Author Topic: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?  (Read 178714 times)

Cassie

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #400 on: December 10, 2018, 11:20:01 AM »
In my profession we worked closely with goodwill for years. How helpful they are depends on who runs them. For years they hired our people with  disabilities who couldn’t hold jobs in a competitive setting.  They made money by selling the donations.   Then management changed and they fired everyone that had a disability. Locally I won’t donate to them. Many programs like the Salvation Army give people recovering from addiction a place to live and feed them. In return they work in their thrift stores or are kettle ringers at Xmas.  They refer clients to agencies that help them find employment.   They make money selling donations and asking for monetary donations also.

MayDay

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #401 on: December 22, 2018, 01:35:38 PM »
It's Christmas time, the season of visiting relatives and coming home with their old shit, plus new shit they bought for you!

Who is excited?!?

My dad has a new oddity. He apparently has kept various broken ceramic Christmas ornaments since I was a child. Now every year at Christmas he painstakingly fixes a few and gives them to my kids. My kids give zero fucks. They do not want random ornaments from my childhood. I am neutral on them, but we already have more than enough ornaments.

They do look really good, he could totally fix stuff people actually care about!

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #402 on: December 22, 2018, 02:54:21 PM »
It's Christmas time, the season of visiting relatives and coming home with their old shit, plus new shit they bought for you!

Who is excited?!?

My dad has a new oddity. He apparently has kept various broken ceramic Christmas ornaments since I was a child. Now every year at Christmas he painstakingly fixes a few and gives them to my kids. My kids give zero fucks. They do not want random ornaments from my childhood. I am neutral on them, but we already have more than enough ornaments.

They do look really good, he could totally fix stuff people actually care about!

Perhaps you could look on this as time when you teach your kids to accept gifts graciously, and to concentrate on the spirit in which they were given and the effort required in giving them, rather than what they actually are.

MayDay

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #403 on: December 26, 2018, 05:56:27 AM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

OtherJen

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #404 on: December 26, 2018, 07:30:14 AM »
On Christmas Eve, my parents tried to convince me to take their giant china cabinet. My response: where would it go? It would take up half the house! Exaggeration, of course, but my house is tiny and they had enough trouble getting that giant piece of furniture into their house 25 years ago. (Seriously, people, think ahead when you buy furniture.) I did promise to eventually take the lacquered, inlaid cabinet that mom inherited from my grandma and will probably also take a couple of their beautiful wood end tables, but not until they’re ready to downsize into a retirement apartment or condo.

Mom and I also had a conversation about how I’m willing to come over and help them clear junk out of their basement now, with their input, but that I don’t want to be stuck doing it alone if they have to move suddenly because of health or old age. Of course we’ve been having this conversation for 5 years, so I’m not optimistic.

After helping to clear our grandparents’ hoards and knowing that both sets of parents have full basements, husband and I have become near-minimalists. I don’t ever want any room of my house to get to such an overwhelming point that I give up and stick my godchildren with the job.

Cassie

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #405 on: December 26, 2018, 09:59:17 AM »
I taught my kids to be gracious about gifts. My sister is honest and it hurts my feelings if she doesn’t like it.  Actually I hate to shop for her because of that. At 73 she won’t be changing.

CNM

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #406 on: December 26, 2018, 11:28:58 AM »
Just got a new one from my in-law: A bag full (full!!) of old matchbooks.

A happy follow up - My sister took the matchbooks to her office white elephant gift exchange.  She reported that they were a surprise hit!

letsdoit

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #407 on: December 26, 2018, 11:58:42 AM »
my 80 YO uncle tried to buy matches this wknd,  he went to 4 stores nad then the cashier at one place gave him the book out of his pocket. 
it was a major mind f- for him that he could not buy matches anywhere

Rural

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #408 on: December 26, 2018, 12:46:00 PM »
my 80 YO uncle tried to buy matches this wknd,  he went to 4 stores nad then the cashier at one place gave him the book out of his pocket. 
it was a major mind f- for him that he could not buy matches anywhere


Dollar General carries them.

