MIL died a few months ago, and we are still dealing with crap from her house.
She had four adult sons, in their 50s and 60s all with homes of their own. With my coaching, she made a half-assed attempt five years ago to get all the sons to take their own crap. She had an attic and a basement full of college text books, sporting equipment, books, clothing, etc. Dh had long ago disposed of his crap, but two of them flatly refused because they "didn't have room for it." Some of their houses are small, but good grief, if you are 50+ years old, throw out your own damn junk if you can't take it. I encouraged her to give them a drop dead date for taking it or tossing it, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, so back to the attic it went.
Since we live in town, and dh is the executor, we are still sorting through the crap. We've tossed lots of it, but dh is way more timid about it than I would be.
If your parents try to give you crap and other dumb stuff that was actually yours, please take it and dispose of it if you don't want it. I have come in contact with boxes from one brother's college apartment, containing 35 year old jars of spaghetti sauce, rotten dish towels, love letters from old girl friends, etc. that he still won't take but doesn't want just thrown out.
Photographs, oh, how I hate photographs. My bedroom has about twenty huge cartons of photos. Remember the day of print photography? ILs would take 8 snapshots of the Christmas tree every year. Two would be in focus, but all 8 went in the album. There are albums of pictures of people we don't recognize. Nobody wants to throw out the ancestors but nobody wants to claim them, either. One brother helpfully suggested we contact distant branches of the family to see if they could help ID photos. Umm, no, if you want them ID'd, do it yourself.
We could scan these thousands of photos. Dh, in theory wants to do that, but in practice they are going nowhere fast. He's a lovely man, but taking charge of this kind of stuff is not his thing, nor will he let me do it. I hate photographs.