Mrs M--I could write a book about the family dynamics and dramas I've seen over the years, and the surprising places I've found some of the worst ones. And I've met many an elder who really kept the wool pulled over the children's eyes regarding financial, health, and other issues.

Jazzy--thanks for the article link, I've just skimmed it, but am going to go back and really read it later.

Divine: I don't think my sister can think far enough ahead to do things for a reaction or fireworks. Rather, she is just a lonely woman. Yes, she needs attention. She has often gotten attention from men, but she consistently picks the wrong man. Now she's going to be getting it from a cat.

You are right: I can't tell her what to do. She visits our parents just enough. She doesn't spend much time with them. And yes, she will do as she pleases. I texted if she put another container of recycling out this week. She just said yes. I texted back, "Awesome! What went out this week and from what room(s)?" No response. Since she loves to brag about how much she does for our parents, she would have gone on and on about how many piles and how heavy they were and how she carefully picked piles of magazines that she knew that Mom wasn't going to miss.

No bragging = no work done.  

Mominator- you need to get an elder atty involved and get some advice on what to do about your parents home. An elder atty can help you to ensure your parents are where they need to be and how to best dispose of the house and also how to get your sibling out. There are organizations that will come in and clear out houses of stuff and get the home restored to make it salable.

We had an elder atty who helped us with both our parents situations. They both needed advanced care at the end of their lives, and we had to take over a couple times and then finally get the house sold. Even though my sister and I did have "our moments", we both were on the same page that their well being came first (and we both lived far away and not looking to live in their home).

My heart goes out to you. It is hard enough to deal with aging parent stuff, never mind difficult siblings.

Mominator--Oh dear, what a plateful you have. It's sad when someone wants to go home to die but can't for whatever reason. If the home's not safe for your Mom, it's probably not safe for your Dad or the squatter siblings. Call and talk to the Hospice agency Social Worker working with your Mom. We deal with this kind of situation all the time, the Social Worker can give you info about what agencies might be able to help, and probably be able to give you names and numbers of Elder Attorneys in the area.Now is the time for your Mom and Dad to make sure wills and such are up to date and for your Dad to begin thinking about what he is going to do and where he is going to live after Mom dies, and make final disposition choices about the house.

This is a very familiar topic among my friends.

In my family we had the brother who ended up being the caregiver for my parents until the end so they did get to stay in their house. He’s also is the one who didn’t have a job while the rest of us worked FT, married and all but 1 have children.

Years of trying to swim upstream cost my brother but at least he had a roof over his head, food, a car to drive, etc. We all appreciated him being there for our parents and we all tried to help as much as we could.

He got rewarded. The house and money in their bank account went to him. Not rich but certainly helped his financial situation. We all got keepsakes and furniture that had our names on it in their will.

It’s really sad your siblings aren’t supportive or helpful. Somehow it always falls on a few but they are the first in line at the reading of the Will.

It’s heartbreaking when they can’t go home. It’s unfair when they worked so hard to have that home. They have to be safe though.

It’s tough this aging process and much harder to see our parents age. We become the parents.

Good luck.

Diane

My sister's in-laws were hoarders of the 9th degree. I mean, it truly was something like you'd see on TV.  Her husband's parents were very secretive about their affairs and none of the siblings lived in the same state with the parents, so they weren't around to keep a finger on things.  His parents were adamant that they were fine, didn't need help. Well, that all changed one night when his mother fell out of bed and his dad couldn't lift her to get back into bed. He had to call 911--it took them 20 minutes just to get the stretcher from the street to her bedside! His dad begged them to just put his mom in bed and leave, but the house was in such a deplorable state that the EMTs had no choice but to call Adult Protective Services. They both ended up at the hospital. Turned out, his mom broke her hip and back in the fall (yikes!). While she was hospitalized it became abundantly clear that she was deep in the throes of dementia.  She tanked during the hospital stay and passed away. The home was declared unsafe and the husband had to move to assisted living ($$$).  My sister and her DH had to move across the country to clean out the house and get it ready to sell. It took them 6 WEEKS of working 10hrs a day to go through the stuff--as you said, there was good stuff among the junk, so they had to go through. Every.Little.Piece. Even after the house was cleaned out, it was clear that his dad couldn't take care of things anymore.  Six weeks and 5 dumpsters later, they sold the house and his dad used the money to fund the assisted living  facility.