Poundwise

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #409 on: December 26, 2018, 07:27:05 PM »
Target sells them too.

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #410 on: December 26, 2018, 09:44:43 PM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

snowball

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #411 on: December 27, 2018, 02:51:48 AM »
And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

Exactly.  And doing that has a corrosive effect on relationships;  enough of that risks turning your close family into not so close family.  When it's only going to hurt someone's feelings for no good reason, honesty isn't some kind of superior virtue to politeness.  Some of my family members think honesty should trump politeness every time, when it's family - this is how I was raised, sadly - so I've seen the results of this in action.  It's not good.

A little story:  I like to cook, and I will happily spend hours cooking dinner for my friends and having them over.  They are fun to hang out with and would never say something unkind about my efforts even if there's something they don't like, because they value the effort and care I put into it.  In contrast, years ago I made Christmas dinner for a sibling, who ate a ton of food and said nothing about it until another day, when informing me out of the blue that "that turkey didn't taste very good"...and I expect that was honesty (sibling probably isn't a fan of turkey in general).  But interpersonal actions have reactions, in a very Newtonian way, and the natural result of this kind of repeated behaviour pattern is that we are not close.

(It might sound like I overreacted to that particular comment, but it was really the straw that broke the camel's back...at the time I was in the middle of chemo treatment, exhausted all the time, and had spent a couple of my few "good" days pulling that dinner together.  I still would have accepted zero positive comments on it as par for the course in my family, and felt good about my relationship-building efforts, but...getting nothing back but negativity, even under those circumstances, was a bit much.  I can't have people like that in my life, except on the periphery.)

Tl;dr: just being closely related doesn't mean you can receive's someone gift with whatever honest unkindness you want without damaging your relationship on some level.  The person being honest might see it as pure honesty, not intended to be cruel;  the person on the other end is more likely to take away an implicit message of "you value me so little you can't even be bothered to be as polite as you'd be to a stranger."  That's not the message my sibling intended to send in that story above, and I recognized that even at the time;  I wasn't mad.  But that's still how it feels on the receiving end.

I would say it's even more important to teach children to treat their close family with kindness and courtesy than it is to treat their more distant relatives that way.  Surely these are relationships they should be taught to value, and a relationship is like a garden - both sides have to water and care for it in order for it to thrive in the long term.  You don't get a free pass on that just because it's family.

(Back to the thread topic, I'm not necessarily on board with gracefully accepting hoarder-level gifting, or people ignoring your explicit gift preferences to give you something they should know you won't like - dysfunctional situations may require different responses.  But the plain old "Someone got me a perfectly reasonable gift that I don't happen to like;  do I say thank you or can I give them my honest reaction?" only has one correct answer in most cases - you say thank you gracefully, because you're responding to their affection for you, not to the literal nature of the gift.)

jengod

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #412 on: December 27, 2018, 06:47:40 PM »
Just got a new one from my in-law: A bag full (full!!) of old matchbooks.

A happy follow up - My sister took the matchbooks to her office white elephant gift exchange.  She reported that they were a surprise hit!

Glad to hear it! I know who a woman who refuses to buy new or plastic-wrapped goods, so she buys lots of vintage matchbooks on eBay and makes sure they are shipped in reusable/compostable packaging.

marble_faun

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #413 on: December 29, 2018, 01:19:58 AM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

That's a lovely ideal of gift-giving, but that's not always how it works.  Relatives can use gifts to send passive-aggressive messages, supplant your taste with theirs, attempt to control aspects of your life, or just demonstrate their general lack of thought and care.  They turn what should be a kindness into a power play.  In cases like this, it's not "lucky" to get any gift. You'd really just rather not receive gifts from this person.

