Hoarding - Springing Ahead

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I had at the cupboard under the sink yesterday. It's something I do 1-2 plus times a year anyway but it's amazing how this much-used area can get stuffed up and untidy and things misplaced in there.

Feel better about it now as have a current list of what's under there and a reminder not to buy more of certain things for a while......:rotfl:

Will be having an early lunch then heading up to the allotment. Not feeling particularly energetic but know from experience that I can trick myself that I'm just going up to dump the rotables and check the shed hasn't blown away. Then onece I've arrived, I can tell myself I'll just do half an hour, so's not to have wasted the energy and time cycling up there.

And, before I know what I've done, I've done an hour's work or more, feel better for the exercise and fresh air and feel better for not having shirked off as well.

It's amazing the headgames you can play with yourself, if you know your own weaknesses.

Speaking of recycling, I must remember to take my Tetra-Pak stash to archery; there is a recycling bank for them en route and they don't go in the general recycling at the flats, so tend to pile up, albeit washed and flattened.

I was tempted to buy more Xmas cards as there are some lovely ones on sale atm, but I tidied out the decorative boxes and tins where I keep my stationery supplies and consolidated and realised that I really don't need any more cards. I am also good for wrapping paper for another year or possibly another two years, so haven't bought any.

It's not a bargain if we don't need it, and we clutterers have to beware our squirelling tendancies, don't we?

[Deleted User]

I am decluttering my study/computer room at the moment I can't believe how much junk has accumulated in there over the past year.Its all gotta go :):)
JackieO xxx

johanne

I am so happy to read this thread! My house is awful! In the 7 years ive lived here its gone from being just me.. to me, OH & 2 children!


There is no storage, and I hate throwing "stuff" away incase its needed at a later date.. we are also overrun with clothes due to growing fast children and me changing sizes from a 10-14 with maternity and breastfeeding clothing thrown in too, I am self employed and work from home so have piles of paperwork and "stuff" for work, I also study from home and am a crafter (when I get a chance) so everywhere is full of "stuff"....


My OH thinks im crazy as i will keep a cardboard box when something arrives in the post in a "good" one incase it can be used in future for when i get round to listing on fleabay... i also keep the tubs off the babies washing powder as theyre little buckets with a handle and lid so i see potential storage vessels... (in my defence i recently sorted through all DDs craft stuff and they were ideal to keep everything secure and separate so my stash all got used up) .......


I come from a hoarding family. My house is my dads & was my grandparents and i have a 1950s rusted old bike in my back garden that hasn't been ridden aslong as ive been alive (im 28) its ruined by the weather and completely unusable but my dad who owns my house wont allow it to be thrown away, i only recently got him to agree to throw out some of his old school work that was in our old shed and had been eaten by slugs etc (hes 60)... he has 30+ years of railway modelling magazines in my mums house and boxes in their loft from electrical items that have long gone in the bin. Added to that my mum has a bad charity shop habit and will buy all sorts for my kids.. everytime i visit i come home with another bag of "stuff" be it clothes or toys.... (i know my mum reads this board so just to say im not slagging you off mum i do appreciate it.. but you do go CRAZY)... I have nowhere to put stuff but I don't like offending people by refusing to accept gifts!


Embarrassingly my son who is 9 months doesn't have a nursery.. we only put his cot up yesterday after buying it in December. I breastfeed so weve been safely co-sleeping since he was born. We have a "junk" room that my daughter has meant to have been getting moved into since she was about 3, it needs sorting through and the room needs replastering and new flooring and the new boiler boxed in before she can go in there though - its been in this state of "nothingness" since i moved in 7 years ago and just nothing ever seems to happen - each time ive sorted it the plastering hasn't happened and more junk has crept its way back in and it becomes a mess again! ..... if this was done it would free up the box room DD is currently in to be made into a room for DS.... its so frustrating that nothing ever gets done both my OH and my dad have "i'll do it..(and they don't)"-itis


Between chrismas and new year i binned 15 cardboard boxes out the junk room, 2 bin bags of rubbish and filled a bag for the charity shop but ive got so far to go...


I need to also de-hoard my clothes... ive got stuff i wore to college 12 years ago still in my wardrobe, and i need to tackle the kids toys as my DD has been spoilt over the years and were just overrun with them with no storage and now need to fit in DSs growing toy collection too!


