When your parents sell the house you grew up in

Posted by NachoNachoDan@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 325 comments

Anybody’s parents still own the house you grew up in? I’ve been seeing some post of people showing old collections of cards or pogs or other toys or collectibles that you probably left at your parents house when you moved out. My parents moved out of the house we grew up in maybe five years ago or so and part of it was culling 30 years worth of accumulated crap. A lot of which was stuff my brothers and I had left behind as we all took turns moving out of the house. I’m totally fine with all the old baseball cards and beanie babies and trolls no longer existing. I’ve got one medium size Tupperware container that contains any of the stuff that was too for me to part with but that’s about it. In a lot of ways I’m glad the whole family has moved on and we don’t have this legacy down the road of a house full of crap no one seen in 30+ years to deal with down the road. It’s also a little sad we can’t go back anymore.

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Carvana-Throwaway@reddit

My parents sold their house about 4 years ago, it was the one my sister and I grew up in. It is absolutely wild what they paid for it in ‘93 vs what they sold for in ‘20. Anyway, it was pretty bittersweet. My parents had us go over to the house and go through crates full of stuff that we had collected over 35 years. I managed to fit what I wanted in one box and took that with me. I think the sad part was looking around my court and realizing I had been in every single house on our court at some point because everyone had kids. Now there was only 5-6 original families out of the 15 houses on our court and I didn’t know any of them. I’ll never forget riding bikes all over the neighborhood, playing catch in the backyard with the smell of my dad cooking chicken on the grill…man, where does the time go? Wish I could do it all over again

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Pilzoyz@reddit

One time you when outside and played with your friends for the last time and likely didn’t realize it.

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Captain_Desi_Pants@reddit

This. And if you have kids now, really think about this when you’re playing with them. Mine are in high school and I think about it randomly sometimes and tear up. One day you will pick up and put down your child for the last time, and you won’t realize it when it happens. Don’t throw y’all’s backs out trying to pick up and cuddle your big kids, now.

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thecuriousblackbird@reddit

My dad hurt his back really bad when I was little. I’m pretty sure we both remember the last time he picked me up and swung me around by my shoulders. The last time he picked me up was when I was 14ish and sliced the shit out of my foot on an oyster shell. He saw my foot flayed open and picked me up and ran to the truck yelling for my mom to throw him some towels. But yeah, most of the time nobody remembers.

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

Our 5 year old sliced his foot on a shell in a creekbed last summer tubing. I won't forget that scenario. My husband ran/walked back to our van through a summer camp (no one was around to ask for a first aid kit). I had to hold my son's foot closed, keep the 3 year old from falling in, and hold my husband's tube, and not run into the grassy edges of the creek. Should have had husband bring the tube back with him.

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thecuriousblackbird@reddit

I can imagine how awful that was for everyone. We were very friendly with our next door neighbors, and my brother and I would play with their little kids and watch them like babysitters. Their son was 4 and was walking around their pool with a little glass aquarium he’d been given. We caught a hermit crab or something and put it in the little aquarium with some water (that species lives in water) to make it easier for the kids to examine them. He tripped and fell on the aquarium which shattered right before he fell. I was able to catch him by the torso so his head and body didn’t hit the ground, but he sliced his arm open. I tried to hold the cut together while my dad grabbed a towel. The dad was also close by. He picked his son up as my dad put the towel around the boy’s arm. They ran straight to the car to take him to the hospital. The mom had been getting the keys and ran to the passenger side door. My dad pulled her back and jumped in the car instead. The mom was in school for pre med and became a doctor. She was about 8 years younger than her husband and had their kids young as an agreement with her husband to then let her go back to school. I really enjoyed playing with her kids so I didn’t mind playing with them while she studied. She was pretty pissed at my dad for removing her from the car where her son was. It was the 80s, and it took time for the old attitudes about women not being able to handle situations like that to diet. My dad had been in law enforcement and had been trained in first aid and emergency response. My dad did apologize to her and felt bad that he inserted himself in that situation where mom should have been. My dad was a feminist and was trying to change from the beliefs he’d grown up with. Instinct took over. Thankfully the boy didn’t have to have surgery, but it was a very deep wound. I do think they sedated him to sew him up because they had to do internal stitches and clamp really hard to stop the bleeding as they went. It wasn’t easy to keep him away from the water and dirt. I spent time with him watching tv and playing inside which he wasn’t allowed to do when it was nice outside. The kids always always always wore life jackets anytime they were outside. With the pool and bay behind our houses there was always a risk. To swim in the pool an adult had to be present, and we were invited to swim most of the time because the kids wanted us to, plus it was more eyes on them. We also wore life jackets whenever we were in any boats or kayak. Seeing us wear our life jackets made it easier for the kids to wear theirs because they didn’t associate it with being babies.

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

Wow quite the story. There are some cases that are iffy on do we go to urgent care, and thankfully our son's could be treated at home. He did a few months later get 9 stitches on the top of his foot from kicking ice outside with his barefeet. That was a quick get to the car scenario, then urgent care said it may be better to go to the ER so he can be sedated but he's a good, calm, brave guy (age 5), and he didn't move.

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Fight_those_bastards@reddit

My friends and I still “play” outside sometimes. My friend has a farm, and we fuck around on his tractors and front end loaders. Last year, we built a big berm for a rifle range and a trail for our ATVs. We’re all in our 40s. As they say, the difference between men and boys is simply the price of their toys.

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

I've built all the things I didn't have: A real, weather-tight treehouse that sleeps 5, a zip line, a tree swing, a gymnastics room in the basement, a 7-foot trampoline in our boys' bedroom, a garden, and we have lots of wheeled toys--not just bikes. The result is our 4 kids have a blast outside and we own no screens other than a work computer, one smart phone, and the family tv--no video games.

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DocBrutus@reddit

My grandmothers parents paid a little over $500 for the land their house is on. They built the house themselves. It’s still standing. Today that house is over $400,000. My mother should have kept it and sold it when it was time to retire. She sold it the day my grandmother passed. Bet ya she’s kicking herself in the ass for that.

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Carvana-Throwaway@reddit

$500?! Jeez! My parents bought theirs for $123k and sold for $415k after 27 years

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

My parents bought theirs for 76k in '96 and sold for 93k in '21.

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DocBrutus@reddit

They bought the land in the early half of the 1900’s from what was told to me.

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No_Incident_5360@reddit

If you can wait, wait to sell in real estate

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tonyrocks922@reddit

My parents are in a house that my great grandfather bought around 100 years ago for $3,000, now worth about $1.8 million.

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DocBrutus@reddit

JFC that’s insane.

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Ricky_Rollin@reddit

Man…you hit the nail on that one. I’m 39 now and I long for those days. We lived in a decently populated area but we still had woods and a little lake and we’d ride bikes all over the neighborhood and go fishing with poles we made ourselves out of a stick and some fishing line. I remember one time my sister and I got the WHOLE neighborhood of kids to come together and play street hockey. This was at the height of Mighty Ducks popularity.

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beetlejuicemayor@reddit

This seems like a dream NOW. My neighborhood is filled with kids but they don’t play with each other. My kids still don’t know many kids in the neighborhood of 3,000 homes where we have pools, lakes, basketball courts, tennis courts ect it’s very different these days. I would love for my kids to have what you had. Cherish those memories

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KurtzM0mmy@reddit

This sounds like a movie….did you at least throw one last rager party?

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No_Incident_5360@reddit

Or find an extraterrestrial or a hidden cave and pirate ship?

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Carvana-Throwaway@reddit

Yeah, I definitely had a few parties!

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monkey_house42@reddit

🥹

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Medium_Conclusion109@reddit

Wow! This hit hard thinking of what my kids will remember when they get that old. Like watching the end of Toy Story 3! Gets me every time. ![gif](giphy|zWn0QMLOj0Xuw)

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ShillinTheVillain@reddit

Well, that's a 10:30 a.m. Tuesday existential crisis I wasn't planning on.

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Neither-Magazine9096@reddit

Yeah, I’m feeling kinda panicked now

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geekgirlwww@reddit

Yeah we had a close knit street too. My parents worked crazy hours when I was in middle school and my mom said she was only able to do that and keep our heads above water was because I could walk into five different houses and get fed or help if needed.

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media-and-stuff@reddit

My mom got rid of all my stuff. They didn’t move, she just sucks. She even threw away my diary’s and letters from friends, books with poetry and art. The diary’s were tiny ones, I don’t get how someone could just throw that kind of stuff away without asking. She even got rid of stuff after I asked her to stop and please keep XYZ or at least give me the option to have it shipped to me if she was sick of it being in her house.

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CritterEnthusiast@reddit

Same, just a sucky mom lol. She and her new husband sold our house when I was 16, kicked me out, threw away *all* the pics of me growing up. I have 1 pic of myself as a kid, I'm 5 and bottle feeding a baby raccoon. My dad has a couple of my school pics from early elementary that he saved. Those 3 pics are the only ones my kid has ever seen of me as a child. Sometimes I need to remember why I haven't talked to her since 2012 and why she's never met my kid. Good reminder, thanks lol

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

Wow!! My mom was on the opposite extreme. Kept every paper, report card, notebook, pencil, used up Crayola watercolor set, etc. but I kept telling myself and my husband at least she didn't throw it all away and gave me the choice. I try to keep a happy medium of keeping the most poignant art, and every time I have photos printed, I print one for each kid that's in the photo and date the back (sometimes just the year) and put them in a photo box (much like a shoebox). I hope to only have contributed a bookbox amount of items to their adult abode, and whatever they want to keep in the teen years is up to them. I bet you could call up your schools and ask for digital pictures or copies of your school pictures. If you could visit your school, you could search your yearbooks for extra pics of you. Doesn't replace all of your pics but it would be something.

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HedgehogCremepuff@reddit

Im glad you and your kid aren’t involved with her anymore.

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kidwithgreyhair@reddit

I hear you, and same.

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happy_nekko@reddit

When I left for college, I left 2 shoeboxes clearly labeled “memory boxes - keep” in my bedroom closet. Inside were items belonging to my dead mother & grandmother (including a wallet my dad hand-made for my mom), photos, and small items with high sentimental value. My feet are small, so these weren’t large shoeboxes. My thinking was these precious items would be safer at my parents’ house than college dorms. My stepmom threw out the contents of the boxes without notifying me, and then **re-used the boxes to store her 1978 paper bank statements**! The bank statements were over 20 years old by then. Wtf? (She also threw out my mom’s jewelry box, but my dad saw it in the garbage can & pulled it out) I’m still pissed. I was only 2 hours away. I would have come home to get the shoeboxes, or my dad & stepmom could have brought them to me when they visited.

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sambashare@reddit

I've never met your stepmom, but she sounds like a raging cunt...

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media-and-stuff@reddit

That’s awful! I’m sorry. I had the same logic with my diary’s and letters, I was used to my nosey mom/family and nosey friends, anyone that could get their hands on that stuff in my life would read it. So I didn’t want to bring it with me because I assumed everyone was the same. I don’t think my new friends would have is the funny part. The friends I made on my own respected boundaries.

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HedgehogCremepuff@reddit

Ugh I’m so sorry. I was an avid journaler and artist and I would have gone ballistic if that stuff got thrown away. Luckily all my mom threw out was about 100 Archie comic digests.

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media-and-stuff@reddit

Thanks, I have huge gaps in my memory from my childhood so it’s extra frustrating as those letters and diary’s could have filled some in. She probably threw it away after reading something about her she didn’t like. That many Archie’s coulda make some cool art.

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HedgehogCremepuff@reddit

I was devastated at the time but my mom was around the age I am now and I can understand being a little fed up with the mess 😅 Oof that’s ridiculous. My dad did something similar after my mom died, read something he didn’t like in my grief journal. That’s a whole other can of worms though. I hope you are drinking enough water and taking good care of yourself today!

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Turbulent-Pea-8826@reddit

My mother did this before I ever moved out. She just got rid of toys if I stopped playing with them or outgrew them. Never had a chance for anything to accumulate.

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media-and-stuff@reddit

Same. It was so annoying. I’d go looking for something one day and it would just be gone. I had so many cool toys I wish I still had honestly. One time they gave me this totally age inappropriate toy, like a wood burning kit (freaking hazard lol) and by the time I was old enough I wanted to play with it, it was gone. A friend of theirs had visited and they just gave it to them.

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uwu_mewtwo@reddit

My mom threw away a bunch of stuff I wish hadn't been thrown away, but she gave me fair notice. I was just a young shithead who couldn't be bothered. She saved a small box of stuff that was, in her estimation, too precious to dispose even despite swearing she wouldn't sort my shit for me. There's a bunch of other stuff I wish I had bothered to care for.

