Can a shipping store take care of this inconvenient death and stuff problem?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A person has died and before dying expressed her strong wish that an inconveniently large amount of stuff go to my mother-in-law. About a minivan’s worth of stuff.

The person in charge of this stuff has made it clear it must be gone by this Saturday and they cannot package or move it.

My mother-in-law has expressed that she thinks her son, my husband, should make the 10 hour drive there and back by Saturday to get this stuff.

This is unacceptable to me for many reasons, but mostly because my husband has only recently been to the emergency room for weird heart stuff (and has two heart attacks in his medical history).

Surely there’s a way that money can solve this problem.

I’m picturing the person in charge might just be willing to load all of this into, say, a minivan and drive it to a shipping store where people would unload it, package it, and ship it to my mother-in-law. Is that a thing?

Say the person in charge is not able to do any loading and driving, is there a one transaction way to get people to go, load, package and ship?

I’ve been a very nice daughter-in-law for a long time but I’m ready to be a real bitch about this. But I’m also ready to spend a lot of money on it. But not before I suggest they spend the money. (and maybe you think I should do the job, or go on the job, I haven’t had any heart attacks, but taking the sudden time off of work would chew up a lot of good will at my job)

Help!

2

In my experience, yes, they can help with this. A couple of decades ago, I was sent to my company’s closed two-person Buffalo office to empty it out and send whatever remained back to headquarters. I worked with the local Mailboxes, Etc/UPS Store to accomplish this.

3

It looks like Pods can connect you with hourly labor to get the Pod packed.

4

A household moving company / van line can do this. They can pack and deliver everything.

5

Absolutely they can, Should not be a big deal really, you estimate value for insurance coverage, they’ll charge for materials packing and or crating and delivery. We did it for shipping fragile shit from my parents last home.

6

A pack and ship AKA “UPS store” is totally NOT the way to solve this. At least not unless you want to spend 10s of thousands of dollars moving what’s almost certainly useless valueless crap.

I recently dealt with a need to ship a single bedroom nightstand to somebody halfway across the USA. It was typical middle class 1980s glued particleboard “real” furniture, but had immense sentimental value. Cost me $500. Not a typo: 5 whole Benjamins for that one piece. For one measly nightstand you would not have paid $20 for at the nearby Goodwill store.

Hire the Pod people. You’ll still be spending $10/lb to ship garage sale junk. But at least you won’t be spending $30/lb.

7

This, and if you want it a little sooner than “whenever we can fit it on a truck going to your town” you can spend a little more and the moving company will freight it to you on say ABF or some such freight line. Well, actually they will probably freight to another moving company near you who will then deliver it to your destination

We actually have a term for it “crate and freight” because it’s a pretty common way to move small amounts of household goods

8

Who is the executor of the estate? This seems like something the executor is supposed to deal with. Perhaps that’s who you mean when you say “person in charge.”

In any case, I agree with the previous posters that yes indeed, money can solve this problem and it sounds like you have the suggestions you need to work through it (though again, the executor should be tasked with this, not you).

As a matter of fact, there was an awful lot of this sort of thing going on around May 2020 (though maybe not with such a short timeline). My son was caught up in it: as a senior, he left his college in Pennsylvania for Spring Break, going to visit his girlfriend’s family in California.

As it turned out, he was never allowed back on campus due to Covid. (He ended up living with his GF’s family for 2 months and then coming home to Hawaii just in time for a Zoom graduation ceremony, but that’s a different story.)

Of course, he and a zillion other seniors had left their dorm rooms in whatever state of disarray they were accustomed to, expecting to be back in a week or so.(*) His college ended up making arrangements with two companies (students were allowed to pick which one they wanted to work with) that obtained permission to enter the dorm rooms from each student and simply packed up everything and shipped it to whatever address they were given. It wasn’t free, but it also wasn’t insanely expensive.

Anyway, if you are having trouble finding a service and the person who died happens to live near a college or university with a significant population of students housed on campus, you could probably call them and ask for a recommendation for a service, since my son’s experience was shared by a lot of college students around the country.

*My son is a straight-arrow, but we had a lot of fun imagining some of the stories that the people who packed out all those unprepared college students must have had to tell, about the items they came across in people’s dorm rooms. Plenty of drugs, no doubt, dirty underwear, rotting food, sex toys …

9

As a general matter of estate law in many jurisdictions the disposition of the decedents’ goods is an expense of the estate. If the executor was hiring 800-Got-Junk to haul away the stuff, the estate would pay for that. If the terms of the will bequeath certain goods to person X, the executor is obligated to make that happen using estate funds.

Where it gets messy is when the estate has no money. Or where the expense of moving the bequest is wildly disproportionate. Or where the whole thing is being done mostly informally under the legal radar.

Only the OP knows their family dynamics, but this really sounds like an excellent opportunity for OP & hubby to bow out & let MIL & the decedent’s executor/honcho figure it out using their own resources. “Not my monkeys; not my circus” are often the best words to wield in a multi-way dispute.

10

Sounds exactly right. And I’m glad I’ve had this conversation with both of my parents.

11

If the request to transport the stuff to the MIL was made verbally and informally, and is not a part of the will or trust documents, I can understand that the executor might feel it’s not the estate’s problem. If the transfer of assets to the MIL actually contradicts the will, there are more serious issues, but it doesn’t sound like that is the case.

12

I would strongly recommend not doing anything until the estate gets settled and the executor makes their decision. Whether in a will or through probate, an executor will be appointed and make the decisions about how stuff should be dispersed. Unfortunately, the dying person’s last wish is not necessarily enforceable on its own. It’s up to the executor to make that decision. If the last wish conflicts with something in the will or with normal distribution laws in their state, then there are some legal issues to work out.

One option is to pay for the stuff to be moved to a nearby storage unit until the estate is settled. The cost should be able to be recovered from the estate. You may have to personally pay to move the stuff from the storage unit to your mother-in-law, but this way you avoid any legal hassles of taking stuff from the estate before it has been through probate.

13

It would be cheaper to do this much, and then hire a younger, healthier, college-age relative to then drive it to Mother-in-law’s, unload it, and drive it back. Gets the job done, at once, and without such stress on your husband or you.

And you might consider renting a minivan for this, rather than risking your own. They can even be rented one-way, so it doesn’t have to be driven back (but then you need to buy a plain/train/bus ticket back for the driver).

14

You might search the Craigslist for the area the stuff is in (or perhaps your area also) under Services–Labor/Hauling/Moving for someone who can do this.

15

Thanks for the suggestions everybody! I knew there were ideas that weren’t on my radar.

Here’s what ended up happening: I told my husband that I was ready to be a real bitch about this and there were lots of options: Pods, moving companies, etc.

The next day he told me he wasn’t going and his mother had decided the stuff wasn’t worth the hassle (I don’t even know what the stuff was but this is undoubtedly true).

I don’t know what words he said to his mother but I’m glad my boundaries were able to help him with his boundaries, because apparently it wasn’t too much hassle for her when the hassle was all his.

16

Ignorance fought! another win for da Dope community, we look out for our own.

17

Well said.

Yaay Mom! People can be real gems sometimes, can’t they? (sarcastically)