And it frankly is not that much prettier, to the people who have to deal with it. Besides grieving, I also have to figure out what to do with over a thousand labeled and displayed bottle caps, and three hundred rare vintage pencils.
The large majority of these ‘collections’ go to the dump. Sane ethical people either gift or sell their valued collections before they die, or name a collector friend in their will to inherit it.
I’m not much of a collector, but I am certainly not going to leave my heirs to deal with my hundred-odd different fountain pen inks, etc.
One of our neighbors’ father died about two years ago. He was a collector/hoarder of old cars, the type that show up in news stories occasionally. He lived on about 8 acres of what was basically desert in Arizona, which he had gradually filled up with his ‘finds’ that he intended to fix up Towed there non-functional, mostly, and just sort of left higglety-pigglety wherever the tow guy found it convenient to dump it.
My neighbors were his sole heirs. They were horrified at the task they were faced with – they were ‘gaining’ about 8 acres of mostly useless land, cluttered with over a hundred junk cars, trucks, and a few buses!, plus an ordinary two story house that hadn’t had any significant maintenance done on it for thirty or so years, and some not very large bank accounts. The estimates they got suggested the cost of disposing of the vehicles would far exceed the money in the bank accounts, and it would cost far more than the house would be worth to make it saleable, and even with all that dealt with, the land MIGHT bring a couple of thousand per acre if they lucked on the rare person who wants a whole lot of sand and tumbleweeds.
They refused the inheritance. They are not wealthy, but a reasonably established middle class couple coming up on retirement age, and they decided dealing with that horror show was not worth whatever small gain they might end up with.
They don’t know who ended up with the land, or what was done with it. Maybe some bureaucrat somewhere keeps sending out letters to more and more remove relatives?
My neighbor who might be an old guy in a wheelchair, never seen him outside just the ramp out front and visiting nurses, has a dodge charger sitting outside with flat tires. No garage. I’ve heard it’s a “Shelby” so might be valuable. Looks like a shit box from the late 80’s.
Thing is he often gets other visitors might be family. And they built a tall fence that partially enclosed the driveway and put the dodge behind it. Because of code enforcement on inoperable vehicles stored on the property. Now the shit box is back out front taking up room on the driveway so now his frequent visitors park on the edge of the road. Narrow road on a curve with limited visibility.
Weirdos they never say hello in return they just glare.
So, if I buy property that has old cars on it do I have to have the title to the car(s) to scrap them or can I just haul them away as so much scrap metal?
It depends on the age of the vehicle, state law and how skeevy the scrapper is.
E.g., when my 87 Mazda 323 finally died after 24(?) years and a short time in the hands of FtGKid2, the scrapper needed the title.
But a truly ancient car may be beyond the horizon of official titles. And I’m assuming that finding someone to take it for scrap is not that hard, title and law not a concern.
Oh my god, this whole discussion is like a warning klaxon blaring “Danger! Danger!”
I love cars, I love Olde Stuffe, I’m a sucker for lost causes and deals, and I’m ADD…
If I let my tireless self-control lapse for even a moment, I’ll suddenly have three or four “projects” in my yard.
.
Fun anecdote:
We moved in, next to an older couple with a back yard full of pretty good-looking cars. The wife rolled her eyes and said “Every time something goes wrong with a car, Ed refuses to take it in to get fixed, claims he can fix it cheaper. Then he gives up, even if it’s a minor problem, and buys a new car. He’s done it [counts the cars in the weeds] five times… so far.”
Ed died on a weekend. By the end of the next week, every single car was sold and towed away… and a red sports car showed up in the driveway. You go, Ethel!