All that said, though, the repaired ceramic ornaments mentioned earlier by @MayDay sound sweet and quasi-Mustachian to me, not thoughtless. They can just go on the Christmas tree without much disruption to the home.  In later years the kids might treasure them more. Gramps won't be around forever, but he took the time to do something small yet special for them.  His ornament-repair tradition may end up becoming one of those family stories that gets told at Christmas dinner every year.

Sibley

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #414 on: December 29, 2018, 12:18:32 PM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

You are making a lot of assumptions there about the gift givers intent. My MIL deliberately gives me things that in no way, take into account who I am or things that will bring me joy. She buys things that are meant to needle at me and show how I'm not quite measuring up to her expectations or to mock me. This year I got a stuffed toy dog for Christmas because "she would rather buy gifts for grandchildren, but you won't have any".
Please explain what the hell type of gratefulness I'm supposed to have for that.

Be grateful that you know who and what she is.
Go to reddit, find JustNoMil, and read. Especially the comments, because there's gold there.
Then, using what's you've learned, protect yourself and your family from her toxicity.

And seriously, if you get a gift you don't want/need, you can do things like return it for store credit and get something you do want, or donate it.

pachnik

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #415 on: December 29, 2018, 12:26:21 PM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

You are making a lot of assumptions there about the gift givers intent. My MIL deliberately gives me things that in no way, take into account who I am or things that will bring me joy. She buys things that are meant to needle at me and show how I'm not quite measuring up to her expectations or to mock me. This year I got a stuffed toy dog for Christmas because "she would rather buy gifts for grandchildren, but you won't have any".
Please explain what the hell type of gratefulness I'm supposed to have for that.

That's really awful - very mean-spirited.   

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #416 on: December 29, 2018, 01:22:06 PM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

You are making a lot of assumptions there about the gift givers intent. My MIL deliberately gives me things that in no way, take into account who I am or things that will bring me joy. She buys things that are meant to needle at me and show how I'm not quite measuring up to her expectations or to mock me. This year I got a stuffed toy dog for Christmas because "she would rather buy gifts for grandchildren, but you won't have any".
Please explain what the hell type of gratefulness I'm supposed to have for that.

That's not a gift. That's a bitchy gesture. Treat it as such! Sorry you have someone like that in your life - she's sounds awful. Buy her a broomstick to sit her butt on next xmas.

Cassie

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #417 on: December 29, 2018, 01:34:12 PM »
Your MIL is a terrible person!  I actually don’t know anyone that acts like that.

KodeBlue

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #418 on: December 29, 2018, 07:32:20 PM »
You are making a lot of assumptions there about the gift givers intent. My MIL deliberately gives me things that in no way, take into account who I am or things that will bring me joy. She buys things that are meant to needle at me and show how I'm not quite measuring up to her expectations or to mock me. This year I got a stuffed toy dog for Christmas because "she would rather buy gifts for grandchildren, but you won't have any".
Please explain what the hell type of gratefulness I'm supposed to have for that.
Your MIL osunds like a trifling bitch to put it plainly.

Sibley

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #419 on: December 29, 2018, 08:00:38 PM »
Your MIL is a terrible person!  I actually don’t know anyone that acts like that.

Quite seriously, I hope you never do.

letsdoit

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #420 on: December 31, 2018, 10:10:33 AM »
it sounds like MIL is a troll
dont feed the trolls

saguaro

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #421 on: December 31, 2018, 11:47:05 AM »
Speaking of trolling type gifts, I did get one....once.  It was a horribly awful sweater, it was turquoise blue with huge horizontal black stripes, think looking like a turquoise bumble bee.  I was rather stunned.  At first I was ready to say, "is this a joke?" but rallied myself and said "thank you" to the smirking relative, who was obviously expecting a reaction. 

