Decluttering (especially children's stuff)

JodyBPM

I'm feeling a bit down and overwhelmed today.

Having bought all the Christmas bits and bobs, the house is full to the gills, and its driving me mad.

We're a family of four, and have a small 3 bed house, (2 double beds and a box room upstairs, sitting room, dining room and galley kitchen downstairs), and every single bit of space in the house is filled.

I have no idea where all the children are going to put their xmas presents (and birthday too for dd who's b'd is between xmas and ny)

I'm a bit of a clean freak, and hate clutter, and I'm finding it increasingly hard to live in a world where every spare space gets filled up, and I'm constantly having to shuffle piles of "stuff" around.

No-one else in the house is prepared to let go of *anything*, and so the situation gets worse and worse.

DD (nearly 7 ) is probably the worst. She has a decent sized bedroom, but is a total hoarder, and keeps every bit of tat ever. Plastic stuff from party bags and on the front of magazines, every book she's ever had, broken toys, every card she's ever been given, every picture she's ever drawn...For example she's just rescued from the bin the free calendar given away with a chinese takeaway. It's rubbish! But she "wants" it. She's a really good girl, and tidies her room frequently, but there's simply not enough space for everything, so she ends up dumping big piles of stuff on the top of cabinets, on the windowsill, on the top of her dolls house etc. The floor might be kept clear, but that's not a "tidy" room imo... She gets quite upset when I throw stuff away, and has the memory of an elephant, sometimes asking where things are that I threw away years ago...

DS (5) with the box room isn't so bad - he has a raised bed, so keeps all his bigger, boxed toys stacked under the bed or in plastic storage, and then has a stack of storage boxes in the corner where he keeps the smaller stuff he most often plays with -lego, dr who figures, power rangers etc. He's much better at knowing what he plays with and what he doesn't, and is usually happy to get rid of stuff that is broken, too young for him etc... His room gets messy quickly as its so tiny, but generally its easy to tidy, and everything has its place...

DH is similar to DD, in that he just doesn't seem to understand that piles of cr*p on top of surfaces simply isn't tidy. He'll help out, doing washing, loading the dishwasher etc, but when he never goes through stuff and throws it away, just tidies up piles of stuff,and then puts it back in a neater pile. He seems to think that the stair basket, the kitchen worksurfaces or on top of dressers/ cupboards is an acceptable place for things to live permanently...

If the truth be told, I think that the house is too small for us, and we were planning on moving next year, but think we will likely stay put for a couple more years due to all the stuff going on in the economy and given that we are both public sector workers, its probably not a good time for us to be taking out a big mortgage (currently mortgage is fully paid off).

I'm at work Weds and Thurs, and have dd at home with me today, and will have both at home with me on Friday. The only day left then is Xmas Eve. Do I put my foot down and force the whole family to have a giant declutter on Xmas Eve morning (plans for the pm)? Feel like a killjoy, and we should do something fun, but this clutter is driving me CRAZY...

rachbc

My dd sounds similar to you's though at only 5 is more easily fobbed off - I just chuck stuff in the wheely bin when she is in bed and feign ignorance when she asks about it. This morning she was lookign for a dress she grew out of last year and I told her it must be in the wash, she'll probably see it when we go to the charity shop and say 'Oh I have a dress like that'!!

She has a tool bench that she hasn't played with for ages that she won't part with so i suspect Santa might take that when be visits on christmas eve to give to another child who doesn't have any toys!

katerinasol

Oh god. That would drive me insane! I declutter every 6 months or so, the rate at which people accumulate crap is amazing. I couldn't live with hoarders either, not even little ones like yours could you try what the other poster suggested and throwing stuff away when she's not looking and then pretending you know nothing about it? I would definitely suggest a declutter, killjoy or not. I'm planning a huge one on Christmas Eve as well as a big tidy-up so that on the day we can enjoy our food and crappy Christmas films in relative tidiness... at least in the morning!

GlasweJen

I like the idea of leaving toys out for Santa to take away and give to children with no toys at all.

As for husband, allocate him a drawer, if it doesn't fit in the drawer it gets binned.

Treed

How about turning it into some sort of game, whoever gets rid of the most gets rewarded. Or even with all her drawings suggesting maybe grandma/aunty/uncle would love that on their fridge door.
If you let your daughter know her things are going to a nice place maybe she will be less reluctant to depart with them, simply throwing them in the bin may upset her as shes obviously attached.
However if this doesnt work you could help her organize her room into different containers.. one container for plastic stuff she has collected, one for her drawings etc.. eventually over a period of time you could empty the boxes unnoticed.

newcook

while you still have time, write a letter from Santa saying that he has some lovely toys that he wants to bring and was wondering if she would mind giving you her unwanted/old/broken toys so she has room for the new things and he can repair the broken toys and make the old ones look new and give them to other little girls in poorer countries?!!?!

keelykat

Hello, i tend to get rid of things when my son is not at home or is in bed. I then don't have to fight him to get rid. Most the time they don't even notice toys have gone if they haven't used/played with them in ages.

I know it's harder with older kids though-i'd have to tell them in order to get new things, some older things need to go. Either keep old toys, or get rid and you can have new ones.

My son isn't very old (3) so i like to tell him that someone else is going to have the toys to play with-not going into the bin. He seems happier knowing another child is having fun with them instead.

CH27

We used to have a big clear out the week before xmas to get rid of old/broken/unwanted toys to make way for the new stuff
Son always helped me to take the decent stuff to the charity shop.

We always took his too small clothes to the chaity shop every year too.

Buttonmoons

My 5year old DD is just like that, I would go into her room now and post you a pic but its in such a shocking state, I dont even like going in there at the mo to put clothes away (which then results in one of my sofas being a clothes pile)

I am going to do her room tomorrow/Thurs, it HAS to be done before Xmas, its outta control and like your DD op, she keeps all that rubbish tat like mcdonalds toys/cbeebies mags/etc

JodyBPM

GlasweJen wrote: »

As for husband, allocate him a drawer, if it doesn't fit in the drawer it gets binned.

I wish! He has the loft, the shed, a cabinet and 4 drawers in the house, and yet still there is clutter everywhere. To be fair, its not all "his" stuff, its just general stuff that he leaves laying around - like a pack of cards or a screwdriver or post...


In all honesty, to the untrained eye, our house would appear clean and tidy, but to me its horrible having things stuffed in every corner. And our bedroom currently has all the christmas alcohol in it, so I have that to step over several times a day. Plus we have a big cardboard box of "caravan stuff" by the bed, which is stuff that we usually have in our static van, but we have to bring home over the winter. IMO, this should go in the loft - but the loft is "full" - of what, I have no idea, as this is DH's territory, and I've never gone up there (unboarded, so I'm not happy up there).

We also have an oil filled heater from the van kicking around, as it has nowhere to live - its been quite handy actually when I'm at home alone to just heat one room for me, but it doesn't "live" anywhere, and just annoys me. Still, it will be back in the van come March (and next year I might just leave it there over the winter...)

lilac_lady

I'd buy the DD - who doesn't like to give anything away - a filing cabinet, complete with key and let her know that if she wants to keep stuff like cards etc, then they must fit into her cabinet.

If you have good excess toys, try and donate them to a charity shop before Christmas so that parents who can't afford much will be able to buy them for their children