I find it so hard to throw stuff out though.. i have tons in a pile for fleabay but never get round to listing it.. but were struggling for money at min so I think if i could just get 50p for each of these items itd help... but then i never get round to listing them!! I fill charity bags and then re-go through them thinking "oh actually that needs to stay because..." its crazy!!


im too embarrassed to have visitors and its not fair on DD as she wants to invite her school friend round to play and ive been saying "ooh after summer.. ooh after half term.. ooh after Christmas" and she still cant as the place is shameful!


Anyway sorry for the huge post... it just felt nice to be able to admit to my hoarding ways without being judged!

lobbyludd

well done to those who are decluttering craft items and made things, I need to undertake some sort of creative process to keep myself sane, it helps keep my mental balance, otherwise especially in winter I feel like a drudge. so those items will be the very last thing I declutter, but I am trying not to buy anything more.

dd's wardrobe is finished and in and the room rejigged to accommodate it, I've got rid of an additional 2 bin bags of her old clothes, broken toys etc some will get to the cs at some point this week.

there was a plus point to having hoarderish tendencies that I'm tackling I was able to put in a more useful rail (the wardrobe had the original front to back one) from poles and connectors that I already had, left over from a previous project, so it cost nothing to sort out. however, if I hadn't been getting rid of things I wouldn't have known where these bits were and would have ended up buying new stuff, adding to the pile. In a change to my previous habits, the odds and ends left over from fitting the pole have been binned rather than kept "just-in-case" and I'm really happy with that.

ds's room to try and get back to a workable state, at least enough that back to school tomorrow is easy, I'm probably not going to get the desk built, but think I have a plan for putting the furniture back in an arrangement that won't lead to condensation mould problems and the dehumidifier is running in his room.

ginnyknit

You wont be judged here Johanne, its good to talk as they say. Sounds like you are doing well, bits and boibs add up - as I have found since I started on the journey a few weeks ago. Starting to see something for it all. Top of my bedding box is nearly clear :j bedside cabinet clear apart from de-cluttering diary, bookshelfs have gaps now and no empty jars hanging round the kitchen. rag and bone men knocked on yesterday and took the big old pc monitor we had to take to the tip - that was good as I have pulled am muscle in my back and was worrying how I would lift it in and out of the car.

First fleabay auction of the year due to end in a few hours so hopefully that will be a big carrier bag going to the post tomorrow.

Thank you all for your support and letting me know Im not alone. Every magazine you pop in the re-cycling, every carrier bag you sort and re-home, every odd mug you bin because there are 6 others is a step. xx

lobbyludd

Welcome Johanne ,
small steps do make a difference, and starting with the emotionally easy stuff, it's much less scary than those skip everything programmes on the TV. I've found by being here and getting on with things however small that my thinking has changed, and I like the space that is appearing. Kids do generate an enormous amount of incoming "stuff"!

the other thing I've found once I got in to the swing of things and made progress and started to let people into my home was that first my friends didn't judge me, they were happy that I was making strides and liked me whatever the state of my home - and somehow that has helped me do more. Also that my children's friends don't give 2 hoots about the clutter and most of their parents don't either. If those people do judge me, I care less about it now and the kids have friends over for sleepovers and play dates and are invited back in return.

My parents and many of my friends are very organised people and i had assumed that most people live in a perfectly organised state - but as I've tackled my clutter and let more people into my home I've found new people who are battling similar issues and some friends have confessed the gargantuan effort they undergo before we visit to get their homes "visitor ready".

None of that means I don't have issues with stuff - I do - but being able to declutter the shame has helped me make strides with overcoming it, because I don't have that emotion holding me back!

this is a wonderful thread.

whitewing

Presents are wrapped and tagged and put away.

Wrapping paper box is put away.

Recycling gone (but DS has just turned up with a large box - that will have to go tomorrow).

I had some lovely cards given to me that I have now added lettering to so they will be used as family cards this year. These are almost ready to go away but I need to dry them off a bit as DD knocked a glass of water over. She's such a fiddlefingers and it's always when I'm doing something craft-related.

I've also got to make a note of any cards I need still to get. Don't think there will be many and I have a couple of vouchers for a free M and S card. I do find getting all the cards at the start of the year saves a fortune in incidental buys and last-minute dashes to the shop (with parking fees).

I also need to update my book with presents I have bought and presents/ideas for this year. It is currently drying out on the radiator.