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madogvelkor@reddit

That happened to my wife as soon as she left for college.

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DamarsLastKanar@reddit

They waited until the summer after I graduated highschool. My mom's MS made it difficult to go up and down stairs. I didn't want to move, but it was made easier that I had been dorming my first year of uni. I was more devastated when my grandma sold her property. Those 40 acres were a summer staple.

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

My grandma's house, which was in a beautiful HOA next to a private university, became a venue for druggy rock bands. You kind of can't blame fate, though, because she didn't fix structural issues, kept the 1950's wallpaper, carpet, kitchen, etc. Same for most of the other houses, then they don't sell well and the neighborhood becomes a bad neighborhood eventually.

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moodysmoothie@reddit

Is it common for families to have farms? Is that an American thing?

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DamarsLastKanar@reddit

No, not really. That's where my grandparents retired. Back when you could just BUY 40 ACRES AND BUILD A HOUSE while working a modest single-income job.

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Hot_Razzmatazz316@reddit

This. I would be devastated if my Nanny or my uncle (who will most likely inherit her house) ever sold it. So many memories there. And I mean, they've lived there for like 60 years now. Because of the location and size of the property, he could probably sell it for a million (it's been paid off for years and they paid like $50,000 for it, maybe).

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DamarsLastKanar@reddit

As a teen, I didn't give much thought to my old house. But The Farm, I assumed would stay in the family, ya know?

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Hot_Razzmatazz316@reddit

Right? I get that. You think your parents would just be ready to move on and pass it down to the next generation. I think that's what used to happen.

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International_Bend68@reddit

Land is just worth so much now that most descendants can’t wait to sell as soon as they inherit it. Thats what my cousins are waiting for on one side of the family. All I can do is make sure that what I inherit gets passed on for at least one more generation. It’s sad because once you sell family land, there’s only a .000000001% chance that you can never get it back. Just too darn expensive for one person to buy out the rest of the family.

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BrashPop@reddit

Our farm is gone too, and it’s so bloody sad. The new owners just left the 100+ year old house to rot in a field. I have a lot of big emotions on family property and selling it off.

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goblyn79@reddit

Yeah same my grandparent's house being sold after my grandmother had a stroke and had to move in with family was the worst for me, its been over 25 years since then and it still makes me sad knowing that I'll never go back to her house again. When she moved she asked me if there was anything special I wanted, and out of all the various things in her house that had sentimental value to me the thing I wanted most was this set of plastic Christmas ornaments that I loved as a little kid, unfortunately in the whole process of selling things and moving they got misplaced and I have no idea what happened to them. Luckily I did get some other various things from family members that I remember from being a kid, so I have something physical to help me connect to that time of my life. But I'd trade all of it for just one last Christmas or summer vacation at Nana's house.

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HedgehogCremepuff@reddit

When my grandma died I was living out of state so everyone had already claimed most stuff and I felt weird picking something. I wound up taking a little mirror and a clay skeleton ornament. I loved the skeleton but it got damaged in my many moves. Instead of repairing it I threw it away in a fit of trying not to be a hoarder. Later my aunt told me they would tell grandma it was her husband (he died first) and I felt so bad for throwing away grandpa’s skeleton 🤣

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ilikemushycarrots@reddit

My folks went on vacation when I was 15. Like where they went so they decided to move. I decided to stay. No clue what happened to my stuff

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bolunez@reddit

Grandma's house is the tough one.

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FreezingRobot@reddit

My parents sold my childhood home....to me. At a deep family discount, of course. Hopefully someday I can do it for my son as well, if he wants to stick around this area.

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Specialist_Noise_816@reddit

My parents did that for my little brother. Sold it to him for basically what they had paid twenty years earlier. Kinda nuts. I didnt realize at the time what I was being ok with. Ive been homeless twice since then.

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

Insane! I keep reminding myself to treat our kids as evenly as possible. And stay out of their wedding wishes.

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thecuriousblackbird@reddit

It’s a shame they didn’t do something like a reverse mortgage for half the appraised amount so your brother would have a reduced mortgage and you’d get half the house value to help you in your life.

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bolunez@reddit

Mine are building a new house now and have told me already that it's mine if I want it when they're too old to live there. I really don't know if I could shag in my parent's bedroom though.

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ihavenoidea81@reddit

New furniture, new flooring and some new paint should erase the thought of your dad pounding your mom up against the dresser

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International_Bend68@reddit

And the bathroom counter, shower, etc.

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ihavenoidea81@reddit

Etc. indeed. It’s always gross to think about your parents doing it but more than likely all the crazy stuff we do as adults, they most likely did as well if not worse. My kids would puke if they knew what I’ve done with their mother

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NachoNachoDan@reddit (OP)

By dad you mean me, right?

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xmadjesterx@reddit

It was the same for me. I brought friends in to help with maintenance during college. All of them were studying crafts, so there was an electrical engineer, a plumber, and then another friend of mine and I handled the structural aspects. It really was the best idea for all of us, as we all saved money on rent and home maintenance. The mortgage was just a little over 2k, and a small apartment in this area was about 1400 a month at the time, so grouping together for a large house rather than having individual apartments just made sense. I live here with my wife, dog, and bird now. We hope to have a little one exploring soon. I just hope that they're more like my wife. I don't know if I could handle a mini me. I can already see the parent-teacher conferences, and it terrifies me

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ihavenoidea81@reddit

You’ll be surprised at what you can handle. You can do it man

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stayinhome-9618@reddit

My parents didn't live in the my last childhood house for many years and my dad would travel back and create new projects (let's paint the woodwork that's already painted, rip down the wallpaper, etc.) just to sell it for a little more in a town that would never value it at a little more. My dad died suddenly 3 years ago, so my sister and mom had to travel back on weekends many hours away to go through almost 30 years of junk, a lot of which was damaged by mice or water. I was still nursing a baby so I couldn't partake. My parents had moved enough junk to their new property to fill 2 barns and a dilapidated house my dad also worked on. My sister says it will be my turn to go through their junk when Mom dies. I will hire an estate sale company and/or a dumpster "just point" service. No way I'm sorting through it all.

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VelocityGrrl39@reddit

My maternal grandfather was born in the house I grew up in. It’s been there for 3 generations and hopefully will be there for a 4th and 5th. But it needs work.

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Maleficent-Taro-2665@reddit

She still lives in it! Alone! She’s finally got the whole house to herself and she couldn’t be happier about it. She watches the grandkids and they do sleep overs occasionally which she is always so excited for.

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pawned79@reddit

My father still lives in the house he and my mother had built in 1973 (my mother passed away this month). I sold my first house when my oldest child was 1yr, and then sold the house my wife and I had built when my oldest was 8yo (and youngest was 2yo). My oldest (now 13yo) still pines over the house she grew up in, because it was a nice secluded neighborhood with lots of kids bicycling around.

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Glendale0839@reddit

Once I graduated college and was living on my own, my parents would send me home with a few boxes of my childhood stuff every time I came to visit. A few years later there was little trace of me left. By the time they sold the house they owned for 40-plus years a few years ago, they had already spent a few years whittling down their own stuff to the bare minimum they wanted to take to their next house.

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JennasBaboonButtLips@reddit

My parents move out of state about 15 years ago. I still live near my childhood home and I yearn to own it every day I pass it.

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PM_ME_CORGI_BUTTS@reddit

Mine never owned a house

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DarkFae420@reddit

My gran passed this year. They had the same house through raising my birthgiver and uncles. Over 50 years. My own offspring have resided there a short time. Now that she's gone, the vultures have landed. Anything that *was* ours, we'll never see again. It'll be tossed our sold off. I'm more sad ill never walk through the kitchen just to mindlessly poke into the fridge and pantry like i did for 30+years, or ever smell grans cooking again...

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thecuriousblackbird@reddit

My in-laws still have *everything* from their 3 kids and all the crap they’ve kept. The family joke is that the kids are going to burn the house down when my in-laws die. They don’t own the house. The Christian university they worked for does, and the university went back on a lot of promises of retirement benefits they would receive.

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dacelikethefish@reddit

My mom still lives alone in it, renovating it with my (dead) dad's money. I have a lot of big, mixed feelings about it. So much trauma happened there, but there's part of me that desperately wants to find redemption by making it my own.

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christhomasburns@reddit

I'm encouraging my dad to sell his house. He's alone in a 5 bedroom house with a 2 bedroom mother-in-law. He makes excuses but I know he doesn't want to sell my mom's house. I get it but one man dies not need 7 bedrooms.

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Despises_the_dishes@reddit

My parents sold our house about 15 years ago. They “downsized”. My parents had a yard sale and sold everything including my vintage Schwinn stingray bikes, original GT BMX performer and Mach one, and my still working Nintendo with the robot and duck hunt. I’m still not over it. They just moved again about two years ago, and all the stuff that they schlepped with them, they put out in the front yard on three card tables and my siblings, and I had to come and pick through the stuff that we wanted to keep. The rest of it went in the trash. But I get it, no one’s parents want to hold onto their kids projects from first grade.

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TayPhoenix@reddit

My Mom won't sell the house and the land, she'll give it to me and move into town before she'd ever sell it. My Dad passed 4 years ago, and that was his plan, generational wealth. I can't wait to go back out there.

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UnOrDaHix@reddit

My parents split up in a scary, bad divorce so the last time I was in my family home, we had 6 hours to get things out and it was from a list we had to write from memory. Pretty much my whole childhood had to stay behind. Fortunately my husband has a lot of his stuff for our kid, but mine is just memories now.

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Googirlee@reddit

So my mom is still living in my childhood home. We moved in in '89; it was built in' 82. It's paid off and she's intending to sell it as is and move in with her boyfriend. She took it personally that I didn't want to buy the house from her. No, mom, I don't want to buy and live in the house that loneliness, anxiety, and sadness built. But thanks anyway.

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ItsMissiBeaches@reddit

I am 40 and just moved back into my childhood home. The house has been vacant for 3 years. I recently decided my own home needs to be torn down (bought cheap, knew it might happen). I absolutely hate being here. I haven't lived here in 20 years and the memories aren't great. I'm fortunate to have somewhere to live (cheap) while I build my dream home. As soon as I can leave this place, I will, and if I didn't need the money from the eventual sale of this house, I'd burn it to the ground.

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SoupyBlowfish@reddit

My parents divorced and sold the house ages ago. It was for sale a bit ago and my sister toured it. A friend had to help her parents sell theirs to move to assisted living. It was quite a process. Time only moves forward. Reality can’t compete with the nostalgia of memory.

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Negative-Wrap95@reddit

My parents got rid of all of my stuff long before they passed and we sold the house. I could easily spend my cut replacing the stuff I had.

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redundant35@reddit

My parents still live in the house I grew up in. My bedroom is pretty much untouched from when I left it 22 years ago. It’s a time capsule from 2001…

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anniemaxine@reddit

My dad lives alone in the house I grew up in - it's also the house he grew up in! It's a giant farmhouse with 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 1 half bath, an office, a utility room, and two living rooms. He is almost 68 years old and is redoing the entire thing himself now that he is retired. He is handy like that but, dang, I wish he'd chill a little. I will likely end up with the house. My sister is his only other child and her and her husband already own a house. I am not particularly interested in living in my hometown, but I will never be able to afford a home and this is likely my only opportunity. It sits on an acre of land and I look forward to someday having my own large garden and animals. I hope my dad lives a long life and my kids are out of the house when he dies. I don't know what I will do with such a big house but I won't have it in me to sell it. My dad also owns a cabin in northern Michigan that he has completely redone. He bought it in 1985ish. My sister and I will never let him sell it. We are a very very nostalgic family.

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Mendicant_666@reddit

Without asking, they gave away everything of mine, the second I went to college. They then rented the house to people they knew were drug addicts. The drug addicts ended up burning the house down.

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hedge823@reddit

My mother died when I was 18 and our family home was sold out from under me and I was on my own. Been that way ever since.

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Fight_those_bastards@reddit

My parents just dropped $100k fixing their house up. My parents are in their late 60s/early 70s, and they decided to do *all* of the big ticket items so that “you’re the next one that has to worry about it.”

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OneOSlow@reddit

Not me, but My buddy who’s in his 60’s knocked down his childhood home where he was pretty much born. House dated back to the early 1900’s. He did it a few years after his parents passed away and inherited the land. He said he had no feelings over it and that it would cost more to remodel and maintain. He put a double wide on the property which kinda makes sense.

