Hoarding - A New Start

sjprmc01

Ooh, thanks for the shiny new thread JOJO!

And happy new year to everyone!

Today has mainly been taken up by taking down decs and tree and opening up the remainder of the kids presents so they take up less space, the livingroom is a bit more habitable now and final decision has been made to get rid of the kiddy table and make sure I keep the kitchen table clear

I've sharpened a pile of kids colouring pencils my right hand feels blistered I chucked all the bits-of-crayon crayons (I'm sure the kids will never need a multicoloured moulded together 'new' crayon from broken bits) and the box of drawing stuff is in one of the cubby holes in the kitchen (ikea unit with 16 'bits') and some sharing colouring books are in another one of them! Have sorted out their bookshelves in livingroom so I could shelve the Xmas books and made far too much rubbish today! OH went to the cardboard recycling up the road but we will have to go back tomorrow and we have 3 full wheely bins.

One thing to explain from my last post on the old thread....normal!.....as in my bedroom was looking almost 'normal'. Normal to me is being able to move in the room, being able to access cupboard/wardrobes without moving a mountain first, feeling like I can walk to my bed in the dark without having to have my torch on to make sure I don't stand on something!

You'd think someone who had broken a bone in their foot in the past by standing on a kids toy would be a little more tidy!!!

sjprmc01

Oh! Just remembered too! Was out last night and won a magnolia toiletry set from M&S in the raffle......I gave it away straight away

Byatt

I've just gone through and burned, recycled, CS'd a lot of personal stuff that was my mothers. I got this when going through my sister's stuff with her permission, but later on she didn't want to know me, so I kept it, just returned her stuff. I wanted to go through it to see if there was anything really relevant and personal, something I could hold onto, but mostly it's ramblings related to my parents religious side, which was huge.

So the burning was very therapeutic, lots of stuff my brother's have written, cards and so on, were kept, but nothing of mine was kept by parents. My brothers obviously didn't want it so...

There was a strange note in one notebook written to my brother saying she was inspired to give him these books (all written by her), and that no-one else had ever read them before, but she wanted him to know how loved he was and that he'd be taken care of. Have no idea whether she sent him the books or not, I'm assuming not as he would have just destroyed them anyway.

At least none of it hurts me now, it seems I have been through that journey and come out the other end. It has emphasised the useless of some possessions though, and the things that are held to be important by people, are really often, just carp.

I've seen photo albums, photos in frames, just dumped at the tip, presumably by relatives who couldn't give a damn. All those things held dear by someone, just dumped. I have photos from my mother's home that have no details, I have no idea who these people are. Yet all pictures of me have been destroyed.

Anyway, I have just a tiny pile of "stuff" which I will probably whittle down even more.

Pitlanepiglet

Can I join in please?

I think I'm a hoarder by nature and I still have boxes in the shed and loft that were packed when I moved out of my first flat over 20 years ago - over the years for various reasons I have struggled emotionally to deal with these. Add to those the boxes that were moved out of my former marital home after a hideous break up and I've got a big stack of boxes that haven't seen the light of day for between 22 and 13 years :eek:

Add to that some boxes of stuff from my grandmother's flat when she died - Nan brought me up as my mum died when I was a child so that was all quite painful....and these are definitely hoarded possessions.

I've tried hard for the last few years to avoid hoarding any more, I now have a "raffle" drawer and any unwanted presents go straight into that, Christmas and birthday cards now go straight in the bin rather than being kept and I am doing much better.....BUT I've never got to dealing with the hoarded stuff other than a couple of boxes and having moved from a 3 bed house with garage to a one bed annexe, I've got so much clutter that I can't get things tidied up and away so we live in a muddle.

The plan for the next two months is to point OH at the shed to try to start clearing the decks. He has loads of clutter too that needs to be dealt with, when we moved he wouldn't sort through boxes of "stuff" so they were moved intact (catalogues, cables, general tat). This isn't quite as unfair as it sounds, I work full time and he doesn't work so he needs to get things sorted, we've been waiting for me to have time to do it, but it isn't going to happen. I'm hoping that he can sort things into sections - kitchen, office (we don't have one any more!) and similar so that I can get at things to go through them. Then once this is done we should be able to get to my hoarded boxes at the back of the shed where I WILL deal with the contents.

I'm likely to be a bit of a lurker

Helen2k8

GreyQueen wrote: »

He didn't want to keep piles of cards and notes but wanted to enjoy the warm emotions that the words engendered so what he did was to cut out the bits which were written on and laminate them to use as bookmarks. That way, he'd come across them at random and re-read them and enjoy the warm emotions all over again.
.

Pardon the intrusion, but that is a lovely idea

I do have cluttery tendencies, and can't afford lots of new things for e.g. the garden so tend to hang on to "that might be useful" things. And to be fair, some unearthed ironmongery has been handy.
But I'm getting better at just getting rid of cheap junk that won't do a proper (bodge)job anyway
I will be doing a charity shop run sometime this month anyway - I don't need all these mugs!

falady

Hi everyone,and thank you for the lovely new thread JoJo :-)

I have to admit, I am not a hoarder, but do have a lot of clutter to deal with.

I have realised that hubby finds it v hard to throw things away, so I spend part of each day going round eg the kitchen surfaces throwing out envelopes from post, broken cat tags, putting stuff away etc etc.

I am by no means an angel though and like to keep things with sentimental value. But do I really need to keep cards from an old boyfriend (I've been married for 4.5 years!), a number of memory boxes from my early years with my husband etc??! I don't think I actually do.

Will someone please tell me that throwing away the 'things' is no reflection on my feelings for my husband?

