Hoarding - Springing Ahead

minimoneyme

Yuck! I sympathise VJsmum. We're still on biscuit beetle watch here. No sightings in the kitchen which is good news, but we did find a few dead ones in girl's room so it was back to daily hoovering in there for a while (fortunately their job,not mine!)

One box of books (about 60) left my kitchen yesterday for a charity sale. Unfortunately they didn't manage to sell many but they are NOT coming back into the house! I've still got 4 more boxes. I've moved them from the kitchen (where they were mainly out of the way) into the hall, in the hope that if hubby stubs his toe on them often enough he will get fed up and take them to the charity shop.

We're off to the Ideal Home exhibition today, so very excited! Sad I know, but we don't get to go out much and it was a freebie (thanks Martin) I'll never have an ideal home buts its nice to drool over beautiful garden offices, spacious layouts and revolutionary storage solutions :cool: I promise not to buy anything!

One problem I'm having is I've realised we are not just hoarders but messy too. We declutter a room and everybody oohs and ahhs. We promise to maintain it and for a few days we do.
But then stuff creeps back in, it's as if we are so used to living in, frankly a pigsty, that we don't notice a little bit of mess. We are comfortable with a cup here, a pile of books there, stuff on the edge of a chair. And before you know it, it's a major job to clear up again, rather then the gentle daily tidying I had envisaged.
I've tried gathering kipple into a pile and leaving it on the floor in the middle of the room but they all just shimmy past it.
One DD leaves cups and plates on the landing windowsill, normally I would clear it or mention it. It's been 3 days and the teetering tower is still growing.
Any suggestions?

pigpen

I'd have thrown every carpet and bear and fabric item in the house I cannot abide the damn flying things... The floor in the girls room is covered in rice like particles until I realised it is in fact bits of polystyrene.... and it will not vacuum up!!!!

mini.. leave it.. you are not the maid... ask once for it to be brought down and leave it.. And... when it does come down she can wash them too.

Oooooh... CS bag... I can fill that!

idristhedragon

Oh no yah boo to the carpet moth
Jojo I LOVE your mirror cleaning thingy. That is 100% me!

We have had a breakthrough. During my due cluttering with Jenny I realised how embittered I had got towards DH and his lack of help, or realising how the clutter was getting to me. She said that once I start he will get on board. And lo and behold he has! He came home from work Thursday and helped me move the two items of furniture I needed to move in the playroom, took the rug out of there that's going into what's now DS#1s room but used to be DD #2s room so has bright pink carpet! He THEN got his drill out and put back up a DVD shelf that DS#2 has pulled off the wall about 8 months ago. I have been nudging him every time to kipper starts to build up round his side of the bed and he's been clearing it. His "study" is still an absolute train wreck BUT I don't have to go in there, and as we have no loft and no garage we do need one room for random things.

haven't got much done this week as have had 6 kids most days and DD#2 has been really ill again with asthma/croup/ virus and has had so far this week a trip to the out of hours, a course of steroids, a trip to the GP, piriton, a call to NHS direct......AND she slept through a trip to her favourite soft play ever!

Also DH had his bike nicked this week and tragically an old family friend in Ireland died. That's 2 this month and another is seriously ill in the last stages of bowel cancer.

We both have a week off now so we are planning a trip to the tip, clearing the garden of clutter, but also some serious lounging. I'm doing quite well so far, am writing this from bed, having just had an onion bhaji for breakfast

ivyleaf

Just delurking again to say...

minimoneyme - that sounds just like us, we find it impossible to keep a room tidy

Has anyone heard from Byatt at all? she hasn't posted on here for some time, just hoping she's okay.

This_Year

Ugh Carpet Moth, revolting things!

I detest mirrors with specks of stuff on, makes me heave. Whoever makes the speckles, clears it up and leaves it as they found it. We don't have maids here!

I do quite enjoy polishing mirrors and glassware my upstairs bathroom is white and chrome and I do like to make it all shiny again

pigpen

I have decided DD3 has a hoarding issue.. she had her favourite bag rammed full with wrapping paper and sweet wrappers from christmas, party invites from 5 years ago.. hundreds of pairs of too small shoes.. She has 7 boxes and several binbags of stuff whereas the others have 3 or 4 and are younger... I think we need to change this before it becomes ann issue.

3 more binbags out and a divan base to follow.

sjprmc01

I may have been shopping again......and I may have let the kids get a few things and whilst it was enjoyable to some extent I don't want to end up with the amount of stuff I had (which is actually much more than now, not that it's noticeable!)

Will just have to be strict withy he getting rid of stuff to make up for it!!!

mcculloch29

Just swept the bookshelves and from just one unit, (I have many bookshelves) I filled two bags ready for the BHF collection next week. Hopefully they can take more than the three bags I've promised.
Many of the books were SH themselves, picked up at library sales.
There's a lesson for me in that- a £25 book for £1 isn't a bargain if it's not really your thing anyway and languishes largely unread.

This_Year

My dressing table is polished and only has my hairbrush, comb and my mirror on it. My bedside table has my lamp, a box of tissues and nothing else but a freshly polished sheen!

Everything else is put away/binned/in the CS bag. I also dusted the bedframe. Job done! :T

DD is doing a wonderful job of keeping the kitchen clean and decluttered too. :T

Oh and loads of stuff gone onto ebay, too!

Catriona_P

*creeps back into forum looking for comfort after having posted in the MSE eBay forum*