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tuffgrrrrl@reddit

Wow. Guess he has zero nostalgia. I couldn't knock down a house that old especially if I had been born there. Sheesh lol

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AbbreviationsGlad833@reddit

The nice suburban house I grew up in was foreclosed when I was a teenager. Evicted by the police. We Had to store our things in the garages of our neighbors. Fucking embarrassing. Felt displaced ever since untill I was in my mid 20s and got my own apartment. Changed me as a person.

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NullainmundoPax1@reddit

Parents still live in the house they bought in 1979. Would like for them to begin decluttering and to downsize. For a while, I had this idea of buying their house, but then came to realize owning the space my childhood occurred in - despite being a very comfortable place and pleasant time - isn’t psychological healthy.

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tuffgrrrrl@reddit

It's not unhealthy in a typical sense but maybe there are reasons that's it's not healthy in your case. Plenty of families live in the same house across generations.

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geekgirlwww@reddit

Have them start now. My parents have only been in the house since the early 90s and it’s still ridiculous

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catforbrains@reddit

I wish I could do this with mine, but it would just set off my Dad screaming at me to mind my own business.

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geekgirlwww@reddit

Oh those type. Yeah mine have quickly learned they are getting matching effort from me what they invested (minimal). I really only know the progress because my middle brother has taken over as the families eldest daughter and started it when he was job hunting and living there and binge watched the Home Edit and Marie Kondo.

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miriamwebster@reddit

Just putting this out there. Is it interesting to anyone but me, how blessed a person can be to grow up and graduate from high school, out of one house? So many people in this world have been displaced by war, poverty, neglect… I really do feel thankful. Yet, still struggling either way totes full of memories. Fisher Price houses and Barbies.

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sourdoughobsessed@reddit

After we went no contact with my In-laws, they put their house on the market and it eventually sold. They left a vm for my husband letting him know it was on the market. I asked if he felt sad not saying goodbye to it and he said he had no good memories and everything there was just stuff so he didn’t care I know that we would have ended up with boxes of stuff if we were in contact with them of stuff he’d say matters but clearly doesn’t since he didn’t want it. My mom has been moving our stuff around. Someday I’ll get around to going through it and figuring out what’s worth shipping 3000 miles. Not anytime soon though!

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doobette@reddit

My parents lived together in my childhood home from 1978 to early 2017, when my dad passed away. My mom couldn't handle the upkeep of the house on her own, so she decided to sell it and downsize a couple of years later. Living there for 41 years, it was hard for her once she sold it and had to assimilate to her new home and surroundings. Her health then went into rapid decline starting in late 2020, and she passed away in late 2022. I live about 25 minutes from where I grew up, and I've driven by my childhood home a couple of times. It looks well taken care of, which is nice to see.

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vallogallo@reddit

My dad sold our family home a few years ago after my mom died. The insurance money paid off the rest of the mortgage (which they didn't owe much on at that point). He didn't want to bother with cleaning it out and remodeling and all that jazz and just sold it to some homebuying corporation, I told him to get a realtor and that there are ones that will work with "as-is" homes but he didn't listen to me. I bet he could've gotten an extra $80k at least. He left all the crap behind that we didn't want, and in my grief over my mother I didn't do a good job of digging through everything, so it was only much later that I was like "oh shit I wish I had saved [x thing]". The house was flipped of course and now it's a rental. I saw the realtor photos and it's awful. They really sucked all of the MCM charm out of it. Our den had wood paneling so of course that got painted over, but what really shocked me was that they painted the wood beams on the ceiling white. When we had it, every room was a different color, my bedroom was purple, my sister's was green, etc. Totally white after it got flipped. I'm not *too* broken up over it, but we bought the house in 1989 and I always had this fantasy of handing the keys over to the next family so they could enjoy it (I guess a family probably lives there now but they don't own it). And now I don't have a guaranteed place to stay in Nashville if I ever go back for whatever reason. (It was also close to the airport so super convenient.)

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Professional-Can9073@reddit

I’m going through this exact thing right now 😐😐😐

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jadedbeats@reddit

My parents moved several times while I still lived with them and they've moved several times since. Since moving out, I've moved multiple times. I have shit everywhere but I feel like a lot of my childhood stuff is flat out missing at this point. Kinda sad, but I'm well over it. I also legit have bo space for it lol

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Cynthia_inherdreams@reddit

I moved away from my childhood home and hadn't seen it in over a decade. When visiting some family I decided to drive by and reminisce. As I got there I didn't recognize it. The house was gone, so was the garage and barn. The entire lot had been remade into a new place and they dropped a trailer on it. I cried a little in the hotel that night.

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Highlander-Jay@reddit

I drove by my old house a few months ago. I hadn’t seen the house since the late 90s as I live pretty far away now. The house was still standing but hadn’t at least 3 additions. The biggest thing that stood out to me tho was the trees. We had a Cedar pine and a Poplar tree in the front yard. From the street it looked like I could barely get my arms around both trees. Their canopy had just about grown together and framed the house perfectly. That was really cool.

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knivesofsmoothness@reddit

That always makes me so sad. Growing up, we had these little pine trees on the south side of the house. Now they're like 40' tall, and the trees that were mature at the time are mostly gone now.

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legalpretzel@reddit

This happened with our vacation house where I spent many happy summer nights as a kid. My grandparents sold it when I was 20. I had always vowed that I would someday buy it back. We were in the area 3 years ago, so I drove by it to show my son and it was gone. In its place is an ugly, very out of place, 2 story house. On a street of quaint little cottages. I definitely cried that night.

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TK1129@reddit

I feel you. My grandparents owned at a vacation bungalow at the jersey shore. It was nothing crazy 2 bed 2 bath open living room dining room kitchen but for my grandparents who both grew up poor in apartments in the Bronx during the depression it was like owning a mansion especially since my grandpa bought it on a civil servants salary. I spent chunks of the summer there every year from birth until I was 16 when they sold it since they were getting old and couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. The following owners built two stories on top of it. The house was destroyed during hurricane sandy and last I checked the lot is still vacant. If I could afford it I’d buy the lot just to maybe one day out something on it

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snowmaker417@reddit

My stepsister and I graduated high school at the same time. Our parents then sold the house and moved into a house with two less bedrooms. They were just like, "...so what are you two planning on doing?"

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erinrachelcat@reddit

My parents divorced when I was 12 and sold the house shortly thereafter. My mom and I lived in a series of apartments and I never did end up accumulating toys and stuff like that. My mom was Marie Kondo-ing stuff way before Marie Kondo existed, probably a reaction to living with my hoarder dad for years!

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svu_fan@reddit

My parents divorced when I was in 4th grade and then my dad sold my childhood house when I was in 5th grade a few months later. So, no, never had to deal with that.

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ApprehensiveAnswer5@reddit

We bought our first house this year, and we’re planning on it being our “forever home” that we can someday pass down to our kids. My husband was a foster kid and moved every year just about and my mom was a renter and we also moved every time rent raised, usually every couple year or so, and so neither of us has a “childhood” home. Our kids are in middle school, but we want to have that experience for them, of a place for them to know as “home”.

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its_raining_scotch@reddit

My dad managed to hang onto our house after my parents divorced. I’m actually visiting him there right now. I love this house and my wife and I are working with him to make sure we keep it. We’ve been going through the garage and getting rid of tons of old stuff that had piled up there since the 70’s so now it’s waaaaay more manageable. If I could someday raise our kids here and have them play in my old backyard and run around the same trails and streets I did that would be my ultimate dream.

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TheRealBrewballs@reddit

Every time I visit my parents I look at the garage, the craft room... the stuff. I cring to think what it'll take to clean up once they're gone or need to down size. On one hand I'd like to buy the place (has 5 acres) amd on the other it'd be a nightmare because we would live at the house. Regardless- the stuff is going to be hard to offload.

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Spartan04@reddit

I grew up in a rental house, we moved there when I was 5 but my mom ended up living there for about 20 years, and only moved because the landlord sold the house and she didn't like the new lease she was offered. Like you there was a ton of going through old stuff from childhood. Some had been thrown away or donated but there was a lot that me and my brother had to sort through. Since at the time me and my brother were both living in apartments without a lot of storage we were allowed to pack some of the stuff in plastic bins and move it to my mom's new place. But there was a ton of things that we got rid of, including several runs to the dump. Those bins we moved stayed in her basement for a while but once we were living in houses we were told it was ours now. So I have several bins of my childhood stuff hanging out in my basement now.

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thundrbud@reddit

My Dad just passed at the beginning of December, we've barely begun cleaning up the mess he left behind in the house he bought almost 50 years ago. Mom is still kicking but we worry she's going to want to sell and downsize. The house is on double lot in a desirable area of a big city, my Dad always said it was his legacy to leave it to us but he's gone and Mom might have other ideas. It will be tough to see it go but I also wouldn't want to own it. We just sold my grandmother's house earlier in 2023 and that was an emotional experience cleaning the place out, I don't want to go through it again whenever my mom finally passed so we're doing what we can to get ahead of the mess now that we have the excuse of sorting through all of Dad's stuff.

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sambashare@reddit

We had a decent house growing up. It had a good size yard and a finished basement that I used to hang out in with my friends, through grade school so the way through high school. It wasn't perfect, but it was great for growing up in. The school and park were nearby, and my friends were within walking distance. After I graduated high school and moved out, they decided to sell it and move into a McMansion that was just close enough to town to have high property taxes and far enough away that there were no city services and everything was a 20 minute drive. Like seriously, wtf? Everyone had moved out. What the hell was the point of having more bathrooms than people? Anyway, my childhood home was sold for complete bullshit reasons and I can't go back. Thanks mom and dad!

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Dame_Ingenue@reddit

Nope! That was sold when I was still in senior year. I’m bitter about it too.

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lqxpl@reddit

Grew up as an army brat. My parents live in the house my dad bought after retirement #2.

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

My parents sold the house in 2010. It was truly a garbage year. Still trying to consolidate stuff.

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xxlittlemissj@reddit

No. My parents built their new house across from my old house (small rural Maine road) and the new owner committed arson, so I got to watch it burn down and then be torn down. I managed to save a small piece of the wood from it because my father had built most everything from the ground up. I cried and cried.

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suntaug@reddit

Mighty white of you to assume we all had a house

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Parisian_Nightsuit@reddit

The house in which I grew up is still in the family; my sibling lives there now. It’s a much different house and neighborhood than it was when I was a kid, both good and bad. It certainly doesn’t feel like the same house, but it is still familiar. The neighborhood has definitely aged. Our parents live in the house my grandparents owned. Kinda the same thing.

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Puzzled_Loquat@reddit

My parents sold their house at the end of 2019 to move closer to me. My mom grew up in that house too.

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DickBurns01@reddit

I bought the house I grew up in when my mom told me she was selling it

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Goblinboogers@reddit

Naw my parents sold that when they got divorced.

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jennifer_m13@reddit

My parents still have their house. They are in their mid 70s. It’s probably one of the oldest homes in the city they live in. They actually just told me the other day the city plans to buy up all the land around them and their house and build apartments and shops. That was pretty hard for my sister and I to hear. My parents pretty much kept everything so going through the storage will be tough.

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darklyshining@reddit

As the parents - we still have the home our children grew up in (32 years). There are still bins of Legos and Toy Story Burger King give aways in the garage attic. I doubt they’ll see the light of day until after we pass. However, we have been making the effort to declutter, which mostly means getting rid of the junk of our kids that built up over time and stayed behind when they left home. We learned, when my wife’s parents passed and their house sold, that all their antiques and collectibles held little value for the younger generation, so we figure most of our treasures, much of which was passed down to us, will be sold, given away, or sent to Goodwill or the land fill. We’re OK with that. It’s all about the memories we continue to create each and every year. When my father in law sold the family farm years ago, there was really nothing anyone wanted, other than to once again live those glorious days of visiting the farm through wonderful memories. One item of note stands out: my brother in law rolled out of the barn his father’s 1964 Ford Country Squire, loaded it on a trailer and took it home. After rebuilding the engine, which was all it needed, he sold it to my son years later. Care to guess where that gold mine of memories resides? Yep, our driveway! My parents moved a number of times, so there was no “family home” really by the time they passed. My mother, at one point, boxed up everything of interest or importance to her children and handed each child (adults then, certainly) their own box of memories. We’ll live on, I suppose, in the memories of those generations who will have known us, or through those memories attached to various “stuff”, until it all finds its way into the scrap heap of family history.

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JustNo1990@reddit

I watched them lose their house the year after I graduated high school, if that's what you mean.

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Klaus_Heisler87@reddit

My mom just did a huge remodel on my childhood home, doesn't even look the same anymore. Went I flew home to visit last year and stayed at the house, it felt really weird

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DocBrutus@reddit

My parents sold the family home when my grandmother died. My mom was going to give it to me when I got older but Louisiana (where the house is) is/was a shithole and that was her reasoning for getting rid of it. Fast forward to 2015 and I saw the house I grew up in and it was pristine and so was the neighborhood it was in. My old school was still there, some of the neighbors were the same and remembered me as a child. I was so upset that my mother sold it.

