Yikes. Don't allow him to scatter his stuff all over your house. The extra dishes should go into whatever room you've agreed to use as his hoarding room. Get your own mortgage while prices are low and let him deal with his old house in the manner he sees fit. You certainly don't want your landlord to sell to someone else, forcing you to live in DH's former house! My DH has become a pack-rat as he approaches old age. I haven't been able to park my car in the garage in about 10 years. His office is so cluttered that I had to quit working as his secretary/bookkeeper. If any of his 'collections' creep into other areas of the house, I ask him to move it to 'his' room. If he doesn't, I throw it away. He knows it's a problem because he has a difficult time finding things when he needs them. He has tossed all of his junk many times over the years - usually after he has spent days searching for his keys or whatever. The downside is that he then spends a lot of money replacing all the junk he tossed. Why the gradual change in my DH? I believe it is because his financial situation has improved - successful business plus no more alimony or child support means if one new drill is good, three new drills are better! But, I really don't know and I'm not a shrink. In couples therapy we negotiated the 'one room only and you do your own friggin' paperwork' deal, so we live in relative peace. He'll need one-on-one therapy if he decides to address his issue. You can't change your DH. From reading your other thread it appears he was hoarding when you married him. You just have to figure out a way to deal with it -- or not. The fact that you are newlyweds and he's already calling you names is more problematic than the mess at his old house, imo. ymmv.

Janet- I think TS and the others have given you a lot of support and advice. I don't think anyone once said not to help your parents. I think rather we just feel you need to rethink the way you are viewing this... change your filter if you will. Your original post gave me the impression that you felt you had to organize it FOR them, do the work FOR them, and do it all by yourself with help from DH. My thought right away was rather than doing it FOR them it should be WITH them. Maybe I just didn't understand what you were trying to get across? I agree with TS. And what you wrote in a later post indicates she is right. Your parents are very capable of taking care of themselves and of moving themselves. That comes across when you point out how much they have already thrown away and packed up by themselves. They have done more than you expected. While I think this is has the potential of being overwhelming, it really isn't your job. By that I mean, it is not your job to 'wrestle it to the ground' by yourself. Your parents will be the ones to direct this and decide what they are going to ultimately keep and not keep etc. It sounds like they are doing a great job and don't need you worrying about planning it all by yourself. In fact, I imagine they would be hurt to think that you don't think they can organize it themselves with some manual labor help from you. I guess what I'm getting at here is not a critique of what you are doing but rather a thought along the lines of - take care of yourself. Don't take more on than you have to or can take on. Allow your parents the luxery of your faith that they are adults and will do fine without your organizing FOR them. It seems that maybe you and your family, parents, sisters, etc who are helping need to have a pow wow of sorts. Sit down and tell your parents that you are worried about lots of stuff/smaller house and what can you do to help them. I imagine they know exactly what they need from you. And during this discussion would be a great time to provide your advice- a dumpster, no garage sale, etc. whatever. But as you said- every family is different. What would work with my parents will NEVER work with my inlaws. Each of us can merely offer some thoughts for you to take or not as you will. I think the idea of you and your siblings taking stuff that used to be yours back to your home is a brilliant idea. My mother in law can't throw anything away. Every year we go there we pull home several boxes of stuff to PRESUMABLY throw away. However, DH doesn't and that is another story. When I was a adult in my own home, my parents requested that I take all of my stuff out of their home. I think it is just respectful that if I want to keep it, I store it in my home. Maybe by you and your siblings taking back ownership of some of your old things would help. I also agree with much of what Steve O and Lazygarden wrote- be as efficient as possible. They had some very useful advice. When we moved my hsuband into this house and he is a saver to the extreme - we split up the rooms. I moved one room and he packed up the other. This gave me the opportunity to toss stuff and hm the opportunity to keep stuff. It cut the clutter we would have moved in half. Maybe you can do something like this? OF course, he trusted me then to know I wouldn't throw away anything he truly needed or wanted to keep. Whatever. It's late and I'm sure this won't come across nearly like I think it is. Good luck. Ginger

Wow, I know about hoarding old appliances. My mom (an 82-year-old widow)has four refrigerators. One in the house, three in the garage. One is totally broken, the other two plugged in and running. The story of the broken one is amusing: she had these three refigerators plugged in in the garage and running. She used them for her "extra" stuff. Sh'ed buy stuff on sale and keep it either in the fridge or freezer compartments. She even bought extra Valentine chocolates. Anyway, one month her electric bill was over $700. Wow! My brother came over, did some scouting around and found one of the garage fridges (with a huge freezer) was running constantly. The thermostat had broken and it just never shut off. He unplugged it and emptied it, found all kinds of old stuff, even an eight- year- old frozen chicken! Yuck! But my mom didn't want him to throw out the darned refrigerator because the town had to be called and she'd have to pay to get the thing hauled away. And so it sits in her garage, just a pile of broken metal. She also had an ugly old hutch in the kitchen. I mean, she bought it for cheap about thirty years ago. It was all ugly and the fake-wood veneer was severly chipped off from various dings and general use. She had my brother put it in the living room,tipped on it's side. Now it's just a plain eyesore. I dread the day she passes away, we'll have to deal with her fourty years of accumulations. But that will be another post/ rant...

Beverly, I have his motorcycle here at my house along with a ton of other things LOL...I really miss him after having him with me since he was born....it's been hard not having him here with me now!He was my little road buddy from the day he was born we went everywhere together, and cooking buddy, and loved to watch scary movie buddy..... and play on the computer.......... and his games.... I taught him how to work the computer when he was just 1yrs old...he is excellent working electronics......far beyond his age! Red