Hoarding...not just on TV

ModestyB

Hi Gingernutty, Wolverhampton council offer a pickup service of up to 5 items for £12.50. If you are on certain benefits it's free. You can only have a free collecion every six weeks though.
We had a settee, chair and another item taken away a few weeks ago. Look for collection of bulky houseold items on the site you previously looked at. HTH.

sjprmc01

This morning I went to primark with a friend. I wasn't planning on buying and I did see at least 3 lovely tops (for myself) that I refrained from buying. I did buy my youngest some leggings for wearing under some shorts so she can wear the shorts till later in the yr, a t shirt for middle dd, some shorts and vest pjs and gym shorts for eldest. But it is stuff they kind of needed. I had other stuff in my hands but reasoned with myself that they didn't need them so put them back. I bought a 2 pack of school polo shrts for the eldest 2 to share as I didn't actually buy them any plain ones before starting back at school. That was all good and well as they were needed too. However when I was at the SM, Mil watched the kids and they came home with a school skirt and school culottes neither of which were needed. Grr! And I can only see us ending up with more before the week is out as marks sale starts tomorrow lol. Nothing tidied, cleaned or chucked today

SpikyHedgehog

sjprmc01 wrote: »

This morning I went to primark with a friend. I wasn't planning on buying and I did see at least 3 lovely tops (for myself) that I refrained from buying. I did buy my youngest some leggings for wearing under some shorts so she can wear the shorts till later in the yr, a t shirt for middle dd, some shorts and vest pjs and gym shorts for eldest. But it is stuff they kind of needed. I had other stuff in my hands but reasoned with myself that they didn't need them so put them back. I bought a 2 pack of school polo shrts for the eldest 2 to share as I didn't actually buy them any plain ones before starting back at school. That was all good and well as they were needed too. However when I was at the SM, Mil watched the kids and they came home with a school skirt and school culottes neither of which were needed. Grr! And I can only see us ending up with more before the week is out as marks sale starts tomorrow lol. Nothing tidied, cleaned or chucked today

Well done for putting stuff back, look at your progress!

If you don't want or need the stuff from MIL, could you take it back? Even if you can't get a refund, take it back & accept store credit. MIL doesn't buy it thinking 'Mwa ha ha! I'll clog up their house with CLOTHES!', she buys it thinking 'Ooh, I know how I can help!' So take that help & make it work for you :-)

I bought cat flea treatment today, & DS2 chose 2 dog chews for the hamsters while we were at the vets... DS1 is supposed to be making a model landscape for games workshop, so we got lots of cardboard down from the loft & lots has gone in the recycling bin. We found 2 boxes of assorted Errant Husband's stuff up there too, so that's down for him. & the sports direct mug is in the CS bag ;-)

Also sitting in the CS bag is an iron holder I bought last year & never put up - I found it in the cupboard of Doom the other week & worked out where to put it. Only I can't drill far enough into the door of the cupboard of doom to actually hang it up, & I've nowhere else to put it. So that's money wasted. But it's not staying in my house being useless, so out it goes.

sjprmc01

I think she got the stuff in the outlet shop, I'm not sure! And she must have tried it on the respective children also as I think she has taken the tags off. (only had a quick look). My plan is to 'collect' the extra unnecessary school stuff (yes, I know that seems similar to hoarding) and put them by to give to the head who will know someone who will make good use of them!

The girls are that age ATM that they notice if I give stuff directly to people and comment. That the stuff is theirs (this happened with the school stuff I gave to the wee girl who was starting last week with my youngest. She is bigger than youngest so didn't get her extras but got other extras I had from the other two. Including shoes (which never fitted middle dd and won't fit youngest as she has very narrow feet) middle dd however keeps telling the girl that the shoes are hers


Re 'the DOOM'. I have a kitchen table of doom, a freezer of doom, a cupboard of doom, a bedroom floor of doom and a youngest dds bedroom of doom, lol!

The_Dragon

Dr Dragon is getting me the Kindle :j:j:j:j - should be about a week or 10 days (he gets a discount at Argos through his work but he needs to get the card first so that will take a few days to come through), as soon as it arrives I can start getting stuff on the Kindle and either selling or CS the dead tree books! :beer:

wannabe_sybil

Dragon - hi, love the name!

I have a dining room of doom. It is due to be happened to tomorrow, but as I am having more blood tests before 9am I may not feel enthusiastic. However little bear is off to the seaside with the out of school club, so I have a chance to get stuff done.

Our council do pick ups, except whenever they are booked they always claim that they can't get into our road. Our road is a bit challenging (last week there were twelve cars being worked on by Nice Mr Next Door) but everyone else manages to get up and down.

I don't know how much I will get rid of. There is ironing, some odds and ends, bits and bobs, etc etc (and four tyres, but that's another story). I've got rid of a lot of the easy stuff. Still, upward and onward. If I get rid of one extra thing tomorrow than I would have done it will be a result.

