My dead uncle Bud was wierder than we thought...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

As long as we’re sharing pack-rat stories, I’ve got a doozie. My ex had an aunt (or has an aunt, last I heard she was still kicking) who never threw anything away. She also shopped obsessively at garage sales and thrift stores. She had fabric, clothing, zippers, and buttons. She had pots and pans and dishes and utensils. She kept newspapers, books, magazines, and every scrap of mail she ever received. She had bras, and panties, and coats, and shoes. She kept knick-knacks and wall hangings and candles and containers. When her house got too full to move around in safely, her husband bought an old school bus to handle the overflow. It sits outside their house and through its windows you can see boxes on boxes on boxes just piled in there. Next to the bus sits a double-wide trailer because, despite the temporary relief afforded by the bus purchase, the aunt and hubby can no longer fit inside their own home. They live in the trailer now, although that too is quickly filling up.

The most amazing thing about this woman, though, was her pinpoint accuracy when it came to remembering where she had stashed things. If you needed a length of multi-colored string, odds are she’d have it and know exactly what box it was stashed in, in which corner of which house. :eek: Freakish, yet oddly fascinating.

bella

22

When I read the OP, the first thing that came to my mind was “boobytraps”. Particularly with all of the weapons they found. If I had been on call to investigate I would have been extremely careful. The article about the Collyer brothers bears out that opinion.

23

See,

I was also going to ask about the trains.

Not for me, for my father.

The rest - weird.

24

When my father died, his apartment did feature a few eccentricities. Nothing as outrageous as those listed above, but kinda weird nonetheless.

Once diagnosed with terminal cancer, my father developed a strange pack-rat behaviour – we think he started “collecting” as a way of ascerting his continued presence here on earth. (As if willing himself to live longer – “I’m going to be here a lot longer than they say, so I need this stuff.”)

My father had a thermometer on every wall of his small, one bedroom apartment (the living room was less than 10 feet wide). There was also a clock on every wall, and one either side of his twin bed. He had a dresser and the top drawer (about 3.5 feet wide and 18" deep) was FULL of little plaques with photos of sunsets, beaches and/or uplifting little sayings such as the “Footprints in the Sand” poem.

He also labelled EVERYTHING with little, white sticker-labels and a black magic marker. That included all the spices on his spice rack – you know he kind, little, clear glass jars with with screw-on tops. The labels said, “Garlic Pwdr,” “Oregano,” and so on. My mom finally mused, “he had way too much time on his hands” when she found that one of the glass jars, that had nothing in it, was labelled “Empty.”

25

Elderly cousin, had the grace to have an instantly fatal heart attack out by his mailbox…

Numerous rifles and handguns, almost all heavily customized to help with his failing eyesight, or to improve mechanical function (and they actually were improvements!), and thus ruining their (considerable) collector’s value.

Scores of clocks and watches, all tinkered-with, some purely handmade. Again, the tinkering radically improved function, while destroying collector’s value. Who wants a 50-year old Rollex, that has been opened up and had an additional 7 jeweled movements added? Even if it does keep time to within one-tenth second per year?

Dog hair. His beloved dog died six months before he did. We suspect that every hair the dog ever shed was still in the house. Likely the hair from the previous three dogs, as well. your could knit a new dog with all the hair, and still have enough hair left over to stuff it. Also found were old newspapers and magazines by the hundred-score. He didn’t keep every one, just the ones he found interesting. With a smart old coot like him, that’s a lot of magazines & papers, especially after 93 years!

Tools: Hundreds and hundreds of old, precision, top-quality tools, many customized to make them ‘better’. He usually succeded in actually making them better, too. Once again, collector’s value: Nil. Most of these were sold at auction, and Mom and I were only able to retain a few of the better examples, for all that I’d have gladly claimed the lot of them (The firearms, too).

The patent certificate for Tetra-Ethel Lead. Yup, he was the inventer of leaded gasoline, though he earned not a penny for it.

Photos. Ev was a photo-taker, and had thousands of photos, many historically significant. We actually got him to narrate information about many of these before he passed. Still, we had a lot of photos to sort, and find homes for. A number of museums now owe his memory considerable gratitude. Ev was also a confirmed bachellor, and a dedicated, nay, prototypical, lecher. We found several hundred photos to prove this, too. Sepia-toned do-it-yourself porn is the last thing you expect find in your elderly cousin’s bureau, and we knew far more about some of the ladies at his funeral than we really cared to know. :yuk:

26

When we cleaned out my grandfather’s house it was amazing the amount of stuff that we had to haul to the dump. Not garbage, but just stuff. He was a pack-rat and he always went to garage sales, and he never threw anything away.

I pity my uncle, he was the executor and he had to clean out the house.

I mean, why would you possible need seven drills? Never mind that only one of them worked! The rest were from garage sales. He was never one to pass up getting a drill just because it didn’t work - it only cost 25 cents! We also had to haul over five hundred pounds of doorknobs to the dump.