Aegishjalmur

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #422 on: December 31, 2018, 04:19:46 PM »
DW and I are currently debating if our friends boyfriend is a shopaholic or a hoarder. We visited her for the holidays and after we left we got a text asking us if we left our laundry detergent. I checked and confirmed we had not and she sent us a picture of the FOUR bottles of laundry detergent, each different brands, that her bf had decided to get for her and bring over, without asking her if she needed any or what brand she uses.... Apparently he does this with food too, he'll buy random items she doesn't need and bring them over unasked, or if she does ask him to buy something, he will buy it in massive quantities. Or both(4 boxes of crackers of a type she can't eat because they have gluten).

We have never seen his apartment but they are talking about renting a 2 bedroom apartment and she has told him she won't even start moving in until he makes room for her.

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #423 on: December 31, 2018, 06:30:26 PM »
DW and I are currently debating if our friends boyfriend is a shopaholic or a hoarder. We visited her for the holidays and after we left we got a text asking us if we left our laundry detergent. I checked and confirmed we had not and she sent us a picture of the FOUR bottles of laundry detergent, each different brands, that her bf had decided to get for her and bring over, without asking her if she needed any or what brand she uses.... Apparently he does this with food too, he'll buy random items she doesn't need and bring them over unasked, or if she does ask him to buy something, he will buy it in massive quantities. Or both(4 boxes of crackers of a type she can't eat because they have gluten).

We have never seen his apartment but they are talking about renting a 2 bedroom apartment and she has told him she won't even start moving in until he makes room for her.

He sounds generous and potentially mustachian to me. He probably just buys what is on special - and 4 of if it's a really good special.

jengod

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #424 on: December 31, 2018, 07:11:18 PM »
I am currently looking at a stuffed teddy bear that's the same size as me. I can't decide if I should take it to Goodwill or try to give it away on our Buy Nothing group.

The good news is that I put some of her stuffed animal gifts in our Little Free Library and the girls down the street were thrilled to have them.

Rural

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #425 on: January 01, 2019, 07:08:03 AM »
DW and I are currently debating if our friends boyfriend is a shopaholic or a hoarder. We visited her for the holidays and after we left we got a text asking us if we left our laundry detergent. I checked and confirmed we had not and she sent us a picture of the FOUR bottles of laundry detergent, each different brands, that her bf had decided to get for her and bring over, without asking her if she needed any or what brand she uses.... Apparently he does this with food too, he'll buy random items she doesn't need and bring them over unasked, or if she does ask him to buy something, he will buy it in massive quantities. Or both(4 boxes of crackers of a type she can't eat because they have gluten).

We have never seen his apartment but they are talking about renting a 2 bedroom apartment and she has told him she won't even start moving in until he makes room for her.

He sounds generous and potentially mustachian to me. He probably just buys what is on special - and 4 of if it's a really good special.


Not likely if it's different brands at the same time.

Dixie_Amazon

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #426 on: January 01, 2019, 07:40:15 AM »
DW and I are currently debating if our friends boyfriend is a shopaholic or a hoarder. We visited her for the holidays and after we left we got a text asking us if we left our laundry detergent. I checked and confirmed we had not and she sent us a picture of the FOUR bottles of laundry detergent, each different brands, that her bf had decided to get for her and bring over, without asking her if she needed any or what brand she uses.... Apparently he does this with food too, he'll buy random items she doesn't need and bring them over unasked, or if she does ask him to buy something, he will buy it in massive quantities. Or both(4 boxes of crackers of a type she can't eat because they have gluten).

We have never seen his apartment but they are talking about renting a 2 bedroom apartment and she has told him she won't even start moving in until he makes room for her.
This sounds all too familiar to me and my husband is a hoarder/shopaholic. Your friend's boyfriend may not be, but her putting off moving in is a good idea.

Werthless

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #427 on: January 03, 2019, 12:10:42 PM »
My in-laws live alone in their 5 bedroom house, even with their 2 kids married and moved out for close to 10 years. Currently, only 2 of the 5 bedrooms have foot access to the bed. When we visited for Christmas (we brought 7 people), they cleared a path to the bed for a 3rd bedroom. Dining room is unusable and physically blocked off. A room in the basement is dedicated to storing the original box for all purchases from the last 20 years.