I struggle with address books as I hate it when people move house and wreck my book! I don't like keeping addresses online only as most of the time I need it is to quickly get something in the post, or I need to take an address down from a phonecall or something. I have got a very pretty empty box and I have decided to use that with some obsolete scrapbooking paper cut-offs so I can have a page per person. Then I can throw away a page and write a new one if the details change. That will tidy up my pile of scrappy paper. I must get in with this job as I could get it done today if I don't let perfectionism get in the way.

Today's posts are very inspiring - keep all all those tiny, baby steps.

Pitlanepiglet

Welcome Newbies :j

What a difference a year makes. A year ago I was just about to start tackling my hoarded stash of stuff that I had been moving around for years, some of it for 25 years, some of it was relatively modern and only 8 years old. Each part of the stash represented a traumatic period of my life (losing my mum when I was 12 and two relationship breakdowns).

Roll forward a year and I'm in a much better state, I've still got some of the older boxes from my childhood, but I have been through everything and the things that I have kept have been kept because I want to keep them not because I can't bear to open the boxes. It was hideously traumatic but I can't tell you how much better I feel now I'm not carrying around the weight of the "stuff" that I couldn't bear to face.

I've plodded along over the last year and now have a clear bedroom, no floordrobe and no stack of clothes that won't fit in the drawers. I can now dust and clean the bedroom in 40 minutes - previously I virtually never cleaned the bedroom (or any other room!) as it was too difficult to move around the piles of stuff.

Our living room is now clear and again is easy to clean and I spent the two weeks of Christmas and New Year clearing out all of the kitchen units and the built in cupboard full of tat in the spare bedroom. I've cleaned units and really feel that I've got somewhere.

I've parted with loads of stuff - I've given up trying to ebay, it just holds me up, last years stash went to a table top sale for a charity that I support and this year I've been putting everything on our local Facebook Freebie site. I made the decision that I had to get stuff out quickly and as I work full time ebay was just not happening.

The point of the long post is to detail what I've leaned along the way...

Firstly do something, I've said this recently on here, I was prone to thinking that I had to be able to do everything - clear the shed, clear the bedroom - I never had time to do all of it so consequently I did nothing. From here I leant the value of little and often and plodded through a drawer, shelf and pile at time.

Secondly, and this is probably obvious, I've realised that most of the mess I lived in was because I couldn't put things away because my cupboards, drawers and shelves were already full of things that I mainly didn't use but couldn't be bothered to deal with. This made putting things away a nightmare as I was trying to shoehorn stuff that I did use in amongst stuff that I really didn't use.

Now I've cleared out, putting washing and washing up away is a joy, it's easy, I open a drawer and put things in....so different to even six months ago! I was cooking today and it was lovely to be able to use my favourite mixing bowl without having to unstack a pile of stuff from inside of it and then chip the dust off it!

Thirdly, don't get attached to new things, I catch myself thinking "ahh....useful box....." give myself a virtual slap and put it in the bin, if I don't build any attachment, then it's easy to get rid of things.

Soooooo....get going, do a bit here and there, you will notice the difference and it does start to become a bit addictive. You didn't accumulate all your stuff in one go and you won't clear it in one go either but bit by bit you can and will get there.

I'm amazed how much time I save by things being straight, I know where my hospital letters are, I know where the greetings card box is and so on....I wear more of my clothes as I can get to them in the wardrobe.

In the words of the great Lord Nike.....Just do it

Sorry it's long, hope it helps someone, I had so much support and encouragement from posters on this thread as I've gone through this process.

Patchwork_Quilt

Well done Piglet! All very true. And welcome to Johanne. So many of the posters' initial stories have been like yours over the life of this thread and everyone has moved on.

Have to confess, I never got to the craft cupboard. I started in the bookcase and got caught reading More With Less, one of the great books in my life. However, when I was finished, I decluttered the sideboard - it contains a huge stash of used wrapping paper, old cards and so on. Now all the cards have been cut up - fronts to reuse and backs to write lists on. The paper has been folded neatly and the ribbons box examined. I feel better for it.

Keep on keeping on, folks. It's the only way.

lobbyludd

OK - can someone give me permission to cs a christmas present that I really don't like? It's from my darling mum and I know that she will have spent a lot of time choosing it, and the gift was given with love, but it's a set of nested trinket boxes, in a style that I really don't like at all, and will collect a ton of dust (they're velvet and lace covered). I feel so ungrateful and churlish just writing that, but the very last thing I need is new places to keep random things in.

I had flirted with the idea of letting DD use them, which I could then tell my mum about, and she'd be pleased, but she doesn't like them either.