Nobody wants my mom's stuff, but no one's willing to get rid of it.

Dear s.e.,

My mom died recently and we are under pressure to clear out her apartment. I am very thankful that she downsized about ten years ago so it's only a one-bedroom apartment's worth of stuff, but it's a lot, and we have 60 days to do it.

Some things are obviously sentimental so family or friends are taking them. Others are...not, or no one really wants them. My siblings say that we should just pack everything up, store it, and go through it later. First they suggested I store everything at my house because I live locally, which I don't want to do even if I did have room, and now they are pushing for a storage unit.

Here's the thing: I don't want to get trapped into paying storage unit fees for an indefinite period of time on the promise that we will "go through things eventually." If there are things we know we don't want, I think we need to donate or discard them. I cannot convince my family of this.

Please help!

—Storing Up My Feelings

Hey there, Storing Up My Feelings,

I'm so sorry about your mom—the death of a parent is a big life event, and I'm guessing that if you lived locally you may have been pretty active in each others' lives. Disputes over clearing out houses can be super fraught, and I am VERY glad to hear that your mom isn't leaving you with a three-bedroom house worth of things to go through (take note, empty nesters of the world). I also know that even a one-bedroom house can fit an astonishing amount of stuff that can feel overwhelming to go through.

From the top, I'm going to suggest a bit of a compromise, and then I'll unpack (so to speak), my reasoning.

I recommend that you consider being willing to pack up a set number of boxes and store them at your house for a set period of time, and make it clear that this is your last word on the subject. Maybe that is one, two, or three boxes. Whatever it is, it should be the number of boxes you can comfortably and easily store in your house that won't get in your way or frustrate you. Heck, maybe it's one that fits on the shelf of your hall closet, and it's gotta be less than 18" x 18" x 12" (I favor clear tubs, personally, since they remind you of what's inside instead of just turning into mystery boxes).

If the number of boxes you are willing to store for any length of time is zero; they want to pressure you into more; or your stated length of time is too short for your siblings, that's fine! You can suggest that one of them take this on. Do not be afraid to point out that as the person living locally, you (I bet!) did a lot of support and care work for her when they didn't or couldn't, and that you are likely going to be handling many local activities after they leave, so you're just asking for a fair distribution of workload.

If they categorically reject this compromise, you can say "okay, I presented you with an option which you declined. I have taken the things from the house that are important to me. If you would like to pack and pay for storage you are welcome to do so, but I will not be participating or paying for it."

I have a couple reasons for suggesting this rather than being like "get a dumpster" The first is the dual pressures of the time factor and grief. You are in a complicated emotional place right now that involves a lot of processing, thinking, and introspection. It's not always the best time to be making big definitive decisions if you can avoid them, especially when you are feeling like you need to deal with them right now.

There is a risk that you are so overwhelmed, maybe without even fully realizing it, that you're not in an ideal decision-making frame of mind. Things you're on the fence about now might be things you realize later were actually really important to you. While there's only so much preemptive planning for regret a person can do, you can head off some potential "oh no, it turns out I really did like that porch goose, shit" feelings if you're willing to store some marginal cases...for a little while.

Ending up with random boxes of a dead person's stuff creates both physical and emotional clutter, and you don't want to end up in that trap, which is why setting a time limit is important.

In six months or a year you might feel ready to go through those and sift through things that are meaningful to you and you want to keep, or someone else wants to keep, and those that can pass into the vale. You might open those boxes and be like "wow, past self, what were you thinking, this is a truly eclectic and mystifying collection of items you thought someone would care about." Or you might be really glad you saved all these things. More likely, you're going to see a few things that are important and the rest can move it along.

Either way, you gotta clean out this apartment. That ship has sailed. And you are clearly on top of the basics here. You're already doing the critical "hey, are there things anyone really wants" first pass—it was a great idea to get her friends to participate too.

It sounds like now you're sifting through things that might have sentimental value and those that definitively do not. This is definitely the moment to say "the family is assuming that everyone has taken the things that are critically important to them, and everything else is left up to our discretion. If there's something in the house that's really important to you or you are on the fence about something, come get it by the end of the week (or whenever) because we will not store it for you and almost everything left is going to the thrift store/dump/being sold."

For the "do nots," if you haven't already, clear those bad boys out of there whether you are taking them to the dump or donating them to the thrift store or what have you. Ask friends and others to help with this, since it's a great task for them. If you have a lot of thrift store items, many will come and pick them up, including furniture, art, clothes, whatever. If your mom had a lot of cool stuff that may be worth some money, ping someone who does estate sales, or a vintage store, or what have you and ask them to come out and take a look.

Just get those nonessentials out of there. Getting them out of the space will help you see how many potentially sentimental things are actually left. Maybe it'll end up being just a few items that fit in your storage box, boom, you're done. Maybe there will need to be a second sifting round here, in which you can remind people that if they want, or think they want, an item, they need to take it right now. Maybe everyone will actually realize that these things are not as important as they thought they were.

The critical thing here is that you are going to be presenting a very reasonable compromise (imo) here: You get that people want some time, you are concerned about the risks of indefinite storage of items that no one actually goes through, you do not want to pay for storage, you do not have the capacity for storage. If people disagree with you, you can tell them that this one is on them.

Tell your siblings I said...

We're all going through a lot lately but I am unwilling to hoard mom's collection of vintage postcards forever