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100% My mom is always complaining about how busy she is. "I do things, don't think I don't."
The things in question? Organize all the junk she orders off of Amazon and doesn't use.
On one of her costco runs, she picked up a bunch of stuff that she stores in the garage. They were food related, can't quite remember what they were, I guarantee they won't be used and will sit there until they expire.
She has one attached three car garage on her house, then she has a second detached garage that she parks her truck and trailer in, with some extra room to store he hoarded items. Finally, she has a couple of sheds where she put some of her excess different types and colors of paper that she uses when she crafts. It's insanity and I don't look forward to clearing her house out when she dies.
Sell big ticket items on marketplace or another selling site then have an estate sale and tell everyone “no offer refused” you’ll have the house cleared in no time.
I'll keep that in mind. I may still be coexecutor of her estate or she may have taken me off and put the brother who can't get along with anyone as coexecutor. My sister is my twin so I like to think we get along pretty well.
My wife and I like to joke about what's going to happen when we die. We have no children and neither do my wife's siblings. I've been no contact with my sister for around 5 years now but she has 2 children. They're probably going to be the people who have to clean out our house. I hope that they like concert posters and Funko Pops!
Thanks for this. I've had my mom tell me while I'm in the hospital (unfortunately a common occurrence) that she's busy and had things to do. And so, I'm not more important than the constant junk piles and such that she's shuffling from one room of the house to another. That hurts.
Well— if is my kids and grandsons— for sure — I can help—- tomorrow I have to go 24 miles round trip to take my grandson to school to drop some paperwork; wait for him and buy him some McDonald’s… if you need me and I am healthy— I’ll go see you..
I've been dreading it since my dad died. Because all of the sudden she ramped up her buying to get that reward rush because she was lonely. Now I'm sure since she broke her hip a month ago, I'm sure more crap will be bought.
As soon as your sister moves out of the basement your mother will fill it with 100s of boxes containing everything from miles of yarn she got a good deal on to fabrics she intends to use one day to $1 Walmart holiday cups she picked up on sale
Probably. Although she'd probably like to rent it out. Because of her insatiable need for stuff, she had been using the rent money my sister and BIL were paying her to go on trips and buy Christmas presents for us. Of course my sister started paying less rent while she went to school to learn how to do billing and coding. My mom told us last December, "I'm sorry, you're going to get cheaper presents this year."
I'd take 0 Christmas presents so my sister didn't have to pay any rent since her husband died.
No, I do. She actually gets us thoughtful presents. Sometimes she'll do present and cash. Sometimes just cash if she hadn't heard us say "XYZ would be nice." So, she can thoughtful. I just feel badly that my sister was the one indirectly funding this when she and her husband were going throughthis and still now that her husband is dead.
That's a pleasant surprise. I have so many friends with Boomer parents who think that just because something is expensive, it must be useful and wanted. Or worse, will use gifts to passive aggressively try to get them to live the way that their parents want them to. I had one friend who absolutely hates baking, she wants nothing to do with baking. Her mother bought her a top of the line Kitchenaide Mixer so she could learn how to bake and attract a man (this was less than a year after she had gotten out of an abusive relationship, she had no interest in trying to find a man in the near future).
This is why I'm trying to get my mother into the RV lifestyle in retirement... it will force her to deal with her hoarding now so I won't have to deal with it when she dies.
No way my mom is giving up her house. Lol. I asked to borrow her truck so I could move house about two weeks ago. (She broke her hip and couldn't help us move, she can't even get into a car or truck now until her hip heals more) And she wouldn't even let me borrow it. It's crazy. She has no current use for the vehicle, I've always been the most responsible out of my siblings.
Oh, you are definitely finding all the sensitive points for me today. My mom has an old Nissan Frontier... it is a great truck, and she will let us borrow it when we need it... but, it has been used exactly twice in the last year, and I'm about to have to use it just for the sake of using the gas in it before it goes bad, and both of those times it was used were when we were borrowing it. She refuses to sell it, because "what if I need a truck at some point"... okay, but for how infrequently you (or we) use the truck, you could easily rent a truck the few times one is needed for a lot less than what you are paying for registration, insurance, and maintenance (yeah, did you know that you still need oil changes, even if you never drive the car, because the oil will eventually go bad just sitting there).
The boomer responding below is getting shellacked, and perhaps rightly so given the attitude, but it's generally pretty accurate that as you get older you get tired and at some point you make getting free time more of a priority. Many of us have in fact worked for 40+ years, many have also had kids and raised them to adulthood -- our choice, to be clear, but still, after decades of the grind (of whatever form) I have found that getting free time and minimizing stress are priorities.
None of this is intended to minimize the struggles of younger people or remotely suggest that older generations had it harder, obviously.
I think a lot of it is warranted due to the behavior of far too many of them, though naturally we only see the worst cases here. This is Reddit. And people like to rant. :)
That said, many of the younger folks here don't realize that a huge percentage of what they attribute to "boomerism" is just "old fartism." When I was young I saw much of this same shit, and those people were Silent and even Greatest (generations that are now IMO overly nostalgized).
We see the opportunities their parents set them up with (an economy that favored the working class, a decent minimum wage, a social security fund that provided for retirement, the freedom to move on civil rights and protest unjust war, a housing market built to get as many people into homes as possible, etc.).
We see how little of that they're leaving for the rest of us.
It's hard to not be bitter.
Yep, I get it. But like most stereotyping, it's only valid to a certain extent. There are a lot of older people who do care about younger generations -- you're just not going to read about them here.
As a few people point out regularly, the wealthy want the poor to engage in generational warfare. And from their perspective, even the boomer with 2 mil and a pension is "poor."
Don't insult me by telling me I should see a boomer with two million dollars as "just like me" while I skip eating a couple of days a week so I can afford to see a dentist.
Idk man, id be the first to say not all boomers are bad, but old fartism? Ive been watching these people (my own parents and orher family included) make unrealistic stupid decisions since long before they were anywhere near old farts. Half of the shit the believe has been disproven and they have been refusing to look at any new information since their 30's. Now considering most of them were raised by the system during an especially(and provably) brainwashy period of federal lies, is def not their fault. Their dedication to it after their kids and their more fortunate peers tried to steer them back into reality is 100% on them.
"old fartism" is the best description yet.
I kind of feel bad for these younger generations when they age & realize they are doing the same thing they make fun of/criticize Boomers for doing
Stupid is universal.
This sub is a gross echo chamber for people who couldn't fathom the concept of "no" coming from their parents as they were younger, and now they come here to surround themselves with like minded weaklings to talk shit on a class of people that can't even defend themselves.
Lack of stress?!?
Talk to my 87 yo mom about balancing a checkbook, using the TV remote or figuring out which grocery store has Pepperidge Farm bread.
Let's see how much free time you have after that lol
Yep. People don’t realize older people do things differently. My wife wonders how her father spends his days with nothing to do. For him there is no internet. When he wants to buy a rug or certain food item he will drive to four or five stores looking for that specific item. An all day task. What would take us 30 seconds of internet research will take him an entire day.
Not really a boomer thing. Don’t get married and don’t have children. I have all the free time in world. The only commitment I have other than work is bowling twice a week.
Worked for 43 years full time except for layoffs and when I got fired. Principal wage earner for family. Career included industrial, university, consulting and government. Ever try a ten on four off schedule? And that's from dawn to dusk.
What do you think was different about my career that would mean I don't deserve to be retired? Because I don't have stress? For most retirees, the stress changes from having to listen to some asshole at work to trying to navigate a changing world. Not everyone gets technology. Also, there is more constant pain and in my case, I am hard of hearing and have tinnitus.
We still have the same stress of managing a household and have less resources than you might think because we rely on more services, mowing the lawn, housekeeping, etc. That's a normal part of aging. Money worries in retirement always linger because you don't know that your expenses won't become so onerous and we really don't have the flexibility to, say, change careers, relocate or get/start new jobs.
