Comments on: Getting rid of someone else’s stuff

By: R2L

R2L — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 02:51:19 +0000

Steve on October 24, 2026 at 2:13 pm
Just my personal anecdote, but I had to use paper records from our broker from 1992 to re-establish the basis of a stock purchase we made at that time. Their system was either wrong or did not have/show the data back that far, what with updates/ upgrades, etc. over the years.

I also still keep my check register booklets back quite a ways. I found a medical procedure payment from 1982 that helped set the date for that procedure. I should be throwing away some paper records after X years (where X might be between 3 and 10 or 15), such as insurance and some past medical bills/ expenses. But some things retain potential residual value beyond your usual expectations.

As a boomer working in a high tech company, I did adapt and adopt some high tech solutions (and have the Excel files and PPT files to prove it), but I am still not 100% internet aligned or oriented, although I am getting better each day. 🙂 Paper was my introduction to the wider world as a boy and younger adult. I have not totally shaken that initial development.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 18:13:59 +0000

We just pulled out the solo stove and destroyed brokerage account and mortgage statements going back to the 90s.

By: AppleBetty

AppleBetty — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 15:04:58 +0000

Neo, have you ever wondered if you are living a Hallmark Christmas Movie?

By: Sgt. Mom

Sgt. Mom — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:18:09 +0000

I expect that my sister and I will have gotten off lucky with our parents: the horrific brush fire in 2003 which burned their retirement home (and all the detritus from their families on both sides) reduced the body of “stuff” considerably. My youngest brother remarked at the time that fights in the family over who gets what will have been reduced considerably.
When Mom and Dad rebuilt the house, they furnished with things that no one else much cared about. The handful of genuine family relics saved from the fire are all parceled out among us now – as my brother commented, there was no fighting over them. Dad passed away, and then Mom became an invalid, living with my sister’s family.
Much of the extraneous stuff at my house was intended for my daughters’ house, which she was able to purchase earlier this year. We have managed to declutter my little house considerably since then. OTO – my daughter will have a raft of my books to sort through and dispose of…

By: T Migratorious

T Migratorious — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 12:07:37 +0000

“Exception only were photos, which I digitized, colorized and polished using AI, then threw the physical ones away.”

I had to clean out my mom’s house after she died and it was an ordeal but fortunately a couple of years before she died as a Christmas present I had organized her photos into categories in storage boxes. I used the opportunity to weed out a lot of meaningless and duplicative photos–and wound up with a giant contractors bag of junk.

The funniest part of the process was that we lived in Austin, Texas. Now, my mom loved snow but it only snows in Austin every 5 to 10 years. Every time there was a dusting of snow my mom would go out and take a boatload of pictures of the barely white yard. I’ll bet a quarter of what I threw out were “snow” pictures like that.

By: Lee Also

Lee Also — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:37:37 +0000

One if the few comforts I take from my elderly aunt’s neighbor gaslighting her into disowning me is that that b**** will have to go through the hoard in her house. Sadly, some of that is family stuff: my grandmother’s collection of miniature brass items that I loved as a child, family photo albums, the creche that was my great-grandparents… but that vast majority of the crap there is just that, crap. The neighbor won’t go through it — she’ll just go through it enough to steal what she wants, bring in an estate sale person, and pocket the proceeds. But it does save me from having to go through a veritable hoard of junk. (Especially releieved that i won’t have to deal almost forty years of household hazardous waste: there’s CABINETS of it in the garage. I remember opening one of them and thinking, “S***. That’ll be an issue to deal with…” and then finding more and more and more.)

By: ja

ja — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 07:10:40 +0000

It’s an all-consuming full-time job awash in sentiment and emotions, and minutiae. You feel the need to go through everything, but it’s tedious and draining. I kept so much at first, then surrendered to the reality that I just couldn’t keep it all. I finally whittled it down to a somewhat manageable but still quite sizable amount. Pictures and some paperwork mostly. A few sentimental objects. When I’m gone, all of it will most likely be tossed in a dumpster.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 05:02:32 +0000

Neo, F.Y.I.: Instapundit: CYBERSECURITY: PHP Vulnerability: It’s Really, Really Bad. Are there any youngsters among the readership here? Not many, I believe.

By: Selfy

Selfy — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 03:36:19 +0000

Dan D – Condolences for your loss….

By: Paul Nachman

Paul Nachman — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 02:08:16 +0000

Very affecting comments — by Rufus, Dan D, and Shirehome especially.

Is Neo’s audience or crew or whatever you want to call us a bunch of oldsters? I’m 78 (same as Neo, I think). Are there any youngsters among the readership here?