hopeful4

I know in the state I reside you are 100% able to refuse to be in charge of an estate even if you are named.

velma929

It sounds surreal, as you say.

As someone who works in retail, I can tell you it's standard that if a store takes returns under these circumstances, it's generally at the last price the garment sold for. (Except for the usual returns soon after the sale.) I can tell you it's happened, too, that someone came into a department store with a closet full of clothes Grandma bought and never wore. The cashier dutifully researched and found the last sale price of each item.

I don't know how much his clothes are worth, but often it depends on how far out of style they've become. We recently marked out of stock a bunch of things that didn't sell, and donated them to an organization that provides clothing to men getting out of prison. You could also see if a consignment shop might take them. Then you might get something, but be spared the task of selling stuff.

Sasha1972

It's not actually that bad. The vast majority of his things were in his apartment, the keys to which have never surfaced (presumably his girlfriend has them - keys and wallet were not with his body when found, and she disappeared shortly after that). So 95% of his stuff is either the girlfriend's problem or their landlord's. This is just an unexpected horde that turned up at his workplace (which is also my workplace). Unless there are thousand-dollar Armani suits involved, I think it will be mainly a matter of pulling out any sentimental items for Kid for the future, and taking the rest of it to a shelter.

Sasha1972

I could refuse - but then the estate would be in the hands of the public guardian, which means that there'd probably be nothing at all forthcoming for Kid as an inheritance because it would be one among thousands of files. If I'm the executor, I can at least track down any funds that might be able to go into trust for Kid (I'm especially motivated because preliminary inquiries with the bank show that ex emptied Kid's college savings account [the one he had control of because it was in his name - fortunately there's another one in my name that I've been contributing to], and I want to put that money back. I suppose it's a form of wanting to have the last word).

Bekindalways

It makes sense to me that you would and seems the reasonable thing to do to support kid.

Sasha1972

You know that thing where you imagine the alcoholic in your life engaging in some kind of outlandish or extreme behavior, and you tell yourself, nah, that's not going to happen, I'm just exaggerating the problem because they wouldn't go that far ... and then the next day they do go that far ...

I asked ex's colleague who's been in his office for a ballpark figure on the value of the horde of never-used clothes and shoes, expecting a few hundred dollars. Colleague (who is also trained as a lawyer and is pretty precise) came back with an estimate of about $4 000 based on the (never-removed) sales tags. Who buys four thousand dollars worth of new clothes and stuffs them in an office in the workplace where they haven't actually worked in a couple of years??? I'm a functional and fully dressed adult and I don't think I own $4 000 worth of clothes, let alone $4 000 worth of clothes I have never worn. (Especially infuriating because during the period of these clothing sprees ex was racking up $23 000 in unpaid child support arrears).

I had an insight into why this bothered me so much, besides the obvious - when ex's mother (also an alcoholic) moved to long-term care many years ago, I had the pleasure of clearing out the entire bedroom in her house that was given over to her own clothes and shoes that she had never worn (tags attached). I'm talking bags and bags and bags of 1980s Nancy Reagan ball gowns, leather pants, Juicy Couture jogging suits, you name it. Everything reeked of cigarette smoke so I took it all to the Salvation Army, where they could put it through the industrial washers before setting it out to sell.

I resented the heck out of ex's mother for being such a spendthrift and for creating hassles for me - little did I know that this was apparently a hereditary condition. And it is creepy as anything, the ways that ex turned into the mother he loathed and hated (and claimed had abused him) for most of his adult life. I am feeling the creepiness at one remove.

(I asked the colleague if there were receipts with the items along with sales tags. He said there were some receipts, but not many. This makes me think that "bought" might not be the most appropriate verb here).

This was a sick individual, and I am ever more glad that he is not going to be able to screw around with Kid's mind the ways his was screwed around with.

AnvilheadII

wow. i don't think i have $4000 of anything!?? especially stuff that just got stashed somewhere. i've also never worked anywhere that held my office for me, unused, and then let me store things IN the office??

Sasha1972

I work in an organization that is, shall we say, very attentive to people with problems, which is generally a good thing (compassionate employer) but can get abused (as with the employee who strings together medical and disability leaves for three years). I'm guessing ex and/or his girlfriend just came and went at will. I am not volunteering to help clear out his office - I'll do what makes sense in Kid's best interest, but the rest of whatever is in there is the problem of the facilities department.

