Weird things you found in your dead relative’s house

Not so weird, but more about where it was. My Aunt had dementia and we found her a wonderful care center, but then had to empty her home and dispose of her possessions. We wanted to sell her car, but couldn’t find the title among her papers. When I was going through the linen closet I almost just started to toss old towels and sheets into garbage bags, but then decided to go through them one by one. And then low and behold here was the title to the car in between two towels. It was dated 9/12/2001. I guess in those paranoid days following the attacks she felt she had to hide it somewhere safe.

Well, why did you keep bring it up? I would have snapped at you too, you nosy snatch. His uncle was obviously a freak and your friend knows it and now you know it, but that doesn’t mean he wants gab about it over cosmopolitans & lettuce wraps Suzanne.

Machete...hidden driver’s license...stashed away in an old trunk....hmmmm. Do the math! Just don’t go digging up the backyard. Cool thread, btw.

One time i found a black King Kong Dong (dildo) in my great aunt Gretchen’s dresser drawer. I stole it.

Obviously the Uncle was a serial killer!

gay nudie mags under my dads mattress.....

[quote] Well, why did you keep bring it up? I would have snapped at you too, you nosy snatch.

Because I thought it was funny that he was so uptight about it. I mean, his uncle obviously had a boyfriend or something and a weird executioner’s hood in a trunk. He was into some freaky shit.

OP, that experience hits so many Midwestern Gay Urban Legend Horror buttons. And, yes, your story can be legitimate.

That had nothing to do with being gay and everything to do with his uncle having had killed someone.

Why didn't you look up the name from the driver's license OP?

Thank you, R10.

That was what I wondered.

Did your friend's uncle live in the Bay Area in the 60s?

I inherited my grandparent's house and remodeled the kitchen. I stripped out the rotting plaster lath down to the studs. I found a small tin box in the wall that had apparently fallen from some built-in storage drawers in the 2nd floor bedroom above the kitchen. Graphics printed on the tin box suggested it dated to the 1930s, before my grandparents bought the house in the 1950s.

Inside were some brittle old condoms, a few bits of costume jewelry of a juvenile nature, and three letters written in an apparently juvenile hand. The content of the letters were basically the gushings of a young teenage girl infatuated with the adult man who was raping her.

I was incredibly glad that my grandparents didn't own the house at the time that box fell down between the studs in that wall.

This is slightly OT, but many years ago I was hired as the assistant editor of a well-known magazine dealing with one of the lively arts.

The former assistant editor, noweditor-in-chief, was moving to the big corner office and I was going to work in his old cubicle.

He showed me where the important stuff was on the top of the desk and in the first drawer, but not anywhere else. So I looked for myself later on--and in the bottom drawer I found a gun in a holster. And not just any gun: a real big one. A 44 Magnum, perhaps.

I didn't touch it, and when I checked a few days later, it was gone.

But keep in mind this was not Soldier Of Fortune magazine. This was a magazine covering the soft side of life, cultural and artistic. And the editor was exactly the sort you expected to be running it. A great guy, though I did hear that he was kind of ballistic in bed.

I forgot to add that this editor is no longer with us, for the usual reason.

The Lindbergh baby.

I will never get over it.

[quote]fell down between the studs

Pics please.

[quote] That had nothing to do with being gay and everything to do with his uncle having had killed someone.

Exactly. I'm forgetting now, but it might have been John Wayne Gacy or Leonard Lake / Charles Ng who collected ID cards of the people they killed.

When my maternal grandmother passed away I went through her box of photos to keep some that were really nice. Among them were pictures of her with a man at some bar, a man at the beach, a man at a party, etc. All different guys. I asked my mom who they were and she didn't know but said, "Well, you know your grandmother." I loved her to pieces and she was an alcoholic who lived a troubled but fun life.

Was your uncle fond of Halloween, OP?

My adoption records.

My uncle found his adoption records while snooping. He never told his adopted parents that he knew the truth.

OP: Why would a killer hang on to his victim's car keys and ID? It could easily incriminate him. And an undescribed creepy costume?

Something doesn't sound right about this story.

[quote] Why didn't you look up the name from the driver's license OP?

I planned to, but this was pre-smart phone, and I couldn’t remember the name for the life of me when I got back to a computer.

You’re jumping to the conclusion that the uncle was a killer and that the guy who owned the driver’s license was the victim? That’s a bit much. Lots of people collect old guns and machetes. I’m not even sure they were real.

R12, what is that? What does it have to do with the Bay Area? Yes, the uncle lived there. That’s where the house was.

When cleaning out my grandfather's house, we found some pics of a Korean woman, taken in the 1950s, and others taken in what looked like the 80s of what looked like the same Korean woman -- though older -- with a young woman in probably her 20, who looked like a Caucasian-Asian mix. My brother and I surmised our grandfather must have had a relationship with the Korean woman when he served there during the Korean War, and the woman in the other pics was probably his daughter, who I guess would be our aunt.

We never found out anything else, but it's weird to think I may have family in Korea.

What a fascinating story.

[quote]I do like bulgogi

Use a breath mint.

He didn’t kill anyone. He was storing the trunk for a friend who killed someone.

This is why I come to DL.

Either this is bullshit or OP solved one of the biggest mysteries of all time.

[quote]He was kinda mean about it, actually, and a bit scary. Maybe I touched a nerve?

Maybe you touched his anus.

I spent 2 months going through the condo of a friend who was sent to a nursing home and his condo had to be sold, so I had to go through everything before the clean-out crew could be called, it was a huge pile of papers, antiques and books. I finally found the one thing I was determined to find, and I found it in one of the very last boxes under a pile of waste paper. It was a postcard sent to him by Robert Motherwell in 1957 for a show of collages my friend had exhibited at a little gallery. My friend never seriously pursued a career in art though he was constantly drawing, even in the nursing home.

I once found a copy of "Dianetics" in the garage. Never looked at my dad the same.

a collection of over 1000 vibrators

Years ago, apparently there was some give-away from Colgate toothpaste that, you got a bigger prize if you sent in more Colgate toothpaste boxes.

When my grand uncle died, his attic was filled with Colgate boxes. He wanted to be sure he was ready with boxes in case that give-away ever came back.

R35, The crazy Dianetics people always came by the neighborhood and gave away copies—so your dad may just have been given a copy which he never bothered to read

Had the uncle ever been married OP or was he a "confirmed bachelor"?

When she was dying, my grandmother wanted me to have all of her astrology books. She kept asking me to take them. I asked her why because I had no interest in astrology, but she kept asking me to take them.I did and discovered that she had hidden $40,000.00. In cash in them. She wanted me to have the money and no one else.

R38, aww thanks. I forgive him.

Not really weird, but surprising - I was cleaning out my grandparents apartment with my dad after we had put his mother in a nursing home. We were going through everything methodically because they were light hoarders with the habit of stashing cash all over the place. I opened up 70s style Samsonite attaché case and it was full of porn; not magazines, but glossy paperback 9 x 11 photo books - they looked like they had been expensive.

I was a little stunned but my dad just said “Oh, you found grandpa’s porno stash huh,” and nonchalantly threw it all in the trash. Really wish I’d had the presence of mind to keep it.

I am 65 and although I am in decent health I’ve been throwing a lot of stuff away so that when I do go it’s probably gonna take my family all of five minutes to get rid of my stuff.

While cleaning out my sister's apartment after she committed suicide, I found her vibrator.

It was a weird month.

I meant to post this in this thread, but accidentally did it in the thread talking about thrift stores. Sorry for the double post.

I'm the Director of a Naval Museum, so people are always donating trunks-full of stuff their dead relatives have left behind. Occasionally (VERY occasionally) there will be something unusual and historically significant, but generally its stuff like old uniforms, papers, plaques, etc . I was recently going through a trunk which belonged to a retired, deceased Lt. Commander; pretty much the usual, with the exception of a white garment folded inside a dry cleaning bag. At first, I thought it was just part of the guy's dress whites, until I pulled it all the way out and discovered a floor-length robe with a very large, pointed hood and the red insignia of the Ku Klux Klan. I'm sure the relatives had never removed it from the bag, and probably had no idea the guy must have been a real creep.

