Althouse: "There’s been a shift in the consciousness of people 70 and over... They’re like, ‘Oh my God, nobody wants my stuff. I don’t even want my stuff.'"

March 1, 2022

"There’s been a shift in the consciousness of people 70 and over... They’re like, ‘Oh my God, nobody wants my stuff. I don’t even want my stuff.'"

Said Ann Lightfoot, founder of a home-organizing company, quoted in "How to Discover the Life-Affirming Comforts of ‘Death Cleaning’/Professional home organizers are seeing a spike in calls from older clients who want to cut through the clutter and make their lives more livable" (NYT).

49 comments:

Narayanan said...: I better buckle down to it; 3/1/22, 11:39 AM
stutefish said...: My parents started divesting their stuff in their late 50s. I got flooded with very old, very large and heavy pieces of furniture. Thousands of books. My mom still sends a steady trickle of stuff my way every year.

Meanwhile my partner and I, now in our 40s, are aggressively getting rid of stuff. Most of our books, and almost all the books we've gotten from my parents, have been sold to Powell's. We're resorting to just throwing stuff away, just to have it stop taking up space in our lives. And also to stop paying the storage fees for all this stuff we don't need. I have boxes that have followed me around, through seven moves to new homes, that I packed when I moved out at 18 and haven't opened since.; 3/1/22, 11:42 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: You know what stuff people will always want from people 70 and over. Guns. The best handme downs I ever got, the most valuable stuff after resale on the open market (for the stuff I didn't keep)? Guns.

Guns. And more guns than you'd really appreciate better in value than the S&P 500. Your kids, at least the ones that didn't turn gay, will always like guns. So will your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren.

Guns.; 3/1/22, 11:43 AM
MikeR said...: "shift in consciousness". Huh? I went through this twenty years ago with my uncle's stuff. It's common.; 3/1/22, 11:46 AM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: “You will not own anything and you’ll be happy.” -New World Order; 3/1/22, 11:49 AM
wendybar said...: I purge every year. I learned after having to move over 14 times in my 20's. Now, if I don't use it in 3 years..out it goes. (clothing, and knick knack type things. I don't get rid of kitchen things like my pasta maker, or meat grinder, because I don't use as often as I used to.); 3/1/22, 11:56 AM
robother said...: Or you could just wait to die, having catalogued all your meaningless crap in your house and garage, and listed it carefully in your personal property addendum: each item to brothers and sisters, children, nephews and nieces, friends and casual aquaintances (who never knew they meant so much to you). The heir to your house will be eternally grateful as they come by to pick up their little treasures.; 3/1/22, 12:05 PM
WK said...: A number of years ago when my parents were going through estate planning and reviewing wills they asked what I might want them to leave for me. I told them to please leave an empty basement.

We moved twice in the last 12 months as part of a planned downsizing. Hundreds of books that we had no room for sold at half price books for about 25 cents each. Clothes and some household accessories to goodwill. Tools to Habitat for Humanity. Sold some stuff on Facebook marketplace. The charities have large dumpsters into which they immediately place items. We eventually rented a large dumpster. Lots of stuff no one wants......; 3/1/22, 12:13 PM
Dan from Madison said...: I have done more than my share of death cleaning in the past several years and it has been absolutely brutal. I highly encourage everyone to death clean early and often to make it easier on those who you leave behind.; 3/1/22, 12:16 PM
PM said...: But that's a perfectly good cassette player!; 3/1/22, 12:21 PM
Ceciliahere said...: This NYT article really hit home with me. I sold my too large house in CT. and downsized to a smaller house and a condo in FL. I quickly learned from auction houses in NYC that the antiques, silverware, French china, and 19th C paintings I had were not what today’s younger people want. Hell, my own daughter didn’t want anything but some of the paintings. I could sell all the stuff but at a fraction of what they were worth when I acquired them. I’m thinking that maybe this stuff will come back into vogue. So, I’ve kept all of it. Let my daughter handle this problem after I’m dead. She isn’t as attached to the stuff as I am. I think of the Count in A Gentleman in Moscow, who has shoved whatever treasured family antiques he could, plus his sister’s portrait, into a hidden room in the Metropol Hotel.

I came to FL with two suitcases. I furnished the condo in a simple, modern style that’s easy to maintain. The “artwork” was purchased at TJ Maxx and it all looks great. When I leave for 5 mos., I lock the door and go. If a hurricane comes, I’m not worried about this stuff.