The only objects I can think of that I own that are worth $4 000 are a) my condo; b) my car; c) my mother's engagement ring. Everything else put together - probably not even that much.

biminiblue

I live in a condo and there is a hoarder on my stairwell. It's an anxiety disorder...

Her place is awful. Well, was. I really wanted to get in there and do something, I got on the Board and tried, but the rest of the Board didn't want to get involved even though we had a legal right and obligation to do so. I called the City, and they didn't have a lot of resources either. The smell. The place was packed to the rafters with Goodwill junk.

Recently we had new siding/windows put on. She had to make the inside available to the construction crew (by law.) She had to clean it out. She had to throw out all the appliances, the carpet, the kitchen cabinets, all the drywall had to be replaced. I'll bet it cost her $70-80,000 to pay to clean it and fix it up again (took four men over a week full-time just to clean it out) and now I am just thinking, well, she'll just do it again.

At least she's old. Like 75. I know, I'm a horrible person.

Bekindalways

I don't blame you for being disgusted with this old lady but yeah, from what I understand, it is a mental compulsion. She probably will just do it again. Not fun for anyone around her. It makes me wonder what did people do a millennium ago when the world didn't have this much stuff.

Sasha I hope you can get at least part of that $4000 for Kid's college education. I would like to think that the relief for not having to deal with XAH would exceed the anger and sadness but I bet this has been a roller coaster of emotions.

Big hug lady.

hopeful4

It's worth what someone will pay for it, unless it can be returned. I know my mother in law had thousands and thousands of dollars in new items when she passed. Many with tags, some duplicates because she forgot she had bought it once and bought it again! It was sad that many of these new items sold for very little. And it was a HUGE job to go through her house when she passed, and an even bigger job to get rid of it all.

I am sorry you are stuck with this mess Sasha. I would imagine it's very frustrating to deal with. Many hugs friend.

AnvilheadII

when my mom passed away (1992), i inherited her house, cars, etc. no choice really as the sole heir. i was surprised when i went into what used to be my room and it was chock full of stacks of boxes from QVC!!??

see my mom loved to give gifts. made her feel good. (she also expected ooo's and ahhh's and you are the best relative ever!). so she'd be drunk and watching tv and get on the QVC channel and call and order stuff (this is before everyone could order anything they wanted with their phone using the internet, you had to make a real PHONE CALL).

but since she was drunk, she didn't always remember what she had ordered. so she'd order another one. and maybe even a third. and end up with all these boxes full of things she had intentions of giving to someone, but just couldn't remember what was in each box.

i hadn't been too far INSIDE her home in a long time so i had no idea.

we had a big yard sale and made a killing! LOL sorry, not really funny....

people "hoard" for different reasons. for some hoarding becomes a true mental illness, that can be hard to cure or resolve. some take the hoarding to what most of us consider disgusting levels. they live for their hoard.

Sasha1972

Ex's hoarding got really bad in the year before I left - mainly that he would never throw anything out (I mean ANYTHING - like empty detergent bottles) and he couldn't bear anyone (i.e. me) touching his "possessions". Eventually his possessions took over so much space that I just had little islands of space (one end of a couch) where I was allowed to sit or put down a coffee mug or a book without being "invasive". It was crazy. I don't know if the hoarding was an attempt to soothe his anxieties (if I have all this stuff, I'll always have something that meets my needs) or a manifestation of the ego boundary problems that are chronic with addicts (most people can tell the difference between "me" and "my stuff", but if you don't know where you stop and the rest of the world starts, in addition to screwed-up interpersonal dynamics, you also get an irrational attachment to things which are an extension of you).

I have worked to try to have a healthy relationship with things, post-ex. I have way more books than the average person will read in a lifetime, but I also have no problem taking boxes of them to the library rummage sale if I know I won't read them again. I also have a minor retail-therapy thing going with thrift stores, but I don't buy things I'll never use, and I donate lots of things back into the thrift store ecosystem if it's apparent that they've outlived their usefulness (for me). Kid and I live in a small condo with no storage unit, garage, back yard or basement and I like the fact that we can't accumulate stuff because there's literally nowhere for it to go.