When my dad died 15 years ago mom sold the house and moved in with me. We had to go through 40 years of their crap,as well as mine and my 2 brothers childhood crap . In the living room was a ghastly spanish revival coffee table they had bout brand new in the late 60s . it weighed a ton,so I had flipped it on its side to slide it out. Someone had written on the underside "I killed 2 men " . My dad was ex marine but he had never fought in battle. Mom couldnt tell if it was his writing because it was block print and he always wrote in cursive. Ive often wondered if my dad was a murderer .

R27 Lily Tomlin did a sketch about your grandfather as Ernestine the telephone operator.

[quote] You’re jumping to the conclusion that the uncle was a killer and that the guy who owned the driver’s license was the victim? That’s a bit much.

Nobody "concluded" that the uncle was a killer. I'm one of the posters who did opine that it sounds like a serial killer souvenir. We're just discussing and conjecturing here.

Was Paul Stine the name on the license?

My poor brother will have to go through my nightstand and learn way too much about me.

Remember that guy who died getting fucked by a horse? His family had to go through his stuff which must have been awkward.

When my aunt died my siblings and my mother went through her house getting it ready for sale. I found her old journals and took them home to read.

Turns out her writings were as miserable as she was. She really hated everyone and loved to write about how much she hated everyone, including us.

[quote](My mother's name) kids came over again today. God how I hate their visits. Her kids are fat ugly blobs who just watch TV and eat. (My mother) thinks it's ok that she brings her own food but she doesn't understand that I have to look at those blobs while they fill their fat piggy faces. I told her I need some more money and she gave me a lousy $30. What she spends on food every week for those whales she calls children could sustain me for a month!

Her biggest fear was dying alone and she couldn't understand why she didn't have more friends. I found that funny considering she died alone and it was a week before she was found dead.

My parents were in charge of her funeral. My father used the worst picture he could find of her to have engraved on her headstone. According to him it was so everyone could remember how "dog ugly the bitch was."

When I’m ready to go, I’m just gonna torch the whole thing.

[quote]Weird things you found in your dead relative’s house

My dead relative.

A very rich and very insane great aunt who shot herself through the heart lived in a big old house that looked haunted as hell. She had not allowed any family members into the house in many years. When she offed herself my mother asked me to go with her and her sister to the house to find something for the funeral home to dress her in. The inside of the house was like something out of a horror movie. We found money everywhere we looked in drawers in books and magazines, under her bed in shoe boxes. But the weirdest thing was when my mother opened the closet door in her bedroom (the room she killed herself in). Something incredibly heavy was hanging on the back side of the door. It scared my mother shitless until she got the door completely opened. It was several pairs of nylon pantyhose stuffed inside each other with both legs filled all the way to the top with silver dollars, some very old. No one could figure out how that 90+ year old, 5'1" woman could get that incredibly heavy thing up onto that hook.

I cleaned my step grandmother’s bedroom out after she died and found a ledger book from the 1950’s. She lost interest in budgeting after three days. I also found empty vodka bottles stashed all over the place. Years ago, before she had been moved to a downstairs room, she used to pick fights with her family in order to have an excuse to go upstairs and drink. The walls were painted pepto Bismol pink and the furniture was from the 1940’s/50’s so it was a depressing time capsule of misery.

R51, more awkward then finding your relative dead with a horse penis inside him??

My parent's marriage certificate with the date three months after I was born. I always thought my uncle was kidding when he said it was a shotgun wedding.

As told to me by a coworker:

When my father was ill, he led me to a cabinet in his den, where he showed me his porn stash, which consisted of a couple dozen X-rated VCR tapes. He told me, "If I die, throw these away before your mother sees them."

About six months later, a few weeks after my father died, I went to collect the tapes, but when I opened the cabinet, they were gone. I asked my mom what happened to the tapes. She said, "A few weeks ago, I gathered up all the tapes and gave them to the [equally elderly couple who were the next-door neighbors]s. They recently got a new VCR, and they like to watch movies."

Damn. I wonder what the neighbors thought.

Maybe "strange" isn't the right word, but it was unnerving. While clearing my late great-uncle's house, we found two badges with swastikas on them. My great-uncle was too young to fight in WW2, so he must have found them while going through his brother's (my grandfather's) house after his death. They must have been trophies my grandfather took from the bodies of soldiers he killed (well, either that or my great-uncle was a secret Nazi all along). Although we had of course known my grandfather had served in WW2, none of us had ever really thought about the fact that such a mild-mannered man had probably killed people for his country.

I love this thread.

My mother and I had an ambivalent relationship, to say the least. She caused all of her kids much heartache, as she was a very unstable alcoholic, and changed residences and jobs frequently. She lived out of the US for some years and never had more than a suitcase full of permanent possessions. She shopped in thrift stores for her business attire; she was a legal secretary. When she died, it was my duty as the eldest child to clean out her apt. In a small box I found a tiny multi-media creation I made as a 6 year old (50 years earlier).

How on earth did she preserve that, trekking through Asia and Central America and all over the US, often riding the Greyhound? It was the only time I cried over her death.

R52, your Aunt sounds like a DataLounger

R62, there were many layers to your mother you will never know or understand, but what you found tells me that she loved you very much. But, whatever demons she fought prevented her from showing that

My mom died of Alzheimer's. We were cleaning things up & noticed that the hem of a drape seemed heavy.

We cut it open & found cash sewn into it. We looked at all her drapes & then the top of the drape cornice boards. She had over $30,000 hidden.

Thank you, r64.

My mother died suddenly of a heart attack. We’d had several conversations about death over the years and I knew her wishes (no heroic efforts, DNR, etc.). We both have a similar view and I’m much more practical and my sister is an emotional and sentimental person, so it was up to me.

Going through her things, we knew to look at EVERYTHING because she hoarded cash. I also found a book about death which I wish I had saved. It was very detailed about the physical changes and stages that lead up to the moment of death and after. It was a very strange book. She had been a nurse and I thought it might have been related, but it wasn’t a textbook. It was more of a self-published booklet.

Anyway, it was weird.

R64- Your story, reminds me of one from my family. While they were alive, my great Aunt and Uncle had a very fraught relationship- he was a serious alcoholic ( or so I had been always told) who was given to spending the familiy's little funds, on drinking binges at the neighborhood bar. Quite frequently before he could run off with the $$$, my great-aunt did what she could to hide squirrel away funds by secreting them away in her sewing projects around the house, before he could get to it. As such, when she finally passed on after him, my mom's cousin's spent the better part of the day, ripping through seat cushions, pillows and yes, curtains to see what money might have remained.

R62, your story affected me, too. Hugs to you.

When my father died, we found letters that my mother had written him while I was a baby and he had gone to visit his home country. They were mundane and not too romantic. The thing that struck me most was that they were separate from his other letters (he had saved every bit of correspondence) and that he had kept them at all. My parents separated when I was a toddler but never divorced. Occasionally they would reconcile, but mostly I remember her hating him and he was usually indifferent. My mother admitted that they had had sex when I was in my 20s which I didn’t want to hear about but it made me sad. They still had some feelings for each other even when they were old people. He died first and she marveled that she was his widow even though they lived in faraway states and hadn’t spoken in a decade.

They could never really quit each other.

A baked potato bar.

They were single.

My uncle house. After he passed away, my mother and aunt and I go to his home to clean up. He doesn't have children and sadly his wife divorce him. He has an computer. My mother said to open it and see if there is any important information (bank statement etc). So I open it and look it up (it is not nice, I know). Nothing special. Then, I got to a file name "green card" Oh, is he applying for US citizenship? Then I click on it, it has dozen of file with wired name, "nighbour", "co-worker son", "high-school" etc. I clicked on it, and it is all picture of young guy. A lot of them are focused on their butt and photoshopped to make it more obvious. There is even a file with my name, and it is filled with pictures of me. He even have a lot of picture zoom in on my butt. And even the time I went to the beach with my friend, but I have never told him I went there.

When my uncle passed away, I helped my mom go through his apt. He was a recovering alocholic and drug addict, who was gay. Found his porn stash, which I got rid of so not to upset my mom. The weird thing was in one of the closets I found a dress. I took it out to show my mom and she freaked, going pale white. I thought it looked familiar. My mother then told me that it was the dress that my grandmother had been buried in. In his bedroom was a picture of her in the casket and she was in the dress. It was not a new dress because it had the wear and tear on it (it was my grandmothers favorite dress).

