How do I get my mother to let go of some of her stuff, like clothing she will never wear and magazines that haven't seen the light of day in 4 years?

My mother has Alzheimers and has things from WWII days. Clothers that are 40 years old. So what we have been doing for the past year the sitters keep her downstairs and we pack thing up and just put them in my car or the trash and she has never asked about a thing so far. So who knows what is going on in their old minds, I guest they just try to hold on to the past.
Good luck. Mona

Hmmm I don't know if it's holding on to one's lost self or just storing stuff up for the future...cause getting back to 2wheels and the canned food, I can proudly announce that I had the grossest CAN so far in the post. My mom had large can's the restaurant size can like Costco type, well one had plums and that was so old that it turned black and leeched it's contents so now I keep finding stuff coated with this tar like substance everywhere...what a friggin horrid mess that is going to take mucho elbow grease to clean up just due to useless hoarding of food. They buy this stuff dirt cheap at closeouts and then buy oodles of it and then think they are going to use it up...which most of the time it never arises and then viola you have the 'HOARDING EXPO' of a lifetime...LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL...geeez you never know what your'e gonna find.

My dad used to always say to me.."you come home and we clean out the garage"...in his german commandering accent...well I used to say..yeah okay you just tell me when you want to do it. He would never take me up on that..he's been gone 11 years. So now and then I clean up more and more and more, either trash or thrift shop gets stuff. I have always cleaned out my stuff, even when I was young I would clean out my desk or closet...and have been doing so. I still have a lot of stuff to clean out...but at least I don't hang on to stuff and now even see more the reason not to hang on to everything for cleanliness and safeness!!!!!

I think it's funny when we go past a yard that is full of old broken down cars that have grass growing out of the engines. You always know that's a man that is the hoarder. Then when I see on the news that the authorities have just found 53 cats living in a giant litterbox that is someone calls 'home', it's always a woman doing that hoarding. Funny how different men and women are. I will someday hoard motorcycles, and any form of chocolate to surround myself with. Sounds like a little piece of Heaven to me....

Hanging on to stuff isn't just about older people, though. Don't you still have a pair of jeans or slinky dress in the back of the closet that 'someday' you'll fit back into?

I've come to see it's about hanging on to the person they were, the dreams they had. (Don Aslett, the famous writer on decluttering and home cleaning, has a lot to say about how anyone at any age is susceptible to this mental trap.) If the piles of references and drafts from his dissertation are gone, did he really get that degree? If her boxes of costume jewelry are empty, did she really used to dress up glamorously and host great dinner parties? Even if the whatever hasn't been touched in years, just knowing it's there can be comforting.

My dad resisted mightily when my mom started decluttering by selling books they'd reviewed years earlier (and never read again) on Amazon, and would indignantly rescue old desk lamps from the thrift shop donation box in the garage and put them back on a shelf. It was much less stressful in the end to get his buy-in, however much persuasion it took, rather than have him suspiciously poking through boxes thinking it was only his stuff being culled. Another way we got buy-in was to encourage him to visit the charity we primarily benefited, which was the local humane society (he has always loved his cats and dogs). Days when the donation went to their thrift shop, we'd stop and play with the cats at the shelter first.

After moving them across country to be closer to us in WA, and downsizing their home by half, we have a lot of frustrating but really very sad conversations about 'I guess you had to get rid of lots of my things' -- when in all honesty, lots of his books and things are still just in boxes in storage, cos they don't fit in the house... Don't yet have the answer to that issue, except to set up shelves in the storage space and unpack it all so he can visit it there!

But that revealed another interesting aspect of keeping stuff: for him, having everything on the same shelves it had been on for years was a memory aid: he has been much more likely to be confused now, because everything is arranged just enough differently in the new house.

Hope this helps a little bit. My experiences with my folks, and friends' parents, have made me determined to do a better job decluttering my own life, now...

Char123 your post made me laugh. I can just see an elderly man, barely walking, dragging some stuff back into the garage. giggle giggle giggle!

Getting rid of some "Stuff" can be a necessity for safety reasons. We discovered that my father-in-law had become a hoarder, he had become pretty sedintary and so we went to "help" do some clean up. While someone kept him entertained we filled 6 dumpsters with "stuff". He has never missed any of it. We did put some things out for charity to pick up and before they could come he had dragged some of it back into the garage! We can't figure out how because he is so frail. So lesson learned - don't leave it where it can be seen. We still have a lot to go but we have a system now and that helps. Just remember what is best for them, safety and healthy is #1 followed closely by cleanliness. Good Luck!

My oh my! Am all ears. I know it, it's the same with my mom. She is a hoarder too. I guess the tendency is that women are more of hoarders than men. Now that I'm almost 40, I better do my own cleaning & clearing getting rid of stuff 2 decades ago or else I will end up doing what I despise at this point... LOL... Hugs & cheers to all fellow caregivers. You're not alone. Oh been soooo busy making both ends meet it's only this Friday night I got to read & react to some of the comments. Now I will read some more...