One of the bedrooms is filled with suitcases, stacked on one another, where the suitcases are filled with jackets (with the price tags on them...). Do they buy the suitcases to store the jackets? Do they buy the jackets when they find an empty suitcase lying around? So many questions!

It will be an eye-opener for them when we retire before them. They make good money, and have a good pension, but continue to work -- I assume -- to support the house and clothes spending. They talk about downsizing, but they will never be able to clear the house.

talltexan

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #428 on: January 07, 2019, 07:01:24 AM »
I'm of two minds. Not sure I want to encourage them to accept gracefully all the time. If rather see honestly in the immediate family. We certainly have taught graceful acceptance to less close relatives.

You've missed the point of a gift. This is something that someone thought you would like, purchased with their money, wrapped and handed to you in the hope that you would like it. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate the fact someone thought about you and went to some effort. That's why you accept it graciously. Not because of what it is. Ever heard the expression 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? This is what it means! Literally, when someone gifts you a horse, you don't check it's teeth to see how old it is. You just say thank you. Because someone gave you something. You're damn lucky you get gifts at all.

And fyi, it's no more acceptable to be rude and ungrateful to close family than it is to not so close family.

You are making a lot of assumptions there about the gift givers intent. My MIL deliberately gives me things that in no way, take into account who I am or things that will bring me joy. She buys things that are meant to needle at me and show how I'm not quite measuring up to her expectations or to mock me. This year I got a stuffed toy dog for Christmas because "she would rather buy gifts for grandchildren, but you won't have any".
Please explain what the hell type of gratefulness I'm supposed to have for that.

Be grateful that you know who and what she is.
Go to reddit, find JustNoMil, and read. Especially the comments, because there's gold there.
Then, using what's you've learned, protect yourself and your family from her toxicity.

And seriously, if you get a gift you don't want/need, you can do things like return it for store credit and get something you do want, or donate it.

For some reason, it seems like my wife always suggests these things when my parents give her gifts. She never would consider taking things her mom gives her back to the store...it's not clear to me that the gifts are different.

Just Joe

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #429 on: January 07, 2019, 07:28:17 AM »
My in-laws live alone in their 5 bedroom house, even with their 2 kids married and moved out for close to 10 years. Currently, only 2 of the 5 bedrooms have foot access to the bed. When we visited for Christmas (we brought 7 people), they cleared a path to the bed for a 3rd bedroom. Dining room is unusable and physically blocked off. A room in the basement is dedicated to storing the original box for all purchases from the last 20 years.

One of the bedrooms is filled with suitcases, stacked on one another, where the suitcases are filled with jackets (with the price tags on them...). Do they buy the suitcases to store the jackets? Do they buy the jackets when they find an empty suitcase lying around? So many questions!

It will be an eye-opener for them when we retire before them. They make good money, and have a good pension, but continue to work -- I assume -- to support the house and clothes spending. They talk about downsizing, but they will never be able to clear the house.

You have more patience than I do. I wouldn't stay amid that mess. I'd invite them elsewhere for the weekend or out for a meal and then go home. My intention would not be to limit my time with them and I'd make that clear. My intention would be to limit my time in their messy home. Maybe that would spur them to clean out. I say all this as a person whose own home is never perfect. ;)
« Last Edit: January 07, 2019, 07:31:57 AM by Just Joe »

FunkyStickman

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #430 on: January 07, 2019, 07:40:18 AM »
Had to chime in.

My mom, dad, and sister are all hoarders. Dad mostly stores scrap wood and broken tools. Mom stores snack foods, clothes, furniture, dishes, ornaments, trinkets, and god knows what else. My sister hits "going out of business" sales for crap that nobody really wants. Thousands upon thousands of dollars of furniture, lamps, collectibles, rugs, decorations, dishes, games, you name it.

For 20+ years I've been slowly training them to stop bringing us junk that we don't want and can't use, but in the last month or so leading up to Christmas, we've inherited quite a bit.