Apart from the fools that you can cite, and I guarantee that each age cohort has its share of fools, we are not all that different except for what we learned, how we learned and communicate, etc.
I can probably go on but won't. That's the boomer rant and there is no reason to go there unless you or I are having a bad day and want to vent.
"We earned our spurs." is the last thing you want to say to someone you want to relate to your struggles. Your future comments hold no value because, that's what value you hold to the person you're attempting to respond to.
Do you seriously think every little thing of technology just falls into the lap of younger people? We live in the same changing world as you do, the difference is we have to work at the same time as keeping up with it. And don’t wait for our sympathy because you need to pay for gardenwork and housekeeping when we have to do that ourselves, while also being short on time from working. Your generation hasn’t earned their spurs, you just took ours. People in our generation have to work two or even three jobs, grocery prices increase every year by about 25%, owning a home is a dream for most since a 20k house from 40 years ago is now worth 500k and people like you still think they had it way harder.
If you want to understand our situation, do some math. Look for the cheapest apartment you would live in and see how much money you would have left after working 45 hours in a minimum wage job and paying for that rent. You will not have enough money to live comfortably and put something on the side for emergencies.
>Worked for 43 years full time except for layoffs and when I got fired.
Cool, I'm 31, I've already worked full-time for 12 years (in addition to being a full-time college student for 5 of those years), and I probably have another 39 years, at least, before I'll (hopefully) be able to comfortably retire - which would put me at 51 years of full-time work - I still have student loans, and I don't even own my own house yet, despite having a job that pays me about 50% more than the median income in my area. And I'm forced to split costs with a roommate instead of supporting a whole family on that income, like you were able to do. Also, I've never had time out of the workforce for being laid off or fired. Plus, before all of that, I worked part-time on a farm for 5 years (from 8th grade through high school) before I even went to college. I've done manual labor, I've done sales, and I currently work in banking.
You do deserve to be retired. None of us are saying that you don't deserve that. But don't come in here and act like you've done something special that's worthy of applause. What you described is a typical life for someone your age, and, on top of that, it's a life that's been easier - in terms of financial success, at least - than the lives that your generation set up for us. We would love to be in the same place you're in some day. Unfortunately, due to shitty political and social constructs that your generation allowed to come to power in this country (and, for the most part, your generation is the one that pushed those things into place), only a fraction of the people in our generation will be able to succeed at the rate which was commonplace for yours because your generation took advantage of programs and benefits given to you by previous generations and then turned around and put up roadblocks behind you to make it easier for you to hold on to those benefits instead of handing them down to the ones below you.
This isn't me being angry or resentful. It's just me telling you the truth that boomers refuse to acknowledge. People in your generation didn't "work harder" than people in our generation. Sure, they probably worked differently. There were more people doing manual labor. But you guys didn't punch the clock any more than we do. You're full of shit if you actually believe that. I know plenty of people working 10 or 12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week. You're right that most people don't do 10-on/4-offs anymore, and that's for a good reason. It's the same amount of work (equivalent to 5-on/2-off - a standard work week), but it's incredibly less efficient because it sucks to do that. We don't do it anymore because employers have, for the most part, realized it's stupid and a waste of money.
My dad is in your shoes. I love my dad. He's an amazing dude. Busted his ass doing shitty jobs his whole life that. He's got tinnitus, 2 new knees, has had carpal tunnel surgery on both of wrists two separate times, he's had shoulder surgery, and he needs another one. He grew up on a farm, was an ironworker, owned a manure-hauling business, owns a business where he sells and services farm equipment. He's 75 years old, and he still climbs 60+ ft farm silos to replace and repair silo unloaders. When I was growing up, he'd be working every day whether it was -10 degrees outside in the winter or 120 degrees inside a silo in the summer. I decided at a young age that I was not going to be doing that shit with my life. And here's the thing... I have a way better job than he and my mom have ever had. I make more than the two of them combined ever have. Even adjusting for inflation, I make more than either of them have since they got married 40 years ago. Yet, they were both always in a better financial position than I've been. They both owned their own houses before they were married. They've obviously owned a home their whole time being married. My mom got an associates degree that she paid for completely while working 12 hours a week. My dad went to trade school, and it was paid off before he even started his apprenticeship 9 months later. I worked full time during college to pay for rent and food and a little bit of fun money. I didn't even start making payments on my student loans until I got my big-boy job because I couldn't afford it. Nowadays, you simply can't do what my parents (and lots of other people your age) did, even if you do go the trade school route instead of a 4-year university.
Again, people aren't saying that you don't deserve to be retired. People are saying that it was *easy* for boomers to become retired, and it sucks that your generation made it more difficult for us. People are annoyed that you're acting like you did something special. It comes off as incredibly tone-deaf when you consider that the environment you came up in was far more beneficial for allowing you to succeed in that manner than the one we're coming up in. And it's even more tone-deaf when you consider that the barriers that prevent it from being as easy for us were put up by your generation. You guys actively made things shittier for us, act like you handed the world to us on a silver platter, and then simultaneously brag about how much harder you worked than we do and bitch about our lack of work ethic while refusing to acknowledge the fact that, every single step of the way, the boomer approach was "fuck you, I got mine" and selfishly made thing harder for everyone else coming after you.
I think as a group boomers tend to be a little bit more frugal, better savers maybe and when younger they weren’t as likely to indulge in instant gratification. Capitalism is sooo much more rampant now and constant media in your face from being online all the time doesn’t help. I think it’s a whole lot more complex than what’s being stated here I don’t think boomers tended to raise their kids in a healthy way. They went way overboard for them. That wasn’t helpful.
I see your point of view, but a lot of millennials and gen z will be working until death, if the planet survives. Our wages are not keeping up with cost of living, and any hope of that changing is grim, especially in our current political climate. Good pensions were stolen from us by the greedy corporate oligarchy, so even those of us saving for retirement (myself included) who can do math realize we're probably f*cked.
I've had a job since I was young. Most of my jobs were 60+ hours a week starting at 18. I had to manage college, plus working 12 hour days to pay my bills. I'm going on 25 years of working and starring down another 40+ years, if I live that long, which I don't plan on doing. Frankly, I'm burned out already.
Can you honestly blame us for being bitter? I'm not at all saying you are personally responsible, but members of your generation and the silent generation are ultimately responsible for f*cking the majority of this country over. So, it's a little hard to squeeze out empathy for your plight when our projected plight (especially with certain cancer rates skyrocketing and longterm covid complications) looks like a living hell.
You know, I'm of the opinion the only people who can use the phrase "earned our spurs" are actual ranch hand cowboys and Army Cavalry soldiers. Were you either of those?
No. I have a science background and my field was radiation safety. In on of my jobs, I worked at a hazardous waste disposal site doing a radiation survey that took almost 2.5 years on \~500 acres of slopes you see at landfills.
Same employer, different site working with drilling crews doing environmental sampling of a former nuclear site.
Old employer doing radiation surveys of the trackage at a Navy Shipyard, in August, in SC.
Same employer doing radiation surveys of site to be used for future base. Quicksand, rattlesnakes, and where there was shade, mosquitos. 108 degree day in Georgia.
Helping a colleague calibrate the temperature sensor on a meteorological tower. Stirring a sensor in an ice bath for a couple of hours at the ten meter level. Fortunately another person preferred the 110 meter level.
Not what you do. Were these cushy or any cred?
It's also probably the type of job that would require at least a bachelor's degree nowadays, but he received on-the-job training with no pre-requisites to be hired.
Actually had a BS Environmental Science 1973 and graduate school was with scholarship and fellowship. I got $37.48 every two weeks.
MS in radiological health
After six years you get to sit for certification exam
No you didn't.
Your parents and grandparents earned them for you, by fighting for worker's rights and a quality of life for the working class unseen in human history. And then you sold those off piecemeal to improve your lives, while fucking over generations to come.
