When a family member passes, it’s an emotional, reflective time in life.

There are many considerations as to the funeral, insurance, and the questions of the loved one’s possessions.

Here’s a beautiful story of giving selfish next of kin exactly what they deserve.

You want his car? Take his other crap first!

My partner (Carl) and I were friends at first, and when he lost his house due to bankruptcy, he came to live with me.

He had no job, lived in poverty, on a disability pension (of which he gave his ex half), for 14 years since his wife left.

In contrast, I owned my own house, had a successful business and was pretty independent.

He was very handy around the house and loved puttering, talking with the neighbors and had a great sense of humor. He was clean and very easy to live with. We were together for 10 years.

We treated each other well, but he had no rights to anything I owned and vice versa.

I stayed away from his family drama as best I could.

OP explains the relationship she saw between Carl and his kids.

Carl had 2 adult kids (Margo, 28) and (Todd, 35).

The kids never visited their father, ever, and when he called them, they rarely picked up, or returned his calls. If they DID pick up, they brushed him off or dismissed him entirely.

I felt bad for him, but what could I do? They were like that for years before I met him.

They were rude and nasty people. But he loved them and couldn’t understand why they didn’t have time to talk to him.

The story really begins here at Carl’s untimely and sad death.

Carl died suddenly one evening at 58. He had been in poor health, and finally his heart just gave out.

Not 12 hours after he died, Margo called to ask if he had any life insurance. For a nano second, I thought that she was concerned about my finances handling the burial etc., but no.

She told me that according to their mothers separation agreement, he was supposed to keep life insurance on himself and she and Todd were to be the beneficiaries.

I guess he never told her that once she turned 18, he had cancelled his life insurance because he was on disability and could not afford it. He may have tried to tell her during one of those phone calls, who knows?

OP is naturally shocked at what she’s heard from the daughter.

Later the same day, Margo called and asked if he had a will. She told me that she had already been to a lawyer (this was the day after he died) and that because she suspected Carl didn’t have a will, SHE would be his next of kin.

She would be taking over the burial arrangements etc, and she was the beneficiary of ALL of his stuff in my house, including his car, which was a used car but still newer than hers.

I was pretty upset by the timing of all of this, and couldn’t believe they could be this mean and cruel, so soon after he died. He was their dad and he loved them.

She then told me she would be doing a “walk-through” my house to be sure I didn’t miss anything of his. That was where I said, NO, you won’t.

Now the problem: all of Carl’s junk that needed to be moved.

Margo was really angry about my refusal to let her into the house and to take the car that same day, and conveniently “forgot” to tell me where they were having the funeral.

She didn’t put it in the paper and she only told “special people” where it was. (I found out later it was 3 towns away) But she did let me know repeatedly that they wanted the car and ALL of his stuff out of my house.

I knew that once she came to take the car, she would not be back to get the rest of his stuff, which she knew was nothing of any value. I would be left to get rid of a monumental amount of stuff at my expense.

Cue: malicious compliance.

Now, dear Carl was a hoarder, and I mean that in the true sense of the word. Even if something was broken, useless, outdated or worn out, he kept it.

So he had 4 old style TVs, 6 giant tool boxes, 8 computers, 2 dead BBQs, a floor model drill press that he was going to fix, a band saw he found in the dump, 6 stereo components (none of this stuff ever worked, he was saving them all for “parts”) plus 198 boxes of metal parts from odd machines, trucks, cars, bulldozers and buses that he salvaged and collected over the years.

It was ALL in the garage, which he thought of his “man cave”.

All these massive boxes, and that wasn’t it. There was one more behemoth.

198 VERY heavy boxes…guess they were packed quite full.

Plus the pride of his collection, a 60 year old 5 ton metal lathe that Noah used to construct the ark.

So…..I parked his car at the very back of my 2 car garage, then shoved ALL of the boxes of stuff in front of it, so that it was impossible to remove the car without taking everything out in front of it, including the metal lathe.

It took two weeks and a lot of effort, but the garage was packed to the roof. I took a picture of the garage with the doors open.

Margo and Todd soon started screaming to their lawyer that I was not cooperating in regards to the car.

I responded that I needed to see a legal document that the car was in fact legally theirs, registered into their name, and properly insured, in case they drove it away, as I didn’t want to be held liable.

Back and forth they went, until Margo & Todd finally caved, and had to tackle the possessions.

I also needed to have the rest of the stuff taken away. Plus, I had just had my driveway paved, so they had to have proper movers come to get his stuff, not just a couple of yahoos in a pickup that would damage the new driveway.

They said they would, AFTER they got the car. Their lawyer screamed that I was stalling and refusing to give up the car. He even went so far as to accuse me of selling the car.

I sent the picture I had taken of the garage to my lawyer, proving that I still had the car.

My lawyer said…where is it? I said, you can just barely see the roof, but it is there behind the boxes.

He got a good laugh out of that.

So Margo and Todd had to hire a moving and storage company to come and collect Carl’s precious stuff.

The metal lathe took 4 men and a special small tow-motor machine thing to take it away. It took all day for them to empty that garage.

I asked where were they taking it, and they said to a storage unit. The head mover said something to the effect that there was NO WAY, this was going to fit in the one storage unit they had rented.

Oh well.

There was the icing on the cake as well, in regards to the funeral.

So, in the end, the cost of the movers was $14,000 (I heard this from his best friend) and who knows what the storage units cost and for how long they rented them.

Perhaps they recouped some of the money they spent from selling scrap metal.

Oh right, I almost forgot. They also had to pay for his funeral.

Turns out, I DID have an insurance policy on him that I paid for and had planned to use for his burial, but since I wasn’t told where the funeral was, I used the money to pay off my mortgage.

It would have cost them nothing, to be nice to the woman that looked after their dad for 10 years.

Good riddance! In so many more ways than one.

Let’s see what folks had to say:

Everyone, like this commenter, was glad to see such a satisfying ending.

One commenter offered their condolences, and their glee.

People really didn’t appreciate how these brats acted towards her.

Moral of the story: greed will come back to bite you.

If you liked that story, check out this one about a Costco customer who got their cart stolen… so she hatched a plan to get it back!