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b1gd4ddychubb5@reddit

This is a bit of a situation in my family. I'm the oldest and if something happens I get my parents house and I don't want it, neither do my sisters. We lived in a trailer park from the time I was born until just before I turned 10. About 9 months before that, my parents bought a house built in the 1860s that had been abandoned for a decade in the town my mom grew up in, in the next state. They spent 15k on the house and a sizeable lot in 1990. We spent our weekends driving back and forth to this place for months while we finished our school year, then we lived at my grandparents house a half hour away, until they were able to finish a bedroom and a bathroom enough for us to stay. Our entire family slept in one room for about 6 months. Both of my parents worked full time and then we all worked on the house nights and weekends. My parents, and everyone in the family who helped out did a hell of a job on the place. It took the better part of 5 years to completely button up most of it and make it totally liveable. They kept everything they could original, and they never really stopped working on it, it's 34 years later. They like antiques also, and they have a couple bedrooms furnished with antique stuff. My mom has 2 antique china cabinets FULL of stuff nobody uses or looks at. 3 or 4 antique Singer sewing machines, etc. Not a hoarding situation, but if they were gone tomorrow I would have a bad time. I'm very gently encouraging them to just sell the place and all the stuff, use that money to buy something smaller and simpler, and ENJOY the rest of the money, because they've earned it. From the beginning I absolutely 100% did NOT want to live there. This place creeps me out to this day. I have seen and heard spooky things, it is a very spiritually busy place. I have never felt comfortable there. I don't want it. My sisters don't want it. I'm not bitter about it, I wish they would sell it.

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Candid-Jellyfish-975@reddit

Can't go home again. My dad was selling my childhood home when I was 21 and my wife and I were looking to buy a home. I wanted to make it happen but it just wasn't realistic. In hind sight I'm so glad we didn't force it.

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malthar76@reddit

Similar, but we had just bought about 18 months before they decided to sell. Market was not great, they took a small hit on sales price. Still walked away with a bundle from a house they built in 1994. They roundabout offered it to me at a bargain, but pre-pandemic, it was about 90 min commute to my 4 days a week job. Also, there were the strings that would have come with it - more frequent visits because we have the space, why did you change the wallpaper I took days to hang myself, etc…

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International_Bend68@reddit

Yeah I think you may have lucked out there. My family would’ve constantly “stopped by” and would comment on every change every time the “visited”.

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BrickFan317@reddit

Two of our three parent pairs are still in their 90's houses. My parents are in the house we moved to in 94 when I was 10. They have started some discussion of downsizing but haven't actually done anything in that direction. Her mom [and step dad] is still in the post divorce house they moved to in 97 when she was 12. Her dad and step mom recently sold their home after "building" a home in a 55+ community. I would be open to the idea of us buying my wife's mother's house at some point in the future.

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Cool_in_a_pool@reddit

My parents sold the house a couple years before I had kids. They wanted to downsize because they said the big house was just too lonely with only them in it. I pointed out that I was married, as were my siblings, and they would probably have grandkids running around it soon, but they were very insistent and had a Litany of reasons that made no real sense. Fast forward to today and they were lamenting about selling it because "Their grandkids could have all slept over and hung out there together"

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krissym99@reddit

We moved 3 times as a kid (all somewhat locally), so I don't really have a childhood home. Then my parents have moved a number of times in the past 2 decades. My mom is a chronic-thrower-outer so we have almost nothing from my childhood, which sometimes saddens me. OTOH, my in-laws have lived in the same house for 50 years, my husband is 47 and his bedroom is mostly the same as it was 30 years ago except for the extra crap my MIL stores in there because she's a hoarder. And their house is huge. I actively fear the day that they die or have to move out.

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Vivid-Soup-5636@reddit

My mom still lives in our childhood home(bought in 1968 for $28k, now worth over $400k). Father passed away 13 years ago-she’s struggling by herself so my one sister and her husband is buying it this summer and mom will be living with them-feels good to keep it in the family

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Treacherous_Wendy@reddit

My parents still live in ours. I’m headed to see them tonight and stay the night.

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YayGilly@reddit

My mom died when I was 21, and very pregnant. That was 12 years after daddy died. You are SUPER lucky. Trust me, either way you would have missed that place. This way, you were all able to get your stuff together, and it was a group effort to help them move out. I had a baby on my hip, while I sorted through all this dollhouse building stuff, which I now wish I had sold, but I didnt know how valuable that was. Or most of the rest of it. I donated most of it to Goodwill. Still took a couple of years, and I used up my inheritance dealing with it. Trust me. You are a lucky son of a gun..

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Puzzleheaded_Cut_374@reddit

I bought my grandparents house

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ketamineburner@reddit

My parents sold my childhood home within the last few years. They cleared my room and re-painted it the day I moved out when I was 18.

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PrincssM0nsterTruck@reddit

My childhood house only had terrible memories of mental health issues, depression, abuse and suicide. I'm glad my mom sold it. My dad was a lifelong abusive alcoholic who was also a hoarder. He died in the house via suicide. Glad it sold.

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LeperFriend@reddit

My parents sold it right after I graduated highschool

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Avasia1717@reddit

my parents bought a summer/weekend home on half an acre in a rural area with an amazing view in the 70s for $40k. i was a little kid when my dad put a second story on it and i helped him build a shop in the back yard. i didn't appreciate that rural area when i was a kid and moved two states away after college. i met my future wife in that state, but we got married back at the house. years later, our daughter took her first steps there. i visited once or twice a year since i moved. my mom died in the house 10 years ago. my dad has lived by himself those 10 years, and it's getting to be too much for him to take care of the place. he wants to sell it move in with me, since we have a guest room. the house is worth almost a million now. it would be cool to be able to see him more often, but i'm not looking forward to never being able to go to the house again. i still have a few friends there, and i dunno if i'd ever see them again if i didn't have my dad to go to see and my childhood home to stay at. on the other hand, if he didn't sell and i inherited it, i don't think i'd be able to pay for both houses. i've thought about doing air bnb or something, but most likely i'd have to sell it myself anyway.

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FireyToots@reddit

i looked it up on zillow and they massacred it.

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AbeFroman_FB@reddit

We moved several times. First one took me from my best friends in the neighborhood at age 11 to the other side of the country to start over. 2nd one..they sold our house a couple of months before I graduated and I finished high school in an extended stay hotel with my dad already working in another state waiting on us. I left directly from my graduation ceremony, changed in the car on the way to the airport, and moved. That's the one that kinda fucked me up.. didn't realize it til way later. They made a lot of big decisions that affected that trajectory of my life without ever talking to me about it.

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Myfourcats1@reddit

My mom passed away. I still have to go through it all.

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GrabsJoker@reddit

Take pictures of things then throw them away.

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Wapiti_whacker82@reddit

The house where I grew up was built with my father's hands. He had help with things like excavation, foundation concrete and trusses, the rest he basically completed by himself. He even made his own counter tops and did a lot of ornate woodworking for the interior design. We moved in when I was three in 1985. I helped build two decks on the house and with various other projects, so there was a lot of my own blood, sweat and tears that went into the house as well. My dad unexpectedly died last year and we had to sell the house because my mom has MS and wasn't able to take care of it by herself. The deal closed in August and my old neighbors have been telling me that the new owners are practically gutting the whole house. I'm still distraught about losing it and hearing that it's being gutted, I feel like a part of me has died.

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omnesilere@reddit

My Dad died. My unstable sister is still in the house. I need to sell it. I'm going to be hated by her for the rest of our lives but she's already destroying the place.

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rjcpl@reddit

Military brat. The “house I grew up in” changed every 2-4 years.

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lmapidly@reddit

Same... same.

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O_o-22@reddit

My parents still have the same house since 1972 but made me take all my stuff when I got my own house. Only crap in that house now is theirs. My mom is actually organized about it and has plenty of labeled totes in the basement. My dad just recently got rid of a bunch of foot lockers with 2-3 decades worth of golf magazines in them. He even cleaned out his corner of the garage that hadn’t been touched since I was a baby. At least half the crap in that area was old oil accumulated from my brother doing his oil changes there. I must be one of the lucky ones to not have to deal with that lol.

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lmapidly@reddit

I never had a childhood home; my dad was military and we moved a lot. That said, there was this one base house we all really loved. Half of a duplex with a cool full basement. We were there about...4 years maybe? I have a lot of awesome childhood memories there. Unfortunately they were old and all got torn down and replaced by new housing a long time ago, and it breaks my heart. I still dream about that place... Been in my and my spouse's current house for 8 whole years now, which breaks my personal record by two years. Hope I never have to move again tbh.

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HermineSGeist@reddit

My parents got rid of their landline last year. The family had that number for 40+ years. I’m still a little sad about it. My parents plan to sell the house this year. Based on the phone number thing I don’t think I’ll handle the house well.

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IKnowAllSeven@reddit

Components of ohone numbers from my childhood - my parents landline number, my grandmas phone number, my best friends number…they all live on in my computer passwords!

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HermineSGeist@reddit

lol, I’m not the only one!

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BEniceBAGECKA@reddit

Going to get my parents and move them out of the house I grew up in at the end of the month. Prying out 40+ years worth of crap sounds like so much fun. I assume the house will be torn down. It’s in a bad state of disrepair.

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itsmejustmeonlyme@reddit

I didn’t grow up in any one house. We moved a bunch. But my grandma passed away in 2022 and the family cleaned out the house to sell. My grandparents built the house in 1989. 30 years of accumulation took time to go through- not a hoard by any means, just a lot of stuff. Not to mention a lot of memories.

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bobgoblin888@reddit

My parents divorced when I was in college and sold the house back then. I used to drive by it when I was back in my home town (I moved to a different state) but sadly, a few years ago, new owners tore it down and built a McMansion. A “modern farmhouse” type of cookie cutter thing. Many of my neighbors did the same thing, it was a block of small, modest ranches in a good location. So I can’t even do a drive by anymore 😕

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PNWoutdoors@reddit

My mom is currently dying in the house I grew up in. She'll be gone in a few months and I'm in charge of her estate, so I get to clean it, fix it up, and sell it. It's going to be so surreal.

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Segazorgs@reddit

My parents still live in the same home they bought in 1990 and I grew up in. Even though I moved an hour away from my small town to a bigger city and would never want to live in my hometown again there is something comforting knowing it's still occupied by my parents and it will likely continue to be in the family name when my youngest brother takes over. I already own a home and have no interest in inheriting it but I don't want it sold. Wouldn't make financial sense for my brother to sell it either.

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Sweet_Priority_819@reddit

I haven't seen or spoken to my mother and uncle in a decade but: My mother still owns the house I mostly grew up in. It's in a high COL area that doesn't get terrible winters, but still can get snow. I think it's wild she doesn't sell and move to a retirement community given the market right now. My uncle is still in the house he grew up in, which was my grandmother's. He wrote her will so he got everything and both other brothers were cut out. it's in the same high COL area. Again, ridiculous not to sell, make bank, go to a retirement community in Arizona or something.

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BloodyRightNostril@reddit

My parents got rid of theirs in 2015. I had mixed feelings, but understood they needed to downsize. Their new house has a first-floor master, which is really helpful for them.

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strider52_52@reddit

My parents still live there. My brother wants to buy it when they eventually have to sell it. If he doesn't, I might try, but I don't want to live in it.

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Angis3000@reddit

My parents were going to be forced to sell to some evil developers who wanted to build a golf course. After narrowly escaping Throw Momma from the Train, I found some rich stuff last minute.

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Justagoodoleboi@reddit

My parents still live in that house and idk if I will ever be emotionally ready that house is like another person to me so many memories growing up there

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Stock_Fig_2052@reddit

My parents still live in the house they brought me home from the hospital in… bought in 1965 for $25k

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happy_nekko@reddit

My in-laws had this beautiful shadow-block 1890s farmhouse. FIL restored that house (he did 100% of the work - no contractors) when my spouse & sibling were kids. My spouse & sibling learned a lot when helping their dad. We considered buying it when my in-laws sold it after retiring, but between the high property taxes & fewer job opportunities in that area - we knew it would be a bad choice at that stage of our lives.

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Jdojcmm@reddit

I kinda intend to retire in the house I grew up in. My parents built it in 84 to be home. Even after I left it still feels like it. It is pretty perfect. Small, but big enough. Partially underground so heating and cooling aren’t too bad. Well with over 600 feet of water depth, enough room to raise food on and most importantly far enough away from everything to be left alone.

