(No) Swedish Death Cleaning

Swedish Death Cleaning is the idea that you’ll get rid of extra stuff before you die so that those left behind won’t have to worry about your stuff.

Let me just say: do it! Do it now!

My dad, always a bit of a pack rat, died 16 years ago, somewhat suddenly. He and my stepmother lived in a 1500 SF townhouse. My brother and I flew in for the funeral and I remember my stepmother saying “your dad wanted to make sure you got his furniture, and when do you want to get it?” Well, we weren’t exactly going to take it back on the plane, and I specifically remember telling my stepmother “I don’t want to take your kitchen table!” (One of the items—a very old drop leaf table that was in my great grandparents’ farmhouse).

Life has, of course, moved on in 16 years. I haven’t been back in all that time—I was never close with my stepmother (they got married when my dad was 62, I think)—and we’ve drifted further apart to just Christmas cards over the last couple years.

So my stepsister calls me last month to tell me that my stepmother has had a couple of small strokes, is moving into assisted living, they need to sell the house, and do I want my dad’s furniture and “a couple boxes of miscellaneous stuff?”

My immediate response was “no,” but then my brother and I realized that yeah, there were a couple items—a rocking chair, a small table, a couple pieces that came over on the boat 100 years ago from Scotland, a painting—that we might like to have. Initially we were going to go fetch it, but it’s a 2 day drive each way, and with hotels, gas, uhaul rental, hiring labor (we’re all old and our backs aren’t what they were), it was just easier to hire a moving company. Priced out, the cost was for the minimum amount. Fine. We’ll just get it here and sort it out. Cool. Easy, a little pricy, but now I can use my vacation days for something more fun. I also stupidly tell my brother, who is perpetually poor, that I’ll pay for it.

Fast forward to Thursday, when I get a call from a mover who doesn’t speak English and my apologetic stepbrother (my step sister is home with Covid), who inform me that “there’s a lot more stuff” and of course the price of the move is doubled.

“A lot more stuff” apparently includes stuff found in the attic, stuff in an outside storage room, some clothing, golf supplies and most exciting of all—“two or three boxes of floppy disks and VHS tapes.”

So I have a big bill, and even though I saved some vacation days, I’ll have no money to pay for a vacation, my garage is going to be full of stuff for a while, all because my stepmother is a pretty nice lady (really, she is—she had marked everything long ago so her kids wouldn’t mix it up with her stuff) who wanted to make sure we got my dad’s stuff.

The moral of this story: if you’re older, start throwing stuff out or consulting with your kids about what they want and don’t want. If you’re younger, start talking to your parents about this stuff. I keep thinking my stepmother could have had a much nicer life—with more room in the closets!—over the last 16 years if she’d tossed this stuff.

I’m going out now to make room in the garage for the delivery in the next couple days. Anyone need any floppy disks or VHS tapes?

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Now you just need the right type of floppy disk drive. Depending on the age of the floppies, it could be a challenge.

I did this a few years ago after the death of a close family member. My observation is that accumulators (hoarders?) will be accumulators and throwerouters will be throwerouters. There’s no way to change them. I’m a throwerouter. Serves me well. Occasionally I have to rebuy something I threw out, but I just do it and consider that occasional cost as the cost of lean living.

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Or, as my DD told me, more than once, “Dad it won’t even burn, it’s all metal!” well, it would have fallen to her to do the sorting, selling of stuff, as she’d have known the values, but sadly she’s left early… So now my DS will be the recipient one day, if DW hasn’t already done it all, she’s good at tossing stuff, I accumulate, ‘might need it someday!’…

Times change, interests change, technologies change, but we don’t, usually…

It is a problem…

One of the best things about moving into the Old People’s Home, even tho’ we were getting a small three bedroom two-bath apartment here , was we really had to downsize.

We told our daughters to go round our house and tag anything they wanted, plus be prepared for a few family treasures we needed to pass on. We marked the things we wanted to take.

Then a wonderful relocation service came, went to our Old People’s apartment to measure things, packed up everything we had chosen, transported it, and set it up, even making up our bed in the new home.

Better still, they packed up the mass of furniture, pictures, kitchen stuff, ornaments, barbecue etc we had left, took everything to a Goodwill donation place, and brought us receipts.
They then cleaned the stripped house from floor to ceiling. The realtor sold it in two days ( altho the paper work took a few more days).

On moving day the relocation service packed up and had unpacked everything. All the household linens etc, were arranged by color, and my linen closet has never looked so good…My new kitchen was arranged exactly like the one we’d left.

Our first night in the new home meant we had very little to unpack ourselves…it was already a home!
And we had downsized in a major fashion.

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Let me just say: do it! Do it now!

I have been working at it but the cascading doesn’t help. I have things from my grandmother, father*, mother and husband not to mention my things. Some are worth actual money and I am trying to be careful there.

I am really sorry you got stuck.

*But I have to say that someone I originally connected through TMF’s grandfather worked for the same company as my father and I was able to send him a tiny memory. We both guess they probably knew each other. This was kind of cool.