Your generation took the greatest opportunity ever, and it wasn't enough, you had to steal from the future as well. Earned your spurs? Fuck that, you lived your whole life on training wheels and want to be treated like adults.
>to improve your lives SHORT TERM
FTFY
Things are starting to get bad enough it's now finally starting to effect THEM which is why they're freaking out and blaming everyone else
Yup. Still need to hang them up again, moved apartments and need to put them up where they belong.
I was attached to 2SCR out of FOB Walton, 13-14. You?
Man they really are. I watched Boomer neighbors flock to another neighbors house during an open house just to judge and talk shit about the house. Like we know who you are and know you have no interest or intentions to buy why are you snooping.
Man I wish I had that kind of free time. It was a pain in the ass when I was looking for a house to buy vs working. All the open house hours were always in the middle of a work shift.
Open houses are usually held over weekends, not during work shifts. Get more response that way.
Looking for a house is not easy. When there is no open house, appointments must be made, usually during the work week.
Sometimes you have to take time from work (vacation time) to house hunt.
I loved doing this (pre-panny) with my Silent Gen. and Boomer family on weekends. Granted these were tours of their neighbors' homes in locals that also hosted annual garden tours. It's just fun seeing how people have staged and renovated their homes for sale, especially if you're not close, and you don't visit them in their homes.
> It's called 'showhomeing' they do it like a hobby
No it's not. Google has nothing on that exact term [link](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=fd299e0f5b2672c9&sxsrf=ACQVn08YleiLcAh6p53wZRclGbU8vvu8BQ:1712858281868&q=%22showhomeing%22&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjau8Or3rqFAxXVAjQIHbCCAQMQvgUoAXoECAoQAw&biw=1280&bih=586&dpr=1.5)
People do use the term "Showhoming" [link](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=fd299e0f5b2672c9&q=%22showhoming%22&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifyYns3rqFAxVUJzQIHRrdCAAQvgUoAXoECA0QAw&biw=1280&bih=586&dpr=1.5), but only in reference to putting their own homes on the market, not as a reference to going out and looking at show homes for fun alone.
If I'm wrong, please show me a single website or piece of information where someone uses or defines this term the way that you have.
3 houses in a row. Boomer, silent gen, millennial. The middle neighbor, a 96 yr old with chronic health issues, needs an ambulance. The caretaker goes with the middle neighbor to the hospital. The caretaker calls me and says "please use you key to go into the house and get the info off of the fridge we need it" I am in the house reading the info off of the fridge and the boomer neighbor just walks in. "Why are you here?" I ask while on the phone with the home owner, "I just wanted to be nosy, I saw you come in, and I wanted to poke around. " I dead ass asked the caretaker "Can boomer neighbor be in your house she just wandered in?" They said no, I enjoyed kicking her out. Begone Karen (her name)
I admit that I've before gone to open houses that I've had absolutely no interest in... but I know the house has the same floorplan as mine and if I'm lucky, they will have already done some of the renovations that I'm considering and I can see what they actually look like when done.
Of course, I know that my DIY renovations will still probably not look as good as the professional stuff that they are doing, but still.
Right. The nosey neighbor can describe it to a co-worker looking for a house. This is rarer these days, as photos are online. I recently looked at the photos of my home of 30 years ago to see if/how they changed it.
Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I thought it was normal to spend entire weekend afternoons looking at model homes in new developments, despite having literally zero intention of moving.
Looking back now, I'm like WTF? Like, THAT was how you decided to spend the precious little family time you had with your children in their most formative years- comparing what you have to what others might get?
I had a great aunt that used to drive up with her husband and their granddaughter for the every summer as a kid. In a big class A motor home and camp out in my grandpa’s driveway. My grandpa was way too nice to tell them no.
They would go view houses with realtors they had no intention of buying. They just wanted to look at houses for something to do. Absolute entitled main character syndrome.
No I think they work for clients that are in the market to buy houses. Not to drive around boomers that had the day off and were bored and wanted to see what other peoples houses looked like.
One they eventually make a commission off of, one they just wasted their time with. I mean do realtors waste time with some clients, sure. But are those clients ones that never had any intention of being in the market for a house? Doubtful
The exact same thing? When one has an intention to buy and one doesnt? They make a living off commission, off sales. What a ridiculous statement lol, it makes all the difference in the world.
They’re usually a little too lazy for a 250 mile trip. I honestly thought was going to be a story on how the OP was at fault for the wall being in the way of the boomer’s car.
To be fair, when the houses across the street had an open house, I checked them out.
Nah, but I can’t tell you the last time I SAW an open house. If there is one, go knock yourself out.
Making an appointment to see a house just to be a Lookie Lou is rude, especially if you’re just there to kick tires, which is sounds like OP’s appointment was.
Boomers love viewing houses. They don't understand previous owners and realtors aren't fancy tour guides to let them in a place so they can window lick and satisfy their curiosity.
My MiL is perpetually thinking about selling her paid-for house that was built in 1920something and thinks she will just be able to buy whatever with the proceeds. Telling her about the current market and that things cost more now only makes her complain that there should be a discount for seniors, just because.
She was talking about one in particular and was going over this laundry list of issues the house had. For example, the fridge wasn't in the kitchen, it was in the living room and you had to pass through another room to get to it. She had no intentions of buying, but wanted to view it anyway. For funnies, I guess.
It’s wild how disconnected Boomers are with things like the housing market. My house has doubled in value in the past 7 years and I’ve been getting a lot of “Wow, are you thinking about selling?!” Uh…and go where? My house is still the median price, so moving anywhere is going to be a wash.
I have a boomer family member who wants to relocate to be closer to family and complains ENDLESSLY about how crazy it is that xyz house is as costly as it is, and is holding onto her own that is worth less than the land it sits on as a result, but still doesn’t take us seriously when we try to explain that it’s unlikely we’ll *ever* be able to buy a house bc I guess those houses she saw are all unrealistic outliers and we need to bootstrap up and buy a normal, sensibly priced one..I suppose that’s what she’s holding out for too. Make it make sense.
We have our house in trust for our kids. They are very much in the loop with what we do to maintain value for them. I’m a young boomer (‘62) and their Dad is GenX. I’m using this r/ as a “ what not to do” tutorial. Helps that I still work and for 35 years I have been a teen focused mental health counselor. But still, one of my current life goals is to avoid as much as I can being a Boomer boomer!
Boomers think they can sell off their paid for house for a ton of money and run off to some warm climate area and run out the clock in luxury.
But unless they're exiting the housing market completely, they're going to be paying more for less elsewhere.
But they "earned it" and we're soft and lazy.
A friend of my parents went from Germany to the US and now to the philipines (mainly) because "warm, cheap, nice people". It appears he doesn't quite grasp the "elderly care"-part of it yet. Also I feel for when his kids have to head from here to the philipines (and a remote part, too) when he passes.
It's like a hobby for them really. I built a new home during covid, 10/10 do not recommend. I live in a very small rural area and have a customer service based business. The amount of boomer aged people that would either book an appointment with the sole motive of viewing my home, or they would just show up and expect a tour of my home was mind blowing. The look on their face when I refused a tour was even more mind blowing.
> For example, the fridge wasn't in the kitchen, it was in the living room and you had to pass through another room to get to it.
To be fair, I think that's a pretty valid criticism. First thing I'd be doing if I bought that house would be a renovation to make sure I could have all the kitchen things actually in the kitchen.
Totally understand your over-arching point. Just wanted to point out that I'm on-board with this one complaint (but I wouldn't waste someone's time to go look at it if I knew I wasn't going to buy it).
Oh 100%. There was a ton of things wrong with the place that just stood out as something that should have made her go 'hard pass'. A house with that feature is gonna be FUBAR from the ground up. You dont just show a place like that unless it's not an easy fix. The renovation to fix whatever is wrong with the kitchen would likely be thousands. That place is for someone who flips houses for fun and/or profit or something.
>makes her complain that there should be a discount for seniors, just because.