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HedgehogCremepuff@reddit

Nope, no generational wealth in my family. In my hometown my great grandparents were literally imminent domained out of the beautiful three story multi family house ggpa had built and homeless people burned down all but the stone first floor. My uncle does still live in the one story house ggpa built for my grandma and I hope we never lose that. I grew up in apartments and cashed out my retirement to buy the house my spouse and I live in and I can’t guarantee we won’t lose it because I haven’t been able to work in years.

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Opinionsare@reddit

The house burned down during '72' Agnes flood. Memories were gone.

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BostonBlackCat@reddit

My parents still have my childhood home. I love it and I wish it was better located and then my husband and I could buy it from them eventually, but the location just sucks (for us anyways). It does have an inground pool with a waterslide and a diving board, so it's a big draw for family get togethers, which I am sure is one reason they have held onto it. Sometimes in the summer I will even have small parties with friends at my parents' place because of the pool. My daughter now spends many weekends (especially in the summer) at Grandma and Grandpa's and has her own room at their house. As they age, though, the pool because harder and more expensive to maintain. If it weren't for the fact that they dote so much on my daughter (their only grandchild) and she adores the pool, they would have filled it in years ago.

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teriaki@reddit

When I was still with my kid's dad, we were fortunate enough to buy the house across the street from my parents. I'm selling it now, and I'm heartbroken over losing the proximity to my parents (they're getting older, and my 97yo grandmother lives with them) and also the neighborhood I grew up in. There's another family three doors up that bought their parents house, we've been friends for over 40 years. I don't live far away (~2 miles) but it feels like a million miles after living directly across the street. My parents house is still the neighborhood/family gathering place because of the pool. I don't know how I'll feel when they can't take care of it anymore.

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Psychological-Cry221@reddit

I also grew up with an in ground pool and I now take care of it (opening and closing) for my mom. It’s hard to believe how much easier that task has gotten over the last 35 years. My old neighbor still has his (he has gotta be almost in his 70’s now). I asked him why he never filled it in and he told me that it was more expensive to fill it in than it was to put a new liner in so he just bought a new liner.

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spanishpeanut@reddit

My parents divorced when I was 18 months old and I moved a ton. There’s no treasure trove of stuff anywhere for me or my siblings. I had the hardest time losing the house that my stepmom and dad lived in, though. When she passed away in 2003, my dad was executor of her estate. My step-brother was PISSED and it caused a whole lot of chaos. My dad signed the executor role over to him and my brother didn’t pay the mortgage. The house went into foreclosure and was sold at auction. It broke my heart to lose that house. My brother did save a lot of old home movies, though, which I’m grateful for. Sometimes I drive by it if I’m in the area. It’s been sold a couple times since then and I hope it’s making good memories for new families.

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texan01@reddit

My parents still live in their house 54 years after the bought it. Mom passed away 8 years ago, but dad still lives there and manages it on his own. A lot of my junk, my sisters junk and my grand mothers junk is still in the garage. Just waiting for a nice day to sort through and purge.

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ElderBerry2020@reddit

Mine are literally moving out of my childhood home next month. They lived there for 50 years, bought the house in 1974 when my sister was born. I need to make my way there and pack up some of my old things and drive them back to my place. It’s quite bittersweet. I am happy they are finally moving and will not have the stress of home maintenance to worry about - they didn’t do a good job of keeping up the house over the years, so a move to a condo is better for them. But I’m sad I will no longer have a reason to visit my hometown, and I know the house will be torn down and rebuilt. So many memories.

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wall-e_dystopia@reddit

If your parents are still alive and own their still, they’re lucky and if all is well with the relationship you’re lucky. Both of mine are dead now and father lost our childhood home and business during the “housing crisis” time frame. No soft landing back then for a non-franchise restaurant. Real estate wasn’t the only thing affected then either.

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Betelgeuse3fold@reddit

My folks sold the family home in 2018, as dad's cancer was advancing. They went to live in my sister's in-law suite. I took my pogs and comics with me when I moved out in 2004. Their house flooded in 08 and we lost a lot of childhood keepsakes. My lego survived though, she now my kids have it

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chezterr@reddit

I will do everything I can to convince my parents and my wife's Mom to not sell their homes.. I'd much rather keep the homes owned by the family, rent them out, etc. These days, it is such a challenge to purchase homes, it makes little sense for me to sell them if you don't need to. I know my parents are looking at $400k+ in cash to use to buy a new property in Michigan.. but they have more than enough in retirement, to make the purchase of a home in rural Michigan easy, and then just bring in the monthly rent for their home in California (likely $2500+/month).

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Savingskitty@reddit

Eh, my parents haven’t lived in a house I ever actually lived in in over 20 years. They’ve still got a lot of crap that’s technically mine, but most of it they dumped on me at my college apartment when they moved to their current house. I’ve seen my childhood home exactly once since I was 12. It’s surprising how small things look suddenly when you’re not small anymore.

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Ticrotter_serrer@reddit

Were where base brat so I go childhood house all over the country and one in germany!

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Ent_Trip_Newer@reddit

In 2008 the bank seized the house I grew up in. Parents had lived there since 75. My college educated veteran father still works full time at a grocery store to survive. American dream is a joke.

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ralncsu@reddit

I lived in the same house my entire 18 years of childhood, then my parents moved out of state when I was a freshman in college. I haven’t been able to “go home” basically since I left. However, they just moved all their junk from house to house and it has accumulated. Definitely hoarder territory.

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SpookySchatzi@reddit

I feel you, hoarder territory. It was after I left for college that it got bad. eBay ruined their lives. My Stepdad can’t differentiate between admire and acquire. If he likes something, he buys it. First it was antique radios, then antique mantle clocks. Go fucking figure. Then it became cats. He’s also been feeding the local wild raccoon population, daily, for well over a decade, so hoards of them show up at the end of the day. My childhood home may still be standing but to me it is long gone. May as well have burned down. I live halfway across the country now and have no intention of setting foot in that shell again. Don’t care how much money from their estate has to be spent on clean up, I’m not doing it personally. It makes me so angry.

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heavymetalmurse@reddit

I grew up in a trailer until my parents were finally able to buy a house when I was in high school. I honestly didn't think I'd be sad if they ever moved out, but they did just that a couple years ago. My mom had a lot of family dying in her home state, and I think she just wanted to go back and spend the rest of her life around those who are left, and my stepdad didn't really have anyone left. I didn't grow up in that house, but they still lived there over 20 years, so it felt like a piece of me. I moved a thousand miles away over a decade ago, and I never had any intention of inheriting it, anyway. But even a couple years later it feels weird. I also took all the stuff I wanted when I moved, and my mom was never much for hoarding stuff, so I don't think I'll have much of a mess to take over when she's gone. Maybe just some old pictures.

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slash_networkboy@reddit

I recently took over the house I grew up in. My mother designed it and ground was broken when I was \~5. I'm 47 now and it still isn't finished, lol, and now there's tons of deferred maintenance to catch up on, but at least the roof is new. I'm super excited to be back in this house as there's property, it's designed for entertaining, etc. The huge downside: There's literally 4 generations of crud to get through.

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Britney2429@reddit

My parents sold my childhood home 🏡 We are all happy where we are living but I definitely miss my childhood home sometimes. My parents sold my childhood home around 9 years ago.

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z_iiiiii@reddit

My dad recently passed away still living in the house we grew up in. It was wild going through all the drawers, cabinets, attic, etc finding all the old toys and other memorabilia we grew up with. It was fun in some small ways, but also way too much work. I wish my parents had gone through their things and organized it better as they got older.

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EL_Jefe_1982@reddit

We moved so much I don’t even remember the house we lived in when I was born. We’ve lived in 3 countries, 8 cities, and with each other between moves a couple times so I have no fondness for any home other than my current residence which we’ve had for the last 12 years.

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pburke77@reddit

When my parents moved out there were a ton of GI Joes where the rubber bands in the bodies dry rotted and a bunch of WWF wrestling figures.

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FuzzyScarf@reddit

My parents still live in that home. Now, my grandparents have been gone for about 40 years now and I still have dreams about visiting my grandparents house to see what the “new” people have done to it.

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Sensitive-Review-712@reddit

If you ever get the chance, don't do it. My childhood home has been sold a couple of times since my parents sold it when I was in college. I did a virtual tour the last time it was for sale. The inside has been changed so much, it no longer resembles the house I loved. It was kind of soul crushing.

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Neither-Magazine9096@reddit

We moved three times before I graduated, so I wasn’t really attached to a childhood home. Both sets of grandparents though, that hurt when their houses sold.

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Spare_Exit9533@reddit

I think it’s important for kids to fully separate from their childhood home. I can only speak for my experience obviously but I flew the coop at 19 and not really a decision I made a or was prepared for but it happens. It sucks in the short term but long term it prepares you a lot for adult life. Not just the act of leaving your hometown but coming to terms that things do come and go. You’ll have so many things in your life as you get older that will just disappear without any conscious decision by yourself. You’ll just realize it one day and it might hurt a lot. Cherish the memory and make new ones

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pertrichor315@reddit

My parents still have stuff in boxes in one of our farm buildings from their last move 23 years ago. Only thing that’s seen the inside of them is the mice

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lifeat24fps@reddit

They sold my childhood home about 10 years ago. The people who bought it picked it up off the foundation, moved it 30 feet to the left then built and sold a house where our giant yard was. It so weird. Our address # doesn’t even exist anymore because there’s 2 houses where there was 1 for 75 years. It’s so weird.

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Past_Cauliflower_440@reddit

My dad still lives in the house I grew up in. About 11 years ago my mom moved by me about 2 hours away, my dad moved in his old high school girlfriend from across the country, and I haven’t been to the house since. He occasionally drops off boxes of random crap from the attic at my door. And yes, my parents are still married TO EACH OTHER. Good times.

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reubal@reddit

The house I grew up in was also the house my mom grew up in. In 1990 my dad had a great year and bought a bigger house in a nice area as well as land outside LA to big a bigger house, and kept the original house. In 1992 the recession hit and they lost EVERYTHING. So both my mom and my bro and I lost our childhood houses in one fell swoop. If they had just decided to stay in that first house, that was a nice adequate size, they would have done ok.

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Iydllydln@reddit

I grew up on the farm. They are in the process of selling all their cattle, then it’ll be all the equipment, then finally the land itself. This is particularly hard, because unlike kids in the city where only their house is sold, selling the farm is like selling my entire old neighbourhood and ALL the places I used to play - I’ll never be able to visit those places again.

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SlowGoat79@reddit

Dunno if it would work in your situation, but if you really want to keep the land, have you considered renting it out? My husband's grandparents' old farm is that way. No one's lived in the house for years, but the farmland itself is rented and I'm pretty sure it at least covers the taxes.

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Madameoftheillest@reddit

I'm getting ready to begin the selling /clean out process with my mom. 4,800 square feet, three floors, 40 years, and a dad that was what I call an organized hoarder. Should be easy peasy/s

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Pawsywawsy3@reddit

My parents not only moved but the house got knocked down. It hurts.

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jpm0719@reddit

I was 12 when my mom and dad bought the house my sisters and I grew up in. They, actually we, sold it when I was 45. My dad was showing mental decline, and we had to stop in home care and revamp plans when he got out one evening and drove his car into a tree. We moved them to an assisted living (really memory care) facility shortly after that. None of us are really super sentimental but going through 33 years of memories hit a little differently. We donated just about everything, including the furniture in that house and pick up day was definitely bittersweet. The house did stay in the family in a roundabout way. We sold it, at a reasonably generous discount, to my BIL's brother who had recently married and was starting his own family.

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CapitalPin2658@reddit

Gen Z not going to be happy, but my parents have been empty nest since 1994. They’re never selling the house.

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spirit_of_a_goat@reddit

My husband and I live in his childhood home.

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Drslappybags@reddit

We moved around too much to have something I would consider a house I grew up in. The longest we stayed in one place was 8th through junior year, but we moved out of there once my mom remarried. I left when I graduated.  They still live in that house. My younger brother probably thinks of it as the house he grew up in.

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jeffreywilfong@reddit

I had already graduated college and moved out so I already had all of my junk. This would have been somewhere around 2010ish. Still, it was somewhat painful to see it sold to someone who will have no appreciation for my dad and grandfather building it by hand. Or our insane efforts to immaculately maintain the lawn and landscaping. The new owners have horses and they used the side yard for them. Tore it all up. My dad passed in 2015, but I can still go to Street View and see my dad's van parked in the driveway, so in a way, he and the house are not totally gone.

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w1r2g3@reddit

Yup. My parents have been in the same house since 1975. Their attic is filled with decades of stuff.