Then I go back to CT and see most of the antiques inherited from my husband’s family piled up in the garage. There are certain pieces that I just cannot let go. I’ve hung as many oil paintings as I can and the rest are in a third bedroom or in my daughter’s basement. All this beautiful “stuff” is like an albatross around my neck.

I wonder what the next generation’s treasures will be?; 3/1/22, 12:21 PM
mikee said...: If I ever have to move again, arson will be involved.; 3/1/22, 12:26 PM
RigelDog said...: Our adult children, and the adult children of everyone I know, do not want ANY of our possessions---well, except cash of course. Our daughter isn't even interested in anything from my extensive jewelry collection. What's especially odd is that the kids aren't even interested in family heirlooms/nostalgia items.

This is so different from my perspective as a person who grew up in the sixties and seventies. Back then, even middle class people didn't have a lot of discretionary spending money and so things like buying a new couch were a big deal. I just couldn't afford to buy my own furniture and other household goods for several years after I started working. Credit was tight--my first television set cost $500 in 1982 and was from Sears because no other business would give me credit as a fledgling lawyer. Took me forever to pay that off too. I also treasure the few vintage items I have from my parents and grandparents, such as my grandmother's lapel pin promoting votes for women in the early 1900's.

Can't wait to get rid of almost everything we have accumulated, a lot of which are items in good condition we saved because we assumed that our kids would want and need that kitchen table, that set of dishes, pots, and pans. Nope.

Here's my fantasy plan: Put the few things we want to keep into storage and then throw my house open to all and sundry for a weekend---everything FREE.; 3/1/22, 12:36 PM
who-knew said...: I feel their pain. I've got a library and extensive music collection that will probably end up in a landfill. My brother recently died and I couldn't believe how hard is was to find some one interested in his stuff. I still have a lot of it that's too good to toss but can't even be given away.; 3/1/22, 12:56 PM
Bilwick said...: I want my stuff! Of course, most of my stuff is books, so the Dumbest Generation isn't going to want that. Or am I wrong?; 3/1/22, 1:07 PM
Just an old country lawyer said...: When you have bad taste and consequently fill your tacky house with new ugly stuff, of course no one will ever want your old ugly stuff. This is not hard to understand.

What I find hard to swallow is the media efforts to somehow blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine upon Trump for having been Putin's lapdog, puppet, lackey, etc. Luckovich, cartoonist for the lying Atlanta Newspaper, is especially vicious and ludicrous.

Happy Mardi Gras to all, especially you, Ann.; 3/1/22, 1:09 PM
Just an old country lawyer said...: When you have bad taste and consequently fill your tacky house with new ugly stuff, of course no one will ever want your old ugly stuff. This is not hard to understand.

What I find hard to swallow is the media efforts to somehow blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine upon Trump for having been Putin's lapdog, puppet, lackey, etc. Luckovich, cartoonist for the lying Atlanta Newspaper, is especially vicious and ludicrous.

Happy Mardi Gras to all, especially you, Ann.; 3/1/22, 1:09 PM
iowan2 said...: True

It happens when you get stuck with trying to get rid of your parents and/or in-laws stuff

Then it is very clear, I so, do not want most of my stuff.; 3/1/22, 1:17 PM
m stone said...: Unfortunately, in reality, separating "stuff" from older people is like taking a gun from Charlton Heston's hands in one of his memorable moments.

m; 3/1/22, 1:20 PM
Doug said...: I am 83, and I have the same problem too. I have inherited many antiques such as: a chest of drawers brought down the Ohio river on a raft in 1822. My great, great grandmother rode in one of the drawers. She was 2 years old at the time. I have a pie safe made for one of my great grandfathers in 1836. It is signed and dated on the back by the maker. I have a complete set of encyclopedias from the 1850s. It shows that A. Lincoln is a lawyer in Springfield,IL The subsequent yearly updates (every year till 1876) show that he had quite a career, but that it ended badly. I have a math textbook published in Boston in 1794. And, I have many, many more antiques. Nobody wants them. What do I do?; 3/1/22, 1:50 PM
Mason G said...: With the understanding I'm not talking about the kind of people who show up on "Hoarders"... if you like it, keep it. If you don't, get rid of it.

Do people really need a professional to deal with something this trivial?; 3/1/22, 1:52 PM
Anthony said...: That's what estate sales are for. . . . .

As an estate sale maven, it's true: a lot of what people have, no one else wants. Hardly any of your old LPs/cassettes are going to be wanted. Photographs. Most books. "Collectibles". Crappy dishes and other kitchen junk. I just got done going through a few boxes of old photos (I'm about to turn 60), scanned some, tossed the rest out.