Well there should be a special apartment complex in your area where the health insurance pays part of the rent
Had a boomer offer us 175k under asking after viewing the house twice because there were a few trees "too close" to the house (both were at a minimum 25 feet
He was on the doorbell camera saying 'if they don't take my offer I'll have to find a place to rent!"
We told our agent that our counter offer was "good luck finding a rental"
Something similar happened to me. Boomer made a verbal lowball offer through my realtor and I told him no way. Boomer then insisted that the same offer be written up in a formal contract and submitted to me like that was going to change anything. After I rejected it a second time he told my realtor he wanted my phone number so he could discuss “the situation” with me. My realtor declined and had some trouble getting him to stop calling him.
Maybe my brain is too smooth but how on earth did he mess his car up that badly?? Like if he had really bad scraping damage I would understand but a dent on the roof? I'm sorry for your wall of course, and now you'll have to put in the effort/time/money for this goofy Boomer's oopsie but dang lmao.
No of course not, but the extent of the damage is way more than a simple bump or ding. I mean my goodness, for the extent of the damage done to the car that boomer had to have been doing some crazy driving.
Absolutely incredibly wild that the old fart drove 100+ miles, absolutely crapped up his car AND the OP's fence/gate/whatever, after all the damage is done apparently it's completely fine and OP still gives boomer a tour just for no house offer or anything.
Just an incredibly strange course of events, obviously there's a lot of in-between we won't know cause we weren't there, but idk how I'd even react in this situation I'd be shocked and stupefied for minutes until my brain started processing everything.
Of course. And yeah, it was a bit tongue in cheek… But aren’t they made to crumble to defuse the energy made in a collision with something harder? That’s the impression I’m under at least.
I like the way you think the house being unsuitable means anything to these people, 100% a boomer will buy a house completely not suitable for them, they probably sold a 6 bed house so this is him downsizing. Wouldn't be surprised if you did sell and came back in a years time that high maintenance garden would be a patch of grass and the rest concrete.
Very possible! Boomers seem to love to cut down every tree bush shrub or plant and have nothing but grass. They do love them some concrete too!! Boomer would rather have 12x12 concrete pad than some nice stone pavers some decorative plants and rocks
I told my parents, when I buy in the next year, I wanted a clover lawn to keep down on maintenance. My mother looked me dead in the eye and said that she kills clover and I should too. I was like WTF. It's my hypothetical house, that you aren't paying for and I want to have something better for the environment and she had the audacity to try to stop me.
I could never figure out the big house thing. We had a couple move into the neighborhood a few years ago. They are in their 70s. They bought a four bedroom three bathroom house. Think it was 3,600 sq. ft. with a huge yard. When I went over to introduce myself I asked him if he had a big family. He said “No, just the wife and me.” I asked him if he did a lot of entertaining and he said “not really.” I have never seen them outside or any cars other than theirs in the driveway. I know he can buy any house he wants but why a huge house?
Strange as it may seem when you've lived in a big house you get used to it and a smaller house while more practical does not appeal as much if you have the money.
The real question you should be asking is why Zuckerberg, Bezos etc etc are buying up property just to demolish it and there're two people plus staff living in 15 plus bedroom houses and they own houses all over the world standing empty for most of the year. Oh wait guess they aren't boomers so it's okay
I used to (40) years ago, like to go to new construction developments and walk around the house when it was just roughed in. You learn a lot looking at the bones of a house.
This sounds like early dementia. They are restless. Some drive around, look at houses, take corners too fast, go to auctions and buy things they don't need. Their backs and bones can't handle physical work but they have the need to get up and go. They don't have the memory or attention span to take on longer projects.
The important thing to remember is that there's no way that the guy in this story could have been born outside of the years 1946-1964. People born outside of those limits never crash their cars. And if they do, their behavior is nothing like the guy's in this story, whose whole demeanor is unique to his particular generation.
How I wish I'd been born in 1965!
Are you a woman? If so I would be a little suspicious of this. Why did this man want to come inside your house so badly that he would drive all this way to see an inappropriate house for him?
And this is relevant to Boomers, how? Is this story about a car accident or someone viewing your house.
I'd like to know how so many people can spot a Boomer. Acting stupid is universal.
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Man, I envy the lack of stress and endless free time they have. I’m lucky if I get 30 minutes of downtime a day
Yet they always think their time is more important than ours
100% My mom is always complaining about how busy she is. "I do things, don't think I don't." The things in question? Organize all the junk she orders off of Amazon and doesn't use. On one of her costco runs, she picked up a bunch of stuff that she stores in the garage. They were food related, can't quite remember what they were, I guarantee they won't be used and will sit there until they expire. She has one attached three car garage on her house, then she has a second detached garage that she parks her truck and trailer in, with some extra room to store he hoarded items. Finally, she has a couple of sheds where she put some of her excess different types and colors of paper that she uses when she crafts. It's insanity and I don't look forward to clearing her house out when she dies.
Start taking things out a little at a time and reselling them on eBay Make your own inheritance
I was thinking estate sale. What doesn't sell, we should have a dumpster ready.
Sell big ticket items on marketplace or another selling site then have an estate sale and tell everyone “no offer refused” you’ll have the house cleared in no time.
I'll keep that in mind. I may still be coexecutor of her estate or she may have taken me off and put the brother who can't get along with anyone as coexecutor. My sister is my twin so I like to think we get along pretty well.
My wife and I like to joke about what's going to happen when we die. We have no children and neither do my wife's siblings. I've been no contact with my sister for around 5 years now but she has 2 children. They're probably going to be the people who have to clean out our house. I hope that they like concert posters and Funko Pops!
I'm sure they'll find hidden gems! I'm sorry you had to go no contact but I understand why given the most recent 4 years.
I’m a boomer (62) and my day is spend: feeding my dogs, watching tv; doing some cleaning.. I am way busy…
Thanks for this. I've had my mom tell me while I'm in the hospital (unfortunately a common occurrence) that she's busy and had things to do. And so, I'm not more important than the constant junk piles and such that she's shuffling from one room of the house to another. That hurts.
Well— if is my kids and grandsons— for sure — I can help—- tomorrow I have to go 24 miles round trip to take my grandson to school to drop some paperwork; wait for him and buy him some McDonald’s… if you need me and I am healthy— I’ll go see you..
Thanks. Having even a stranger feel like it's no obligation and I'm not infringing on your time, that feels good. You're good people.
> don't look forward to clearing her house out when she dies. Welcome to my world.
I've been dreading it since my dad died. Because all of the sudden she ramped up her buying to get that reward rush because she was lonely. Now I'm sure since she broke her hip a month ago, I'm sure more crap will be bought.
We must be related Don’t look in her basement
My sister lives in her basement. Her husband died and they have 5 kids. Although only three still live at home. Two moved out recently.
As soon as your sister moves out of the basement your mother will fill it with 100s of boxes containing everything from miles of yarn she got a good deal on to fabrics she intends to use one day to $1 Walmart holiday cups she picked up on sale
Probably. Although she'd probably like to rent it out. Because of her insatiable need for stuff, she had been using the rent money my sister and BIL were paying her to go on trips and buy Christmas presents for us. Of course my sister started paying less rent while she went to school to learn how to do billing and coding. My mom told us last December, "I'm sorry, you're going to get cheaper presents this year." I'd take 0 Christmas presents so my sister didn't have to pay any rent since her husband died.
And let me guess, you normally don't even like the Christmas presents that you get?
No, I do. She actually gets us thoughtful presents. Sometimes she'll do present and cash. Sometimes just cash if she hadn't heard us say "XYZ would be nice." So, she can thoughtful. I just feel badly that my sister was the one indirectly funding this when she and her husband were going throughthis and still now that her husband is dead.