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ghostboo77@reddit

They still live there and have no signs of slowing up. 3 kids live within a 5 minute drive to help maintain the house when they get too old to do so. They made everyone get rid of their crap a long time ago.

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jerbkernblerg@reddit

Yep, and they just added-on another 1500 sq ft to “age in place.” I have been slowly getting rid of any of my childhood remnants, which are mostly cassette tapes, buckets of broken, o-ring rotted GI JOE figures, and memories of hobbies I attempted over the past 25 years. My parents run a small business out of the house and it’s consumed their entire basement, as well as a detached outbuilding built as a 5-car garage that could be converted into a large guest house. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the property when they’re gone, other than sell it, as we live several states away and it’s not in a market that will make sense for a rental. I just hope they get rid of their metric ton of crap before they pass, because neither my sister nor I want any of it.

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latruce@reddit

My parents still live in the house I grew up in. And it seems like they will be until they pass. Then they'll pass it down to my sister and me.

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FunksGroove@reddit

For some perspective, we lost both parents within days of each other and had to go through our old childhood house ourselves and then sell it. I wish they would have moved out a while ago but such is life.

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shell37628@reddit

My dad sold our childhood home when my brother moved in with my mom at 18. I was 19. He'd been putting off moving in with his long-term girlfriend for a decade at that point, solely for our benefit, so i didn't fault him one bit. We all made our choices. So much shit went down in that house, I wasn't super attached anyway. My mom moved a bunch so there's no real attachment to her house either, even though she's lived there for 20+ years. I bounced back and forth so much there was never a true sense of "home" til i moved in with my now-husband. Idk if it's because of how I grew up, but I don't get attached to houses. Everyone said it was so sad when we sold the house my son came home from the hospital to, but meh. On to bigger and better things. I do hope we can give him a stable enough childhood that he has the same memories here some of yall have, though. Our neighborhood and the people in it are absolutely *built* for that kind of community, and we are actively trying to cultivate it for our kids.

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maxturner_III_ESQ@reddit

Nah, my mom liked the house next door so they sold their house and bought the one next door. Bigger, better, and more equity. My mom gave me specific instructions, once her and dad are too old to handle it, I'm to sell it and use the profits to put them in a very nice nursing home. That's what a house is, an investment to either hand down or sell to finance your final years on this plane.

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Psychological-Cry221@reddit

My father built our house when my brother and I were kids. I lost my dad very suddenly and I have been hanging on to all of his things as I just can’t get rid of anything. Certainly not something that he built himself. Plus, there is so much junk at that house that the thought of cleaning it out makes me queasy.

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WayneS1980@reddit

Spent the first 12 years living with my grandparents. Their house sold 3 years ago after my grandpa died and grandma moved into an assisted living facility. From 12 to 23 I lived with my mom in a rental across the street from my grandparents. The owners died late last year so my mom was forced to move last month. My grandparents house was where events always took place and where the family always assembled for holidays and birthdays. When that was sold the family went its separate ways for all those events. In a way it doesn’t feel like I have the family I once had. My mom’s siblings also fought about the whole ordeal so most of them (there’s 5) do not speak to one another anymore.

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laminatedbean@reddit

I set up a geocache in my hometown several years ago. My dad recently passed and I realize if my mom moves closer to family or passes I won't have a reason to return. My mom still lives there and occasionally checks my geocache but if she leaves and someone steals the container I guess I'll have to retire it. Kind of sad.

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Visual-Fig-4763@reddit

I lived in several houses throughout my childhood. We moved when I was 3 from a family house that I later inherited and then sold because I couldn’t afford to live in it or keep it. We moved from the 2nd house when I was 11 and into a bigger house. My parents downsized when I was 24 and my little brother was about to graduate from college. My husband and I moved into that house and took over the mortgage when my parents retired and moved across the country 14 years ago and then when the house was sold 3 years ago, my parents gave us 1/2 the earned equity since we had paid into it for so long and we used that for a downpayment on our own house. My parents also moved again about the same time into a 1 story custom build that is much more accessible for them. We’ve gone through childhood items gradually through all the moves and there are some things we got rid of earlier on that I wish I’d kept now. I suppose maturity makes you appreciate some things more than you did before.

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larryb78@reddit

We begged my parents to downsize for 17 years after we moved out. Dad refused then passed last year leaving mom in a house that was in disrepair and with far too many steps etc for her mobility level. Thankfully she’s in a senior facility now and the house didn’t need to be sold for her to afford it but oh what a chore it has been getting things out of there. What she needs she has, what she wants to keep we’re getting out and then thankfully she conceded to selling to someone who’s willing to take it as is and clean the crap out - I just don’t have time with two small kids and nobody else is able bodied. Thankfully we’ve met with some all cash types that’ll do it that way before they gut and flip, hopefully it’ll all be over soon.

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Iamoldsowhat@reddit

we moved six times when I was in my teens. so really I have no home I grew up in. I still felt a little sad when parents sold the house we finally settled in…I lived there for 2 years before I started college…but they lived there for 30 years. so it was just kinda bittersweet, I brought my kids there and it was the closest I had to a childhood home

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imarebelpilot@reddit

I actually still live in the house I grew up in. My parents bought the house in 1976, I was born in 1979 and that's where my mom still resides. I've moved a few times but my husband and daughter and I moved back in with my mom in 2018. My dad and brother passed away and my mom was alone, owns her house and had the space. Why not?

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tacitjane@reddit

I go on Zillow and the like every now and then to see what's happened to the old house. It's *kind* of like going back.

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chickychewpchewp888@reddit

I like T shirts from our child hood / teenage years. Willing to buy them if cool enough. Any one got some cool tshirts ?

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Responsible-Duty4732@reddit

My parents divorced and the house got sold during the divorce. I was so happy when I saw them ripping it down to build apartments💀🤣 we were the last family in that house and prior to that my family had lived there generations before. It was ours and ours only. It kinda helped the healing process 😅

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mittencamper@reddit

I had lived in 6 different houses in 4 cities and 2 countries by the age of 15 and my parents have always been fairly minimalist. I don't think this is the experience of most people in our generation. I have 1 large cardboard box with childhood things in it.

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aaronsb@reddit

I don't have any artifacts I can hold from when I grew up. I live far away, and even all the photos of my brother and I growing up I don't have access to. It's as if I came fully formed off the assembly line about 19 years old.

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Scapular_Fin@reddit

My parents and my in-laws both just moved out of our childhood homes, and then likewise, my grandma passed away during COVID, and she lived in the house my grandma built after WWII her entire life. Being that we live 3+ hours from home, neither my wife or myself got to say a proper goodbye to our homes, or my grandma's house before they were sold. It's kind of weird thinking that the last time I was at home, or at grandma's I didn't even know it was the last time, and now I can't go back. I mean, I'm not broken up about it or anything, it's just weird.

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PuzzledKumquat@reddit

Mommie Dearest sold it a handful of years ago. I wasn't bothered, since it was a place of childhood abuse. And she never saved anything, so I'm sure the move was pretty easy for her.

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AceTygraQueen@reddit

My folks downsised about 2 years after I left for college.

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Mediocre_Crow2466@reddit

My parents bought a commercial property in 1985, when I was 3. They ran the business for about 10 years. I've lived there my whole life, currently in an apartment with my husband. So it's their stuff, mine and 3 siblings worth, remnants of a business and two sets of grandparents stuff. We have been working on getting rid of stuff. And they both want out. So when that happens, I'll definitely be sad.

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PavinsMustache@reddit

We sold my childhood home after my dad passed away and my mom was unable to live by herself due to the effects of a brain aneurysm. The only good thing was we knew the buyers pretty well, and I’ve been over a few times to see what they’ve done to the place. It needed some updating so I’m glad it’s in good hands. My mom and I took a picture standing in front of the house on the day it sold. My mom usually smiled in every picture, but she looks so sad in that picture that I can’t even bear to look at it. I wish I could unsee it all together.

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beekaybeegirl@reddit

OP this was my same experience in 2020 when my parents moved!

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ApatheistHeretic@reddit

Nah. We moved a lot so there was really no single place I grew up in.

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childofeye@reddit

These threads make me sad. There will be nothing for me.

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houseofnim@reddit

The house I grew up in was rented and my dad didn’t buy it until about 10 years ago when the realty company finally decided to let it go. It was built in 1920 and the first house on the block. I honestly hope my dad sells the house before he becomes too old/disabled to keep up with it. Century homes are a lot of work.

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215-610-484Replayer@reddit

My Dad grew up in the house that I also grew up in. We are transitioning it to accommodate his advancing age and issues and my Sister will move in. It's important to keep it in the family.

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sbotzek@reddit

My mom finally sold the house a year ago but I cleaned out all my stuff when I first moved out. I never wanted her to be burdened by my junk, and I knew she never likes to inconvenience us so she would never ask me to clean it out even if she wanted me to.

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desertrose0@reddit

My parents moved out of the house I grew up in in 2000, right after my sophomore year of college. It was very bittersweet for me, and I find that if I'm dreaming I still subconsciously think of it as home. I was living in a dorm then, and in no place to be taking my childhood things, so they mostly stayed with my parents. They moved a few other times and now there are some things that I wish I could find, but I'm not sure if I have them or my parents do. Yes there is also a lot of junk that even my kids wouldn't want to play with, but there are also sentimental things like my old yearbooks and little things I collected that I wouldn't mind seeing again.

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Unable_Wrongdoer2250@reddit

It was/is my parents' dream home. In our tiny tourist town of 300 with a fantastic view of one of the cleanest fresh water lakes. They just spent a ton renovating everything. They bought it for 150k 27 years ago. What with a survey suddenly doubling the waterfront including a tiny peninsula it's now worth over a million. We're going to have to sell it when they die. My brothers and I would love to keep it but that's about all that will be left for our inheritance and there is zero chance of finding work in that town outside of tourist jobs in the summer.

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PaintingNouns@reddit

My mom sold it when I was a Jr in high school and I had to drive 30 minutes to and from school each day to graduate from the same school. Then practically the day I graduated she took off and left me to somehow pay the rent. That Boomer was clearly done with parenting. But the WORST thing is that the house was demolished last year and replaced with an honest to god McMansion. It was a small house on a 1/4 acre, lots of yard and trees, and they put up a house that takes up every legal inch of the property and is for sale for $3.4 MILLION. It might be next to a lake, but it’s across the street from the private lake, you can’t see it and you can’t access it. The housing market is absurd.

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Country_Gravy420@reddit

My parents live in the house I grew up in. I think they bought it in '72 for 46k. They have it going to my kids in their will if they don't have to sell it before then.

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lsp2005@reddit

My parents still live in my childhood home. The neighbors I grew up with also still live in their homes. My parents and their neighbors all have modified their homes to be age in place friendly, so they five families are happy together. But my parent’s basement and garage are level 5 hoards, so I will have that to deal with eventually. The rest of their home is a normal house with a normal amount of stuff.

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SomethingAvid@reddit

My dad died while he was getting ready to put our childhood home on the market. I basically just had to sell it. I’ll never forget sobbing while walking around that empty, beautiful house. It’s funny how your childhood home is part of your identity. And then it’s gone, and it’s someone else’s identity.

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KiniShakenBake@reddit

Mine was sold five years ago. And thank goodness. We miss the wonderful neighbours but it was about to be the world's worst money pit.

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Correct-Cricket3355@reddit

My mom sold our house back in 2003 so I was forced to consolidate everything into a few boxes. I had them at my mom’s house until she passed. Then they sat in my brothers’s basement for years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he forced me to get rid of it. It was satisfying to go through it all and say, “Thank You” ala Marie Kondo to so many items. I now have one small box of ‘treasures’ I have with me now in Brooklyn.

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geekgirlwww@reddit

My parents are doing this to my aunt and uncle and my dads cousin. Like we love you but we can no longer be a long term storage facility. My aunt and uncle are in a small condo but when her mom and then dad passed she wasn’t ready to go through a lot of boxes. Same for my uncle he lost his wife suddenly had to downsize and my parents were like absolutely we can help. But it’s been years at this point for both.

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rels83@reddit

Mine do, I dread having to go through all the stuff when they finally sell.

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dphillips83@reddit

My parents lost my childhood home during the 2008 housing crisis. I had the opportunity to buy the house when it went back on the market in 2019 and even put up an offer explaining this was my childhood home but lost that bid by $1k. It's now in foreclosure and I've bought a new house. I hope it ends up with a nice family again someday.

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Cisru711@reddit

That's cold over a $1,000

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neecho235@reddit

My parents lost their house. Apparently, that's what happens when you stop making payments. That was a rough day.

