Have you heard of Swedish Death Cleaning?

While it's not bad to clean up before you pass so others don't have to deal with, it can certainly be taken too far.

DH is a very minimalist sort of person. He LOVES getting rid of things. Especially if he thinks they're worthless. Maybe the owner of the things doesn't want to get rid of it, maybe they use it...but if he doesn't personally see the need for something, it gives him a thrill to toss it or take it to Goodwill.

I get that you don't want to keep things that aren't being used. But his idea of "you're not using this" and mine are very different. He'll ask why I have coats in my closet if I'm not wearing them. In July. In Arizona. It bothers him that they're just sitting there, taking up space when I could have a closet that looks clean and empty if I would only weed out the things I'm not using.

I do go through from time to time and donate things. But he truly thinks it should be done every few weeks. And the worst is that if he bugs me to go through things and I do go through things, he comes up with new things to be gone through. I've explained to him that this is why I won't weed out while he's home - because if he sees me cleaning out the filing cabinet, he'll say that the kitchen also needs to be done. And if I'm working in the closet, the kids' rooms should also be cleaned out. He wants me to spend at least part of every single break cleaning out and weeding through. So that means every 9 weeks or so - fall break, winter break, spring break, summer break. Yeah, I get it - don't let it pile up and it won't be overwhelming - BUT I hardly ever buy anything new - especially clothing. So if I go through it in spring and then again in summer, it's not like I had 20 things and I'm up to 30, so now I'm going down to 20 again - it's more like I had 20 and didn't buy new, so now I'm going to have 10 things in the closet.

He grew up in Europe and is used to not having much storage space. But he's been here for 30+ years so you'd think he'd get over it. So what if I want to keep a shirt that he's only seen me wear twice in the last 6 months? Maybe I LIKE that shirt.

So yeah, it can be good but it can go too far if it's not you choosing to do the cleaning out.

My mom has been doing this with her jewelry (giving it to the women/girls in the family for holidays/birthdays). She doesn't have a lot of other stuff like dishes or knickknacks.
However, OTHER people have been giving her books in our native language when their elderly parents pass away. My mom feels compelled to take them and find a new home for them. So I feel like we'll have to go through other people's stuff at the end!

I'm not a hoarder and having been doing a really good job of getting rid of clutter the last couple of years. However, I'm not too crazy about the death cleaning idea. It doesn't bother me to think of my own death (I'm almost 58 and the years are starting to creep up on me). However, it makes me feel bad to think that someone who truly enjoys their things (like my 90 year old childless aunt) would feel obliged to get rid of those things so that she won't be a burden to her family after her death.

I do, however, think it's mean to burden your family by telling them to hold onto things after you are gone. I had a family member tell me just last week that she had told her daughter never to sell all the valuables she had obtained from the Franklin Mint. I didn't want to start a fight or I would have pointed out that one generation shouldn't be allowed to tell another generation what they must treasure. I also bit my tongue and didn't state the obvious-nothing from the Franklin Mint will ever be valuable.

I didn’t know it had a name, but I have begun doing this exact thing. I know when I had to go through my mom’s stuff there was a lot of crap that I knew she hadn’t seen in years. There is a lot of stuff I have saved through the years just in case I need it. We moved 4 years ago and I got rid of a bunch junk then and I’m getting of even more now.

We are in the process of packing to move to a new home. It was very sudden - we put on offer in on the 9th, it was accepted the 10th, I just got a phone call from our realtor that we have closed and it is ours! They move out the 29th and we have movers scheduled to come pack what we can't the 30th and 1st and move us the 2nd. And of course, we'll be out of town the 21-28th. So we have been madly packing everything we can and trying to do some purging. But at this point, we are out of time. So the plan is that 90% of our stuff will go in boxes into the garage (thankfully it is a 3 car attached. And we will unpack from there. If it doesn't have a home while we are unpacking it gets donated or thrown out. I am really, really looking forward to it!

I haven't heard of this as a concept, but am very happy that my dad significantly cleaned out his stuff when he sold the family home a few years ago. My siblings and I listed what we wanted from their house and had no conflicts. The only items I was interested in, my dad took with him to his new home, so I have to wait until he passes to collect. He is 88 and I fully expect him to live another 20 years.

Funny thing is he returned all kid made projects/photos to the family they came from putting the burden on us to dispose of them. One sister created a little gallery in her guest bathroom with her items. After DH saw it, I came home one day to discover he put everything dad gave us on a wall in our guest room. 🤣

We moved just over a year ago to a smaller house. We purged a lot when we moved, but I realized the other day there are boxes we have still not gone through, so obviously it is stuff we do not need. I am thinking this winter to really start going through boxes and throwing things out. If there is anything worth donating we will do that, but I really doubt it.

I have also started thinking about going through my scrap albums and really only keeping the pages I want and mean something to us.

I have feeling when my Dad dies we will be dealing with way too much stuff. He is a collector. If it is just my sister and me I think it will be fine, but I have a feeling her husband will want to be part of it.

No where in my post am I referring to anyone other than myself. I am making no assumptions with regard to other people and their life style.

I suspect DH and I are the opposite to you!  Although I definitely agree that there is a whole lot of space between Swedish Death Cleaning and hoarding.
Once DH and I were both retired we ruthlessly went through all our stuff, and it was so freeing!

I am very definitely not a hoarder, but I got rid of heaps of stuff we had been storing because - well, just because.  All sorts of things that had been my Mum and Dad’s for example; things that often I remembered from childhood, but which I really didn’t need.  Or particularly want.  I had been storing them simply because they were Mum and Dad’s - it felt like I should keep them. But why?

It wasn’t at all so that there would be less for the kids to have to go through once we’re gone, but because we really didn’t need all that stuff in our lives.  Some things were easy to let go of, others took more time - I made several passes through everything with several weeks in between each one; and each time more and more stuff made it into the “dispose of” piles. Some things I wanted to keep at the beginning, but with each pass I started to ask myself if I really wanted to keep them, and why?

And now, quite a number of years later, there is nothin I regret getting rid of. We’ve kept everything that really means something to us, whether it be because it’s sentimental or useful, or whatever. More than likely, the kids will still have things they want to dispose of once we’re dead and they inherit everything, but for now it’s a wonderful balance of things we want in our lives.  Everything else - it’s gone!

And now, having typed all this out - maybe you and I are very similar, rather than opposites as I first thought.  We each want to have the stuff that means something to us, and what the kids will have to deal with doesn’t come in to equation.  How much stuff that is, is immaterial isn’t it?  It doesn’t matter if we’re maximalist, minimalist, or somewhere in between.  

My mom is 93 and I hate that we won't have time to grieve because we will be so busy trying to clean out her apartment quickly. I don't even live in the same state and have only so much PTO that I will be able to use when she dies. So when she passes, instead of going home to grieve and visit with family, I will be in her apartment throwing out and getting rid of everything in a span of a few days. I won't do this to my children. We have been following the practice of Swedish Death Cleaning a little at a time. It really is such a lovely way to honor the things that really matter to you. Why hold on to junk that just sits in boxes that you literally never look at? Get rid of that junk and make space in your home that really matter to you.