Boy do I know what you folks are going through there...geez! My moms sister who just passed away in November was a hoarder and had canned and frozen food so old the cans were swelling and the frozen stuff was growing hair. (not really, butt close) Anyway, when Aunt Chris passed, the night after her funeral my cousins and I spent about 3 hours cleaning out herr room at the nursing home she had been in. Magazines and clothes like you would not believe, practically filled the dumpster there at the home with uselss junk. So Chris was a packrat from the word go.
I recently was helping mom clean out a few things at her old house in an effort to prepare to move to the facility she is in now, when we ran across a box full of cancelled checks that date back to the mid 70's. My Dad never threw anything away it seems...and mom has taken up her sister's habits of hoarding food. She has a freezer full of stuff that is mostly so old I would not chance trying to eat it. The pantry was full of canned stuff, some so old it was pitched when she moved. She still managed to move into her little apartment no less than 32 boxes of Kleenex. You think there might be some issues there? :) Anyway, I can hardly wait to hear what my stepchildren say about me when I get that age and they are trying to help me move...

Tom

Naheaton for me a day without a post from you is like a Thursday or Friday night without any Basketball. Luv all your post.

Did anyone ever see the episode of 'Malcolm in the middle' where Hal & Lois found out they had another bathroom? They thought it was a closet for a decade cause it was so full of stuff. Of course, once they found out about the bathroom, they filled it back up with 'stuff' and decided to keep it a secret from their kids.

I had to clean out a room that housed a sleeper sofa that you could not see or get to so I could have a bedroom too. AmazingGrace...there are some very precious things i will never get rid of..been around since i was a child. But there is so much of just stuff...it is to the point that you can't think...the world is so jumbled! There are many times of mixed emotions.

Isn't it funny how different people are. I am the one having a hard time getting rid of my mother's things, although I know that she will never need them again. At this point, she doesn't even realize they exist and I can't let go of them. It's as though I'm giving up on her. Weird.

Yep, same thing going on here. My mother's family never threw out anything it seems. I moved from another state to live with both my parents one year ago. It took 9 months of sorting/boxing up stuff before I had a bedroom to use. Hauled the boxes back to my house and will have a garage sale or something sometime. At least now I can clean and the place looks much nicer. She still asks for things...but I just say it must have been moved to my house.
Somethings got pitched....like a plastic bag of toilet paper squares from different places in Europe...baskets of rocks from a trip out west...clippings from newspapers from years ago that she might want to read again some year. Yes, we kept the twisties.

you had one too....wow small world! One good thing my mom taught me was Farberware is a good brand. My old b/f 30 years ago bought me a complete cooking set I have every pot and lid still and they are all still pristine...great cookware.

I wish I would find one of those...I loved them! Wish I still had mine! Gave up a long time ago!

My mom stuffed into one of the closets a Farberware Rotiserie...and now that came back into fashion. I can't wait to get this puppy back out (mom used to roast fantastic chickens in that thing - strung like about 3 chix) scrape off the damned masking tape and fire that puppy up!

Chocolate oh my goodness. Vintage Avon now that's funny.

Oh..and I love the vintage Avon...sure we have plenty of that stuff as well.

No I did not grow up there....she moved to a different city to a codo when she remarried and that is where we are now. We made the move when he passed away, so she has had 30 plus years to stash. I'm sure I'll find chocolate when the time comes too. She always has bags of it around her room. I can not imagine what will be like to clean out her room. No.... actually I can and I do not look forward to it.

...oh forgot about the large stash of chocolate she kept manuvering around....I found them in large popcorn christmas tins in the shower (she uses that like a closet) and I pitched them into the garbage especially when I find moths flying out of them...yeck!

Oh my gawd...a sink...is that the house you grew up in? Wow...I laughed pretty hard at that one.

When my mom is finally out of that house I will see what is all in the closets and the garage. I don't want to stir up a ruccus either. I am hoping that I find my 14 Barbie dolls and the 5 large Madam Alexandar dolls that were in pristine condition when I packed them at 12 years old. We have a bunch of vintage Avon but when I checked ebay they don't go for much sadly. So the things that she does not readily see I get rid of and it is so much nicer to find things when you need it.

Wow!!! Pandora's box!!! Get this!! When I cleaned out the laundry room I took out 17 large lawn bags of stuff! Stright to the dumpster! Just so you could get in the room. afew months later I cleaned again...another 10 or so bags...guess what I found? A sink!! I have been visiting her for 25 years there and NEVER knew there was a sink there! We cleaned for 2 years and have, I think, 5 or 10 yard dumpsters in the complex and I'll bet we have filled 20 of them...I kid you not! She complains the whole time we clean but when it is done and it looks so nice she is so proud and wants to have bridge at our home now. Now she hoards in her room though, it is to the point you can hardly get in. She has quit quilting and sewing...so that stuff is not far away for doom as well. I told her it reminds me of "My Brothers Keeper" where they kept all the old newspapers and had pathways thru them and then one day they all fell over and buried them alive.