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BrashPop@reddit

My dad sold the house and all its contents randomly one summer and that sucked hard. I lost basically all my childhood possessions with the exception of what I could grab or had already moved to my mum’s place. Then about six or seven years ago I was looking into buying it back, and it mysteriously burned down. So, that sucks even more.

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rayogata@reddit

My parents passed away within 9 months of each other. When my dad died, it was apparent my mother needed to be moved into an assisted living facility. Once we moved her out, the house was sold 4 months later, and then she passed 3 months after that. My dad was a bit of a hoarder and all 3 of us were packrats in our own ways so there was a lot of stuff to go through. I went up one weekend to clean my childhood bedroom and ended up shipping myself 8 boxes of stuff (at least half is books) but also throwing away about as much plus a few donations. I don't envy my relatives who did the bulk of the cleanup (I live in a different area of the country from my childhood home and exhausted my FMLA time getting my mom taken care of and situated in the ALF). Am I going to end up keeping everything I shipped myself? Probably not. Have I opened any of the boxes yet to start going through and organizing it? Nope. Been sitting in my living room for almost a year.

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Cisru711@reddit

They just moved this month. They spent the last 6 going through things. They forced me to clear out my stuff like 20 years ago so I already had most of my old stuff, but there were still things common to my siblings and I that had stuck around through the years. It was kind of nice being able to go things now, though, instead of after their deaths. There will be less to be sentimental about when that time comes. If my kids were not so entrenched in their school system, I would have campaigned harder to just buy the house myself.

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Winwookiee@reddit

My parents built the house they live in. They have lived in it for nearly 50 years. I don't see them moving out or selling it unless one of them has passed and the other's health declines. Even then, I doubt they'd sell it.

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NeedsMoreTuba@reddit

Same house. Same phone number. Same kind of dog, even. But 95% of my old stuff got tossed out of spite when I was too lazy to clean my room before I left for college. I did find my pogs in the attic, though. My kid loves them.

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geekgirlwww@reddit

My parents are still in the house they have my youngest brother at home with them (23). They’re kind of in limbo it’s a large house in NJ so the property taxes are high but it has an in law suite so my mom is hoping to move her 87 year old parents in but they are resisting. They are finally purging decades of crap. I’m running there on Friday to drop off air mattresses I borrowed and my moms photos which I finally finished digitizing. She said she’s making a pile for me so I assume she’s found stuff of mine. Also she forgot to give me my Christmas gifts when I was there last month lol.

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Miz_momo82@reddit

My parents are still in the house they've been in for 50 some years now. Included in that is decades worth of stuff from mine and my brothers' childhoods up until we all moved out. They've attempted to go through some stuff and I've purged/resold a lot of my toys (my mom kept nearly every notable toy I grew up with) but there's still a lot of stuff. I keep encouraging them to purge so we're not burdened when the time comes

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Illustrious_Profile6@reddit

I inherited the house I grew up in and had so many good memories in, but it needed a LOT of work to fix up and I just did not have the ability or money to fix an old country house like that. I sold it to my 11year older half Sister and Brother n Law for cheap because they had the means and ability to fix it up, but now when I go visit it just doesn't even remotely resemble the place we grew up, pretty much tore out all the trees, redid the whole house to the point it isn't even remotely recognizable. I don't regret it exactly because I just wasn't in the position to do so at the time, now adays would be completely different, dad passed after a short battle with cancer when I was 28, at 28 you just don't have 100grand to redo a house but I still miss it and wish things had turned out differently.

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VikDamnedLee@reddit

They waited until after I graduated and was away at college. I came home to a whole new house for semester break.

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icanliveinthewoods@reddit

My parents sold my childhood home to my cousin, at a good discount. My parents moved up to the property my grandmother had been living on until her death a few years before. They got rid of her old double wide and built a modest sized house (my mom hates McMansions). It’s on 80 acres that have been in my dad’s side of the family for almost two centuries. Thankfully, they heavily decluttered when moving out of the old house!

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Smittles@reddit

Your folks are still married? They own their homes? Amazing. I’m financially leagues more secure than my parents are / were when they were raising kids. I started a decade older than my pops. We moved around so much after my parents split up I don’t know if I could remember every residence.

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HoyAIAG@reddit

My brother bought the house

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Lollydollops@reddit

My parents bought the house I grew up in in 1984, when I was 4 years old. My mom still lives there. I go back and visit every couple of months. The house has changed a lot (like, a lot a lot) since we moved into it, but it’s home. My husband and I have talked about buying it from her if we ever moved back to the area and she wanted to downsize, but she’s currently doing even more renovations to it, and I don’t think she’ll ever want to move out of it.

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Individual_Baby_2418@reddit

My mom offered to sell my childhood home to me. It still felt like home and always would as long as she lived there. But 1) I couldn't afford it and 2) I don't think my husband would want to live in my childhood home. It's better that we have something that's *our* home instead. But yes, I'll miss going there and lying on the couch. I used to be able to hang out all day there, but when I visit my mom in her condo it doesn't have the same homey feeling and I'm ready to go after a few hours.

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jmac11281@reddit

I remember when my parents sold the house where all of my siblings grew up. I remember walking around in it one last time when it was all empty. I felt like Will Smith in the final episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. My sister and a couple of my brothers went to the open house when the house was fixed up. That was so strange. It is so bittersweet. But as long as my mind is sharp, my childhood home will always look the way it did when I was growing up.

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Popular-Stranger191@reddit

Man, this is a tough one, and is probably the reason we won’t end up selling our house after the kids move out. I want them to have a place to always go back to. I grew up in a military family and Clinton closed a bunch of the bases I grew up on so my first six neighborhoods don’t even exist anymore. We lived in my grandma’s house at one point; that is demolished as well. The house I was most connected to is in one of the markets that was super inflated after 2020 and my dreams of buying that house are dashed because it’s inflated to 5x its actual worth and I’ll never afford it. Four of the other homes I lived in are on military bases and I can’t access them because I’m not in that world anymore. Finally, the house I graduated high school in, where my parents were living when I graduated college, got married, and had both my kids, they sold in 2017. So now I have nothing to go back to. I live in a state I hate, but my town is a bubble not really affected by the politics of the bigger state, so it’s not bad, but I’ve said many times I don’t want to die here. But I still want to have a place for my kids to come back to when they need to.

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MiKapo@reddit

Nope. My parents divorced and then sold the home. Since me and my sister no longer lived at home, i guess they figured they sell it

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DonShulaDoingTheHula@reddit

I took (or sold) all my childhood toys when I left so there isn’t any treasure trove left for me to go through. I was already trying to get top dollar for my unwanted stuff when I went to college so there’s nothing left to find. My parents divorced and my dad still lives in the house but it’s just sad to go there now. Doesn’t feel at all like home anymore and the good memories have a tinge of sadness now.

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dsutari@reddit

Yes, parents still in it. Father immobile with dementia. Everything gathering dust from the past 30 years. I live in a modest townhouse and give away anything I don't need on FB marketplace for free. Never going to accumulate crap.

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Abidarthegreat@reddit

My father was a commercial pilot so we moved around a ton, almost like an army family. I had lived in 5 different states by the time I hit 5th grade.

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GlitteryFab@reddit

Am I the only one whose parents didn’t own a home? They did when they were married but once they divorced never again. That being said, when my dad had to sell my grandparents house after they died, that was hard. All the memories and the only place of normalcy for us.

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frenchizal@reddit

My mom died about 12 years ago. My sister and I went home and had about three days to grab whatever we wanted to keep from the house - both our childhood stuff and anything to remember Mom by. Then the bank took possession of the house (neither of us could afford to move back and take on that mortgage) and it was eventually resold to flippers who redid the interior. Seeing the renovation pictures online makes me sad because it doesn't look like I remember, but I'm also glad the house is getting a new life and that people are still living there.

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I-Own-Blackacre@reddit

Yes! My parents have been in their house for over 33 years. I was in elementary school when we moved in and I still go back often with my wife and kids and sleep in my same room when I visit. I love the nostalgia and how so many things in the house trigger memories. But I'm not so attached to it - I know it's going to be sold. In fact, I've been telling them to sell so they are closer to me and I know that down the line I'll probably need to help them.

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WhatTheCluck802@reddit

I am still salty that my grandmother sold the house my great grandparents built. My other grandparents still live in the house they built 65 years ago. I visited them yesterday in fact and it always feels like coming home. 🥰 My parents have since both moved from the houses I grew up in (they divorced 35+ years ago). While we have decent relationships now, I have navigated difficult issues with each parent over the years and I have mixed feelings about each of those homes for various reasons.

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Groundscore_Minerals@reddit

Yes, my boomer father does. He won't sell it and is living in basically poverty to save it for us, his kids. I'm working hard as fuck to make a better life for myself so he can sell it and live off the money and have a good life for as long as he has left.

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BoogerWipe@reddit

My parents still live in the house they raises us all in. Bought for $80k and its worth $1.2m now (paid off of course). I live a mile from them so I'm there all the time. They don't plan to move so when the time comes my siblings and I will need to sell it ourselves and split.

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EmRuizChamberlain@reddit

We’re selling my grandpa’s house right now. I’m 38. It’s breaking my heart. It’s been in our family since the 1800’s. We were poor Mexicans but we owned something and his three kids are selling it. They don’t need the money, they just don’t want to be bothered with it. Lots of feelings. To answer your question, my parents sold every home I grew up in. We moved several times. They were antsy because of my mom, who’s forever uncomfortable in her own skin; a Russian doll. Rich girl aesthetic, tiny hungry poor girl on the deep inside. It’s why my husband and I chose our last house when my oldest was 4, and we’ve not moved since.

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smokes_-letsgo@reddit

I was a latchkey kid and probably moved a dozen times as a kid. Not even sure which house I would consider a childhood home tbh. My dad is dying though and has a houseful of crap, so I may be dealing with that aspect before long. Might also just let his wife handle it since he made a point to tell me he’s leaving her everything as soon as I moved across the country to take care of him.

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Linzcro@reddit

I felt the same when my parents sold their house some years back. While I am glad my folks now live in a condo where they don't have to do yard/pool work and live amongst people their age, I loved the house I grew up in and wish I could go back. This sounds creepy but sometimes I drive past it if I am in the neighborhood just to see what has been done that I can see. There was definitely a treasure trove of my old stuff. Their house was quite large and mine is pretty small so I really had to pick and choose what I wanted. The NKOTB stuff was the best. I saved a tee shirt I had made at Six Flags that has a picture of me and Joey McIntyre on it that said "He's Mine!" (my brother has never let me hear the end of his mocking on this lol) and a Dylan McKay action figure from my 90210 phase. I THINK my parents took my beanie babies but I saved my childhood teddy bear.

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ekjjkma@reddit

Mine was passed down through generations. Great grandfather bought it. It burned down in 2008, but we still own the land. No one is doing anything with the land except continuing to pay taxes on it. My dad seems to be fine with paying taxes on an empty lot, so idk.

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DParadisio43137@reddit

My dad is still in the house I grew up in. I'm not sure what the plan is with the property when he dies. My sibling is the executor of the will, as they still live in state.

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micsulli01@reddit

I'm 41, my parents sold ours 10 years ago. They asked me to come take anything I wanted out. I couldn't think of anything I really needed so just said I'm good (plus i loved out of state). Now I think of stuff regularly that I wish I went and got.

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Dekuip_bcn@reddit

They sold it two weeks ago. I had already moved out more than 20y ago, so all my important stuff was already sorted and in my own house. Nevertheless I still found a couple of forgotten treasures when we did the last clean up. I'm relived we did this together with my parents and not me having to do it alone when they would be gone.

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balthazar_blue@reddit

I guess I'm in kind of an in-between position. For context: I grew up in a ranch style house. My parents built on 10 acres they had bought from my paternal grandparents -- half of their 20 acre parcel. My sister and I had the run of the entire 20 acres, with our grandparents within walking distance. When we were quite young, our parents installed a wood burning stove in the house to help with winter heating. The stove was at one end of our living room, and on the other side of the wall behind the stove was my bedroom, at one end of the house. Concerned about safety, my parents put in a combination of fire rated sheetrock and brick under and behind the stove. Then in 1998 we had a house fire. It was a total loss. The fire started at the other end of the house, but all that sheetrock and brick did what it was supposed to when the fire spread, so a fair amount of my things were salvageable. I was also in my third year of college by this time, and my sister had moved out as well, so a lot of our stuff was in storage. We've gone through a fair amount of personal loss in the ensuing 25+ years, notably the loss of all of my grandparents, so we're very aware of the effort it takes to go through a lifetime's worth of possessions. My parents were ultimately able to rebuild on the same property. I'm glad I've been able to show my children where I grew up. But at the same time I'm a little sad I can't show my children *exactly* where and how I grew up.