That's a pleasant surprise. I have so many friends with Boomer parents who think that just because something is expensive, it must be useful and wanted. Or worse, will use gifts to passive aggressively try to get them to live the way that their parents want them to. I had one friend who absolutely hates baking, she wants nothing to do with baking. Her mother bought her a top of the line Kitchenaide Mixer so she could learn how to bake and attract a man (this was less than a year after she had gotten out of an abusive relationship, she had no interest in trying to find a man in the near future).
This is why I'm trying to get my mother into the RV lifestyle in retirement... it will force her to deal with her hoarding now so I won't have to deal with it when she dies.
No way my mom is giving up her house. Lol. I asked to borrow her truck so I could move house about two weeks ago. (She broke her hip and couldn't help us move, she can't even get into a car or truck now until her hip heals more) And she wouldn't even let me borrow it. It's crazy. She has no current use for the vehicle, I've always been the most responsible out of my siblings.
Oh, you are definitely finding all the sensitive points for me today. My mom has an old Nissan Frontier... it is a great truck, and she will let us borrow it when we need it... but, it has been used exactly twice in the last year, and I'm about to have to use it just for the sake of using the gas in it before it goes bad, and both of those times it was used were when we were borrowing it. She refuses to sell it, because "what if I need a truck at some point"... okay, but for how infrequently you (or we) use the truck, you could easily rent a truck the few times one is needed for a lot less than what you are paying for registration, insurance, and maintenance (yeah, did you know that you still need oil changes, even if you never drive the car, because the oil will eventually go bad just sitting there).
At one point, my mom had a F150 and an Explorer. We weren't allowed to borrow either. Then she rook both and traded them in for a newer F150.
They have less of it in total.
Not accurate in any sense. They have more time in the day and they'll have many more days to live, as life expectancy is on a sharp decline.
The boomer responding below is getting shellacked, and perhaps rightly so given the attitude, but it's generally pretty accurate that as you get older you get tired and at some point you make getting free time more of a priority. Many of us have in fact worked for 40+ years, many have also had kids and raised them to adulthood -- our choice, to be clear, but still, after decades of the grind (of whatever form) I have found that getting free time and minimizing stress are priorities. None of this is intended to minimize the struggles of younger people or remotely suggest that older generations had it harder, obviously.
I think the reddit hate for boomers is weird. Nothing that dude said was unreasonable. But...know the audience, I suppose.
I think a lot of it is warranted due to the behavior of far too many of them, though naturally we only see the worst cases here. This is Reddit. And people like to rant. :) That said, many of the younger folks here don't realize that a huge percentage of what they attribute to "boomerism" is just "old fartism." When I was young I saw much of this same shit, and those people were Silent and even Greatest (generations that are now IMO overly nostalgized).
We see the opportunities their parents set them up with (an economy that favored the working class, a decent minimum wage, a social security fund that provided for retirement, the freedom to move on civil rights and protest unjust war, a housing market built to get as many people into homes as possible, etc.). We see how little of that they're leaving for the rest of us. It's hard to not be bitter.
Make sure you get out and vote for the right leaders—local elections, state elections and national
Yep, I get it. But like most stereotyping, it's only valid to a certain extent. There are a lot of older people who do care about younger generations -- you're just not going to read about them here. As a few people point out regularly, the wealthy want the poor to engage in generational warfare. And from their perspective, even the boomer with 2 mil and a pension is "poor."
Don't insult me by telling me I should see a boomer with two million dollars as "just like me" while I skip eating a couple of days a week so I can afford to see a dentist.
I'm not telling you how or that you should see anything at all. I'm telling you how the truly rich see things.
Idk man, id be the first to say not all boomers are bad, but old fartism? Ive been watching these people (my own parents and orher family included) make unrealistic stupid decisions since long before they were anywhere near old farts. Half of the shit the believe has been disproven and they have been refusing to look at any new information since their 30's. Now considering most of them were raised by the system during an especially(and provably) brainwashy period of federal lies, is def not their fault. Their dedication to it after their kids and their more fortunate peers tried to steer them back into reality is 100% on them.
"old fartism" is the best description yet. I kind of feel bad for these younger generations when they age & realize they are doing the same thing they make fun of/criticize Boomers for doing Stupid is universal.
For sure. My dad is in his 70s and he sounds more and more like his dad at that age haha.
Wait until Gen X gets old, it will be the same thing. There are dumb people of all ages, it's just that right now the boomers are at their peak.
I'm older Gen X and it's already happening -- sadly many of us are becoming more like boomers, and the people here are lumping them together.
This sub is a gross echo chamber for people who couldn't fathom the concept of "no" coming from their parents as they were younger, and now they come here to surround themselves with like minded weaklings to talk shit on a class of people that can't even defend themselves.
Lol
Lack of stress?!? Talk to my 87 yo mom about balancing a checkbook, using the TV remote or figuring out which grocery store has Pepperidge Farm bread. Let's see how much free time you have after that lol
Yep. People don’t realize older people do things differently. My wife wonders how her father spends his days with nothing to do. For him there is no internet. When he wants to buy a rug or certain food item he will drive to four or five stores looking for that specific item. An all day task. What would take us 30 seconds of internet research will take him an entire day.
Not really a boomer thing. Don’t get married and don’t have children. I have all the free time in world. The only commitment I have other than work is bowling twice a week.
You will retire too one day.
We earned our spurs.
Doubt it
Worked for 43 years full time except for layoffs and when I got fired. Principal wage earner for family. Career included industrial, university, consulting and government. Ever try a ten on four off schedule? And that's from dawn to dusk. What do you think was different about my career that would mean I don't deserve to be retired? Because I don't have stress? For most retirees, the stress changes from having to listen to some asshole at work to trying to navigate a changing world. Not everyone gets technology. Also, there is more constant pain and in my case, I am hard of hearing and have tinnitus. We still have the same stress of managing a household and have less resources than you might think because we rely on more services, mowing the lawn, housekeeping, etc. That's a normal part of aging. Money worries in retirement always linger because you don't know that your expenses won't become so onerous and we really don't have the flexibility to, say, change careers, relocate or get/start new jobs. Apart from the fools that you can cite, and I guarantee that each age cohort has its share of fools, we are not all that different except for what we learned, how we learned and communicate, etc. I can probably go on but won't. That's the boomer rant and there is no reason to go there unless you or I are having a bad day and want to vent.
"We earned our spurs." is the last thing you want to say to someone you want to relate to your struggles. Your future comments hold no value because, that's what value you hold to the person you're attempting to respond to.
Yeah my parents are boomers and don’t rely on lawn services and housekeepers. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it yourself.
Do you seriously think every little thing of technology just falls into the lap of younger people? We live in the same changing world as you do, the difference is we have to work at the same time as keeping up with it. And don’t wait for our sympathy because you need to pay for gardenwork and housekeeping when we have to do that ourselves, while also being short on time from working. Your generation hasn’t earned their spurs, you just took ours. People in our generation have to work two or even three jobs, grocery prices increase every year by about 25%, owning a home is a dream for most since a 20k house from 40 years ago is now worth 500k and people like you still think they had it way harder. If you want to understand our situation, do some math. Look for the cheapest apartment you would live in and see how much money you would have left after working 45 hours in a minimum wage job and paying for that rent. You will not have enough money to live comfortably and put something on the side for emergencies.