I think the toughest thing is that my sister treats my mom and dad like a free moving/storage company... despite the fact that she lives 1200+ miles away. And my parents are in their 70's and in poor health. And they've already got more junk than they know what to do with, and no room to store more (cause they're getting more themselves). So guess who it gets handed down to?

You guessed it: me, then goodwill.

I think the worst was when I received a grocery bag full of dead cell phones, chargers, cables, and floppy disks. I separate them into "trash" and "recycle" piles. And we've got a permanent pile of clothes and junk by the front door that gets taken to charity every week.

It's insane. but finally, this past Christmas I managed to keep people from giving my kids tons of useless garbage. We skip family parties for that reason.

Just Joe

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #431 on: January 07, 2019, 08:07:57 AM »
Does sis ship it back and forth? How does her stuff wind up at your parents' place (and then your place)?

FunkyStickman

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #432 on: January 07, 2019, 08:37:03 AM »
Does sis ship it back and forth? How does her stuff wind up at your parents' place (and then your place)?

Most of the time, she convinces them to *drive* there, and babysit and move things for her. And they do it. One time they bought a trailer hitch for my mom's Jeep, had it installed and everything, they drove up there, and ended up not even using it.

Just Joe

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #433 on: January 07, 2019, 09:23:17 AM »
The trip probably costs multiples of the value of the stuff that gets hauled home.

FunkyStickman

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #434 on: January 07, 2019, 09:46:31 AM »
The trip probably costs multiples of the value of the stuff that gets hauled home.

It does. She has zero concept of what things actually cost. Oh, and did I mention she's a single mom in her late 40's and unemployed? SMH.

She *did* manage to give away a large chunk of her stuff in the last move though, because my parents refused to store it or move it, she couldn't afford to store it or ship it, and she couldn't afford her house anymore. So she's now living in a vacation home in Colorado for free, courtesy of one of her sugar daddies. Still no job.

I sincerely want her to get her life in order, but watching her make multiple bad decisions is like watching a train wreck in slo-mo over 30 years. I mean, you *know* how it's going to end, you hope it doesn't, but you still know.

She's made efforts to try to turn things around recently, but darlin... after 30 years, it's going to take more than a change of heart to dig yourself out of that hole.

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #435 on: January 07, 2019, 11:25:14 AM »
What drives me crazy about getting given crap is that it's just one more thing for me to manage.  I need to manage donating it or throwing it away and manage the relationship with the person giving it to me. I hate to be ungrateful, but I have things to do and can't manage more stuff!!  Going to the charity drop off every week like @FunkyStickman would really piss me off, as I prefer to use my time doing other, more meaningful things. Grrr. (Can you tell that I'd been cleaning/decluttering this weekend?!?!)  </rant>

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #436 on: January 15, 2019, 02:01:11 PM »
I'm still trying to get my mom to get rid of her stuff in storage, or at least reduce to one unit. Her two units cost $235/month. She's had them for about four years now, and so has spent over $11,000 in storage fees. Her payment is sometimes late by a few days, which adds a $37 late fee. I keep nudging her to put the bill on autopay, but she won't. She'd rather write a check and have us drive her over to the place so she can pay at the office (she just quit driving a couple months ago). I think she likes to chat with the manager, who treats her like his best bud. She also has an extra bedroom that stuffed with boxes of clothes and other things.

She keeps saying that "the kids", meaning her nieces and nephews, would love to have some of the things she's clinging to, but DH and I have talked to them and they're not interested. They probably express mild interest to her just to be polite.

I don't want to get mad at her and tell her most of the stuff will probably go to Goodwill after she's gone, but sometimes it's hard to keep my mouth shut.