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VashMM@reddit

My dad realized he could retire early if he sold his house and moved to his cabin back in 2020. He and my mom live in the middle of nowhere in a Buckminster Fuller "dome home" now. It was kinda sad to have their house go to someone else, but I live 40 minutes away from it and don't really ever have a reason to go up that way anymore so it's not that big of a deal anymore. I took a bunch of stuff home with me when they were cleaning out their house, so I have all the nostalgic stuff I could want.

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madogvelkor@reddit

We moved a couple times when I was growing up, so no. But they do still live in the one they bought when I was 16. I'm not too attached to it though. Unfortunately it's a 4 bedroom 2 car garage home full of their collections. And they won't downsize now while they could still go through their own stuff. I'm afraid one of them will die then I'll have to try to get the other in an assisted living place and pay someone else to get rid of all their stuff.

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MsBlondeViking@reddit

Grew up on around 200 acres of farmland. My childhood home is gone. It was lost in a fire when my uncle went crazy one day/night. Due to the traumatic events, too much pain and heartache surrounds the land now, so my parents sold it within a year after it happened.

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DefiantThroat@reddit

My childhood home burnt in a house fire when I was in college. 125 year old farmhouse. (Remember to clean those dryer lint traps). The house was built in a time with huge wood beams and thick quarry stones. Despite the damage the Amish wanted them. They came on horse and buggy, removed all the fire damage stuff, recovered the beams and stones and put them on a large flatbed driven by a local Mennonite. We sat in lawn chairs under one of our big trees and watched the whole operation over the course of the day. It was very cathartic. So I have very little from my childhood. This sub brings back so many memories of stuff that would have burned in the fire.

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Hot_Razzmatazz316@reddit

I moved around a lot (like every four years), but my grandparents stayed in their houses, so all of my childhood memories that are in one consistent place are there. My foster parents who raised me for a while have lived in the same house for almost 40 years, and they are not going anywhere.

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surfingbiscuits@reddit

Heh... my dad recently sold the old place. I came to help clear it out but I think I wound up rescuing more stuff from the dumpster than I put in.

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neonphotograph@reddit

My dad was in the military, so everything was culled every couple of years. "We are not moving with this!" And now I take that same attitude. But I have one huge storage tub with all of my can't-part-with items, including some trolls and pogs (lol).

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Tropical_Storm_Jesus@reddit

it's a weird feeling, probably a lot easier for people who lived in 5+ places growing up, but there's so many memories left in those old neighborhoods...all the Trick or Treating alone, Xmases, parties, bbqs, 'girl/boy stuff'...it's like an ancient 3D yearbook. I drove thru my old neighborhood last summer for the first time in forever and got waved at by 'neighbors' who def. didn't know who I was but that was an interesting flashback-y feeling to the old days. keep wondering how trippy it would be to end up living there again, and would it feel great or like a weird childhood wannabe re-capturing mistake?

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Cromasters@reddit

My dad was in the military and we moved around quite a bit. I don't really feel like I have a "childhood" home. The house my parents live in now was bought when I was in 9th grade. They had bought and then sold half a dozen houses before that one. So a lot of my childhood stuff was given away in between those earlier moves. My dad did find a few Masters of the Universe books in the attic from when I was a kid. I gave them to my daughter and she is now obsessed.

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chicahhh@reddit

My parents sold our childhood home (beautuful old big house in the country) and bought it BACK four years later!! Still there. Amazing to bring my own kids there to visit.

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garden__gate@reddit

I am so grateful to my parents for moving out of my childhood home while they were still fit enough to do so. It was sad, for sure, but now my mom is in a 2 bedroom condo (my dad has since passed), which is so much more manageable. She also has a great community in the condo building.

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SilentDrapeRunner11@reddit

My mom sold the house I grew up in around 15 years ago and it honestly was one of the saddest days of my life. It didn't help that the guy she sold it to was a complete douchebag as well. My mom eventually ended up moving to a different state and I to a different country, and it never feels like I'm 'visiting home' whenever I visit her.

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LoverboyQQ@reddit

Parents bought their home in 73, two years after I was born. It’s a nice place back away from town at the end of a dirt road. They paid it off in 15 years working like hell and investing everything they had. See dad grew up dirt poor and mom was one of thirteen kids raised on a farm. I went to work at age 15 cause I wanted that dollar. Mom still lives there as we lost dad last year dec 15. I grew up not rich but not poor I guess by dad’s standards. They worked so much that my childhood was spent with older people or alone. For years we was the only ones on the half mile road. I love going home to remember all the great things I was given.

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insanewriters@reddit

My dad sold it after my mom died. He tried staying there, but couldn’t. I get it. He lives in the same neighborhood at least.

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Senemish@reddit

We moved a few times, but I did just inherit the house that my we all lived at last. It's full of stuff from my brother's and I childhood. Of course it also came equipped with the standard Correlle dishes most of us grew up with. Tupperware from the 80s. I've yet to get into the real storage areas, but there are boxes from our move in 1998 that I never opened. The attic has my 2 Pentium computers from the mid 90s and some old CRT monitors. It's wild.

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mackattacknj83@reddit

They got foreclosed on

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Thee-lorax-@reddit

My folks moved a year or so after I moved out. They traded their house in town for a house and 10 acres out in the country. I hated it but my dad had been forced to retire due to a work injury and he didn’t have anything to keep him busy. I think having work to do kept him alive and in good health. They moved back into town a couple of years ago because it was getting to be to much for him but in all fairness he’s 76 years old. He works part time at a grocery store now. I know that had nothing to do with your question but I feel like we are all dealing with against parents at this point in our life’s.

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Vargen_HK@reddit

I was ok with my parents selling my childhood home. It was on the market for so long that I had plenty of time to make peace with the idea, and then to share in their frustration about how long it was taking. I was even ok with all the changes the new owners were making. My own home was built in the 1950s and we’ve made a lot of changes to make it suit us. I was less enthusiastic about them cutting down the woods that I used to play in, but a lot of that is me generally preferring woods to lawn. About a month ago the house caught fire and burned down. That… that got me a bit. Thankfully the people who lived there weren’t home when it happened.

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soneg@reddit

Mine still have their house from the last 30 years. They talk about selling it but with the prices, it's not worth it to downsize. They've been steadily getting rid of things over the years though, but as we move, sometimes things appear back in the garage.

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CheeCheePuff@reddit

My parents moved out of “our house” 10 years ago, which was upsetting, but in retrospect I can see how their new house is much better. Lots more space for grandkids to play and sleep over, etc. But EVERY time I have a dream that just has a generic house setting, it’s that house. I never have dreams that take place at their new house, at my own house where I’ve lived for 15 years, at any of the places I lived in between… always that house.

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FF7FanThrowaway@reddit

Nah. My mom let the house burn after I left. Literally. Electrical fire.

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Dude-from-the-80s@reddit

Dad still lives in the house they bought in 1985; he finally paid it off a year or so ago.

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SweetCosmicPope@reddit

I was raised by my grandparents. They lived in a relatively quiet (except during spring break, etc) beach town in one of the ritziest neighborhoods. That was where they planned on retiring and eventually dying. After my grandmother died from lung cancer and emphysema when I was around 19 my gramps decided to sell the house we grew up in and move closer to my dad (across the street to be exact). It was nice having him closer to family, and I could drive over and help with yard work and stuff when he needed. But I always missed my old home. I don't consider myself a pack rat, but some of the stuff he trashed just to get rid of it and not have to deal with it makes me sick to think about now. My grandma had a huge collection of records and an antique record player (a really nice one). All in the trash, despite my protests to at least see if there were any rarities. All my old toys from the 80s and 90s? Trash. I haven't been able to find any of my old yearbooks prior to the 6th grade, so I'm pretty sure those all wound up in the trash at some point too during that move. But yeah, I miss my childhood home and my old town and I've always told my wife that if I ever came into some real money I'd probably buy it back to have at least as a weekend retreat.

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melanthius@reddit

I am paying a guy to digitize a bunch of old photo albums. I organize and share all my photos using Lightroom which makes it easy for other family members to gain access and download if they wish. I could not locate my old Magic: The Gathering cards but I don't care much about that. Most other stuff I just threw away or donated.

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-Chris-V-@reddit

My folks sold the house I grew up in when I was like 30. The. Sold it at a relative minimum price, about half what it was worth a few years prior to sale and less than half of what it's currently worth. It pisses me off to this day. They still haven't bought a new permanent home (it's been 10 years). I was surprised by how much their sale of the house destabilized my life even as an adult. It bums me out that my kids will never get to see the place I grew up.

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jesrp1284@reddit

The house I grew up in was foreclosed on after my parents separated when I was 18 (my youngest sister was 12 at the time). The house was eventually bought out by some mentally ill people who were animal hoarders, and the house is now condemned. It’s really sad because it was a beautiful old house with tons of antique wooden details, wood flooring, and a front porch that wrapped around two sides of the house. It’s so sad to see it now, and I wish the village I grew up in would demolish it already since it can’t be fixed up.

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Muffin-sangria-@reddit

Who in their right mind would leave their pogs behind??

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lorenzo463@reddit

My parents moved out of my childhood home a week after I graduated from High School. I don’t think either of them were particularly happy living in our suburban neighborhood anymore- I don’t remember either of them having friends in the neighborhood. My only regret is that I somehow forgot to pack my copy of Fireball Island. Those things go for $400.00 on EBay these days 😩.

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mystiqueallie@reddit

I moved a lot when I was a kid - between age 7 and age 16, I moved something like 6 times, so I don’t have a real attachment to any particular home as a childhood home. My parents did move all the stuff from house to house instead of making us get rid of a lot. She kept a bunch of my older siblings’ toys and kept asking someone to take it. My brother kept promising, but never did. She packed it up and put it in the garage attic. A few years ago, I saw someone in a local Facebook group looking for those same toys (vintage Fisher Price). I told my mom and we looked up the value and sold them. Never told my brother. She moved out of that house last November and he never asked about them, so he’d obviously forgotten or didn’t care that much about them. I have two Rubbermaid containers of childhood mementos.

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Curious-Ad-1448@reddit

I left for college, and a few weeks later my childhood house was packed up and moved. Good thing they told me the new address. I did know it was going to happen and it was for a good reason (a new job for my father) but still a cold slap to the face as my childhood ended abruptly. Oh and the extra kicker, this was early September 2001.

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Coozie@reddit

My dad stills lives in the house where I grew up. It’s also the house where my mom grew up. She recently passed. My brother already owns a very nice house and I have no desire to own a home (I have a great apartment I love). The hope is by the time my dad is too old to keep up with house, or when he passes, my son will be in a financial place to buy it. It’s a WONDERFUL medium-modest home in a great location in a great city. I can’t imagine not having the house in the family.

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squaredkevin@reddit

My childhood home was sold off while I was in college and then massively remodeled. My elementary school was demolished a few years ago. Nearly every storefront has turned over, and whole sections of town have changed. It's surreal.

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SnooSnooSnuSnu@reddit

My mother sold the house I had lived my entire life at in 2012. I had moved out previously though, and was in another state, so didn't really matter much. Prior to around 2010 I had thought she would stay there forever, but she ended up moving 1000 miles south, then I moved 1000 miles west.

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JustANameAway@reddit

I hope my Dad sells our childhood home. I get $50k from the sale because my mother signed over her 50% to me and my sister during the divorce so he didn't get the money. I would like the money for the pain and suffering those two idiots inflicted on us. As an adult I understand, you were both young, horney and whatever but listen, you had kids and that was on you, you should have taken care of them. It's not my parents fault they were stupid, but it's also not an excuse completely.

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relpmeraggy@reddit

My dad looked me straight in the eye and said he would never sell and it was my inheritance. About 5 years later he sold it, that was just the relationship we had.

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GhostKingHoney@reddit

They sold it a couple of months after I finished high school. They downsized and I never lived in the new house. I went out on my own immediately. They've moved again since. I don't like the new place at all. I'd buy back the original family home if I could. It was a terrific place

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heresmytwopence@reddit

My folks bought their house in 1978 and I (first child) came along the following year. I’ve seen no signs that they plan on leaving until they die or can’t care for themselves. I can’t even imagine (nor do I want to) what’s lurking in the basement or the eaves behind their bedroom, which was filled with old school papers and toys the last time I saw it. Somewhere in the house I have a collection of 80s and early 90s baseball cards that was fairly worthless the last time I checked.

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nice__enough@reddit

Keep an eye out for your parents just hoarding up the next place they land. Hopefully they won't.

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