His kitchen rivals any others I’ve seen for the sheer numbers of appliances - four toasters, three electric frying pans, dozens of pots and pans, etc… And he and my grandmother lived alone!

The final load to the dump was pretty cool because we also left the trailer there. It too was a garage sale find, and it was in such bad condition that I’m surprised it made it to the dump.

Although it was very cool playing there when my sister and I were little. He had boxes and boxes and boxes of toys and ecletic books that he’d picked up from everywhere (never mind the trailer full of Harlequin books that my grandmother had).

27

Years ago, when I was young & foolish, I was terribly embarassed by any rude or wierd public behavior of people in my family. My father in particular, but let’s not go there…

Now, older and wiser, I’ve come to regard such episodes as a tremendous source of wacky and humorous stories. All it took was to recognize that I had absolutely zero responsibility for their behavior.

I have dazzled the people at work with tales of wierd uncle Bud, as just has here, gotten counter-stories about their fruitcake relatives.

28

Oh, please. Just reading all this is giving me the heebie-jeebies, because my husband’s elderly relatives have never thrown anything away in their lives, they’ve all lived in the same houses for years and years, and I have been appointed the cleaner-outer when they shuffle loose this mortal coil. I tried to help his aunt have a garage sale last year. (Quickie background: said Aunt is well into her 70s and has two grown sons in their 50s who have no contact with the family at all.) On a shelf in her basement, I found a breast pump. It was so old it would have likely been dangerous to use, but I suggested that perhaps she should donate it to the La Leche League for whatever historic value it might be to them. She quite seriously said, “No, put that back. Someone might need it.”

On the plus side, they’ve all told me that, beyond a few definite heirlooms, I have permission to put everything on ebay after they pass on.

29

Upon second thought, I’d like to apologize for the comment that some of the relatives described in this thread (other than my own) are fruitcakes.

Let us leave it at eccentric, and move on.

I learned “Bud’s” real name TODAY! It was Robert: in my entire life I never heard anyone refer to him by that name.

As to getting hold of the trains, as a few have suggested, all of that is well out if my hands. There are 3 surviving siblings, and the children of two other siblings who are in line to get something. I should get 1/15th of the estate after expenses, which might be pretty substantial. I will have no say how these things are distributed, though I suppose if I found one specific thing that no one else was attached to, I could have it. “All the trains” doesn’t qualify, nor do I have the knowlegde to have a clue what the value might be.

30

wow, you have a most interesting family, yojimboguy.

amazing how those nicknames stick huh? i’m still wondeing about the real names of 2 of my uncles.

at least y’all will have some new uncle bud stories to tell at the funeral.

31

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by yojimboguy *
**Upon second thought, I’d like to apologize for the comment that some of the relatives described in this thread (other than my own) are fruitcakes.

[QUOTE]

No need to apologize, at least not to me. Mine definitely qualify as fruitcakes.

32

Man. I am glad to know that I don’t have the nuttiest family out there. Close, but not the nuttiest. Some of these stories are mind-blowing!

What my dad left after he died was not all that scandalous, to most of us. We all knew about the thousands of Classical LP records; he had them all on display around the stereo. Same goes for the hundreds of “coffee table” books, which were in bookcases, above the records. We’re proud of those collections.

But the old streetcar, cablecar and train stubs were a bit weird. And old bits of broken down watches. Eyeglasses that had one lens missing. That was weird. But, there weren’t boxes and boxes of streetcar stubs, just a few. So that’s not too bad.

The thing that made us all pause (and then laugh) were the 20 or so wrist watches in this one drawer. New watches, and not the super-cheap kind (though not Rolexes by any means). No digital watches, just the nice wind-up ones. All were in their original boxes, many still had reciepts (usually the watches were $200 or so).

We think he was afraid that digital watches would overtake the world, and he wanted to make sure he had a sufficient stash of the “right” kind of watch. And I do remember once buying a digital watch and showing it off to him, and seeing him turn ashen and look very sad and disturbed that I’d gotten a digital watch. And another time, when he noticed that I had a new watch that was the good “wind up” kind, he seemed extraordinarily pleased and carried on about my watch just a little too long. So he definitely had a “thing” about watches.

Anyway, everyone got several watches to keep, and the extra watches were given to all his buddies at work. They all got something to remember him by.

33

Granddaughter of yet another fruitcake here!

My grandmother died at age eighty-six. She wasn’t merely a packrat; she was mainly so stingy and miserly she simply couldn’t bear the thought of throwing anything away because the garbagemen would probably steal her “belongings”. (Yes I know, once they’re tossed, they’re not yours anymore, but she never saw it like that. Once hers, always hers. Period.)