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #437 on: January 15, 2019, 02:13:53 PM »
If money is tight for your mom maybe brainstorm with her what fun things she could do with the extra money once the units are gone. Also tell her you spoke with the others and no one wants the stuff. Maybe volunteer to help her get rid of it. I am in my 60’s and have gotten rid of a ton of stuff. I don’t want to burden my kids. It’s much easier and faster to clean also. Plus the more valuable items I gave to groups looking for high quality silent auction items. That felt good.

o2bfree

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #438 on: January 15, 2019, 03:25:56 PM »
If money is tight for your mom maybe brainstorm with her what fun things she could do with the extra money once the units are gone. Also tell her you spoke with the others and no one wants the stuff. Maybe volunteer to help her get rid of it. I am in my 60’s and have gotten rid of a ton of stuff. I don’t want to burden my kids. It’s much easier and faster to clean also. Plus the more valuable items I gave to groups looking for high quality silent auction items. That felt good.

Money isn't tight for her at all. DH and I have told her many times we'd be happy to help go through the stuff, find what she really wants to keep, and sell other things on Craigslist or haul them to Goodwill. She's nearly 90, and couldn't do that herself, but we'd love to help!

I'm hesitant to tell her that family members really don't want her stuff, partly because she doesn't listen! For example, dad bought a half-dozen "collector" dolls on QVC some years ago. You know, the ones in the glass display cases with the frilly dresses and the eyes that close when you lay them down. Mom keeps thinking that granddaughter wants them. Granddaughter, now 32, has always said no way, they're creepy! I mentioned this to mom, and she said, "Well, I'll just save them for great granddaughter so that she'll have a doll." As though the little girl will be destitute with no toys. Mom just can't believe that other people don't see value in her stuff.

She'll occasionally give something to someone, but it has to be the right person, i.e., someone she feels deserves to be honored by receiving something she's owned.

Kudos to you for sparing your kids this dilemma! We're the same way, always getting rid of things we've stopped using. Feels good to know that someone else will get more use out of it, plus it supports the thrift store business, helping to provide jobs and such.

Just Joe

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #439 on: January 16, 2019, 07:30:40 AM »
If money is tight for your mom maybe brainstorm with her what fun things she could do with the extra money once the units are gone. Also tell her you spoke with the others and no one wants the stuff. Maybe volunteer to help her get rid of it. I am in my 60’s and have gotten rid of a ton of stuff. I don’t want to burden my kids. It’s much easier and faster to clean also. Plus the more valuable items I gave to groups looking for high quality silent auction items. That felt good.

I'll bet the grandkids would appreciate $25 here and there to spend on whatever they do for fun...

Its got to be tough. A person is raised during an era where china sets and living rooms are important milestones in an adult life and then on the back end of that person's life the next generation values a whole different set of things - most of which appear to have no value at all (video games, social media, new clothes that look shabby at purchase time).

We have inherited two china sets. I can't remember the last time we took a peek at them.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2019, 07:33:20 AM by Just Joe »

o2bfree

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #440 on: January 16, 2019, 08:47:47 AM »
Maybe the granddaughter can take the dolls and then donate them. If grandma asks about it, say it's in storage for great-granddaughter someday to "protect the value"

Clever, LOL!!!

Unfortunately, granddaughter lives in Kansas. Shipping the dolls there would cost more than they're worth.

o2bfree

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #441 on: January 16, 2019, 01:03:52 PM »
Maybe the granddaughter can take the dolls and then donate them. If grandma asks about it, say it's in storage for great-granddaughter someday to "protect the value"

Clever, LOL!!!

Unfortunately, granddaughter lives in Kansas. Shipping the dolls there would cost more than they're worth.
Is the idea of get stuff out of the house or to get items' value out of them? Could you offer to mail them to granddaughter yourself and then you donate?

Marcela, you devil!!! LOL!!!! I could just see the look on my mom's face if we ran across one in a thrift store!

The dolls are in a storage unit, and are not valuable, there's a ton of them on ebay. I could offer to ship them to GD, and not do it, but mom might think something's up because shipping would be quite expensive with the dolls being in big, glass display cases and all (the cases are like >2 feet tall). Anyways, I really don't want to deceive my mom. She got enough deceptive crap over the years from my brother.

