She keeps saying she wants to have things organized, and get rid of anything with mold. She is a little bit of a hoarder and it is very hard to get her to give things up. It took a lot of convincing for her to let me dispose of all the empty boxes she had. I kid you not, she had an entire room full of empty boxes, “just in case she had to send anything back”.
What use does anyone have for crates of moldy schoolwork from 40 years ago? (They were my father’s. She offered them to him when we found them under piles of other crap and he said no) That is another thing she insists on keeping. But she also says that she wants the basement cleaned out.
How do I convince her to throw some of these things away?
You probably won’t. Have you watched the Hoarders show on A&E? People facing eviction and even jail often still refuse to clean out their junk.
Perhaps, if she’s not a full on hoarder. She might turn lose of some stuff. One strategy is to accept gifts. Your Dad should have accepted his old school work. Thanked her and pitched it in his garbage cart at home.
I had an aunt that had this huge pile of clothes. We suggested a run to Goodwill’s drop off. That worked pretty well. Quite a big pile went in Goodwill’s bin.
You can’t. Do what my grandmother does with my grandfather’s stuff. She throws his old junk behind his back. Tell your father/other family members if she offers something to take it and throw it away. As for the boxes, say you have a friend that is moving, and ask if you can have some. She may be more willing to part with them if she thinks they are being used, rather than the trash.
Let her keep it if you can. If the volume gets to be a fire hazard level of difficulty… idk what to say… good luck? At that point you do want to do something…
Don’t ask her what you can get rid of before and don’t tell her after either.
It isn’t like she has it all on an inventory somewhere and will be taking stock once you are done.
Good advice. I agree. If it’s obviously and unquestionably junk or damaged then pitch it out. Don’t ask and don’t tell. 
By saying she wants to get rid of anything with mold, she may be giving you an opening. “I had to throw it out, because it was moldy” is an excuse she can use to assuage the guilt she feels about throwing things away. Try telling her that various things have mold.
Sadly, often we are forced to wait until the person passes away or goes into the nursing home before family can really go thru and clean out all the old stuff.
But it helps knowing you have a head start and are getting a good idea of what is there. Often valuable items are there but rust or rot over time because they were stuck inside something.
My advice is to slowly go thru and sort, pitch stuff so you are getting a good idea of what is there and you can clean out as you go.
To you, they are moldy papers; to her, they are mementoes of her sweet little boy. Start with that understanding.
Don’t lie to her and go behind her back; she is an adult and you should respect her decisions, even if you don’t approve of them. Does she nag you about all the time you waste on message boards?
That being said, you’ve got to get rid of all that moldy stuff and the fire hazards.
Get her children to agree to take all their old stuff they’ve left with her over the years, as recommended above. Or don’t ask them, bring it to them; the evening before trash day would be probably be best.
I second pushing Goodwill and recycling.
Bring the stuff out of the basement to sort (back yard, preferably - not the living areas); things look worse in the harsh light of day and are easier to throw out.
Buy some nice matching tubs and clean newsprint; wash, wrap, neatly pack, and label all the stuff she wants to keep. If it’s more work to keep than to throw out, she might left go of more. (Make sure the stuff is dry, and toss in some of those little silica packs.)
Clean one area of the basement - vacuum, spray down with mold stuff, caulk if necessary, and paint if possible, make it look as nice as possible - and start stacking the new tubs there. Continue until the whole basement looks fresh and tidy.
Break down all those boxes, stack them neatly in the basement, and throw them out next year when they get damp and moldy - which they will, cardboard is the worst.
Put your foot down on the stuff with mold; tell her you won’t bring the grandchildren over until it’s gone.
I helped clear out the apartment of a close friend of mine, with severe hoarding tendencies, a few weeks ago, and that was my guideline too. Unless there was a good reason for saving something, I just stuffed it into a bag and carried out to the dumpster. He obviously couldn’t throw anything away himself, for whatever psychological reasons, so it was up to me to do it for him. That’s what friends are for.
If it’s at all possible, make a family day of it. Then the great-grandchildren can keep her occupied while the rest of you get on with the work. And I’ll echo the earlier comments about Goodwill / charity etc. A good line is, “It’s time to let someone else love this.”