I wish my mother had done something like this, instead of making us kids go through an entire house full of 50 years of acquisitions, which took literally months. There were a few items, but the vast, vast bulk of it went either to Goodwill or the trash. The mother-in-law's house is even worse.

But, ummmm, save the typewriters!; 3/1/22, 2:19 PM
B. said...: How sad. I love my stuff.; 3/1/22, 2:47 PM
M said...: Since I lost every auction I bid on at an auction for Georgian furniture this weekend I think this is premature. I swear the prices were so astronomical I thought maybe it was some kind of money laundering operation. The hideous English Imari went so high you could buy a car with what some sets cost. You would generally be extremely lucky to get those prices in famous NYC auction houses if the pieces belonged to someone famous and this was a little auction house in Atlanta and the estate of a local lawyer. The Left has obviously been pouring insane amounts of money into Georgia to buy their votes. I wonder if they will stay bought after they pad out their great grandparent’s silver service and finally find a match to that George III sofa in the parlor.; 3/1/22, 3:06 PM
M said...: Ceceliliahere and Doug contact an auction house. People still want antiques. In fact I was just incredibly disappointed and frankly shocked at the prices for some furniture pieces I tried to bid on this past weekend. If you are in the south contact auction houses in Atlanta or Charleston if you can. In the north you will get the best prices in NYC. Things go highest when tacked onto an estate sale that has drawn a lot of interest because the owner was a well known collector.; 3/1/22, 3:17 PM
Menahem Globus said...: "Doug said...

I am 83, and I have the same problem too. I have inherited many antiques such as: a chest of drawers brought down the Ohio river on a raft in 1822. My great, great grandmother rode in one of the drawers. She was 2 years old at the time. I have a pie safe made for one of my great grandfathers in 1836. It is signed and dated on the back by the maker. I have a complete set of encyclopedias from the 1850s. It shows that A. Lincoln is a lawyer in Springfield,IL The subsequent yearly updates (every year till 1876) show that he had quite a career, but that it ended badly. I have a math textbook published in Boston in 1794. And, I have many, many more antiques. Nobody wants them. What do I do?"

Ebay or another Ecommerce site for used goods. You're sitting on some stuff a lot of people would be willing to pay a lot for.; 3/1/22, 3:19 PM
Michael K said...: And, I have many, many more antiques. Nobody wants them. What do I do?

We do, too. Our kids will sell them on Craig's List or eBay. Some of our things are antiquities. I hope the kids realize the value.; 3/1/22, 3:23 PM
DanTheMan said...: Been there, done that.
Mrs. DtM and I had to clean out mom's very nice house when she moved to assisted living. We kept the family photos and a few heirlooms that had sentimental value, and then called all of the local charities to offer them clothes, furniture, books, dishes, artwork, tools, cookware, computers, etc.

We were shocked to discover that NOBOBY wanted it. They were all overflowing with donated items they can't give away, much less sell.

After a few months of trying, we surrendered. We hired a team of guys and they filled a few dumpsters with two lifetimes worth of stuff mom and dad had accumulated.

Heartbreaking. But that's the modern reality....; 3/1/22, 3:34 PM
Jamie said...: I was just having lunch with a couple of older friends a couple of weeks ago, and they wanted to wander around a nearby antique store for a while. At one point the husband commented, "I find places like this so sad. These are people's lives, being sold by their children and grandchildren."

I said, "Well, we don't know what they did keep. I would guess that they kept everything they could that was meaningful to them." But what I would have liked to say was, "Do you expect every generation to keep all of the stuff of the generation before? Do you expect each new generation to acquire nothing so that they can continue to keep everything that belonged to their forebears?"

I've been tasked by my mother-in-law with keeping a set of andirons that she claims were made by some family ancestor. She doesn't know who, she doesn't know when, she doesn't know where, Ancestry.com has not revealed to me any blacksmith in the family, and no other relative seems to know this story. But I have to keep those andirons. We have a gas fireplace and are unlikely to have a wood fireplace ever again.

And don't get me started on the Dept. 56 collectible Christmas houses!

My parents, OTOH, have been divesting themselves of stuff since they were my age, a quarter century ago. Interesting, the different approaches people take to aging.; 3/1/22, 3:36 PM
Cassandra said...: What a long, strange trip from my 20s, where young military wives would scrounge discarded furniture left out for the garbagemen and fix it up because we couldn't afford to buy new...

...to now, where everyone has so much that you literally can't give stuff away, even if it's in mint condition.

And yet we're constantly told that we're worse off than previous generations.