But if the subject comes up again with her, I'll tell her again that granddaughter does not want them. Maybe she'll eventually donate them to her social club's auction. She did do that with the Christmas-themed doll a couple years ago.

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #442 on: January 16, 2019, 01:12:22 PM »
I didn’t realize your mom was so old. At this point probably nothing you can do and deal with it once she is gone. So nice that you still have your mom:))

o2bfree

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #443 on: January 16, 2019, 01:50:33 PM »
I didn’t realize your mom was so old. At this point probably nothing you can do and deal with it once she is gone. So nice that you still have your mom:))

Mom has threatened to outlive us all, and she could well do so. Her health is great, I can see her living another 10 years easily. I'll be 57 this year, and know people who've died unexpectedly in their late 50s-early 60s from stroke, cancer, bad falls due to deteriorating balance and reflexes, etc. (I'm adopted and don't know anything about my birth family's longevity.)

That's a new angle I'm starting to work her with: If you outlive your family, your precious stuff may well become the property of the storage place!

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #444 on: January 16, 2019, 03:08:03 PM »
Reference points

My aunt lives out of country, but owns a couple of tiny apartments here, side by side, for investment and when she visits 4 months out of the year.   She used to rent out one but had problems, so doesn't anymore.  She finally emptied out her storage locker they were paying for about 5 years ago, getting rid of old crappy stuff, appliances, etc, and put everything she likes or thought was in good shape, into these two apartments. Yay!  One is now used for visitors, and one for themselves.   They have made it so the room areas are able to be lived in, except that all cupbords, closets, furniture are full and there are tons of disply items, knickknacks, and the "den" each has a large pile of boxed items (10+ large boxes in each).

An apartment is 350 sq.ft, 1 bedroom plus mini den.   My daughter is about to rent one of the apartments for a few months per year, while going to school nearby.

Yesterday, I went to help make some room for her stuff.  There was no room for food in the kitchen, and all but 2ft of counter space was filled up.

Cleaning it out and packing up the surplus, I found and put away: 
approx 50 cookbooks
3 potato mashers (all very cheap, I mean, who needs 3 of these even for your home kitchen?)
Two full sets of cutlerly (of aprox 16 settings each)
20 plates 20 bowls, etc.
10 champagne glasses,
Serving ware, many sets of trays.
7 large corning ware casserole dishes
Three coffee makers, plus 3 bodum style coffee presses, plus three teapots, with cups
Two toasters
over 100 light bulbs (!)
etc.

The unit is suitable for 1-2 adults at a time.  You can only fit about 4 people over for snacks / eating, etc, as it is tiny, no table, etc.   

I was the first person to use the stove / oven in 10 years.   This is not a kitchen that anyone cooks in.. she barely cooks in her "main" apartment and that is filled to bursting, too. The ovens were stuffed with household goods, so you could not turn them on.

I have no idea why she is keeping all of this.   All I can say is that it was all very neat and tidy and organized, but pretty much useless and very hard to live with.

Cassie

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #445 on: January 16, 2019, 04:56:41 PM »
Goldie, yes that’s pretty ridiculous. Who wants to live among all that clutter.

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #446 on: January 23, 2019, 11:35:02 AM »
there is a sculpture in smithsonian folk where a man wrapped thousands of lightbulbs in foil and made alters out of them. 
i'm just saying, you already have 100 bulbs

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #447 on: January 23, 2019, 07:02:11 PM »
Incandescent bulbs are good for hatching chicks. And minibake ovens.

Just Joe

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #448 on: January 24, 2019, 07:11:31 AM »
And keeping warm while working on a car in a cold garage. And also, burns from the hot cage around that drop light...

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Re: Do any of your parents hoard and try to give you crap and other dumb stuff?
« Reply #449 on: January 24, 2019, 09:18:32 AM »
as a ghost light for theater stages at night ?