Contessa

I'm only halfway through this thread but it's already helping me-thank you Jojo and all the others who have posted.
I'm really struggling to declutter my house so I can sell it, downsize and move closer to my family. I realise that some of my hoarding tendency comes from my age as I was brought up in a time when one "made do and mended", or kept things as "you might need it some day". I also think that in our environmentally minded time we have the "Recycling Tyranny" mentality-avoid waste and landfill. This adds to my clutter, as does, sometimes, giving away things on Freecycle/Freegle-as I decide I don't need X but post it in case it can be of use to anyone, then wait for replies, arrange collection, wait for collection, perhaps a timewaster, then repeat. from now on it's the tip for me!
A friend gave me a very useful tip-if you're keeping something just out of sentiment or memories, but don't need it, then take a photo of it, so that its not lost forever-then get rid!

valk_scot

I agree, this thread is making me think again about why I'm keeping thing. I seem to have two main types of things that are a problem.

The first kind, and the kind I'm not quite feeling up to dealing with just yet, is the toy hoarde. After my seven year old son died eleven years ago I started collecting Playmobil, of all things. I was on a collectors forum, I went to the conventions, I boought a lot of vintage stuff. I actually had a really good time as a collector, it took my mind off the grief and it was interesting but the interest sort of wore off after five years or so leaving me with a lot...and I do mean a lot, of vintage toys up in the attic. My kids had more than plenty of their own Playmobil of course but there's always a difference between collectable toys and play toys. I'm happily getting rid of all the old unwanted toys now that they're growing up but the Playmobil seems to be different. It's tied up somehow with the grieving period after the death of my son and sorting it out for sale will remind me of this. And I can't just pile it in the cars and take it to the charity shop, it's worth quite a bit of money. So it's sitting up in the attic getting covered in dust, waiting for me to get skint enough to need to ebay it.

The other hoarding type clutter is different, it's "it may be useful" clutter. No emotional involvement, just that I'm very much a reduce, reuse, recycle sort of person and I dislike throwing out things that I could indeed reuse to save me money in future years. Trouble with this is that I've helped clear out three deceased relatives houses over the past few years and there is far too much of this potentially useful junk. I'm not at the stage of having boxes lining every wall to the ceiling in every room, no, but the cupboards are full, the utility room is full, the long shelved corridor in the basement is full and the attic...well, that's extremely full, eek. Too much of everything, I've now realised. And because all my storage is full I've got less room to store the legitimate, day to day stuff that I need to have.

So I'm dealing with the second type of clutter first. There's enough of it to keep me going for a while and the only difficulty in sorting it is my health, I can't do too much extra on top of the daily routine otherwise I'll exhaust myself. So little and often, eh? Even if it's only one drawer that day, it will all contribute.

I've got my eye on my airing/equipment cupboard today. It's too big to do in one day, more like a week, but I've got two targets for today. One is to get the rest of the cleaning materials out of there and see if they'll fit into the newly cleared out cupboard under the sink. It's not ideal to have things stored across two venues, you think you're running out of something, buy more then find three bottles in the other place. The other is a big box with I know is full of cutlery and utensils. I was looking at our day to day cutlery drawer last week and thinking we must have lost a few bits, we need more. Buy more? Then I told myself not to be ridiculous, go and see what I've got that's useful in that box, take the rest to the charity shop and maybe I'll only need to buy a few teaspoons.

whitewing

Val, you will be amazed at how one drawer a day adds up.

Sorry to hear about your son. I think you are right to concentrate on the rest of the house before worrying about the vintage playmobil. You will know when the time is right.

Good morning all! Don't think I will get a chance to do any clearing out today, which is a shame because we are taking some more stuff to the auction tomorrow for my relative. Mind you, it took me just 7 mins to tidy up the living !!! dining room this morning, which we didn't do after DD was playing last night. There have been times in the past that it has taken nearly an hour each day. And she still plays as much as she used to. She's climbing a lot more now - popping up on the chairs and sofa by herself. I think that is partly because there is more room to experiment, and partly because we are so happy with our efforts.

We're also getting around to more of the finishing touches in the living room. The things we needed to fix but didn't get round to because we would have to move or find things first (and we weren't hoarders per se, just that decluttering hasn't worked for me without acknnowledgement of the emotional side of things).

I have to get on with my work.

thriftwizard

I envy you that airing cupboard, Valk_scot! Sadly a "developer" had this house before us & ripped out the airing cupboard along with the larder, the range & the original Edwardian fireplaces. I've had a cupboard converted into an airing cupboard by adding a radiator, but it's not big enough & it's in the wrong place. Thus inadvertantly contributing to my hoarding problems, as half of the bedding is in the lodger's room & can't be got at unless he's at home (my own rule; I don't think he'd really mind, but I do) so needless to say I just acquired more!

And that's all currently being kept in an IKEA "Hemnes" linen press on the landing, which is far from ideal as it's nowhere near big enough for a family of 7 with 4 different sizes of bed; there are only 3 shelves, which leads to constant muddle, and it sticks out too far & we have to inch past it. I need to change it for a tall "Billy" bookcase with doors, but don't want to fall into the trap I fell into with the sideboard, i.e. buy the new "solution" before I've moved the old, inadequate one on. On the other hand - where the heck wouldl I put all the bedding in between times? Aaaargh...

Sometimes I just want to go & put my head under the pillow & not have to take any decisions! But I keep telling myself I'll be able to do that WHEN I have got all this sorted out, and no-one got me into it except myself...

ETA: Val, I am so sorry to hear about your tragedy.