Was going through my moms things after she died and found out I had a half sister who is 8 years older than me. My moms best friend from childhood had three adopted children . Eventually the oldest one, who would be the same age as my half sister, has two children. The daughter of this woman looked exactly like my mother on her wedding day . Her son , born a few years ago, looks just like I did at the same age. More evidence piles up that this daughter of my moms best friend is my half sister . My cousins have advised me not to tell this woman my suspicions and I think they are right . Wish I knew for sure though .

In my uncle's basement

under every National Geographic magazine ever published

we found Jimmy Hoffa's body

Among my mother's possessions: A clear plastic box with my baby teeth in it. Also two of my adult teeth that were removed when I was a teen for orthodontic reasons.

I also found family photos that proved we were mixed race but that was when I was home alone during a college visit.

R67 When my father was at the end of his life, he was put into hospice. The hospice had some reading material including a pamphlet that described the stages of dying and death so that people in hospice, or their loved ones would know what to expect. So, if your mother ever knew anyone in hospice (or if she worked in such an environment) that is probably where that pamphlet came from.

Getting back to the Dianetics book. I think those were given out free / no cost. IIRC, my parents had a copy and there is no way in hell they were Scientologists. My mom just could never throw anything away.

Hence: judge not if you find a Dianetics book in an old person's house.

R69, it could have been an assumed identity or from a dead friend or someone whose death the uncle was connected with in some way.

R77, years ago, it was common for people to go door to door to talk about their beliefs. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses did it a lot. They would give free books or pamphlets about their beliefs.

My dad had a Book of Mormon and I asked him about it once. He said two nice young people came to the door and wanted to talk about Mormonism. He was glad to talk to them because he was lonely. They gave him the Book of Mormon. My dad was never a Mormon, nor did he have any interest in becoming one.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how people got the Dianetics book.

A gay friend of mine died and we found a huge stash of porn that was entirely black men fucking white women. No gay porn. That was a surprise.

After my dad died, my mom was briefly married to my stepfather. About a year later, they divorced and my parents remarried. I remained close to my stepfather. He never married again nor did he have any close relatives around him when he died.

In his will, I was made executor of his estate- which included a small cabin near a local lake. I went to the cabin to check it out and started going through drawers, closets, ect. In a small metal box, I found a plain yellow envelope with “Good Times” written on it. When I open the envelope, I found an assortment of nude photos of my stepfather.........my stepfather with my mother.........my father with my mother, and my stepfather and my father having sex. There was even a picture of my mother getting fucked by a large African American man while my stepfather appeared to be fingering himself.

Did I forget to mention that all three of them were born again Christians, who never missed church?

Wow, R81, that is a crazy bunch of photos to find. Not to disparage your parents, but I do think it's odd when two people divorce and then remarry (each other, same two people).

My parents remarried when they were in their early 70s. I think they both felt they had to pay for their “sin” of being divorced before it was too late. I guess the Lord could look the other way about the 8 inch black cock that I bet all three enjoyed at some point.....

My favorite uncle served in the 82nd Airborne, and fought in Vietnam. He died from an Agent Orange-caused cancer. After he died we were going through a set of photos stashed in a cubbyhole. Shuffling through them brought back so many good memories. Then we saw the one at the bottom of the stack. It was that peculiar vivid color wash seen in late 60s-early 70s camera film.

My handsome uncle was standing in his trademark cool guy slouch, ciggy dangling from his lips, bacon-and-egg sandwich in his right hand. In his left hand was the bloody severed head of a Vietnamese man, eyes rolled up grotesquely, blood still dripping from the machete blow. It was so surreal, my biggest first impression was how thick, lush black and BEAUTIFUL the dead man's locks were, those locks held so fast in Uncle W's hand.

I've often wondered who took that grisly yet somehow utterly normal photo of a paratrooper having his breakfast sandwich.

[quote]Her kids are fat ugly blobs who just watch TV and eat.

R52 How accurate was her description?

[quote]Not to disparage your parents, but I do think it's odd when two people divorce and then remarry (each other, same two people).

My uncle and aunt got divorced, he met another woman, married her, they got divorced. He realized he loved my aunt and they got remarried, stayed married for about 30 years until her death. It's not that weird. No weirder than going back with someone you broke up with.

R14, was this After Dark magazine?

Jordan Zevon, son of the late, great singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, is at least "in the hunt" as far as winning this thread is concerned.

When the elder Zevon was dying of lung cancer, he called Jordan to his side and instructed him to "get rid of the porn." Which is to say, movies Warren Zevon made of himself doin' it with at least a few different women.

As others have posted about similar experiences, above, can you imagine watching even a snippet of a movie of your FATHER having sex?!

All together now: Ewwwwwwwwwwww!

Sounds like Uncle was a killer!

When I was young we helped clear my Great Aunt's house out, it was fairly cluttered. I spilled a pot that had what I assumed was (weirdly) sand in it I hoovered it up and chucked the rest.

In Ireland cremation wasn't something 8 year old knew too much about :/

A paper bag filled with Trojan condoms and a receipt from Walgreen's dated 1976 in my dead Father's bedside table. Since he was close to 92 when he died, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were doing there. Auld lang syne, maybe.

My uncle also remarried his wife after many years apart. She had been married in-between at least one other time. He had not. She'd been the "wild one" and later in life was ready to settle down.

Poor R81! I cannot imagine having in my possession photos of the exact moment I was conceived.

R81, how did your parents re-marry each other after your dad died?

[quote]Remember that guy who died getting fucked by a horse? His family had to go through his stuff which must have been awkward.

All those sleazy pictures of Secretariat, Seabiscuit, and Seattle Slew....

R94 Was Seattle Slew the one who did him in?

my grandmother turned silver-haired in her twenties, so we only know her as such. We found in a box, wrapped in tissue paper a 3 ft long lock of auburn hair. It was freaky. It would have been from the 1920s

I have a lovely neighbor and although she is not dead...

She has already asked me to be the guardian of her handsome teenage son Joel in the event of her death

And I have assured her that my Lhasa Apso Mitzi and I will be delighted to welcome Joel into our home

A person who collects antiques and who has experience cleaning out houses told me he has found many treasure troves of personal items hidden in chimneys

Apparently it was a common hiding place

He has shown me antique condom tins, old pornographic pictures, and other assorted items he has found

My cousin’s mother‘s mother (his grandmother) was a nurse and when we were clearing out his house, that was his childhood home, there were a set of beautiful navy and red woolen capes that I guess were standard nurse wear in the 40s. They are stunningly beautiful and what you imagined Nurse Cherry Ames would have worn. It must have been captivating to see a group of starched white uniformed nurses in little nursing caps wearing them. I’m surprised Ryan Murphy didn’t incorporate them into to Racheted, but I guess it would have messed with his green color scheme.

His grandfather was a doctor and among his things were the hand written notes from the last weeks of Milton S. Hershey’s life. He had been his personal doctor at the end. We tried to give them to the archive in town, but they didn’t want them. They were a copy and not the originals so they may have already had them. But with all the controversy surrounding Milton S. Hershey’s health you would have thought they would want to lock them down and maybe suppress them.

My grandmother used to keep a framed photo of her deceased younger brother on the bedside table in her guest room - it was the room I slept in when I visited

When I was young (maybe 7 or 8 years old) and visiting my grandparents one summer, I woke up early and started looking at the framed photo of my great uncle in his army uniform.

For some reason, I can imagine why, I removed the back of the frame and found letters stuffed between the photo and the cardboard backing of the frame...

As well as I can remember now, they were letters written by a woman to my uncle but they were written in cursive which I couldn't read very well at the time...

I took the letters to my grandmother, who was shocked to say the least...she made me explain over and over again how I found the letters. She had had that photo of her brother for decades at that point.

I don't know what was in the letters but they disappeared and she never mentioned them again after that day.

IT IS A TIE: R81 and R84!

[quote] After my dad died, my mom was briefly married to my stepfather. About a year later, they divorced and my parents remarried.

If your father was dead, how did he get remarried? Is that a Mormon thing?

