One bag down, 4 bankers boxes to go... plus a PSA

[Nette]

I'm shredding all of my (deceased) dad's sensitive stuff. But seriously, why did he keep paystubs from the 80's? In their original envelopes? Every single piece of paper that went into his house either stayed, or was xeroxed and a copy stayed. Every single piece of paper has to be removed from the envelope (or worse, from the plastic protective sleeve it's in), scanned for personal info, and then shredded if necessary.

Please people... don't save all your paper for your kids to go through after you're dead. I'm starting to resent him, and that's really an awful feeling.

Ok, whining complete.

 

[nskjerven]

sorry for your struggle with this

as we say in our family "it sucks to be you(me) right now"

I dread dealing with my mom's *crap* I keep thinking I'll try to do it now a little at a time - but who wants to deal with that stuff ever

 

[SandrA9810]

my aunt has a bad habit of this. When she sold her house in 01, she put a lot of "current papers" into boxes. And she never fully cleared out these boxes as she moved around.

I've started making headway with her, and finding papers from the 80's and 90's. But if she passes, i'm just calling a shredding company and handing over the boxes. I don't want to be bothered by the stuff.

She's big on shredding her name and address on papers... But it winds up in a box to be dealt with later. Only about 30% gets shredded immediatly.

 

[Nette]

Thanks... I wish I could just call a company to handle the whole mess... but there was (is) virtually no cash in the estate at all.

I guess what I don't get is why he kept all that stuff... Seriously, do you really think the electric company was going to call him and tell him he didn't pay his bill in August 1988?

 

[C.Ann]

Thanks... I wish I could just call a company to handle the whole mess... but there was (is) virtually no cash in the estate at all.

It's too bad you're not in a seasonal area where campfires are allowed.. It would be a heck of a lot faster than shredding each item!

Is there another family member who could give you a hand?

Hope it moves along quickly for you..

 

[pumba]

we went thru the same thing with my husbands mother and then six months later with my mother....was a long long long long process and we had to go thru it all......mother in law had all her income tax returns and all the paper work that went with it wrapped in brown paper...30 plus years we went thru.

I second the plea to others.....dont leave all your stuff for your kids to have to go thru.....GET RID OF IT after the right amount of years go by

 

[ksjayhawks]

Check with your bank. Many of them offer shredding services for their clients. You bring in what you needed shredded and put it into their locked box. It is a great service when you have a lot of things to be shredded.

P.S. My mom and dad had 56 shoeboxes full of stuff, plus several boxes of an aunt and an uncle and my grandma's--most still in envelopes. We did find some money, pictures, family papers that we want to keep. So make sure you open everything and shake it out!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Going through this now and it's been over a year since MIL passed.

Some stuff is important, like the original art work for some plates she had commissioned but about 90% of it is useless bills and bank statements.

 

[Silent1CB]

When my dad dies, I'm going to have a lot more than 4 bankers boxes. I've already decided I'm contacting the shredding company we used at my last office. They bring a locked trash barrel. For $50, they will take it out to the truck & shred it on the spot.

$50 is so worth me spending days shredding & burning out a shredder.

My dad already showed me the room he has for documents. Yes, an entire room. A box for each year of tax returns for personal and business and all the documents. Not to mention his office that is overflowing. He's a major pack rat.

 

[minkydog]

AFter my dad died, my sister and I went up to sort through stuff. We had already gone through dad's immediate effects, but there was stuff in the attic that we needed to get to. You can't access the ladder from inside the house, so we had to drag a ladder out and haul our fat butts up to teh roof and climb in a little bitty window. What we found inside just took our breath away. The attic was basically a roomabout 60ftx 45ft covered with boxes, clothing, trinkets, toys, anything you can think of. It was about 3/4 my grandparents stuff. Ugh. My grandparents were quirky people. They came up in teh Depression, so they saved EVERYTHING and then some. And they came up with a GREAT idea to thwart bad guys: Bury your important papers inside boxes filled with crap! So Sis and I had to go through EACH and EVERY box, container and envelope, check every pocket and every shoe, unfold all the quilts, and grab the old bibles to make sure we weren't overlooking something. Mostly we found receipts from the 1940s, old souvenier booklets, ancient shoes and dresses, party supplies that were yellow and so brittle they fell apart in my hands, and pictures(!) of people we've never met. This was the hardest job i ever had. Working up in an attic, in North Carolina, in July. I thought we were going to die of heat stroke up there!

