so subject, and tastes change. We used to be into Canadian wildlife/landscape art - even had a couple of Bateman and Group of Seven prints. There was a guy who was a fairly decent wildlife artist named Albert J Casson - I saw him a few times at the Sportsmans Show - and we had a couple of his prints. Anyway, decorating choices evolved and we sold them at a garage sale. As the buyers were walking away we heard one whisper 'We just bought an A J Casson for twenty bucks !!!!'. Oh, sweetie . . .