The house at 10050 Cielo Drive, where Charles Manson's followers murdered Sharon Tate, her friends, and her guests, had a large loft area above the living room facing the dormers that was accessible by a ladder.

In the loft area, it has been said that the LAPD found movies that Roman Polanski had made of himself and Sharon Tate having sex

The LAPD reportedly returned those movies to Roman Polanski after their investigation was complete, but I suspect there are copies of those movies (or some reels never returned) floating around Hollywood

A photo from that time

A previous poster was talking about finding Nazi medals in his father's attic. Most of the guys that fought over there brought home souvenirs. My Dad kept a Nazi SS helmet alongside a Luger handgun that he brought back from the war. We found them in the attic with his military records and medals. The helmet was very heavy. Not really knowing what to do with them, since I was inheriting the house, I left the whole box, military records and all, in the attic.

My great grandmother's corset and a box of her hair. She weighed about 350 lbs so the corset was about 6 feet long, and had a pouch sewn in it to hold her hernia.

Agreed R105

There's a "Mad Men" episode where Betty Draper's father Eugene comes to stay at the Draper house

Gene is showing his grandson Bobby a gun and a German helmet he brought back from his service in war

At one point Gene even puts the helmet he collected from a dead German soldier on Bobby's head, and Don Draper who is watching from the TV room becomes angry and tells Gene to put the "souvenirs" away.

OP didn’t the license belong to someone who was killed? Not getting a good vibe

The interior of the 10050 Cielo Dr house showing the living room loft area

R103 / R104 / R109 we're not that interested

110 = dirty pussy and bad breath

Maybe invest some time in personal hygiene

R110 is right. We are not interested in your yammering.

Read the brief r103 r104 r109 r111

OP-If you switch the genders of the driver's license, your story is the plot of the Stephen King novella A Good Marriage.

R105. That.was my uncle. He came came back from WW 2 With an epitaph from a German officer that he took off with a machete. The machete was cool because it was hinged. So when it was closed, the business end was extended well below the hilt. It had this cheesy little guard that went on the blade but hey, I had t tops.

[quote]A gay friend of mine died and we found a huge stash of porn that was entirely black men fucking white women.

You mean RAPING!

[quote]Read the brief [R103] [R104] [R109] [R111]

R110 and R112 - The sad ravings of a syphilitic mind

Not my relative, but this is basically the story of Henry Darger. Darger was a janitor for many years in Chicago. He had few friends and kept to himself. He wrote a massive graphic novel and created tons of that was discovered while he was on his deathbed.

Created tons of artwork.

When my brother died, we found 2 wheelchairs folded up in his garage. He was only 32 when he died, and did not use a wheelchair. He was single at the time, and no former girlfriends used wheelchairs. We asked his closest friends if they had any idea why he would have wheelchairs and they were completely puzzled as well. What a weird thing to own for no apparent reason.

R93. That should have said after my dad divorced my mom, she briefly remarried.

R87: No, not After Dark.

It was a classier publication, though similarly concerned with the lively arts.

It was really common for Allied soldiers to loot German houses and send back the spoils. Especially if the owners were Nazis. Nazis stole a lot of fancy stuff from Jews, so a lot of their soldiers had very elaborate silver candlesticks, silverware, artwork, and other valuables they stole. They sent it home to their families.

American soldiers are known to have looted the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s home, and they took his photo albums and other personal items. The photo albums eventually ended up in a museum, but not until years later. The kids or grandkids probably handed them over. American soldiers used to collect stuff like German soldiers’ pistols, medals, helmets, and they carried a soldier’s ID that they would collect. Sometimes letters or pictures they carried. There’s a lot of Nazi memorabilia floating around the collectors’ market that comes from American soldiers’ looting, and a lot of soldiers sent home valuables they looted. Not just Americans, they all did it.

If you watch Band of Brothers, they show some of that. It’s accurate. Nazi flags and the like in Grandpa’s attic doesn’t mean he was a Nazi. It probably means he killed Nazis.

R117 Thanks for bringing up Darger and in a way highlighting outsider or intuit artists whose life works are in many ways some of the greatest discoveries of this situation. I don’t think the article made clear that you can actually see Darger’s apartment, which was obtained and is on display at the Chicago Center for Outsider and Intuitive Art. The main body of the Wikipedia page has a full description of it. It was basically a n SRO, single room occupancy situation, and he had to go to great lengths to store, work and live in the space. If I recall correctly his bed was for storage of his art work and he slept on the floor in a small space.

When we cleaned out my old Aunt's house, we found a horribly racist note she had written to someone about her neighborhood. It was vicious. This woman was known for being the utmost sweet Christian, and I grew up thinking she was a sweet lady. It was shocking.

I think many of you would be very interested in the documentary 306 Hollywood that is on Amazon Prime. Two grandchildren do a overly artsy archeological dig through their Jewish grandmother’s house in New Jersey after she died. The granddaughter had a decade plus video oral history of interviews with her to work with, which are the centerpiece of the film besides going through her belonging and organizing and displaying them in creative ways.

The grandmother was a high end seamstress and would make dresses for herself copied off those she made for society ladies with the extra material she had from them. At one point they do a vintage inspired fashion show on the front lawn of the clothes and also hang them on the facade of the house. They also make miniature doll house recreation of the rooms. It’s interesting, but I got a bit tired of them turning the whole thing into an overly curated art event. I found them exhausting by the end, but grandma is a hoot and game for anything and was a person worth getting to know.

Here’s the trailer for the film.

When my grandmother died, we found a ton of old cassette tapes. It took us forever to find a cassette player. She had recorded audio of tons of conversations she had. There was no index information on any of the tape inserts. The conversations ranged from her talking to friends about inane stuff, to recordings of numerous family gatherings. The recordings of family were fun to listen to, because it was strange hearing family members when they were little kids.

One of the recordings was of a phone call and her whispering to my uncle (her son) about staying out of trouble, and he better hope no one finds out what he did, etc. It was such a generic call - from her end at least. My uncle died years ago, and no one has any idea what he did.

R122, I have a Nazi flag and a helmet my grandfather brought back from WW2. It was common for soldiers returning home to have some kind of memorabilia of the conflict.

One of the most profound and beautiful art installations I’ve seen is by artist and author Maira Kalman and her son’s display of the contents of her mother’s closet from after she died. Sara Berman’s Closet has been on display in galleries and at the Met Museum and was also done as an Illustrated book by Kalman. It’s a lovey ode to what’s left behind and the story it tells of one woman’s life and indomitable style.

Nice. But that only works if your mother had indomitable style.

In my mother's case, great as she was, there would have been no book.

If you ever run across a dead parent's check register (where you record the payees & the amounts for all the checks you've written), consider keeping it. It's almost like a diary. IIRC, I both laughed and cried reading my mom's check registers (checks (small amounts) to charities, birthday presents for us adult kids, etc.). In retrospect, I wish I had kept the registers, maybe.

My parents died and my trashy, alcoholic sibling had the run of their house in my parents' last years in a nursing homes. I stayed away, not wanting any further misery from them. I knew they had trashed the place, with rotting garbage, unpaid bills and taxes, and infestations of vermin, but it was worse than I imagined when I finally had to take legal control out of the trouble with the estate and all my parents' money having been used up.

BUT the thing to note for this thread is that in the room my brother used living there we found about 20 vodka bottles filled with urine and paper sacks full of shit. It took six months to clean the filth out of the 11 rooms and a basement that left the workers we had vomiting in the yard. No, I don't have anything to do with any of the "family" now.

This thread makes me appreciate my family more.

As in post upthread I’ve been involved with house clearances. After family have plundered and taken their picks dealers are paid to remove remaining junk, clutter and hopefully overlooked treasures. Almost without exception there is a cupboard, outbuilding or corner of a room where the deceased’s most personal effects have been dumped; decades of letters, cards, receipts, qualification certificates, employment documents, bank statements, photos (many photos), menus, holiday souvenirs and general ephemera. It seems that no one wants to take responsibility and spend time to take and sort this stuff but equally they don’t have the guts to bin it so leave it to the clearance guys to do it for them.

Another artist’s work found hidden among their belongings.

I thought I would post one of my friend's drawings, he did it in the nursing home.