In our case it was a larger house full; several rooms you couldn’t enter and one closet full of empty pill bottles. What we did with my MIL was dig deep and find a couple things that were actually good and interesting; as I recall it was a box of old family pictures and a china set from an aunt that she had forgotten she still had. Seeing that made her curious what else was around. “Well, Muvver – we can’t look for that kind of stuff unless we move some of the crap out first. It just isn’t possible and it isn’t safe”. That broke the ice. Trash was easy for us to move after that. For other things, and to keep her feeling involved, we set up a card table and would put a couple boxes on it every week for her to go through. Some stuff she would put in a keep pile, some in a pile for church sales and donations (some of that we would trash from our house), some to go to various relatives and friends (some of that got trashed as well) and we just kept rotating from there. Don’t know if that trick would work for you but consider giving it a try.
I am the only one of her grandchildren who lives anywhere close to her. My cousins live on the opposite side of the country.
This is a tough one. The only thing that worked with my mother-in-law was to ask “Can I have this?” and then take it home and throw it away. She was often willing to give it away, but not willing to throw it away.
Most of her stuff was not moldy or disgusting, though. It was only after she was gone that we were able to really clean everything out.
Regards,
Shodan
I agree with this idea. I think a lot of hoarders have the mentality that they’re saving things for some eventual use someday. So tell her things are being taken away to be used.
She also has a mountain of things that belong to my uncle, who lives 3000 miles away. She keeps telling me she doesn’t want to store them anymore, but also doesn’t want to deal with getting them to him. 30+ years of storage in a damp basement has not been kind to any of this stuff, and highly doubt he will want it back. How do I convince her to get rid of it?
You don’t convince her. Just send her on a weekend get-away, and get a dumpster brought in and fill it up. Have them take the dumpster away before she returns.
In situations like these, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Hmmm … Get married, have a baby, then refuse to come over.
Wait, you are her beloved grandchild. Every time you go over there (and you are not getting this done in a day, or even a week-end), tell her when you leave that it’s because the dust and mildew is just getting too much for you.
And then stay for a cup of coffee or a beer; if so many of her family are so far away, she’s probably a bit lonely. It would be nice if you could listen to all her stories about the stuff, too.
This is her past; respect it. And don’t rush it; give her time to say good-bye.
Oh, now that shit just toss; he dumps his stuff on her for decades, and everyone blames her for hoarding? Right.
Call your uncle, and tell him it will be on the curb or at UPS next Wednesday, depending on whether he sends you enough money to ship it to him.
Not really; call and ask him what he wants you to send to him and what you can donate; if he says he’ll have to go through, ask how he wants it shipped.
Mention that the mold and the worry is bad for Granny - that would be his mother, the woman who nearly ripped herself in two bringing him into this world … there I go again.
But, honestly, everyone has been dumping their half forgotten junk in her basement for decades, and now that she has had enough and is trying to clean it out, everyone is telling you to treat her like an infant and make her decisions for her. Make your lazy ass uncles’ and father’s and cousins’ decisions for them first, and then tackle Grandmother’s stuff.
(I had a huge box outside my cubicle for a year, because the company decided to keep it until the warranty ran out, to avoid the re-packaging charge in case we had to return it. This is a huge multi-national. Your grandmother probably worked for them.)
In situations that can be classified as felonies, it’s better to ask for permission than for forgiveness.
To her, they are sentimental memories of your father as a schoolchild.
I’ve had good luck with taking old documents, scanning them into a computer, and giving her (and your father) digital copies of them. So she still has copies of them to look at whenever she wants. That will reassure her that you understand the sentimental value. You can also use the backup argument – copies to her, your father, & you protect against a total loss of the info. Then throw away (recycle) the originals.
Scanners are pretty cheap now (though auto-feeding ones are more expensive), and digital storage is almost free.
P.S. Be careful of your kids getting copies of these – they might use them as defensive evidence when you berate them about their poor grades in school: “Grandpa never got higher than C- in 9th grade math – mostly D’s & F’s. So me getting C’s & C+ is a genetic improvement, and I should be rewarded!” 