CLeaning out my parents house

I am having to go through this with my parents. My dad could go at any moment, so we have been updating the family trust. Setting up what to do with the body etc.

It is difficult when there are two children and the parents want a 50/50 split. Where it gets complicated is that one sibling may have grounds to contest the other as unfair advantage. In theory I have life occupancy, but that means my brother has to wait until I die to inherit his share of the trust.

I am told if I do not declare things like my watches, to be personal non trust property. My brothers family can claim they are part of the trust, and claim equal share. To whom does the grandfather clock belong? Furniture? Collectable tchokas? The woodworking she shed shop in the back yard?

There is a strong desire not to get rid of the stuff. Or we will deal with it later. Personally I would like to start dumping stuff, but on the other hand I am doing the opposite. Getting toys and things I lost what I had when I was younger.

Some of this is much like the market fluctuations. When does one sell off great grandpa's writing desk, Or the picture uncle whatshisname painted and has been on the wall most of one's life? Books, Records DVDs (Laserdisks. 8 Track tapes?)

In my case we (my brother's family) live on opposite coasts. My sister in law tends to ghost and gaslight people including her own family when she does not get her way. She uses access to the grandchildren as leverage. To her inheritance, will be spent on a weekend at the spa,

They came out last Christmas and all they wanted to do was party. There are also things in geriatric care which are not pleasant (You do not want to know what a suppository is.) Some people like to express emotion through primal scream therapy. There is a lot of denial at play. Or the feeling " no need to deal with it till the time comes."

Short term memory lapse also can be an issue. What happens when the person you care for thinks they are getting the wrong drugs, and the medications are causing their memory lapse. My dad wants to break out of the cycle. He gets depressed when he can not eat. (he lost many of his teeth as a young man, now the remaining are loose, and his partial dentures can not fit.) His food has to be purred. This makes it mushy and unappetizing. Even though it is different, to him it is the same thing every day. There is also the risk of asperating food and another bout of pnemonia, which weakend him in the first place.

Ironically I think the Pope is having to deal with this as well.

Finding trusted third party executors is difficult. Especially when one is in their 90s. There is so much unpredictability.

At the moment Mom has the POA. Although there are things like car registration, where things are still in Dad's name. Where they want him to come in person to change the 'ownership over.'

I am amazed even at 65 how many of my friends are gone. DEI and political opinion can also have had devastating consequence in the last half dozen years or so. Sometimes it feels like 'every man for himself.' Cousins one expected to be around and were always organizing the family gatherings are also gone. The extended family is quite large, but after three or four generations people pretty much become strangers. They have their own families and situations to deal with. I have watched cousins and friends go through what I am going through now.

My Dad's sister is 100, mom has an aunt who is like 107. They outlived some of their children.

Neighbors seem pretty helpful in the short term, but things happen and people drift apart.

I went ahead and applied for assisted (subsidies) living, There is a two year wait list (and who knows what things will be like in that time) I really do not want to give up this place. Where will I put my lathes?. I really do not want to give up the woodworking shop, even though I have not had time to use it in the last few years. All the wood stacked, dried out, and perfect for making small pipe organs. Ironically much of this came from an estate I bough 25 years ago.

Then there are the gardens. I am rooting fig trees. Planting vegetables, Wanting to work more on retaining walls, There is also home maintenance. Crack repair, plumbing and such. It is one thing when it it your's. But when you realize someone will want take it from you (becouse you can not pay taxes and extortion.) It can get quite depressing.

In the meantime, I have projects which will keep me occupied for at least 500 years ...

The house next door to me (DC area) sold the other day. The owner moved to Florida full-time over a dozen years ago, and passed away 2 years ago. She did not want to stay there any more after he husband died about 15 years ago, and she could never bring herself to sorting through everything that was there. One son lives about 45 minutes away, and he and his wife were tasked for keeping up the place, while the other son and daughter -- both in Florida -- ignored it. Well, now they have less than two weeks to empty out the house prior to settlement. It's a 5 bedroom house packed with tons of family/ personal stuff that started accumulating back in 1963. I have a feeling the next 1-1/2 weeks are not going to be pretty...

On a side note, I wonder if there are any interesting watches in the house. The father and mother were both attorneys, but lived pretty modestly.

Feel your pain. Like others, we went through this with my mom. A very organized widow, she still had huge amounts of papers, collectibles and frankly, debris in the form of cardboard and "things I might someday need". It was startling how much we hauled out that ended up in dumpsters. The fact is that much of our stuff is destined for the dump. I recognize that my family will have no better idea than I do about what to do with all my precious items that I can't figure out what to do with or let go.

This can be a difficult time. It was with my mother, who also lost much of her memory in her final years. It was sad and difficult, but after she passed we were glad we tried to help, even if it didn't always seem to make a difference.

You're living proof of what makes watches different than other objects in our lives. These little chunks of metal hold a connection to loved ones like few other items.

I went to an estate sale once and they said 'we have no watches or baseball cards.'

My dad just had his 93rd birthday. I guess only fictional people have no trouble putting their affairs in order. For some time we have been looking for his retirement plaques. They had fallen behind the computer office desk.