R34

I went through all of mom's photos when she died R133 and sent almost everything from before I was born to her kids from her first marriage, who promptly bitched and moaned and complained about every little detail. I kept about 10 photos and sent them what must have been 500 or so, and they complained about the 10 I kept, like I was history's greatest monster for keeping a couple of pictures of my own grandmother.

Actually, everyone on mom's side of the family was difficult to impossible to deal with. The people who came to the estate auction were nasty, thieving, greedy and grubby. The auctioneer and staff, the lawyers, the banks, the real estate agents, relatives, coworkers, everyone was a real piece of shit, and if I had to go through it again you can bet I would not bother sorting through photos and personal papers.

[quote]...decades of letters, cards, receipts, qualification certificates, employment documents, bank statements, photos (many photos), menus, holiday souvenirs and general ephemera. It seems that no one wants to take responsibility and spend time to take and sort this stuff but equally they don’t have the guts to bin it so leave it to the clearance guys to do it for them.

"Somebody [not me] might want these."

"Somebody [not me] should keep this stuff. It's a treasure 'for someone else.]"

"There are bank details and home addresses and personal identifying information everywhere in this stuff. Someone [not me] should go through it all and have those things shredded."

"There are seven boxes of photos, and some albums where everything has faded to piss yellow. I'll take these five or ten photos I like and the rest of you can take these and organize them."

"Look, my mother saved every Hallmark greeting card she ever received. How stupid."

"Why did he save only the CVS receipts? Did he think there was some valuable information in these reams of no indecipherable receipts?"

"Graduation photos! Why??? Throw those out."

"Oh look, four matchbooks from a motel in Coral Gables , Florida, and a plastic keychain fob in the shape of a London telephone box. Why?"

"Maybe someone else will want this shit."

r13: What exactly did these letters say? Was it a relative living in the house?

r103: It was film of Polanski forcing Sharon to have sex with other men. RP is a freak and piece of shit of the highest order.

I prefer ‘auteur’.

My 98 year old grandmother died in 1996, and while cleaning out her house, I found two shoe boxes full of letters hidden on a shelf in a closet. I set them aside and one night i sat down and started reading them. They were all from men that she was "familiar" with. By reading the entire collection of letters, we were able to piece together her teen aged life. Her mother died when she was 12. Her father remarried quickly and moved to Texas with his new wife. My grandmother was a very head strong girl and refused to go with her father and his new wife. She supported herself by the only means available - prostituting herself to traveling salesmen or railroad men. She lived in a hotel in a railroad town which in 1910-1920 had 6 different railroads going through town . It was amazing to read these letters, which were fairly straightforward about what these men wanted from her, inviting her to weekend getaways, etc. I saved them, thinking someday they would make a great story.

R141 So it's hereditary?

It is!! It is!!

When a friend died, his family was coming to clean out the apartment. Two of got us got rid of his sex toys, full leather outfits, sling, and porno videos before they arrived.

R144 You are true friends. My friends would have gotten all those things out of hiding and carefully displayed them wherever there was the best lighting.

R141 -- It would make a great story. I want to pump you for details, but my main question is, do you think your grandmother was --not a "Happy Hooker" -- but a pragmatic one who was enjoying her life? For a woman to be independent in that era took a lot of inner confidence. Upon thinking about it for a second, were any of the letters actually written by your grandmother, or were they all from the Johns making arrangements?

R141 I'm curious about how your grandmother went from being a busy prostitute to being a mother. Was it an accident? Was the father a client?

Or did she get out of the business and get married?

I wish you would share some of her letters.

The weirdest thing I ever found in a dead relative's house was the dead relative.

R141 I would love to read those letters, book or individually!

[R141] I was picturing Natalie Wood in “This Property is Condemned” while reading your post.

Back issues of National Geographic, some old clothes, tchotchkes of no value, a half empty bottle of Beefeater gin, a breakfront with Waterford wine hocks and tarnished silverware, an assortment of novels, biographies and history books, expired cans of Pepsi, some old calendars, Royal Copenhagen annual Christmas plates, a few not terribly interesting letters, seed packets, a couple of golf umbrellas, some costume jewelry, ashtrays from long gone restaurants. My grandmother’s house was a monument to the underwhelming nature of life.

I found a huge stash of Ambien pills in my Mom's bedroom (for committing suicide). She got very depressed in her 60s, then got terminal cancer. Even though she had terminal cancer, I'm glad she didn't commit suicide before dying of cancer. Ever since finding those pills, I decided to never commit suicide. Finding my mom's body dead from suicide would have been too much bear, for me.

Not a house-cleaning story, but on topic regarding soldiers in WWII: My uncle, who passed away a few years ago at 98, was a kind, hard-working man who married an angry, bitter woman and had one son, a spoiled, selfish ne'er-do-well who is 10 years my senior. From early childhood, I understood that Uncle did not like to talk about his experiences in the Pacific, and would get quite upset when asked. I never brought it up to him directly.

We were spending Christmas Day with him, and when asked how school was going, I told him we were studying the War in high school history. I can't remember where the rest of the family was, but it was just him and me talking and he said he had something to show me and went to retrieve a small metal box. He opened it slowly and carefully unwrapped the contents, pulling out an antique pair of eyeglasses and a small ornate knife, handing them to me for inspection. I carefully examined them, unremarkable in general, but when I glanced back up at him, he had tears in his eyes and told me he had removed them from a Japanese soldier's body and in barely a whisper, "that I killed."

"You did what you had to do," was all I could say, and gave him a hug. I then learned more about the War in 15 minutes than I had and ever did in years in school; the conditions, the fact that we in the US knew exactly what was going on in both Germany and Japan (and looked the other way out of fear and prejudice) before and during the war, and just how close we came to losing the War. It was a conversation that I will remember every word until I die. It only stopped when we heard the family coming, and he picked up the artifacts and carefully placed them back in the box and tried to slide the box under the sofa we were sitting on, but my cousin romped into the room and saw. I later learned that my cousin had no idea what was inside, but that the box was strictly off limits. It was the first time I saw the jealousy my cousin harbored for decades towards me, but mostly my older brother with whom he was supposedly close.

I never brought it up with my uncle, and he never mentioned it again. I don't know what happened to the box and its contents. I'd hoped that maybe I'd see the items again, but my cousin remained the asshole he'd always been, and refused to share or even show us the family heirlooms he'd somehow acquired from our grandmother, let alone my uncle's WWII artifacts.

r147 - At some point, she moved away and became a telephone operator. She married my grandfather in 1920 when he came from from WW I and they had two children. She always had a thing about men, outrageously flirting, but we never knew the background until we found those letters and learned about her teen aged years. Some of the letters were from other girls plying their trade. Most of her good women friends seemed to be of questionable backgrounds. Her siblings, whom she had very little contact with, told my mother that their father was a very nice man, but that my grandmother was very strong willed, out of control and what would be called today a wild child. Interesting that those kind of teen age problems are nothing new.

[quote]At some point, she moved away and became a telephone operator.

A friend of mine cleaned out his parents house and found a trunk in the attic. It was full of KKK regalia, robes, hoods, membership roster, etc. His grandfather was the grand poo-bah of the local Klan back in the 1910s-1920s, and his father kept the trunk all those years. This was in the Midwest, not the South.

R156 The Klan was founded in the midwest, not the south.

R157: Pulaski, Tennessee, 1865, with Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest as the key named figure.

My elderly bachelor uncle's house--- yes, there's a reason they sent me to clean it out--leather chaps and related items. Two dresser drawers filled with greasy "pumper" equipment.

Jesus, OP! Read “The Lovely Bones” and get a frickin clue

Do any of you gents who live alone have an arrangement with a 'porno buddy' -- you each have keys to the other guy's place and know where everything that would need to be thrown out quickly is stashed in case one of you dies suddenly in an accident?

Yes, r161. My neighbors, a nice gay couple, know what to get out and where it is.

I found a tin type photo of my ancestors from 1850. It’s the oldest thing I have,

My grandmother used to sew her jewelry to the back of her curtains. All cosmetic, fake jewelry, I think. People also often store photographs in books. Here’s a story:

A young woman receives a Bible from her Aunt as a wedding gift. Each time they meet, the Aunt would ask the young lady if she’s reading her Bible. Of course she says yes, despite not doing so.

