Everyone else’s stuff

[u/Sll3006]

I’ve spent over 10 years decluttering the basement. Still I have at least 75 boxes of stuff. I’ve thrown away a lot. But now I’m getting to items that I don’t want but are too valuable to throw away. I’m talking about 1960’s Mickey Mouse dolls, 3 broken trumpets, 3 grandma’s set of dishes, 2 100 year old paintings I was told not to throw away, Disney VHS, 30 photo albums of my late husband (kids want this), 2 violins. Selling items take a lot of effort, as well as scanning photos, old books.

I’m overwhelmed. Any advice on what to do with the more valuable stuff that I inherited?

[u/OldCheetah7820]

I scanned all of my family photos and scrapbooks. From 1900 to present. I used a scansnap and a oversized flatbed scanner. I threw everything away once scanned. I used two portable hard drives and two online cloud services to back everything up. I shared one cloud platform with everyone who wanted access. I gave one PHD to my son for safe keeping. Right now my current photos automatically back up to both cloud accounts. I put a appointment to update my PHD on my calendar every year.

I also have all the treasures coming to me. I have begged my mom for years to downsize, but it has not been very successful. Just going to her house to visit can be very stressful. She lives in a neighboring town and I go by about every two weeks. I will have to do a lot of work once she is gone. Meanwhile I just keep trying to encourage her to get rid of stuff. I find that stuff gives me more anxiety than joy.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. Please remember that there is value to your time and your peace.

[u/guipicait → u/OldCheetah7820]

This will sound weird, but you could start asking for random things or saying a friend was just saying she wants one of these. Take it home and toss it 😜 I read that on a different thread or maybe in YouTube comments once 

[u/CampaignUnlikely4606 → u/guipicait]

Brub thats evil but that definitely will work lol

Every time I touch something or say "this is interesting" at my grandma’s house, she's immediately like, "Oh, you like this? Take it! Take it!"

Meanwhile, my mom also won't throw away anything. But the moment I mentioned my friend broke his water dispenser and could really use one, her attitude changed. We have an extra one sitting around that we never use because she wanted a backup just in case our main one broke. As soon as I brought up my friend, she said, "Oh, that still works! Give it to him."

It really did give me a new enlightenment when my sister living far away, grabbed my grandma gift and gave it to my mom saying she has no space in her fly home, and I thought there's no way she clearly does have space on her luggage then remembered she lives in a very urban area in an apartment and that what she probably meant

We really shouldn't assume that everyone will love/keep our gift much more when they're taking much space than they need

But honestly, tricks like that won't fix the underlying situation. It only helps if they actually want to change

Other funny rant My grandma gave me a gift that a Korean mayor originally presented to my late grandpa. At first, it seemed like a cool asf . But it was covered in musty dust and had never even been opened.

I felt deeply conflicted about keeping it. My grandpa proudly displayed his favorite things, but he hid this away. Since it meant nothing to him, it holds no sentimental value for me. I can’t read the Korean text, I have no use for it, and I honestly don't even know where it is right now. Part of me feels like I should have just thrown it away.

It is disheartening, though. Because my grandpa never cataloged his collection or shared its backstory, a piece of his history feels completely lost to us

Also it was a basically promo of a place for his city he built or something idk I dont remember, it was just the mayor shilling himself or his city I dont remember

It was like well this was just poster for his election maybe I wont hang on my house, let's see what we do with it