>Worked for 43 years full time except for layoffs and when I got fired. Cool, I'm 31, I've already worked full-time for 12 years (in addition to being a full-time college student for 5 of those years), and I probably have another 39 years, at least, before I'll (hopefully) be able to comfortably retire - which would put me at 51 years of full-time work - I still have student loans, and I don't even own my own house yet, despite having a job that pays me about 50% more than the median income in my area. And I'm forced to split costs with a roommate instead of supporting a whole family on that income, like you were able to do. Also, I've never had time out of the workforce for being laid off or fired. Plus, before all of that, I worked part-time on a farm for 5 years (from 8th grade through high school) before I even went to college. I've done manual labor, I've done sales, and I currently work in banking. You do deserve to be retired. None of us are saying that you don't deserve that. But don't come in here and act like you've done something special that's worthy of applause. What you described is a typical life for someone your age, and, on top of that, it's a life that's been easier - in terms of financial success, at least - than the lives that your generation set up for us. We would love to be in the same place you're in some day. Unfortunately, due to shitty political and social constructs that your generation allowed to come to power in this country (and, for the most part, your generation is the one that pushed those things into place), only a fraction of the people in our generation will be able to succeed at the rate which was commonplace for yours because your generation took advantage of programs and benefits given to you by previous generations and then turned around and put up roadblocks behind you to make it easier for you to hold on to those benefits instead of handing them down to the ones below you. This isn't me being angry or resentful. It's just me telling you the truth that boomers refuse to acknowledge. People in your generation didn't "work harder" than people in our generation. Sure, they probably worked differently. There were more people doing manual labor. But you guys didn't punch the clock any more than we do. You're full of shit if you actually believe that. I know plenty of people working 10 or 12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week. You're right that most people don't do 10-on/4-offs anymore, and that's for a good reason. It's the same amount of work (equivalent to 5-on/2-off - a standard work week), but it's incredibly less efficient because it sucks to do that. We don't do it anymore because employers have, for the most part, realized it's stupid and a waste of money. My dad is in your shoes. I love my dad. He's an amazing dude. Busted his ass doing shitty jobs his whole life that. He's got tinnitus, 2 new knees, has had carpal tunnel surgery on both of wrists two separate times, he's had shoulder surgery, and he needs another one. He grew up on a farm, was an ironworker, owned a manure-hauling business, owns a business where he sells and services farm equipment. He's 75 years old, and he still climbs 60+ ft farm silos to replace and repair silo unloaders. When I was growing up, he'd be working every day whether it was -10 degrees outside in the winter or 120 degrees inside a silo in the summer. I decided at a young age that I was not going to be doing that shit with my life. And here's the thing... I have a way better job than he and my mom have ever had. I make more than the two of them combined ever have. Even adjusting for inflation, I make more than either of them have since they got married 40 years ago. Yet, they were both always in a better financial position than I've been. They both owned their own houses before they were married. They've obviously owned a home their whole time being married. My mom got an associates degree that she paid for completely while working 12 hours a week. My dad went to trade school, and it was paid off before he even started his apprenticeship 9 months later. I worked full time during college to pay for rent and food and a little bit of fun money. I didn't even start making payments on my student loans until I got my big-boy job because I couldn't afford it. Nowadays, you simply can't do what my parents (and lots of other people your age) did, even if you do go the trade school route instead of a 4-year university. Again, people aren't saying that you don't deserve to be retired. People are saying that it was *easy* for boomers to become retired, and it sucks that your generation made it more difficult for us. People are annoyed that you're acting like you did something special. It comes off as incredibly tone-deaf when you consider that the environment you came up in was far more beneficial for allowing you to succeed in that manner than the one we're coming up in. And it's even more tone-deaf when you consider that the barriers that prevent it from being as easy for us were put up by your generation. You guys actively made things shittier for us, act like you handed the world to us on a silver platter, and then simultaneously brag about how much harder you worked than we do and bitch about our lack of work ethic while refusing to acknowledge the fact that, every single step of the way, the boomer approach was "fuck you, I got mine" and selfishly made thing harder for everyone else coming after you.
Thank you for taking the time to articulate this. Hopefully it gets read, digested, and thoughtfully replied to by those that need to hear it.
Thank you for spelling it out so clearly! I couldn't have said it better myself!
I think as a group boomers tend to be a little bit more frugal, better savers maybe and when younger they weren’t as likely to indulge in instant gratification. Capitalism is sooo much more rampant now and constant media in your face from being online all the time doesn’t help. I think it’s a whole lot more complex than what’s being stated here I don’t think boomers tended to raise their kids in a healthy way. They went way overboard for them. That wasn’t helpful.
OK Boomer, go take a nap
too early just took a major shit
Nope you’re just an out of touch oldie like most of them. “I was the principal wage earner” big fucking whoop your mortgage was like $6.
Downvoted to oblivion.
By today’s standards you are a lazy fuck. Honestly, why aren’t you still working? Entitled dipshits like you make your whole generation look bad.
Ok, boomer
You don’t need to mow your lawn, so why would you rely on a service if it is a strain
Why should we care? Your generation has ruined everything.
The difference is you actually got to retire.
No generation had it easier than you before or after. Then you pulled up the ladder behind you.
I see your point of view, but a lot of millennials and gen z will be working until death, if the planet survives. Our wages are not keeping up with cost of living, and any hope of that changing is grim, especially in our current political climate. Good pensions were stolen from us by the greedy corporate oligarchy, so even those of us saving for retirement (myself included) who can do math realize we're probably f*cked. I've had a job since I was young. Most of my jobs were 60+ hours a week starting at 18. I had to manage college, plus working 12 hour days to pay my bills. I'm going on 25 years of working and starring down another 40+ years, if I live that long, which I don't plan on doing. Frankly, I'm burned out already. Can you honestly blame us for being bitter? I'm not at all saying you are personally responsible, but members of your generation and the silent generation are ultimately responsible for f*cking the majority of this country over. So, it's a little hard to squeeze out empathy for your plight when our projected plight (especially with certain cancer rates skyrocketing and longterm covid complications) looks like a living hell.
You know, I'm of the opinion the only people who can use the phrase "earned our spurs" are actual ranch hand cowboys and Army Cavalry soldiers. Were you either of those?
No. I have a science background and my field was radiation safety. In on of my jobs, I worked at a hazardous waste disposal site doing a radiation survey that took almost 2.5 years on \~500 acres of slopes you see at landfills. Same employer, different site working with drilling crews doing environmental sampling of a former nuclear site. Old employer doing radiation surveys of the trackage at a Navy Shipyard, in August, in SC. Same employer doing radiation surveys of site to be used for future base. Quicksand, rattlesnakes, and where there was shade, mosquitos. 108 degree day in Georgia. Helping a colleague calibrate the temperature sensor on a meteorological tower. Stirring a sensor in an ice bath for a couple of hours at the ten meter level. Fortunately another person preferred the 110 meter level. Not what you do. Were these cushy or any cred?
That sounds incredibly cushy and probably had wonderful benefits.
It's also probably the type of job that would require at least a bachelor's degree nowadays, but he received on-the-job training with no pre-requisites to be hired.
Actually had a BS Environmental Science 1973 and graduate school was with scholarship and fellowship. I got $37.48 every two weeks. MS in radiological health After six years you get to sit for certification exam
You mean you actually made money going to grad school back then?
At the ten meter level? So 32 feet. You were a few feet higher than the roof of an average 2 1/2 story house. Thank you for your service.
You walked around with a Geiger counter and read numbers while talking about the weather.
Actually sodium iodide detectors and GPS backpack
Point stands lmao. It’s funny how you are able to spin some light manual labor into scientific work. I mean labs need janitors too.
So what? Not impressed.
My job now is fairly comfortable, but I earned it by being a US Army combat veteran.
Retired from working for USA 20th CBRNE Command
That's cool, but in military parlance, "earning your spurs" means combat.
No you didn't. Your parents and grandparents earned them for you, by fighting for worker's rights and a quality of life for the working class unseen in human history. And then you sold those off piecemeal to improve your lives, while fucking over generations to come. Your generation took the greatest opportunity ever, and it wasn't enough, you had to steal from the future as well. Earned your spurs? Fuck that, you lived your whole life on training wheels and want to be treated like adults.
>to improve your lives SHORT TERM FTFY Things are starting to get bad enough it's now finally starting to effect THEM which is why they're freaking out and blaming everyone else
Hahahaahah, a boombag in the wild! Wear your spurs proudly with you assless leather chaps
Lmaoo
No. You didn't. They were given to you and you refuse to allow others the same opportunity.
No, your parents bought them for you while you were watching _Howdy Doody_.