Time passes and the Aunt dies. The young women is inspired. for something for the eulogy. She opens her Bible, for the first time, and finds a check for $10,000.

True story!

LOL R164 .. outta luck on that cash ... guessing it went over 180 days

Imagine poor Mrs. Patrick Campbell's mother, an icy number, being over 100, and having to travel all the way to Barcelona, only to walk across a floor encrusted with excrement, and finding the polaroids of boys hidden under styrofoam-head toupee stands.

R166 no clue what you're talking about but sounds interesting

R165: the story was that it was a hundred dollar bill, but it’s an old story when $100 meant something more than today, so I changed the story a tad bit.

Oh Pierre R168. Thelma Harper told that same story about her brother at Bubba’s graduation, so it must be true.

😁

Bills.

I was helping clean out an uncle's house. He and his wife had saved every electric bill, phone bill etc. going all the way back to 1968. There were just filing cabinets full of them in the garage. It would have taken a year putting some in the recycling or garbage each week with the can still being light enough to be lifted into the trash.

They had to get a professional shredding company to come and take them.

Seemingly hundreds of "bills" for gift renewals of Ladies Home Journal or Better Homes & Gardens for my mother's sisters. They must have arrived with more frequency than a weekly paycheck: "Thank you for your gift renewal, it will start in October 2024. If you would like to renew your gift now...", "Your gift subscription for Auntie X expires in June 2025, why not renew today at a special offer of only $6 for 12 issues?"

It was a rare bit of physical evidence of my mother's dementia, but exceedingly well documented in a whole drawer of her desk. In her sane years she was notoriously tight with money and would spend hours reconciling an errant 6-cents in her checking account, finally marching into the bank to sort in out in person with a bank officer. For a good three years she renewed every subscription notice, each of which conveniently has an option to renew into infinity, and so she did. Stacks of stubs were marked "paid," a few with a question mark additionally but paid all the same. My aunts asked me to stop her after failing themselves. They will be receiving gift subscriptions in posterity.

Seemingly hundreds of "bills" for gift renewals of Ladies Home Journal or Better Homes & Gardens for my mother's sisters. They must have arrived with more frequency than a weekly paycheck: "Thank you for your gift renewal, it will start in October 2024. If you would like to renew your gift now...", "Your gift subscription for Auntie X expires in June 2025, why not renew today at a special offer of only $6 for 12 issues?"

It was a rare bit of physical evidence of my mother's dementia, but exceedingly well documented in a whole drawer of her desk. In her sane years she was notoriously tight with money and would spend hours reconciling an errant 6-cents in her checking account, finally marching into the bank to sort in out in person with a bank officer. For a good three years she renewed every subscription notice, each of which conveniently has an option to renew into infinity, and so she did. Stacks of stubs were marked "paid," a few with a question mark additionally but paid all the same. My aunts asked me to stop her after failing themselves. They will be receiving gift subscriptions in posterity.

Not me, but my neighbor who grew up in the south. They found a KKK robe and hood in a trunk in the house when his grandfather died. Creeped me out.

My mother was a nurse. She had a career that spanned 40 years. When I was emptying her house, everywhere I looked I found sealed alcohol swabs. Out of her pocket and down... anywhere. Everywhere. Small, flat, almost weightless. In the closets. In the kitchen drawers. Caught in a cabinet behind current items. In her desk drawer. In her dresser drawers. There would be another one. Look deeper in the drawer and one more would appear. They were everywhere just like someone else might find rubber bands or paper clips in their mother's home. She used them in her work, every day for decades, and always had several stashed in her pockets.

What was amusing was that I instantly remembered these sealed swabs being everywhere while I was growing up. I had completely forgotten about them. It still makes me smile.

[quote]Two dresser drawers filled with greasy "pumper" equipment.

Those were prescribed for...an...um, medical condition

Mother started going looney after Dad died. around 16 years later, she passed away, leaving no will. I was the executor, or whatever one is when an estate has to go thru probate, and started getting all of her mail, cancelling magazine subscriptions and tons of crap and offers of more crap from publishers' clearing house, which I had warned her over and over was a racket. (In reality, where my mother was a total stranger, magazines are amply supported by their advertising, the rest is gravy.) Finally, the grief started hitting me, and incredible shame: since she lived in Florida, and I was in grad school in Iowa, her sister's kids cleaned out her filthy, absolutely decrepit house away out on a grove road. Floorboards and rafter had been rotting away in that climate for years. A dead dog on the front porch, rotting. A roach-infested cherry cake which was one of her last purchases from PCH and was meant for a young second cousin's (twice removed) 13th birthday who lived on the family farm up here in Iowa...absolutely insane. And stacks of National Geographic, Natural History, Enquirers, Midnight, et al. I finally had to call and write Publishers' Clearing House to stop with the insane offers, the harassing subscription letters, and got a letter back from some VP of customer relations, very abject, apologetic, consoling. Then not a single letter ever again. To me that was when my mother actually died, because I guess the nuisance factor of wading through all that mail when I was studying so hard and couldn't even afford to fly down there at all at least kept her alive in my memory.

Not postmortem, but,..

My Mom had subscribed to some “plate of the month” club, where she was sent some decorative plate every month. When she was still alive and in Florida, one Winter, I visited her home and went into a closet and found, perhaps, 30 unopened boxes containing plates. I called to cancel her subscription, and they refused until I lied and said she was dead, this was probably in the 1990s. I bet today, they’d keep sending them as long as the credit card was active.

I never heard a complaint about it, thought I live two hours away and might have missed that, but I think she didn’t notice or care, if she ever did.

Just as an aside, when my Dad died, I sent my Mom flowers and the florist screwed up the note, and signed it, as if my father had sent them. I called the florist to tell them that, despite it being more funny, than hurtful, but they fell all over themselves apologizing for it.

I learned that you have to be very forgiving of people at funerals because people don’t know what to say or do, so you can expect to hear and see weird stuff. I know, at my Dad’s wake, I unconsciously overcompensated and laughed too much at the old stories I heard from the attendees, many of which were old friends I hadn’t seen in 30 years.

When my a dad died, my brother, executor, immediately sold all Dad’s mutual fund investments. It was just before the crash around 2005, so it was smart and good luck.

When my widowed Mom later died, he cancelled all her credit cards, so as to avoid the problem R177 encountered.

These days, I have so many automatic charges, I don’t know how that would work. My brother is my executor, but a lot of my documents have been inadvertently sucked into the cloud, and he’ll lose them, if he needs them, if he cancels my credit cards.

I’ve done research on my American ancestors. There are only a few family graves in the old town’s burial ground, but not enough graves for 200 years of family.

I visited one of the. Houses my 4th great Grandfather built in the late 1700s. The owner told me that when they upgraded their kitchen, they discovered bones under the kitchen, and decided they were cow bones, and put them back. The kitchen was added on to the main house at some time, and was not originally built in the late 1700s.

If they were human bones, they would require visits from the local police, the coroner, the historical society, etc., and they’d never get their kitchen finished. It would become an archeologist site. So, I think they were my ancestor’s bones.

Also, the houses abutted a waterside park that my ancestors once owned. I suspect that my family buried people in unmarked graves on their own property.

Things were different then.

Here’s an oddity. My Mom’s estate wasn’t settled for 5 years.

I had siblings working at the family business, and they ran the business into the ground over that 5 years. I avoided getting involved with it, until my brother, co-executor, suggested that the heirs accept a share of the company. The company wasn’t paying dividends, so it would have been 1/7th of nothing, plus, I think, we’d have inherited its debt, too. I said “no” to that. Then my sister, Mom’s co-executor, illegality shifted $30,000 around to prop up the business, and shouldn’t have. I got my share of that, back.

But my intent was to highlight this: the business property value was assessed when Mom died, and it lost value over the next 5 years when the business property was sold.

I was able to get a tax write-off my share of the sale of the business property loss, from the date my Mom died to the date the estate was settled. But the property assessment was just some experts opinion. He could have just as easily valued it at twice the value, or half the value that he did. So, I inherited a share of the sales price of the business property, and also got to write off my share of the property loss. It was like making money out of thin air!

R181 I hope you invested that $80 windfall well.