Sasha1972

Okay, here's one more piece of my emotional/psychological/spiritual journey: at work I've been asked to take on a big project which keeps getting bigger - my immediate boss keeps coming up with one more thing I need to do or change I need to make (the project in question will reflect on her and she's anxious that it should reflect well). This has been driving me crazy - which is unusual because I really like my boss, we function very well as a team and have saved each other's bacon repeatedly. But all I was feeling was "don't ask me to do another frigging thing! I'm already working 14 hours a day on this! Leave me alone! I have a million other things I have to do!".

Then it occurred to me that I could email her to say "here's what I've gotten done so far. I need to put this project down for a couple of days while I do X, Y and Z. Let's meet once I've finished X, Y and Z and figure out what still needs to be done". It was as simple as that, because I am dealing with a rational person who will respect a boundary and will respect me setting reasonable limits on my time and commitment. She is not behaving outrageously by asking me to do things, and neither am I behaving outrageously by saying that I will get the thinsg done as I am able.

I am not dealing with someone who demands more and more and will be aggressive and crazy when I don't give them everything they want. I do not have to assume everyone who wants something from me is behaving like an alcoholic. I should know better.

Ariesagain

You DO know, intellectually, but after so many years spent hunkered down waiting for the next craziness it becomes so engrained you don’t even know you’re doing it.

I always expect to be judged negatively by others, thanks to six decades of my father’s tirades and criticism. I spend countless hours unconsciously preparing myself to head off potential criticism from total strangers. Doctors. Delivery guys. Hairdressers. Veterinarians. Checkout clerks. All people who don’t even remember me three minutes later. It’s ludicrous and exhausting. But wow the habits of a lifetime die hard, yes?

Sending you a big hug, Wonder Woman. You’re doing great.

biminiblue

You're in the therapy field, right? Am I remembering correctly?


This ^^ part of your post is so insightful. I don't think that all hoarders have substance use problems, but I could be wrong about that. The boundary issues thing though - that was a really scary part of my alcoholism. Mind-reading, thinking others could [also] read my mind. Holding onto stuff (physical belongings) out of fear. Fear of being alone and fear of abandonment and fear of "lack" or of being homeless, which seems pretty common with substance abuse...as we get worse we know we're unemployable. Filling up the physical space around us as a sort of comfort or swaddling or control. Then it becomes yet another obsession. People in stores talk and are friendly and may be the only social contact that is non-judgemental.

It's so complicated.

So many hugs.

Sasha1972

Today's update: holy cow am I angry. I am so angry with everyone, about everything. The person who drives too slowly in front of me. The colleague who answers a question with a question. The friend who posts too many happy-family pictures on Facebook. The teenage kid who decides she doesn't want to talk to me at all because she's fourteen. None of these people have done anything to merit anger - they're just doing them, leading their completely benign lives and really having nothing to do with me personally at all. And I hasten to add that I'm aware that I'm irrationally angry and so I don't act on it (or at least I try not to) - no road rage, no snapping at people, no giving Kid a hard time. This is all on me. I own it. But I don't enjoy it.

And I believe it is connected to the death of ex - something to do with being angry at the universe for screwing me over by saddling me with a drunk and crazy ex-husband who harasses me and messes with my daughter's mind and then drinks himself to death. It comes from self-pity - poor me, I deserve better, and I'm mad that I'm not getting the good stuff I deserve. I am aware of how self-centred this is - the universe has no grand plan to screw me over (or do anything else), I've had some bad experiences but lots of other people have had worse, and getting stuck in anger is toxic (and I'm not stuck all the time - I think it's the contrast between the moments when I'm really, REALLY angry about some minor thing and the moments when I'm not angry that are making me notice how strong the anger is).

I know that "complicated grief" can take many forms - maybe this endless (or so it feels) well of anger at the universe, the world, life, is one of them?

Ariesagain

You know, anger is a recognized stage of grieving even when the situation is far more straightforward than this is.

Heck yes, you’re angry. You’re still cleaning up after the elephants and it never was your circus.

I highly recommend beating the crap out of a sofa pillow.*

Sending you a big hug.

* I will also confess that once while on prednisone I also beat a loaf of bread to death. So that’s also an option.

Bekindalways

Laughing at this!

Hang tough Sasha!

hopeful4

Sasha, I think you have every right to be ticked off! It's part of the grief process, and stress makes it worse!

Sending you huge hugs, you will get through it, I promise!