Hoarding...not just on TV

falady

Thank you everyone for your kind welcome.

JoJo, your last post made me laugh out loud! Hubby gave me a strange look - he doesn't quite 'get' my sense of humour sometimes. My best friend, however, thinks I'm hilarious ;-)

Re the bronze handbag - I can really understand why you don't want to give it up. It is very hard to find the perfect bag! I think the idea of finding a replacement first is a good idea. And treat yourself. If you have the money spare,and the new perfect bag is more expensive than you'd usually spend, well perhaps it is money well spent. Worth thinking about anyway.

The decluttering here didn't quite continue as planned tonight, but I did bake a squidgy ginger cake , here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1711/squidgy-lemonginger-cake
and a apple and sultana traybake :-)

Tomorrow I am going to sort out the big kitchen cupboard - top half.

Hope everyone has had a nice evening.

Ali x

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Hi, Jo_anne.

That's a perfectly normal response and the paralysis and anxiety you can feel, I think, is one of the telltale signs of hoarding.

Do you have anything in there that you can easily identify as rubbish and can go without too much worrying about it? Say, for example, scraps of paper, bits of plastic wrappers, stuff that's beyond repair?

If you can, then perhaps have a first pass of the stuff, grabbing the things that are obviously in that category, stick it in a binbag or carrier bag, as soon as it's full or you need a break, tie the top up and take it straight out and into the outside bin?


If you look at something and you just aren't sure, you can ask your DH or decide it's a think about it later - I usually find that if you have to stop and think about something, it doesn't tend to be as important as you originally believed.

Just don't stand there worrying over one bit. It's a waste of your time and emotional energy - set it aside and move on to the next item.


That's probably enough to be going on with for your first go. See how you do, and whether you find it getting slightly easier to make the 'Bin' decision as you get more accustomed to doing it. Don't focus on the entire task at first - that's too overwhelming.

Just focus on what is at your feet. Start working there.


And let us know how you got on, any thoughts you have about it.

Contessa

Jo_anne,
Welcome and well done-you've taken the first step. I'm sure you didn't amass your hoard overnight so it will take a while to get rid of it-but you'll get there!

blossomhill_2

I am not too bad with handbags, but had failed to get rid of a worn purse - the leather is floppy and discoloured but ... there is a section for credit cards that I never used, so I have found myself debating what I could do with just that bit if I unpicked the stitching ... three pristine red leather slots, perfect for ... well, storing credit cards in a purse but I didn't use it for that ... but can't throw it away, so the purse is back in the drawer

I did manage to throw away half a card of 10+ year old brittle plastic pegs, been on the work surface for probably 3 years or moren... I know they would break as soon as look at them ... but I couldn't discard them, thinking I could use them to hold tarps on a bootsale stall etc etc, until I saw the post on here about old pegs (I will catch up with the thanks button soon!) which made me think "oh stop being pathetic Blossom" and gave me the power to put them in the bin!

elona

Just caught up on last few days.

One dd came home to see her sister in hospital, one dd seen off to university, one in hospital and awaiting result of scans on skull, chest and tummy and one at home helping support us all.

Hopefully we should find out more on Wednesday afternoon as see head of medical team then.

Thanks for all the good wishes.

Byatt

You don't need to prove anything to anyone. It is obvious you are a good person and far more capable , intelligent, proactive and determined than you let yourself believe.

Does giving dd a load of tins, dried food and toiletries count as decluttering?

Not mentioning the order from AF on its way next week but it is all things that will be used

Hugs to all

blossomhill_2

Jo_anne wrote: »

The worst room in the house is my study/craft room (not that there's been any space to do crafts for a long long time) but I have made a start and emptied everything out into DS1's room now he has gone back to Uni. I just can't believe how much fitted in one small room!

With DH's help, I began to sort and discard a few things last night. It was hard and I was very jittery after just about an hour of sorting. There is lots more to do and we've only scratched the surface. Is it me or is making decisions about what to do with things the hardest bit?

Welcome Jo-anne - well done for making a start! When I 1st started I found it helped me to just think up random amounts to discard, rather than work out what could go and what was worth keeping; may help you - eg can you find 3 pens, 5 cards, 2 pieces of fabric that could go?

As you'll see above, I am not out of the woods yet, but no longer wading through carp :T

valk_scot

Two bun tins in the shape of a row of teddy bears....you'd think I'd have binned them after the first time I used them, when I found out they were about as non-stick as superglue.

Lego block bun tins ditto...

Icing bags. With piping nozzles. Last time I iced a cake it was for DD's third birthday. She'll be eleven next month.

Loose bottomed quiche and tartlet tins. Still in the packets with prices in shillings and pence.

About forty half used birthday cake candles in various shapes and sizes. Actually, make that eighty. Or a hundred....

Three identical whisk attachments for my Kenwood Chef.

Eight Victoria sponge tins...



You could rewrite The Twelve Days of Christmas with the contents of my baking drawer.....

[Deleted User]

whitewing wrote: »

My stuff is still in the bin and the sky still hasn't fallen in.

Quoted for sheer truth-dom!

What actually happens when the house is de-cluttered & tidy is that people fill it instead of stuff friends & family come for their tea, you can hold meetings, all sorts of nice things occur!

whitewing

joolzred wrote: »

Quoted for sheer truth-dom!

What actually happens when the house is de-cluttered & tidy is that people fill it instead of stuff friends & family come for their tea, you can hold meetings, all sorts of nice things occur!

And another unexpected bonus - our plants are all thriving indoors because we don't knock them with stuff, trip over stuff onto them, and we can get close to water them, and we don;t have to underwater them because we're worried about spilling water over anything next to them.

Welcome to the recently delurked. Getting rid of the craft stuff is difficult but so liberating to only have the stuff left that you are interested in doing going forward. Better quality of project going forwards too. My friend was an unexpected potential saboteur though; I think she was quite upset as we talked about craft together and in a strange way I think she felt it was almost a rejection of her. It wasn't. It was about freeing up potential.

VJsmum

"...and a partridge in a pear tree"


We've had some squirrels and some birds in our loft but no partridges that I know of.

I have just been reading in my building magazine (i do lead an exciting life! ) that most British homes have nowhere near enough loft insulation because of having to declutter all the stuff they keep up there - costing them hundreds of pounds per year in lost energy. We had ours done a couple of years ago and it only took a morning to sort through the stuff. The number of cardboard boxes was laughable!! Soo many and for things that we didn't even use, or even possess, anymore.

The loft is generally not too bad - My clutter is more visible, I'm afraid.