Maybe in terms of habits of thrift and hard work. But not in any material sense I recognize.; 3/1/22, 4:04 PM
tcrosse said...: My Dear Wife passed away quite recently, and I'm up to my eyeballs in going through her stuff. This is genuine Death Cleaning.; 3/1/22, 4:10 PM
Meade said...: Tcrosse: condolences; 3/1/22, 4:22 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Ah stuff! I built and flew model airplanes as a kid-then came girls, college, marriage law school starting a career and a family. I returned to building and flying model airplanes when I was 40. 30 years after that my wife observed I had three lifetime's supply left of model airplane kits and model airplane engines. She actually underestimated what I had. E Bay and other online sales places helped me get it down to about a lifetime and a half's worth left to go. I'm in my late 70s now and I don't know if I'll get er dun before I die.

But I'm not as bad off as some of my friends in that regard. A late model flying buddy left his wife the problem of disposing of some 2,000 model airplane engines. To him they were precious--to her they were bits of metal she couldn't identify. That's a problem.

One of my fraternity brothers (still alive) is a music lover--with a collection of 4,000 LPs. That's a problem; 3/1/22, 4:27 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I am down to owning almost nothing. My elderly mother on the hand has hoarding tendencies. I have threatened to rent a dumpster and toss all the junk out, but she keeps promising to start going through it all and get rid of the stuff that never gets used. I keep letting her talk me out of the dumpster plan.; 3/1/22, 4:43 PM
effinayright said...: Michael K said...
And, I have many, many more antiques. Nobody wants them. What do I do?

We do, too. Our kids will sell them on Craig's List or eBay. Some of our things are antiquities. I hope the kids realize the value.
***********

We too have lots of good stuff, rare books("First on the Moon", signed by all three Apollo Astronauts), maps (1640's big Blaeu map of Asia), antiques, and in a few cases, museum-quality antiquities. (Like a Hellenistic Bohdisattva head circa 200 AD.)

To make damn sure the kids realize their value, I made a list of them and their approximate value---with the caveat that tastes and markets change---and put it in our strongbox with the wills, mortgage and the like.

When we poop out we hope our stuff is treated well, but time marches on, and by that time we will have left the parade.; 3/1/22, 5:11 PM
robother said...: After spending days going through a deceased hoarder uncle's rooms 30 years ago and then dealing with my father's hoard (is it genetic, or just a Depression Gen thing?) I swore I'd never visit that on my kids.

But after 40 some years in the same house, I behold basement and garage spaces, cabinets and drawers packed to the gills with stuff. My tool boxes include many single use tools I might need again someday for home and auto repairs and maintenance. The 90s left its legacy of portable electronic, telephonic and computer peripherals and connections that may come in handy some day. Outdoor equipment for fishing, backpacking, downhill skiing: you never know when we might take that up again. Grown son and daughter's college stereo remnants. (As someone above says, " a perfectly good cassette deck"). I have about concluded that human's closest mammalian relatives must be the packrat.; 3/1/22, 5:11 PM
Nancy said...: I offer stuff like this "free to a good home" in the neighborhood e-news and it goes in a flash. The heck with the money.; 3/1/22, 5:12 PM
tcrosse said...: Thanks, Meade.; 3/1/22, 5:43 PM
Godot said...: They'll want it later when situational irony becomes fashionable again.; 3/1/22, 6:07 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: tcrosse: sorry to hear. Lost my sister recently, I'm the last standing she had my mom's treasures. Some are on my mantle. It helps me there.
BTW all, look into... https://www.1stdibs.com/about/ It's got what people crave. High quality - professionally packaged. If what you got is High Quality it's worth checking out. There may be others but 1stdibs is Top Dog!; 3/1/22, 6:18 PM
farmgirl said...: I’m sorry, Tcrosse. Each item a story, too…

I don’t have much of value in terms of furniture or art, things that take up much space. I’m the one who gets the memorabilia no one else wants- I get the holy medals and small statues- the pictures and strange knickknacks- not many of those those. Unfortunately, I’m a tucker. Any crack is a temptation to wedge a photo. I tuck photos in the cracks of framed pictures!

I am thinking of getting a hutch, I hope. My sister is unloading my Memere’s dishes and I don’t even know what they look like but a small hutch would let me see them every day. She got those dishes and is “death cleaning” and I’m thinking- yay!!