R182, I wrote off more $40,000 in losses. offsetting capital gains. At 20% State and Fed taxes, that’s an $8,000 savings, at least. Why would you write such a thing.

R141, I have to wonder what kind of life your grandmother had with her father if becoming a teenage prostitute seemed like a better option.

Perhaps grandma wanted cock

Sometimes, it is as simple as that

Grandma loved big dicks pile driving her 1920s pussy

I didn't question that as much as I questioned why she would save these letters for someone to find after she died. It's along the lines of Monica saving the cum stained blue dress.

R141---Your Grandma Live a Life, with aspects she did not discuss with her children and grandchildren. She kept it from them but not out of shame. The letters were left so people could know her true life story after she was gone.

[quote]I didn't question that as much as I questioned why she would save these letters for someone to find after she died. It's along the lines of Monica saving the cum stained blue dress.

Did she intentionally save the letters for others to find after she died? Maybe she saved them for the pleasure of having them, for the connection to her own past, Maybe she thought, "I should do something with these: burn them, donate them to the Museum of Whoring, sell them on Ebay, frame each one and have them displayed around my coffin..."? But she never got around to doing it.

[quote]Museum of Whoring

Coming soon to the Mall in Washington: "The Melania Trump Museum of Whoring"

Be best! And leave money with man at door.

The Smithsonian National Museum of Whoring, the newest Smithsonian museum. Even more fun than pandas, dinosaurs, and the Hope Diamond!

R191 Are they doing an exhibition of Instagrams of the great instahoe whores of Dubai?

R150, I was picturing Eartha Kitt in [italic]Anna Lucasta.[/italic]

Not my relative, but a friend's. And not *in* the house, excactly. Friend's great-grandmother died, and for some reason the family needed to move the back and front steps...under which they found bones. Lots and lots of tiny human bones.

Turns out, in the pre-Roe era of the 1920s, some desperate women took to murdering their newborns rather than have another mouth to feed when all anybody had to eat was fatback and coush-coush. And since great-grandma was also a midwife, she did the deed for other women, as well.

But nobody who knew what had gone on ever breathed a word about it until great-grandma breathed her last. And even those people had no idea about the tiny bones beneath the porch steps.

I had an old attorney tell me that in my smallish midwestern home town it was standard practice in the 50's and 60's for the attorney representing the estate and the local banker to meet at the bank and open the deceased's safe deposit box to go through it for anything embarrassing before it was re-opened in front of the widow and/or the family.

Old love letters from girlfriends, porn, and, yes, evidence of Gay romances were all carefully removed and held by the attorney. He said it was very common, especially entanglements from their service in WWII.

R179: I’m with you, friend: Till I read your posts I forgot all about the harrassing letters I started getting from 2 credit card companies both based in Omaha. Why? My mother had maxxed both cards out, at $27K (seems paltry now) $$13K on each one. And she paid the minimum each month. Card credit doesn’t die with you in Florida— if the deceased had any estate left, they’ll drain it dry. So a lawyer friend of hers and I, by long distance writing, phoning, notarizing, etc. ran her estate thru probate and came out with her old original settlers property and falling down house sold, to be plowed under, with about the same amount to be split between sis and me. It seems silly, but thinking about my mother rummaging around in her giant purse for those cards, cruising round Vero and Sebastian with her new boyfriend, digging them out and acting line she was Somebody in her shades and double knot pantsuit...o, christ. Now I’m gonna laugh and cry at the same time. Anyway, thanks. R U lucky Pierre?

Double knit, not knot! And like, not line. I’ll never conquer this touchscreen keyboard.

[quote]My mother had maxxed both cards out, at $27K (seems paltry now)

No, it doesn't. It seems frightening.

This is a great thread.

R194 that story is eerily similar to one I know. There was a prominent turn of the century doctor here in my city (Jax Fl) who had built a mansion in a once prominent part of town that had one of the few cellars here. He died in the 50s,and the people who bought his house apparently found a bunch of baby skeletons in the basement . Since he was a "society" doctor obviously he was performing abortions on the upper class girls who couldnt keep their knickers on .

In Uncle Gus tool shed.

Aunt Seal's safety deposit box.

[quote]I was picturing Natalie Wood in “This Property is Condemned” while reading your post.

[quote]I was picturing Eartha Kitt in Anna Lucasta.

R193 I was picturing Paulette Goddard in the earlier version of Anna Lucasta.

Actually, I wasn't because I don't relate everything in real life to theater and films.

A few years back in Washington, DC, the last of three ancient sisters who lived in a big old falling-down house in Northwest died. When the house was cleaned out, the heirs found an old suitcase with a mummified baby in it.

^^ I would scream if I opened that suitcase. I know, MARY.

"Tool" shed, indeed, R201!

Might as well bump, BUMP!

What about the drag queen from Paris is Burning who when she died was exposed as having mummified a dead trick and hid him in her closet and then it was used as a storyline on Pose.

My father subscribed to Reader's Digest - both the magazine and the condensed books - for over 50 - 60 years.

He planned his estate well, and there were few matters to attend to when he died.

The most annoyed was Reader's Digest - they ignored the notice to cancel his subscriptions; kept sending the magazines and books; and sent increasingly threatening past-due and collection notices.

My brother and I agreed we didn't owe the money; it wouldn't be worth their while to file suit; and we would close probate too soon for them to file anyway.

But I was surprised at how nasty they were.

I can only guess the Reader's Digest demographic is dying off, and they've adopted these ridiculously aggressive measures - similar to what I've heard about Publishers Clearing House - to profit from intimidation.

[quote]A few years back in Washington, DC, the last of three ancient sisters who lived in a big old falling-down house in Northwest died. When the house was cleaned out, the heirs found an old suitcase with a mummified baby in it.

And those women were...the aunts of...

Amy Comey Barrett

who will not stop until she makes abortion illegal again

R210 shoe horns an awkward, cringe inducing political statement into a (formerly) enjoyable thread.

Oh dear, R211. How does a delicate little snowflake like you make it through life.

What was the controversy around Milton Hershey's death?

Did he choke on Reese's Cup?

Drown in a vat of chocolate?

Sorry your lame joke fell flat, R212.

This is one of the best threads on DL.

[quote]Sorry your lame joke fell flat, R212.

I'm not R210 and I think his / her joke was just fine.

R213 Not so much his death, but his life. Hershey and his wife were childless and there was no heir to the Hershey fortune, instead they set up a boy’s orphanage and trade school, which upon his death received a majority share in the company and is its primary benefactor and remains strong in voting power on the board.

Supposedly, Milton was a frequenter of whore houses and his wife Kitty was a common whore when he first met her. Either she gave him syphilis, or he contracted it from other dalliances. But that is the reason they could not have children and also traveled the world seeking a treatment and a cure. Hiding the truth that they had a sexual transmitted disease and were on the verge of being blackmailed or its exposure ruining the wholesome nature of the candy company was a continued tension throughout life. To this day the archive tries to dismiss the story as hearsay despite it being explored in a recent well received biography. Medical notes might hold direct clues in medications or treatments he was taking confirming his ongoing treatment for syphilis.

Bump

Refresh the queue.

The guy who found pics of his father, stepfather and mom fucking, if your father died, exactly how did you father fuck your stepfather? Didn't you post that your mom married your stepfather after your bio father died?

Do people here proofread their posts BEFORE posting?

Did you father know your stepfather before he died? Were they friends? Not shock by them being Born Agains, most religious people are hypocrites.

[quote]No one could figure out how that 90+ year old, 5'1" woman could get that incredibly heavy thing up onto that hook.

This was easy to figure out, the 90+ year old likely hung up the stockings on the hook, then slowly filled them with the heavy coins. Think of hanging up a Christmas stocking, then filling it with small gifts.

My dad left behind some videos of "teenage girls pissing their pants".

Tiny paper boats and origami-esque folded paper, folded mostly from the waxed paper wrappings of Hall's cough lozenges.

More than 20 were found sorting out my mother's house after her death. My father, who had died 8nor 9 years earlier, had made them and tucked them with some care atop door moldings, in little out of reach corners of closet shelves, in protected, out of sight places.