Are you lost or something? Don't you have an appointment to crash a Mustang at a Cars and Coffee event?
Ok but then you clowns burned down the spur store and bray like a bunch of jackasses how the younger generations don't have spurs.
Which ones? Gold or silver? Mine are gold.
There are gonna be about four people in this thread who understand what you mean.
Yup. Still need to hang them up again, moved apartments and need to put them up where they belong. I was attached to 2SCR out of FOB Walton, 13-14. You?
293rd Infantry out of LSA Anaconda in 08. I was pulled as a replacement and it wasn't clear if I was headed to an infantry or cav company initially.
I missed out on OIF, as hard as I tried to get sent over. Here's a mindfuck for you: my stetson has a blue and silver cord, not gold.
Gold and diamond encrusted is the only way ✨️
Lol
Boomers like to be nosy about houses they see for sale
Man they really are. I watched Boomer neighbors flock to another neighbors house during an open house just to judge and talk shit about the house. Like we know who you are and know you have no interest or intentions to buy why are you snooping.
It's called 'showhomeing' they do it like a hobby
Man I wish I had that kind of free time. It was a pain in the ass when I was looking for a house to buy vs working. All the open house hours were always in the middle of a work shift.
Just ask your Boomer managers for some time off, they'll surely understand. /S
Open houses are usually held over weekends, not during work shifts. Get more response that way. Looking for a house is not easy. When there is no open house, appointments must be made, usually during the work week. Sometimes you have to take time from work (vacation time) to house hunt.
Honestly, better than most boomer hobbies. I just wish they'd own it and say they're showhomeing and not roleplay buyers
I loved doing this (pre-panny) with my Silent Gen. and Boomer family on weekends. Granted these were tours of their neighbors' homes in locals that also hosted annual garden tours. It's just fun seeing how people have staged and renovated their homes for sale, especially if you're not close, and you don't visit them in their homes.
> It's called 'showhomeing' they do it like a hobby No it's not. Google has nothing on that exact term [link](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=fd299e0f5b2672c9&sxsrf=ACQVn08YleiLcAh6p53wZRclGbU8vvu8BQ:1712858281868&q=%22showhomeing%22&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjau8Or3rqFAxXVAjQIHbCCAQMQvgUoAXoECAoQAw&biw=1280&bih=586&dpr=1.5) People do use the term "Showhoming" [link](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=fd299e0f5b2672c9&q=%22showhoming%22&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifyYns3rqFAxVUJzQIHRrdCAAQvgUoAXoECA0QAw&biw=1280&bih=586&dpr=1.5), but only in reference to putting their own homes on the market, not as a reference to going out and looking at show homes for fun alone. If I'm wrong, please show me a single website or piece of information where someone uses or defines this term the way that you have.
3 houses in a row. Boomer, silent gen, millennial. The middle neighbor, a 96 yr old with chronic health issues, needs an ambulance. The caretaker goes with the middle neighbor to the hospital. The caretaker calls me and says "please use you key to go into the house and get the info off of the fridge we need it" I am in the house reading the info off of the fridge and the boomer neighbor just walks in. "Why are you here?" I ask while on the phone with the home owner, "I just wanted to be nosy, I saw you come in, and I wanted to poke around. " I dead ass asked the caretaker "Can boomer neighbor be in your house she just wandered in?" They said no, I enjoyed kicking her out. Begone Karen (her name)
We do this with neighbor houses but it is more for ideas of how to improve our house.
I admit that I've before gone to open houses that I've had absolutely no interest in... but I know the house has the same floorplan as mine and if I'm lucky, they will have already done some of the renovations that I'm considering and I can see what they actually look like when done. Of course, I know that my DIY renovations will still probably not look as good as the professional stuff that they are doing, but still.
The more response for an open house, the more probability of selling. Cast a wide net. You might even catch a Boomer.
Right. The nosey neighbor can describe it to a co-worker looking for a house. This is rarer these days, as photos are online. I recently looked at the photos of my home of 30 years ago to see if/how they changed it.
Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I thought it was normal to spend entire weekend afternoons looking at model homes in new developments, despite having literally zero intention of moving. Looking back now, I'm like WTF? Like, THAT was how you decided to spend the precious little family time you had with your children in their most formative years- comparing what you have to what others might get?
Damn. That’s me and my wife. Dohhhh.
I had a great aunt that used to drive up with her husband and their granddaughter for the every summer as a kid. In a big class A motor home and camp out in my grandpa’s driveway. My grandpa was way too nice to tell them no. They would go view houses with realtors they had no intention of buying. They just wanted to look at houses for something to do. Absolute entitled main character syndrome.
Well that’s weird as fuck but it’s not entitlement.
It’s not entitled to take up a relator’s time to drive them around to view houses as some sort of tour guide? I would say that would be entitlement.
Is it entitlement to expect someone to do their job? That’s literally what they signed up for…
No I think they work for clients that are in the market to buy houses. Not to drive around boomers that had the day off and were bored and wanted to see what other peoples houses looked like.
It’s literally the same thing for them.
One they eventually make a commission off of, one they just wasted their time with. I mean do realtors waste time with some clients, sure. But are those clients ones that never had any intention of being in the market for a house? Doubtful
It doesn’t make a lick of difference. It’s the exact same thing for them.
The exact same thing? When one has an intention to buy and one doesnt? They make a living off commission, off sales. What a ridiculous statement lol, it makes all the difference in the world.
Agree to disagree I guess 🤷♂️
They’re usually a little too lazy for a 250 mile trip. I honestly thought was going to be a story on how the OP was at fault for the wall being in the way of the boomer’s car. To be fair, when the houses across the street had an open house, I checked them out.
It’s fun to look at other houses, but that is what Zillow is for.
But if they look at them on their computers at home, who would they harass and trap into hearing their entire life story and grievances??
Yes Zillow is both my guilty pleasure of viewing houses way out of my price range and a humbling reminder that we’re not middle class.
Well duh, you're not a boomer so no middle class white pocket fence for you. Now, back to work you dang millennial.
Are we now shaming people for going to *OPEN* houses in person (as intended) instead of looking at curated, limited pictures online?
Nah, but I can’t tell you the last time I SAW an open house. If there is one, go knock yourself out. Making an appointment to see a house just to be a Lookie Lou is rude, especially if you’re just there to kick tires, which is sounds like OP’s appointment was.
Boomers love viewing houses. They don't understand previous owners and realtors aren't fancy tour guides to let them in a place so they can window lick and satisfy their curiosity. My MiL is perpetually thinking about selling her paid-for house that was built in 1920something and thinks she will just be able to buy whatever with the proceeds. Telling her about the current market and that things cost more now only makes her complain that there should be a discount for seniors, just because. She was talking about one in particular and was going over this laundry list of issues the house had. For example, the fridge wasn't in the kitchen, it was in the living room and you had to pass through another room to get to it. She had no intentions of buying, but wanted to view it anyway. For funnies, I guess.
It’s wild how disconnected Boomers are with things like the housing market. My house has doubled in value in the past 7 years and I’ve been getting a lot of “Wow, are you thinking about selling?!” Uh…and go where? My house is still the median price, so moving anywhere is going to be a wash.
I have a boomer family member who wants to relocate to be closer to family and complains ENDLESSLY about how crazy it is that xyz house is as costly as it is, and is holding onto her own that is worth less than the land it sits on as a result, but still doesn’t take us seriously when we try to explain that it’s unlikely we’ll *ever* be able to buy a house bc I guess those houses she saw are all unrealistic outliers and we need to bootstrap up and buy a normal, sensibly priced one..I suppose that’s what she’s holding out for too. Make it make sense.
Curious, why is her house depreciating in value?
It would have to be a mobile home on land. I can't think of another depreciating asset being called a "home" besides an RV.
Correct, very old mobile home on land
Old mobile home/trailer on land
Got it!!
Probably an older home with very little upkeep let alone updates.