Our cellar though…; 3/1/22, 6:44 PM
AndrewV said...: While it's not the path I'd recommend, but having a lot of stuff stolen or trashed when my house was robbed took care of some of my burden.; 3/1/22, 7:21 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: @ tcrosse - yes condolences. My wife will probably outlive me, so I will not face this. But I started cutting back on my own stuff 20 years ago and cleaning up after me is not going to be a big deal. When we downsized my wife did surprisngly well, but I'd still like to toss half of what we've got.; 3/1/22, 7:25 PM
Chris Daley said...: Through my business I often deal with estate sales. I sell a specific type of collectable that has to be picked up in person to ensure it survives. The children or widows don't know proper packing. As a result I see quite a few people who are simply overwhelmed by the stuff they have shift through. Often it is one of the kids who is the executor and the other people who stand to inherit want them to squeeze every dime out of the estate. By the time I show up the executor is usually frazzled and and unsure what anything is worth and often paralyzed with fear of tossing out something valuable. I often have to walk through the hobby related stuff and tell them it is OK to toss certain things or drop them off at Goodwill.

Having see first hand what people go through I have told my wife I will be making sure most of my stuff is gone before I am and that anything left will come with instructions on what it is probably worth and how to get rid of it. I recognize much of what I have is only of value to me and I don't expect her or my daughter to want any of it.

Arranging this stuff before you go is the last great gift you can leave your loved ones. They will have enough paperwork and hassles to unwind your life without having to deal with all your physical crap.; 3/1/22, 7:59 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: A few years before you expect to die, get a reverse mortgage on your house. You can leave the cash to your heirs, and the mortgage company will dispose of all the junk before they can offer the property for sale and collect their profit.; 3/1/22, 10:02 PM
todd galle said...: As a museum curator, I often describe myself as a 'collector of dead people's junk', which still stands I think, just months from retirement. As an historian, I am my families depository of anything historical, my grandmothers Philadelphia School District elementary school diploma (1913) and such adiaphora. I have taken to Dewey Decimalizing my book collection, to save the librarians time when my wife drops the books off at the library after I'm planted. RideSpaceMountain is correct, guns. Two that I have from my Grandfather, a M1911A1 .45 and a 1903A3, both in excellent condition and purchased via CMP in the early 50s. The 1911 was purchased for $10.50, and the rifle for 12.75 (remember that I get all that family paperwork), that's a heck of an investment.; 3/1/22, 10:28 PM
farmgirl said...: In re-reading my post, I am not happy my sister is cleaning impending any big event- long may she live!
It’s just cool she passed my Grandmother’s dishes and a couple of quilts on to me.; 3/1/22, 11:37 PM
Narr said...: I just now came back to read the post and comments. Sorry, tcrosse, for your loss.

I was helping my wife get ready for her trip and planning secretly my first attack on the piles of stuff that have accumulated here.

Mostly hers, mostly of little or no value, including a few plastic bins of the same that have been here since she and her brothers sold her mother's house in '07 or so. And none of the brothers took a thing, even their own stuff, some of which she brought here, and which I have ditched slowly over time. We have some nice 50s modern stuff that just sits in odd places with stuff piled on top, some of the cheap things we had when young, a mishmash. (She was by profession an interior designer, but as they say it's the cobbler's children that go without shoes.)

The only reason I don't have all the family archive here is that my last brother has it hidden under the crap he has hoarded in the house he's lived in all his life. My mother
was the youngest of her generation and lived longest, so much that was fine, and much that
was not, ended up in a house that used to be pretty well-appointed. Now it looks like the back room at Goodwill. (When my brother took a rare trip out of town after she died, I took several carloads of her old shoes and clothes there, and barely made a dent.)

In less than six hours the cleansing begins here. Then I'll bring some stuff from the old place (and storage) here and start over.

Wish me luck.; 3/2/22, 11:30 AM
RoseAnne said...: Various reasons make it a good time to update my will so I went a little further and started listing some of my items that I think should be saved by someone in the family. One thing, that didn't make the list, was a family tree painted by an artist for my parents. I have it because no one else wanted it but didn't think it should be thrown out. It is beautiful but 37 great (and great-great) nieces and nephews have joined the family since them. Why update something more easily kept in a computer file?

What made the list is a rocker, less than 20 years old, that is solid and perfect for rocking babies to sleep, a large wooden box repurposed as a coffee table that started life with my grandfather who was a Seabee in WWII and a Navity set made from some form of hard plastic that my parents purchased from the local Five and Dime when they first married. There are no Wise Men because they couldn't afford them. Each piece has a stamp on the bottom with the price. The sheep each cost 8 cents. I was surprised by how few things I really cared about.

One further thought: Some educational places (museums, etc) may want some stuff to use in kids educational programs. They will be beat to death and thrown out eventually but they will get some use out of them.; 3/2/22, 12:58 PM