I recall him showing me when I was quite young how to make a simple boat and a couple of other things from bits of folded paper, gum wrapper foil, a dollar bill, but I never saw him make any outside of teaching me those few times.

A fucking huge, perfectly smooth ball of foil made from the compressed foil wrappings inside cigarette packs, accumulated over what must have been decades.

After Mom died, my sister and I had to clear out Mom’s apartment. I suppose I’d always known that Mom had been a bit of a shopaholic. But I was astonished that in her one-bedroom apartment she’d had the space to store hundreds of handbags, each in its own sleeve. And then the shoes! But none of that was surprising.

The odd thing we found? Two framed photographs, one of my my stepfather with Ed Sullivan, the other of him with Lena Horne. Guessing they were taken in the early 60s (years before he met my mother).

I snagged the shot with Lena Horne, tickled to see her face on my wall. (Though, TBH, I was never very fond of my stepfather.)

And you thought R210 was making a bad joke.

Not me, but my sister found a ring in a fishing lure box in an abandoned house in Oneonta, N.Y. where she was in college. The lure box was the only thing in the house. The ring was the only thing in the box. She took it. It was silver a weird dragon with claws which looked like they should be holding a stone or something.

She hung onto the ring, but rarely wore it. She married an Italian guy with this dodgy, mobbed up sort of family. One day a few years into the marriage she was wearing the ring. She had put a piece of coral between its claws. Her father in law who was a very grim guy asked her where she got the ring. She told him. He said he had made that ring many years before when he was in the plating & jewelry business. She said, he smiled creepily & said he only made the one. It was a special job. He told her she might not like wearing it since it was bad luck. The man who had it made said it was for a woman he couldn't make up his mind about. He wasn't sure if he loved her, or if her head belonged in the trunk of his car. The woman disappeared shortly thereafter.

My sister did not stay married to the guy. During the divorce, there were more than one unpleasant experience, usually involving her cars.

I once had a dear friend who found weird things in a dead relative's house, and then [italic]she[/italic] died!

Good story, R227!

My Very Proper Aunt had a vibrator in a nice bag shaped like an apple.

This isn't about a dead relative's house, but it's weird and funny.

A friend's mom owned a two family house with her late husband. The house was in Brooklyn. The home owner usually rented the empty apartment to students, for short leases. She allowed the young tenants to store items in the basement.

One young woman lived there about 5 years, she told the old lady she was going to leave some stuff behind. The old lady, thinking there might be some nice items, said OK. The old woman was shocked to find boxes of dildos in many different sizes, vibrators and S&M related stuff, such as bondage masks, whips, nipple clamps etc.

The home owner showed the items to her son, my friend, who was just laughing as he looked into the boxes.

What was particularly odd, the former female tenant was a nerdish bookish type and extremely quiet. The son told his mom, the woman might have been an escort. The mom said, there was never any loud noise, no sex sounds or a parade of men going to see the young woman. The mom said, in all the years the woman lived there, she barely had any visitors.

It's a mystery why all that stuff was in the basement, unless the former tenant 'escorted' somewhere else or was selling those items. My friend said, none of the items looked new.

Getting rid of that stuff was embarrassing for my friend's elderly mother, she didn't want the sanitation men to see that stuff in with her regular weekly garbage and recyclables. My friend put the boxes in his car, then dumped them on some secluded Brooklyn street.

a dead relative

That's funny, r228. I knew a girl who found things who found weird things in a dead relative's house, and then she died!

After my supervisor's very Christian and casually racist 60-something maiden aunt died suddenly, her daughter found a giant black dildo in the night stand.

Too cool r231, I'm betting on out-calls especially if the equipment didn't look new. Smart chick, never do business like that in-house. The stuff should have been sealed if she were selling it, who wants a used dildo?

Some emails to another relative saying I looked fat in the Christmas pictures and “must be very unhappy”, but my wanker brother looked so “tall and lean.”

I’m also tall, you cunt!

R227, that guido father deserved a loudly bellowed “MARY!!!” after his Embarrassingly Sicilian Tale.

“And when they got to the movies, there was a hook hand on the outside of the Uber door!”

My brother attempted suicide (he walked in front of a moving car). A failed attempt, he didn't die but was in the ER and my mom had me drive to his apartment, where he lived alone, and feed his cat. While feeding the cat and giving her some love, I saw that his kitchen counter was absolutely covered by unpaid bills, past due notices. They were all spread out. Things were really bad for him and none of us had known (there were addiction issues, alcohol and opioids). But the worst part was, he'd never been much for housekeeping. There were ants crawling all over the unpaid bills, just tons of ants attracted to leftover food everywhere. It reminded me of the maggot-filled meat in Poltergeist.

It was like for a second I could feel the despair that drove him out the door and into the nearest intersection. Never did I set foot in that apartment again. This was also at dusk, so it made it even creepier. This apartment where we'd hung out and had so much fun suddenly felt inhospitable, a concluded chapter. Nothing supernatural, just the grim image of ants swarming on a quilt of debts.

My brother survived but with a traumatic brain injury that completely changed his personality; he became a violent alcoholic and eventually a rabid conspiracy type. It's left me feeling very lonely but I have close, long-running gay friendships and they are my brothers instead. I suspect I will outlive my unstable brother and end up cleaning out his apartment, Mom is not going to be able to do that and I'm the only sibling.

Not a weird thing in normal situations, but... After one of my grandmother's passed, I came across the backmassager I had used to psuedo-masturbate at like 8/9 when visiting my grandmother's house. The weird part is I kept it. Don't judge me.

[quote]Too cool [R231], I'm betting on out-calls especially if the equipment didn't look new. Smart chick, never do business like that in-house. The stuff should have been sealed if she were selling it, who wants a used dildo?

True, who would buy a used dildo, then again, some people buy dirty underwear. The old lady home owner would have fainted if she found a box of those!

That's a terrible story R238; when we cleaned out the house of my spinster great-aunt, the place was neat & tidy, but you could tell she'd been trying to stave off complete poverty. My mom found some records that she'd been selling family furniture to antique dealers just to get back. I didn't really know her well - I always remember her as being a bit dotty - but it made me sad to think that her life had become a such a lonely struggle to stay above water, all while making everyone else believe that things were just fine & dandy

I cleaned out my spinster aunts one bedroom apartment last summer. She was a very heavy, mentally I’ll woman with severe anxiety. No one in the family will speak to her, even though she’s in a nursing home and getting hospice care. I found the book The Joy of Sex at her place. That was a shocker.

r238: How's his cat?

Your family sounds horrible, r242.

Maybe he was a serial killer, OP. Keeping trophies of his kills (wallet = ID, like BTK).

R84 and R194 again.

Last Friday I immediately thought of this thread and some of your revelations that were similar to mine @R194.

Wondering just how many tiny human bones will be unearthed 50-70 years from Friday's SCOTUS reversal of Roe v Wade, and all the state trigger laws that immediately killed legal abortion THAT VERY DAY.

I wonder if the anti-choice obsessives can answer this question: "Which is more painful and cruel--being aborted as an embryo before 12 weeks...or being a full-term neonate who gets smothered, poisoned, abandoned in a field, or has its head bashed in?"

The US will start looking like The Killing Fields.

My oldest relatives always said "If they ever drain the rivers [for example] Pearl, Mississippi, Tombigbee; Lakes Pontchartrain, Hartwell; and the Everglades, Okefenokee, and Devil's Swamp, they're going to reveal all those poor blacks lynched then thrown in the water with gin fans chained around their necks:"

And who knows how many Mob dumping grounds in the desert, oceans, and landfills.

This SCOTUS ruling will make those look like child's play.

What's a gin fan?

No it's not R164, it's an Antony Jeselnik joke.

In the early '90s, one of the two French professors at the small college I attended—a delightfully flamboyant queen who stood out even at a school well known for being welcoming to gays—died of a sudden heart attack at home.

When he didn't show up for work, a friend of mine who had been one of his first-year French students broke into his house and found him facedown in a bowl of chili.

The same student took it upon himself to de-gay his house before his elderly sisters arrived from Mississippi to clean it out. Not surprisingly, he had an extensive collection of dildos, buttplugs, porn, cock rings, etc.

That was very kind of your friend, R248.

A bunch of my missing home accessory items on display. I got so fucking mad!