Oh my gosh, It's funny how I"m finding out how many other people out there have been through the same thing I have with my father. When Mom was alive, she and I "secretly" threw out a lot of Dad's stuff , and just like people here are saying, he kept bringing it up for a long time. ("Where's my this? Where's my that.....) Still, I think it was the lesser of two evils to get rid of all the baggage, and only have to listen to him ask about certain things.

A couple tips: I took books over to our local library and used clothing and appliances, etc. to the local Salvation Army ( they will take almost anything)-----This was OK with my father because it meant "finding a home" for his belongings.

oh heck I forgot to mention sugar,..there where so many jars of sugar I had to toss gosh it was a sin...but it was in the garage for years....a g/f at work said this was all a result from folks going through WWII and the depression.,,to put things away in case something happened. I do believe that is the basis for a lot of it.

Oh man I saw the title of this thread, and said oh yes that's me. Rolling up sleeves here.....okay yeah here I go..yep my mom is a hoarder too, oh my there's stuff at mom's house since the 60's. Everything is kept. After my dad died 11 years ago I cleaned up a lot of paperwork around where he sat in the patio. That took awhile. Then all these 11 years I would see all the stuff my mom had and she had it all well stashed. Well last year when she 5150'd I was there for a month and started to clean. First I started with the patio again and put everything out in the garden that could be used as garden ornamentation,..and that came out so nice. She did not say anything, but after about a week she was out there recleaning as in vacumning and such. That freaked me out...what was up with that, like she had to double do me. Well just recently I started to do even more. You would not believe how much soap I found. Well what I did was when she's not looking and something is not out in the open like closets or cupboards I have been putting it out in the garage in the back of the SUV I take to go get her groceries, and I either dump stuff in her garbage or I take it to the Thrift shop drop off. So slowly I have been cleaning out on the sly. My old bedroom closet is filled with tops upon tops and tops, with price tags many the same kind 3 times over. Never worn nor will ever be worn. I made up so many trash bags full to take to the Thrift Shop drop off but it seems like the endless closet.,.my Gawd.

I told my mom she'd have to give up some stuff or I was calling the Board of Health (she thought they'd put her in a home). One time after I'd moved her for the 4th time, we got into it over a sandwich bag of twist ties. She'd fight me tooth and nail over twist ties! The last arguement was over a bag of pine cones that she had setting in the kitchen entrance ready for her to trip over. Talk about stubborn, she'd trip over them before she'd move them just because I suggested it. Go figure.
Yes, Pamela, I know what a moo-moo is and after your mom got through with you, I'm sure you'll never forget what a moo-moo is either! ;-)

Stuck that was a good answer it will save a lot of problems explaining what happen to this or that and soon she will be on to something else anyway

I forgot to tell you we started just telling her it was up in the attic somewhere packed...that seems to work. She can't get up there anymore. Just 2 years ago she would climb right up the ladder!!

Pamela, yes I know what moo moos are...sorry to say...you made me laugh...is your Mother My Mother? We have gotton rid of some of her things...much to our shegrin. We have never heard the end of how my husband threw out some "good summer clothes" she had put out in the garage in a plastic bag. No room in her closet I guess so the garage was for storage. You never hear the end of it...that's for sure. It does not matter that she will never use it or wear it...if it was good 20 years ago then it is still good. Oh and you can cut off the notifications by clicking on that little green arrow down at the bottom. I like the notifications because it brings me to the string I am working on.

Dear Stuck old people don't want to get rid of a thing.

For years I've been trying to clean up my moms room well by cleaning I mean eliminating. Each and every time I go through things she says the same thing over and over...."no that's good I want to keep it". I know people will say to secretely get rid of it ie give to charity, local rummage sale, donations to the church, or the local womens shelter. You could do that if you like but sooner or later that parent will ask about the very item that has been donated and if you say you haven't seen it, this will cause more anguish and will constantly work on your paren'ts mind.

About a year ago my mom had a bad accident on one of her moo-moo's, (please tell me you've heard of this dress term). Well rather than attempting to wash it, I threw it away. For a while mom didn't mention it and I thought she'd forgotten about it. Then one day she said she couldn't find it. She must have said it about 5 times so I told her that I'd thrown it away. Awwwww Lawddddd what did I say that for. She kept telling me over and over that I had no right to throw it out and that was her favorite moo-moo. Honestly if she hadn't had this stroke she would probably still be asking about it.

Now she has been looking for a black jogging suit. Somehow someone found the bottom however the top is still missing and I swear she bugs us and bugs us about that jogging top. This just happened since the stroke and we just cannot live that down. Both my sister and myself tore her closet apart and still couldn't find it. We don't know where it is, and neither does she but we never hear the end of it. Where oh where has my jogging top gone, oh where oh where could it be???? remember that song.

I don't know whether this helps, probably not but simply put they just want to keep those things around.

Sorry.....

If someone comes up with ideas, I'm-a-listening too....