Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

I get this if one of your parents was a bad painter and filled the house with huge framed canvases. Otherwise, I'm just looking for stuff I want, and anything that I know was meant for posterity and few people would care about (my father updates a family tree, for example.) After that, call a professional and sell the lot to them i.e. the thing that these people mention not doing.

You may "lose" your parents if you don't have all of their stuff (I'm not sure what that means, but the article keeps saying it), but luckily, the odds are you won't have to live without them for more than another 20-30 years.

If that stuff outlived your parents, that means that it served its purpose well. Let somebody else buy it off ebay from an estate liquidator so it will create more happiness in the world, rather than hoarding it, which is the impulse I really suspect these situations are feeding.

I have brought up in hypotheticals to anyone who might be lumbered with them after my untimely passing the best ways to liquidate a lot of board games without getting pennies on the dollar. My only actual worry about my (physical) estate is that my heirs may get ripped off while dumping it.

I can't really think of much I'd want from my parents house. Maybe a few items with family history. But mostly, it is like you said -- they've mostly got their stuff for a reason, and if it serves them well for as long as they need it, then it has already met and likely exceeded expectations.

On the other hand, one step removed I think it makes more sense, because you have maybe less direct contact with the person -- I've got a microscope and and oil stone from my grandfather, which have some significant sentimental value to me. These were almost certainly obsolete when I got them, more than a couple years ago (Well, the microscope at least. An oil stone will last you a while). I think I value these because he was a very precise, but also very down-to-earth guy. That's my summary, having had limited time with him. My mom would not be able to sum up his whole personality in two items, because she has a much more full view of it. But, despite knowing that this stuff holds only the slightest outline of his personality, it really does mean a lot to me.

One or two little things like that are nice. I have my grandfather's hat. If the microscope fits on a bookshelf, it counts as decoration:)

You have no items in your parents home that reminds you of something you did as a child? Nothing?

I don't. We moved too much. Aside from computers and video games, there wasn't really any "stuff" that survived all those moves. Even less survived 13 years after moving out. My parents were always pretty ruthless about culling things.

I generally don't need to be reminded of the things I did as a child. Anyway, what am I going to do with these things, put them in my closet to burden my heirs?

If I see something useful that also reminds me of my parents or my childhood, all the better. But it has to be something that's integrated into my life, not something that I'm attaching to my life because I'm afraid to give anything up.

edit: I do have to say that there might be a subtext in the article that I agree with. The useless stuff that your kids will have to deal with after you die is probably also useless to you now, so you should deal with it now.

Not really…

my parents got divorced and my mom abandoned everything and everyone

i usually just take photos of that type of thing. they take up much less physical space

Yes, this is the solution. I have done the same with my own keepsakes. Take a photo and then toss the keepsake.

The cloud, my backups, are really my only physical "treasure".

Oh, I had tons of them. When my parents decided to move out of their house, I had a blast going through the stuff and remembering things. Still, except for my LEGO bricks, everything went into the trash.

I do not have the space to keep a lot of stuff.

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