She kept rubber bands for so long they literally disintegrated in your hands. Twist ties from bread bought in the sixties. Hair was found in nearly every drawer in every room of the house, of just about every piece of furniture, and this includes drawers in the kitchen. Neatly saved hair, from her own head. Literally pounds of the stuff.

She had been a seamstress during her younger years (up until about sixty five or so) and there were bolts and bolts of rotting fabric in the basement. There were literally millions of scraps and strips of material in neatly tied heaps all over the basement, and her sewing room. You couldn’t even get in the sewing room until you moved about sixty packets (up to about four feet high) of these remnants. These mostly were rotted as well. The whole house smelled like a gigantic, musty, mothball-ridden closet.

There were clothes dating back to the thirties. These too fell apart when they were taken from their hangers. Underwear and pajamas that had been patched over countless patches were everywhere, neatly, but tightly crammed in every closet.

My brother-in-law and sister were the lucky ones who got to clean out all this crap, and they also found many months worth of garbage stuffed under her sink that she had simply refused to throw away. I am talking a rat’s paradise here.

My mom said at one time she knew for a fact that Reesie (our name for her as kids) used to stash money all over the house when she and my dad first got married, but nobody found so much as a nickel during the giant clean up after her death. Mother said there’s no way she spent it, so she must have finally decided to put it in savings bonds (she was terrified of banks and savings accounts) like the rest of her dough.

I like to think they just missed it though, and might show up when they least expect it. Wouldn’t be surprising…they’ve been there going on fourteen years and just about every year they find something else decaying in the basement that they’d overlooked all those years ago.

Actually, I secretly hope I’m the one that finds it! If it’s any kind of money, that is. :wink:

34

[greedylittlemonster]
SilkyThreat, were there by chance any old boxes of buttons?
[/greedylittlemonster]

35

No kookie relatives in our house (except that my great aunt who lived in a 4 story mansion in Greenwich, CT had an exact replica of her house on the 3rd floor, in its own room. It was about 3 feet high and had working lights and everything. It was called “The Doll House” which was a play on words since her last name was Doll.

However, I did know an old man when I was a teenager. He lived next door to the magic shop where I hung out. His house caught fire once, and the firemen found that his house was stuffed, floor to ceiling, with newspapers. There was a narrow path to the chair, the toilet, and the kitchen, but other than that, it was solid newspapers. I only remember him from his frequent visits to the magic shop to chat with the owners (the only reason anyone came in, really) … I remember that he smelled really bad and that every word out of his mouth was something disgusting. Either a rude joke, a rude comment, or some sort of cursing.

He died one day… dropped dead on the side of a major road in Tucson (Grant, for those who know) and lay there on the sidewalk for half an hour before anyone called 911.

36

Oh yes. Probably only about seven or eight thousand, though. Dating from 100 BC until about 1961. Most had fallen into dust, unfortunately.

My sister did hang on to a few ivory, pearl, mother-of-pearl, and gemstone buttons, but there were very few of those. Mostly it was pure junk. Dime store crap she’d just accumulated forever and ever.

I forgot to mention she also saved used envelopes. As well as pieces of stationery that had been written on, but in pencil, which she would erase and re-use, or just stick in her over-flowing desk drawer in case she needed to use it one day.

Did I mention the collection of empty BIC lighters? I think my sister lost count at three seventy five.

I’m sure my sister could dig up a metric ton of this stuff and save it for you if you’re interested! :smiley: She can put it in the several hundred empty cigarette cartons and they’ll stack soooo well for you that way! :wink:

[sub]I vaguely remember my mother saying that we’ll probably find Jimmy Hoffa residing in some of the many dozen coffee cans that were hidden in the breezeway…haven’t yet, though…[/sub]

37

I’m so afraid of having to clean out my maternal grandmother’s house some day. Not only has she never thrown anything away, she’s never spent a minute of her life vacuuming, dusting, washing or scrubbing. We’re talking about living in squalor. It’s going to be like digging through a compost pile. And it’s not just the house; it’s a farm with dozens of outbuildings that haven’t been cleaned or emptied since they were built. I’m sure I’ll be tempted to just put a match to the place and hope the neighbor’s houses don’t go up along with it. But I probably won’t do that; it would mean losing my grandfather’s things along with her trash.

38

Wow, that brings back memories! My grandfather was the kind of packrat described in all the posts here. When he died, he left behind a box of short pieces of string labeled “String too short to save.”

My father, a newspaper editor, got a wonderful, bittersweet column out of it.

39

Yinz are lucky. All my grandparents have in their attic is stuff from my dad and his sisters-my grandfather’s a packrat, but other than a bunch of gardening books, and items of sentimental value, I doubt I’d find anything cool.

My mom’s mother gives everything away. So that’s out.

Oh well.

40

My grandmother was in the habit of labelling everything, too. When she died my mom found two sheets of paper from one of those little spiral bound notebooks (about 3x4) and the sheets were labelled Missing Pages.