Mominator, it might be worth  your while to at least consult with an elder law attorney. I know you say there is no money, but there is a LOT at stake here. Do either one of them have a power of attorney document for financial or healthcare?  Somebody needs to know where the Wills are and what they contain. Somebody needs to know what to do about the house, the taxes, etc.  If updates are needed, they can be done. Don't wait until one of them passes.(My dad passed without a valid will and it was no end of difficulty to us.)

Mominator, is there a law school in your parents' vicinity? If so, there are often clinics comprised of students (working under the guidance of a professor) who consult pro bono on various legal matters. There may also be a group connected with the bar association (check with the local courthouse) that provides services free of charge. It might also be worth talking to a social worker at the hospital; they may be able to suggest someone who could assist you. Good luck handling this challenging situation.

Well, ladies, I guess we are on the right thread. One reason many of us work on decluttering our homes is so we don't have to put our kids through more difficulty dealing with our excess "stuff" when we are gone than they have to.

In addition to decluttering, numerous projects dh and I have tackled the past few years around the house is not only to make our home more comfortable but also to make it more sellable down the road. We didn't want to wait until we're 75 or 80 years old to do things like add a handrail to the basement steps, replace worn out windows, ect.

We're currently renovating our upstairs bathroom. The last time that room saw a good day was back in the 80s! Extremely outdated, and as we got into the project, we realized how rather disgustngly grungy it was. The tub and shower surround was replaced by a contractor, and we'll paint, replace vanity, toilet, ceiling tiles, ect., ourselves. It's turning out to be a lot more work and decision making that we realized, yet well worth the effort. We're no stranger to updating and upgrading. The house was a true fixer upper 30 years ago, so over that time, we've developed skillsets to tackle this stuff.

Good afternoon friends- I recently cleaned out a closet and went through a lot of "old purses" to bring to consignment or donate. As part of that process, I found this lovely tooled leather purse that had belonged to my mother and that she bought during one of her visits here to NM. It may even been her last visit before she became ill, and never could travel to visit me here again. I was grateful she got to see my new home after it was built that year and remember how much she loved finding this purse and buying it during her visit here.

That purse was one of those things I held on to because she liked it so much, and yet I have never used it since it came to me after her death in 2012 (six years next month). It held a memory of a visit and a shopping trip, but nothing deeper for me. I did not feel I could just donate it though, something about that did not feel totally right? Then as I was looking at it again, I remembered that I had never given anything to a particular cousin of ours that she was close to. I had given her sister a lovely pin of mom's when she visited here last in 2014, and had it in my mind to give something to the other cousin, but never could figure anything out to pass along or that was easy to mail. So I wrote to this cousin recently, and asked if she might like it and sent a pic too. Her style is also such that I knew she would wear/use it vs. it sitting in a closet as it had been. My cousin loved my offer and graciously said yes, and it is packaged up and going off to her this week.

I have found so many times with things I have of my mothers, it has really taken time to let go of things to only keep that which has the most special memories for me. Stuff really does come with so much memory and emotion, but I continue to be amazed how with time, we can continue to let go of these things that they loved, but did not have any special meaning to us. I am so happy to be sending mom's lovely purse to a new home this week!

Jazzy--that purse is going to a special place, and where it was meant to be. Letting go of things is an ongoing process, isn't it?

Thanks ladies. The purse has also opened up more conversation with my cousin and I for the first time in awhile. We live far away from each other and have busy lives, but the purse has also created a re-connection and several e-mails back and forth about life, family, activities and more. Stuff can do cool things too create bonding as you pass it along!

This article popped up on Pinterest and I thought of yinz. It is an interesting perspective, one I hadn't necessarily come across before:

4 ways decluttering can help when you're stuck in life

August 31, 2016

Yuko Henden, Small business declutterer & organizer

Have you ever felt being lost? Have you felt like you were living someone else's life but didn't know what to do about it? Are you generally happy but there is that nagging feeling that something is not quite right?

Every time I was stuck in life, I've done one thing, and that's decluttering. Examining your clutter can give you an insight into who you are, and that information can help you decide how to proceed. Below, I am going to explain how it works.

Your clutter tells you who you are

At some point, you made the decision to collect what you now consider clutter. Clutter didn't happen on its own. OK, so it was your Aunty Lou who gave you that hideous sweater two Christmases ago, but you kept it because you love her.