In the end, we came away with a few things that had sentimental value, the pictures, some quilts, and a few trinkets. Nothing of any real value. But I"m telling you what, it made me want to get home and clean out EVERYTHING.

 

[MomRN]

A vent I can relate to....

My dear grandmother that I lived with passed away less than 2 months ago. Several times during our arrangement I begged her to get rid of some stuff. Frankly, it was dangerous, particularly those days I had to do some major moving fast to be able to help he get up out of bed, or from the floor, or when the ambulance came.

And now she is gone and my dad and I have to deal with all this stuff. The dollar store candy dish that is next to the antique cut class. The letters from my grandpa during the Korean war mixed with bills from the 90's. It's a mess. But I can't quit yet get rid of grandma's stuff. We will work through it, but it will take a little time.

 

[tonilea]

I talked my MIL out of some stuff, but she has stubbornly hung on to tax returns that date back to the sixties, possibly further. I did find some WWII sugar ration coupons, interesting at least.

 

[phillmolly]

I feel your pain, when we had to put my grandmother in a nursing home, I helped my mom clean out her apartment. She was also a pack rat who saved every single canceled check! Be very careful though, my grandma would hide money inside the envelopes, we found over $1,000!!!

 

[SandrA9810]

well my aunt isn't nice enough to hide money in old bills. And my grandmother has a decent size safe from ages ago that she's kept important stuff in.
I'm still not important enough to know the lock combo for it. But growing up, it was like this big treat when they'd open it up cause i would go through the old coins and papers. And found it so facinating.

So most the loose papers and stuff are really just junk now.

But one of the cool things that was found after my g'father passed away was the original deed and drawing plans for the house. They were the only owners of the house for 50 years. My aunt gave those to a friend of hers that had a big interest in those sorts of things. But i was fascinating to see blue sheets from 1950's.

 

[bumbershoot]

OP that doesn't sound like much fun. I'm sorry.


That said, I like saving paystubs (well, they are full sheets now, b/c things are just deposited and then DH goes to the payroll site and prints the "stub") b/c it's fun to see how things have changed. I can totally imagine having all of them decades down the road.

However, if I continue what I'm doing now, it will all be in cheapie plastic binders having been 3-hole punched (I bought a stapler, pencil sharpener, and that hole punch all at once last September, it was so fun!) and with the binder marked "paychecks". So that'll be easy to figure out, LOL.


I didn't have to deal with the paperwork when my mom died. But I will tell you that apart from her being gone, my least fave thing was getting all of my old art/school stuff back. Just didn't seem right. I mean...what am I going to do with the stuff I gave her decades ago? I filed it...not sure what I'll do with it all. Did I mention it's been 10 years now? I still have all of that stuff....

 

[Acklander]

Why do you have to scan everything?

 

[buckler]

Sometimes there are free shredding days offered by local businesses. You just missed one in Austin around Earth Day. Watch to see if another one is offered soon.

 

[Nette]

Check with your bank. Many of them offer shredding services for their clients. You bring in what you needed shredded and put it into their locked box. It is a great service when you have a lot of things to be shredded.

P.S. My mom and dad had 56 shoeboxes full of stuff, plus several boxes of an aunt and an uncle and my grandma's--most still in envelopes. We did find some money, pictures, family papers that we want to keep. So make sure you open everything and shake it out!

I will definitely do that! I didn't even think about the bank!

Going through this now and it's been over a year since MIL passed.

Some stuff is important, like the original art work for some plates she had commissioned but about 90% of it is useless bills and bank statements.