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One of the best things about moving into the Old People’s Home, even tho’ we were getting a small three bedroom two-bath apartment here , was we really had to downsize.

We told our daughters to go round our house and tag anything they wanted, plus be prepared for a few family treasures we needed to pass on. We marked the things we wanted to take.

Then a wonderful relocation service came, went to our Old People’s apartment to measure things, packed up everything we had chosen, transported it, and set it up, even making up our bed in the new home.

Better still, they packed up the mass of furniture, pictures, kitchen stuff, ornaments, barbecue etc we had left, took everything to a Goodwill donation place, and brought us receipts.
They then cleaned the stripped house from floor to ceiling. The realtor sold it in two days ( altho the paper work took a few more days).

On moving day the relocation service packed up and had unpacked everything. All the household linens etc, were arranged by color, and my linen closet has never looked so good…My new kitchen was arranged exactly like the one we’d left.

Our first night in the new home meant we had very little to unpack ourselves…it was already a home!
And we had downsized in a major fashion.

That sounds wonderful! What type of service is this and was the company local to you or national? I’m thinking this is just what’s needed to help DH right now. His uncle recently passed away and he needs to help his mom deal with the house. It’s not driving distance so a one and done trip would be useful.

He also needs to work on the same thing for his mom sooner rather than later. FIL has already moved into assisted living and she should probably go as well. However, I’m not looking forward to dealing with 40+ years of stuff in their home.

We’re getting ready to downsize from a 4 bedroom, ~2000 sqft house to something more like 3 bedroom, ~1500 sqft townhouse (still to be determined). We’ll most likely be losing a basement, but still keeping a 2 car garage, at least.

Little by little, we’re going through bookshelves, closets, cabinets, etc…

Today, I was looking at various cables & connectors, CD case parts among other things.
At some point, after attempting to identify what a cable might be, I decided that if I couldn’t identify it and hadn’t used it in 5 years, I probably don’t need it, so it’s going to the next electronics recycling event. I’ve decided I don’t need to keep any phone cords, RCA cables, speaker wire, CATV cables or video cables (beyond a couple of HDMI cables) and a lot of it is probably obsolete. Even with an aggressive sorting, I’m probably still keeping too many cables, but it’s at least manageable. I must have thrown out something like 50 partial CD cases. I’ve still got 50-100 empty cases that are in good condition, so I don’t think I’ll miss the partial ones. I think I’ve given up on keeping the old recording equipment and the bass guitar. It’ll mostly find a good home somewhere.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I’ll need to take on the basement. I unloaded some lumber on the handyman I’ve got doing some jobs around the house. Lots of random hardware and tools that I haven’t used in 10 years. I figure I need to reduce by something around 50%, because it’s probably all going to have to fit in about 1/2 of a garage when we move.

Little by little we’re making progress and I can see a finish line.

Should have done this years ago, but it was never particularly urgent. Thanks for the extra bit of motivation. We’re not planning on leaving a big mess for our daughter to clean up after our demise.

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It was indeed a really wonderful service…but our one was local.

I suggest you look up “relocation services” in your area and see what you can find. If there’s nothing you can see, I would go to a very upscale Old People’s Home/Retirement Home in your area and ask them which service some of their clients have used. I’m sure they will know some good services.

Our Old People’s Home had recommended a service they have used, but we liked our little local one better…they seemed so careful and thorough in our first conversation…so we went with them…

DH and I still feel we were very lucky, and our daughters were very grateful.I hope your husband finds the company you need and that it will go smoothly…

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Today, I was looking at various cables & connectors, CD case parts among other things.
At some point, after attempting to identify what a cable might be, I decided that if I couldn’t identify it and hadn’t used it in 5 years, I probably don’t need it, so it’s going to the next electronics recycling event.

I got rid of some serial and parallel cables, figuring any computer I have now or will get would use USB (or something even newer). I did keep a USB 3.5" drive because it’s new and was rescued from someone else tossing it.

I wasn’t able to donate two working printers, a working CRT (old type) of TV, or several blank and still wrapped VHS tapes. There are also cell phone chargers for phones that are obsolete enough to where they don’t fit any phones we have. There are so many things that still work and seem like they would be useful (Walkman CD player), but the fact I haven’t used it for years indicates that it probably isn’t that great. We have so many kids’ VHS tapes, and any kid of the appropriate age would rather watch something from the internet Chromecasted to the TV anyway.

I “Death Cleaned ‘Light’” my basement bookshelves last year, and it was painful to toss books. I know that nobody wants Scholastic Bookfair books from the '70s, but still. So, a lot more stayed than have any chance of being read again. Last month, a used book store opened and they’ll trade your old books for credits to get new old books. It feels a lot better trading books than trashing them.

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Last month, a used book store opened and they’ll trade your old books for credits to get new old books. It feels a lot better trading books than trashing them.

Our local used store pays you in credit by the inch of books. I don’t remember what the rate is, something pretty small. They attempt to sell what the can and recycle the rest.