As you go through your clutter, you will notice a pattern. You probably have similar or identical items. Maybe you have multiple mugs with silly sayings on them. Maybe you're obsessed with white blouses. Or you have hundreds of books that you haven't read yet.

These patterns tell you what you like and care about. You with the silly mugs like to say funny stuff and make people laugh. You probably enjoy being around people. Miss White Blouses likes being tidy, organized and punctual. You get offended when people show up late. The book collector is fascinated by things they don't know. Pay close attention to these patterns because they are the keys to understanding who you are.

Your clutter chronicles your changes throughout the years

You are always evolving and so the clutter you collect reflects your changes. Perhaps you were into knitting five years ago but not so much now. Maybe you were into hiking when you were with your ex; now the gears are just lying on your garage floor collecting dust. I know several people who kept all their school notes and books since elementary school. These are markers of your past, and who you were.

To be reacquainted with your past is sometimes useful since it gives you a hint on who you are today. Who were you ten years ago and what changed you? Was it certain people or a decision you made? Did the change happen gradually? Do you like the changes you see in yourself?

Your clutter tells you about your aspirations

I bought tons of self-help books, beauty products, exercising equipment and enrolled in courses hoping to be a better, upgraded version of myself. I'm not sure if I learned anything from the majority of the self-help books, and I still look the same after using various lotions and potions. Only exercising equipment I now own is a yoga mat that gets used maybe twice a week. I don't even remember which courses I took.

If I still owned these items, they would represent my hopes and aspirations. They tell who I want to be, what I value and what I think makes me happy once I get them. But I want to be better is a flip side of I am not happy with who I am today, which leads to my next point....

Your clutter tells you about your unresolved issues—solve it or let it go.

Why am I obsessed with looking in a certain way and being perceived as intelligent? Well, I blame my upbringing. (Great, society and parents always get the blame!) I had a very unhealthy relationship with my parents and that (de)formed my perspective.

So I have two issues to conquer: 1) let go of the damaging attitude that constantly put myself as less than ideal; 2) decide if I want to keep talking to my parents who haven't changed. I've been working on the first issue, pretty much all my life, and it's been so hard! Oh well, such is life. For the second issue, I recently chose to cut ties with my parents. I'm not sure if there is a direct connection or not, but I made that decision a few months after I let go of old family photo albums (13 volumes!).

In summary, as you notice patterns in your clutter, see the changes in things you accumulate over the years, pick on the corpses of your hopes and aspirations, and explore your unresolved issues, you will have a clearer picture of who you are and where you want to go.

Happy decluttering!

MinusTwo, I think it's a generational thing. My mother passed away last summer. She and her DH saved every letter and card they ever received, 30 boxes of correspondence. Additionally, we found miscellaneous newspaper clippings, pizza flyers, ancient tax returns, cancelled checks, pictures, sheet music, sewing patterns, nuts & bolts, and craft supplies mixed in with important papers. Literally, thousands of pounds of this stuff. Much as I hated to do it, I had to get rid of most of it. It was interesting reading some of the letters, a little capsule in time, but realistically, no one has space for all this stuff.

It prompted me to go through my stuff. I have been a journal keeper over the years. I imagined my kids reading through the journals with hearts full of love. What i found was an alarming collection of work documenting my many bouts of mental illness. Some of it relayed my deep unhappiness with my husband and children. Some of It was suicidal ranting. Apparently, I tended not to document the good times. This is decidedly NOT something I want my family to find after I'm gone! I dumped at least 25 boxes of journals and letters.

MrsM - The article was very thought provoking. I seen myself in some of the categories. And seeing who I was and how I felt at that time with that person, I can move to be who I want to be....or just be comfortable and content with who I am. BUT so much more organized and uncluttered!!! lol

Interesting about the journals. I have about six or seven from the past thirty years or so. I, too, tended to write when I was frustrated or upset with life. I don't know that I want to part with the journals just yet, but I don't see my ds reading them, either.

I haven't journaled much in the past seven yrs.

I have four photo boxes filled with pictures and they stack neatly inside a small cabinet. Many pictures I have taken a photo of and posted on FB. I named my son as the person who has access to my FB account when I'm gone. It's called a legacy page then. He'll continue to have access to the photos on my FB page, there are tons. He's more likely to look at them on an electronic device rather than a hard copy. One thing, tho, we don't know how long Fb would even be around in the future. Technology moves at such a fast pace now, it's hard to say where it will lead us.