That's our problem, everything MIGHT be something. I'd say that there were over 20 bankers boxes of paper (plus 4 desks full). Some of it was his writings (he was a very talented writer with hundreds of completed stories) so I want to save those. Some of it is old greeting cards -- Seriously there were about 100 cards just for st. patricks day alone!. A lot of his old artwork. Papers that my mother wrote in high school (they've been divorced for over 20 years)....

The list goes on. I found one notebook full of page protectors with nothing but a blank envelope in every single one. WTH? And in order to recycle all that stuff, you have to pull each paper out of the protective sleeve.

...The attic was basically a roomabout 60ftx 45ft covered with boxes, clothing, trinkets, toys, anything you can think of. It was about 3/4 my grandparents stuff. Ugh. My grandparents were quirky people. They came up in teh Depression, so they saved EVERYTHING and then some. And they came up with a GREAT idea to thwart bad guys: Bury your important papers inside boxes filled with crap! So Sis and I had to go through EACH and EVERY box, container and envelope, check every pocket and every shoe, unfold all the quilts, and grab the old bibles to make sure we weren't overlooking something. Mostly we found receipts from the 1940s, old souvenier booklets, ancient shoes and dresses, party supplies that were yellow and so brittle they fell apart in my hands, and pictures(!) of people we've never met. This was the hardest job i ever had. Working up in an attic, in North Carolina, in July. I thought we were going to die of heat stroke up there!

I was literally jumping for joy when we discovered the attic was virtually empty. I thought for sure it would be just like you described. And dad must have had the same theory as your grandparents, mix the important papers with the junk. I am still searching for the deed to the house. I'll probably have to get one from the city...

I feel your pain, when we had to put my grandmother in a nursing home, I helped my mom clean out her apartment. She was also a pack rat who saved every single canceled check! Be very careful though, my grandma would hide money inside the envelopes, we found over $1,000!!!

I highly doubt I'll be THAT lucky. Dad was rolling pennies for cigarettes broke when he died.

I didn't have to deal with the paperwork when my mom died. But I will tell you that apart from her being gone, my least fave thing was getting all of my old art/school stuff back. Just didn't seem right. I mean...what am I going to do with the stuff I gave her decades ago? I filed it...not sure what I'll do with it all. Did I mention it's been 10 years now? I still have all of that stuff....

That's really depressing too. And most of the saved artwork is mine and not my brother's (who are helping me, BTW!)... It's really hard to just pitch something that my dad saved lovingly for 30 years, ya know? But I don't have room for all that stuff. I'm trying to employ the same filter I use w/ my DD7s art. Keep the really good stuff, pitch the rest.

Why do you have to scan everything?

I just meant scan as in look through quickly, not actually scan it to the computer. Ugh!!! That would suck even more!

Sometimes there are free shredding days offered by local businesses. You just missed one in Austin around Earth Day. Watch to see if another one is offered soon.

Yeah I know I missed that one. I am really annoyed at myself for missing it. But, that said, we were only through about 1/3 of the boxes when that one came up.

Oh and did I mention he was a heavy smoker? So all this paper smells like old musty paper + 30 years of cigarette smoke.

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. It's really good to know I'm not alone!

 

[yoopermom]

Some of it is old greeting cards -- Seriously there were about 100 cards just for st. patricks day alone!

I don't know how old is old, but my DMIL is a HUGE antique greeting card collector, and has paid some big bucks for holiday cards, especially Halloween ones (don't ask me why...). If you haven't already gotten rid of them, you may want to contact an antiques buyer, or even ebay them in lots. Just an idea...

Good luck to you!
Terri

 

[Nette]

I don't know how old is old, but my DMIL is a HUGE antique greeting card collector, and has paid some big bucks for holiday cards, especially Halloween ones (don't ask me why...). If you haven't already gotten rid of them, you may want to contact an antiques buyer, or even ebay them in lots. Just an idea...

Good luck to you!
Terri

Most of them are from the 90's and beyond. We did find a WHOLE BUNCH from the 40s when dad was born and I did not discard those, they are in the pile of "must go through this stuff more thoroughly". I'll probably give them back to my grandma, and then get them back when she passes in (hopefully) several years.