I may have to keep the first 'mummy' cards I got from my beautiful little girl though (she is only 2!). Perhaps in 20 years I may be able to declutter them - but its unlikely!

Anyway, I have caught up with the old thread and read this new one over the last few days and it has inspired me once again to tackle the 'room of doom' - one of our attic bedrooms filled with stuff.

I have had a good go at it before (also inspired by this thread and all your support), but there is still much more that can go. Today I have sorted out 2 bags of rubbish, 2 bags for the charity shop plus one bag of rags for the charity shop. I will take the stuff to the tip / charity shop in the morning.

I have also got a few items of furniture that I want to get rid of. Hubby and I had agreed about the bookcase, but he has also agreed to get rid of 2 small folding tables and a bathroom storage unit. I am going to contact our RSPCA charity shop to see if they'll collect them.

Any ideas how I can persuade hubby that our DD does not need Megabloks AND Duplo? She loves the duplo, it is much better quality than the megabloks, and the megabloks are stuck up in her room not getting played with (space issues). She wouldn't notice that they were gone or miss them as she is too young to notice and had many many toys. I think hubby is of the mindset that they cost money, and there's nothing wrong with them, so why get rid?

Anyway, enough waffling from me.

Hope you are all OK.

A

Broomstick

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Some of the most difficult things are personal paperwork. I don't really need my mum's Christmas present lists from the 50's and 60's, it's VERY difficult to part with them.

I used to work in a support organisation for people with terminal illnesses and, over the years, had very many friends and colleagues who died. I ended up with a some big boxes full of stuff from that time that I didn't want to open, let alone throw out. On top of that, I had bits and pieces that were other memories of friends and family who had died. Eight? years ago I got round to tackling it What I did was get an A4 display book - the sort that has transparent folders as pages - and I stuck a little heart on the front cover.

I chose to allow each person a total of four sides in the book and as I went through the boxes of stuff, I saved things that I wanted to keep into each person's section. If the section looked like overflowing I made myself choose the best and most important things: photos, funeral programmes, personal letters... but only four sides each. Having the transparent folders as pages meant that I could edit and swap things as I went along.

I ended up with one very wonderful and important book that sat on my bookshelves. It was there for when I wanted to remember. Since it was full of the best and most significant things, it became something very celebratory. Then, unexpectedly, I realised last year that I no longer looked at or needed it. It had done it's job and the memories I wanted to keep were in my head so I made the decision to get rid of almost all the physical contents of the folder. I didn't need or expect to reach this point. It just happened that I knew it was time to let those people go in material terms. I've saved a couple of bits that I will tuck away but that is it. It's taken a long time but it really helped move me from boxes and boxes of stuff to something much smaller to almost nothing.

I wondered whether something like this would work with your sorting of paperwork from your mum. You would give yourself permission to keep and celebrate the bits that you choose to hang onto - including lists - but you have a self imposed limit to the amount you are allowed to keep: if it fits in the book/pages you have allocated - fine - if there's no room then something has to go to make space.

B x

Goldiegirl

Hi, Broomstick

I think the idea of a 'celebratory book' is a fantastic idea.

One of my de-cluttering aims is to only have things in the house that I use, enjoy or value.

At the moment, my parents stuff is in boxes in the loft, not being enjoyed by anybody.

If I had a few carefully selected items on my bookcase shelves, I could enjoy them at anytime.

Completely brilliant suggestion, I'll be acting on that.

Thank you !

wannabe_sybil

It is so good to 'see' everyone. First I was ill then I got caught up in a writing project, so I haven't been back.

I think I am a bit further along in my journey away from hoarding, and I think it is a journey. I am certainly not at the end, but I am seeing clear patches. I have got rid of the 'clutterbust' section on my blog as it was overflowing:o:o:o:o:o Over the last three years I had found far too much (but at least thrown it out).

Today we were in the junk room. We found half a dozen carriers with ring binders in. We no longer really use ring binders though once we used them all the time, and many of these had seen hard use but were now empty. We couldn't think of anyone that would use them second hand, especially as they are not as generally used now records are kept on computers. We thought about saving them for little bear, but it is likely to be at least five years before he needs them, if not more, and he may want trendy branded ones or have different needs and preferences. Besides, we had four empty ones on a shelf downstairs.

So I said that we should consider that if we were to rent space for them in a unit, how much would it cost, and how long would they be there, and would they ever be used. How were they earning their shelf space? I need the junk room free so I can sleep in a bed (long story). So we threw them out. I felt very brave doing that.

On the down side I nipped into Matalan on Boxing Day and bought fourteen rolls of (quite good quality, general use) gift wrap at 50p per roll and five bags of gift bags at a £1 per bag. I didn't look at Christmas cards, as we have a shedload still even after sending them to every child in little bear's class, but we were running low on gift wrap. A few years ago I had done a similar thing - bought a vast quantity of plain gold or silver wrap and it had done for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings as well as Christmas. I have a place to put it, where I will always know it is, and it doesn't go off.

I am working to try to keep to, 'if I don't have anywhere to put it, I won't get it.' It's a work in progress.

Contessa

Hello again, I haven't been on here for a while but have gradually been making progress. I can now recognise my pattern: inertia, problem or crisis, activity, inertia.
So, finally admitted that the garage roof was leaking so had to be replaced-garage now decluttered.
Floorboards needed replacing in hallway, done, but very, very old carpet didn't fit any more. Replaced and looks fantastic-I love it! Why didn't I value myself to do this years ago?
Interestingly, for years I've had an almost non-existent sense of smell-it's improved a lot since replacing the old carpet.
Back in inertia mode over the holiday period, but now I realise I don't need a problem to get me going.