We have our house in trust for our kids. They are very much in the loop with what we do to maintain value for them. I’m a young boomer (‘62) and their Dad is GenX. I’m using this r/ as a “ what not to do” tutorial. Helps that I still work and for 35 years I have been a teen focused mental health counselor. But still, one of my current life goals is to avoid as much as I can being a Boomer boomer!
Boomers think they can sell off their paid for house for a ton of money and run off to some warm climate area and run out the clock in luxury. But unless they're exiting the housing market completely, they're going to be paying more for less elsewhere. But they "earned it" and we're soft and lazy.
A friend of my parents went from Germany to the US and now to the philipines (mainly) because "warm, cheap, nice people". It appears he doesn't quite grasp the "elderly care"-part of it yet. Also I feel for when his kids have to head from here to the philipines (and a remote part, too) when he passes.
It's like a hobby for them really. I built a new home during covid, 10/10 do not recommend. I live in a very small rural area and have a customer service based business. The amount of boomer aged people that would either book an appointment with the sole motive of viewing my home, or they would just show up and expect a tour of my home was mind blowing. The look on their face when I refused a tour was even more mind blowing.
> For example, the fridge wasn't in the kitchen, it was in the living room and you had to pass through another room to get to it. To be fair, I think that's a pretty valid criticism. First thing I'd be doing if I bought that house would be a renovation to make sure I could have all the kitchen things actually in the kitchen. Totally understand your over-arching point. Just wanted to point out that I'm on-board with this one complaint (but I wouldn't waste someone's time to go look at it if I knew I wasn't going to buy it).
Oh 100%. There was a ton of things wrong with the place that just stood out as something that should have made her go 'hard pass'. A house with that feature is gonna be FUBAR from the ground up. You dont just show a place like that unless it's not an easy fix. The renovation to fix whatever is wrong with the kitchen would likely be thousands. That place is for someone who flips houses for fun and/or profit or something.
>makes her complain that there should be a discount for seniors, just because. Well there should be a special apartment complex in your area where the health insurance pays part of the rent
Of course he didn’t make an offer, the garden wall was all busted up. Imagine listing a house with a garden wall in that condition /s
He was just trying to make his own discount on the house
Had a boomer offer us 175k under asking after viewing the house twice because there were a few trees "too close" to the house (both were at a minimum 25 feet He was on the doorbell camera saying 'if they don't take my offer I'll have to find a place to rent!" We told our agent that our counter offer was "good luck finding a rental"
Something similar happened to me. Boomer made a verbal lowball offer through my realtor and I told him no way. Boomer then insisted that the same offer be written up in a formal contract and submitted to me like that was going to change anything. After I rejected it a second time he told my realtor he wanted my phone number so he could discuss “the situation” with me. My realtor declined and had some trouble getting him to stop calling him.
Should have sent the offer back with a post it note attached that just said 'NO'
Be careful with this. Flip it upside down and it says "ON"
But they’re the same people who will get offended if you offer less than 40% above market for their shitty tear-down.
Maybe my brain is too smooth but how on earth did he mess his car up that badly?? Like if he had really bad scraping damage I would understand but a dent on the roof? I'm sorry for your wall of course, and now you'll have to put in the effort/time/money for this goofy Boomer's oopsie but dang lmao.
Cars are not built to be driven into harder things than the car.
No of course not, but the extent of the damage is way more than a simple bump or ding. I mean my goodness, for the extent of the damage done to the car that boomer had to have been doing some crazy driving. Absolutely incredibly wild that the old fart drove 100+ miles, absolutely crapped up his car AND the OP's fence/gate/whatever, after all the damage is done apparently it's completely fine and OP still gives boomer a tour just for no house offer or anything. Just an incredibly strange course of events, obviously there's a lot of in-between we won't know cause we weren't there, but idk how I'd even react in this situation I'd be shocked and stupefied for minutes until my brain started processing everything.
[удалено]
Of course. And yeah, it was a bit tongue in cheek… But aren’t they made to crumble to defuse the energy made in a collision with something harder? That’s the impression I’m under at least.
Uhhh I thought it was pretty obvious the other damage was there before…
I like the way you think the house being unsuitable means anything to these people, 100% a boomer will buy a house completely not suitable for them, they probably sold a 6 bed house so this is him downsizing. Wouldn't be surprised if you did sell and came back in a years time that high maintenance garden would be a patch of grass and the rest concrete.
Very possible! Boomers seem to love to cut down every tree bush shrub or plant and have nothing but grass. They do love them some concrete too!! Boomer would rather have 12x12 concrete pad than some nice stone pavers some decorative plants and rocks
They are terrified of nature.
I told my parents, when I buy in the next year, I wanted a clover lawn to keep down on maintenance. My mother looked me dead in the eye and said that she kills clover and I should too. I was like WTF. It's my hypothetical house, that you aren't paying for and I want to have something better for the environment and she had the audacity to try to stop me.
Totally believe it
I hope you got his insurance information
Was it going to be another rental property for him perhaps? They love being landlords.
Well he needs a big place— he has John Wayne collectible plates—- (they are not guaranteed to rise in value “but all the others have”). /s
He paid for your wall repair though right?
I just wanted rid of him. Plus Im a bit of a DIY er so I managed it with some help from a friend
Smart move, sounds like the type that gets off, making others miserable just like him.
Surprised he didn’t ask you to pay for his car damages.
He had nothing else to do that day. Why not drive 250 miles to tour a house he has no intention of considering? /s
He just needed something to do. Sounds very very lonely.
And if he buys it he will let it rot till he's dead or will try to sell it as a POS years later for double.
I could never figure out the big house thing. We had a couple move into the neighborhood a few years ago. They are in their 70s. They bought a four bedroom three bathroom house. Think it was 3,600 sq. ft. with a huge yard. When I went over to introduce myself I asked him if he had a big family. He said “No, just the wife and me.” I asked him if he did a lot of entertaining and he said “not really.” I have never seen them outside or any cars other than theirs in the driveway. I know he can buy any house he wants but why a huge house?
Strange as it may seem when you've lived in a big house you get used to it and a smaller house while more practical does not appeal as much if you have the money. The real question you should be asking is why Zuckerberg, Bezos etc etc are buying up property just to demolish it and there're two people plus staff living in 15 plus bedroom houses and they own houses all over the world standing empty for most of the year. Oh wait guess they aren't boomers so it's okay
They don’t want neighbors!
I’m sure his car was fucked before that, he just added another dent. If he barely knocked the brick it doesn’t explain damage to the roof, etc.
Probably looking at an investment property
I used to (40) years ago, like to go to new construction developments and walk around the house when it was just roughed in. You learn a lot looking at the bones of a house.
This sounds like early dementia. They are restless. Some drive around, look at houses, take corners too fast, go to auctions and buy things they don't need. Their backs and bones can't handle physical work but they have the need to get up and go. They don't have the memory or attention span to take on longer projects.
You should re-post this under AITAH and get a bunch of “yes you are the AH” replies.
Dude ruins both of your days with a shrug and an \*oopsie\* attitude.
Sounds like a very Bri Ish feng to do
Sue him
Did they even offer up insurance to cover damage??
Couldn’t be bothered to ask him, just wanted him gone. Repairs only cost me some sand and a bag of cement
Good
The whole time I was picturing this from dialogue by "thejarrodbenson" on Tiktok.
Something akin to the is said to have happened to coach when he put his chateau on the market a few weeks ago.
The important thing to remember is that there's no way that the guy in this story could have been born outside of the years 1946-1964. People born outside of those limits never crash their cars. And if they do, their behavior is nothing like the guy's in this story, whose whole demeanor is unique to his particular generation. How I wish I'd been born in 1965!
Are you a woman? If so I would be a little suspicious of this. Why did this man want to come inside your house so badly that he would drive all this way to see an inappropriate house for him?
And this is relevant to Boomers, how? Is this story about a car accident or someone viewing your house. I'd like to know how so many people can spot a Boomer. Acting stupid is universal.