This story is so TRUE. My late husband and I lived in the same house for 31 years. I used to say that, besides all of our stuff, we were the keepers of ALL the dead relatives' stuff. We had the biggest basement, so it kind of came to us by default.

When we decided to move to Florida, I thought - GOLD MINE IN THE BASEMENT. I couldn't have been more wrong. There wasn't a dealer, antique buyer, E-Bayer, Craigslister, or collector who would buy ANYTHING. Either it was incomplete, had a tiny defect, wasn't "trending", or a million other reasons, but we donated and threw out truckloads. I had to PAY someone to take away our 36 year-old Mediterranean style bedroom set that was still in good condition. But who wanted 1970's Mediterranean furniture in 2006? No one.

Buried in one of the boxes, underneath a staircase in the basement, we did find an UNOPENED Beatles "White Album". It would have been worth a fortune, BUT everything in that box, including the album, had been massively water damaged from a flood I didn't know we had. Water had gotten in sometime in the 30 years, and we never knew.

Loved your article.