Hoarding - Springing Ahead

GreyQueen

silvasava wrote: »

GQ - I have this mental picture of a Sargasso Sea of kipple, junk, odd socks, underbed fluff with a manic old woman cackling in the middle as she paddles round the world collecting more

Pull up a chair and wait, my lovelies, it won't be long now..............

Actually, since my flat is so small, the area under my bed is a vital storage space which is very actively-used and de-fluffed several times a year. Come to think of it, must be due a vacuuming about now. I have tiled floors with rolling trollies under there, so everything comes out easily. I also have a longbow behind the bedhead, as you never know when the archers will be called to ranks to defend Shoebox Towers against the[STRIKE] French [/STRIKE] err zombies.

The flat is mostly orderly, although the understory of papery kipple on some surfaces needs to be investigated and resolved (which will mostly mean shredded). As it's the start of a new month, I shall do my personal accounts this evening (if the brain will take the strain) and then shred the receipts for consumable items and will take the opportunity to dekipple other paperwork.

Am working my way through a stash of sachets of shampoo in the bathroom which I bought over 12 months ago to use on my holibobs in 2013. I will hold a few back for travel but the rest will be used and then that frees up half of one of my little toiletry storage drawers.

One should always keep one's drawers free, don't you think?

Continuing to use up the scrap paper at the office. I use it to jot down phone numbers and notes during the calls and then it goes through the confidential shredding. I could get an A4 lined notepad issued to me but it seems wrong to use new paper for such scrappy purposes and I regard it as greener (and saving council tax payer's money, of which I am one) to use the scratch pads. It's amazing how much blank-on-one-side non confidential paper comes through my life.

Righty, a few more mins of interwbulation, then out to work for the day. Have a good one, y'all. GQ xx

thriftwizard

Spanner in the works! I went to declutter all the pots, pans & gadgets from the shelves in the porch, but thought I'd better check that TDiL (Trainee Daughter-in-Law) didn't want any of them before I offered a box of Le Creuset frying pans & casserole dishes, Sabatier & Koch Messer knives, exclusive German stainless steel saucepans, Bodum coffee presses, 1970s Midwinter plates etc. on Freecycle.

In short - she wants them all! Except three little hand-cranked whisks, which I can sell. So not much stuff going out of there this week, then...

Before anyone wonders why I'd have those & not be using them, I have my own in the kitchen. These (and most of mine) have been picked up for pennies at the Tip or the local car boot sales, ready to present to offspring leaving home. Once or twice, significant portions of my kitchenware hoard have (has?) gone off with friends in need, usually those who have just left obnoxious partners in a hurry, but the hoard soon refilled. And needless to say, the Offpsring turned their noses up at them when they trotted off to uni & went & bought T*sco's Basics ones instead...

Just goes to show, TDiL is a keeper...

IrishRose12

I'm about to head into the spare room to de-hoard. I have a plan, if it hasn't been so much as looked at in the last 6 months it's in the bin or Charity bag! And said charity bag will be left in tomorrow afternoon! Wish me luck :eek:

GreyQueen

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather duster, but a convo this eventide with hoarder Mum has revealed that she has decided to have a mass Important (no longer important) De-junking of Paperwork. She was even trying to persuade Dad to burn it on the annual bonfire, but he is in favour of shredding it instead (it's confidential stuff).

Mum was demurring that it was too much to shred and I suggested doing 5 pages at a time, little and often, so as not to melt their shredder. I was quietly astonished. I think Mum has been having a LBM these past few months, what with my Nan (her MIL) being very poorly and also her own strength and nerve declining a bit in her seventies. The realisation that Someone Will Have To Deal With All her Stuff. And that someone will probably be yours truly, and that anything she can do now, particularly with stuff like paperwork, is going to make life easier.

Gobsmacked. Truly gobsmacked. Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the Hoard????????????? I cannot begin to convey to you how momentous a turn-around this is. I never thought to see it.

thriftwizard, insist your DS take this admirable young woman with impeccable taste in kitchenwares to the altar immediately, she's sound.

Friend and neighbour SuperGran (an older version of Miss Minimalist) dropped by just before 5 pm for a chat. I had been teasing her that the floor was clear, she should come and see it.......she pulled my leg gently about it but it's still looking good.

Have done the accounts and shredded the September grocery receipts and scooped a few other bits of kipple off the surfaces in the sitting room. As an absentminded person (chronic fatigue brain fog most of the time) I have to write myself memos or nothing gets remembered, but they do need coralling and destroying periodically or I'd disappear under them, layered like leaves on the forest floor in autumn. But less attractive.

Righty, will be having supper shortly then may pootle gently around finding a few things to shed. Has anyone else developed a strange habit *whisper it who dares, I blush even to mention it* of looking around their room just before bedtime/ leaving for the day, to see if there are any more things that can be got rid of?

S'OK, have always been a bit odd. Prolly just me then.

johanne

Havent posted for months. Had a few life issues and lost my way.. but im back to tackling the mess last 2 weeks so have reading the thread last few days and felt inspired.

So much so i was able to hit a lovely milestone tonight when i was able to invite my 6 year olds best friend round to play & have tea. Ive always been to embarrassed to have any of her friends here or ANYONE in fact even family but 3 solid days of cleaning and i felt "ok" this morning asking his mum if i could pick him up.

Only sad part was i ended up "hiding" lots in our back "spare" room about 2pm in a panic and shutting the door and whispering to daughter when we got home not to let her friend in that room or my room as id hid few bits in there too. the back spare room is our main hoarding room as its unusable at the mo as needs plastering & carpetting etc .. and after today it is now SO badly clutter i can only open the door. Thats it - actually cant get in there And you can only open the door because i pushed the MASSIVE box that usually lives in the doorway inside so that i was actually able to shut the door & hide the room. :o:o:o

I want my daughter to be "normal" and not be embarrassed like i am of having friends round so this was so important a milestone today. She hugged me tight at bedtime and thanked me for working so hard to get the place tidy enough for her friend to come and she told me she was proud of me

SingleSue

I went a bit barmy in the kitchen, got rid of two bags of stuff plus an assortment of parasols, a broken seat and little bits and pieces....then for good measure, I cleaned the outside of all the white goods, worktops, cupboard doors, floor, windows, sills and surrounds.

Can't move now and tomorrow will be even worse, so there will be no decluttering tomorrow.

Saturday we tackle the loft......not looking forward to that at all!

BrassicWoman

johanne wrote: »

I want my daughter to be "normal" and not be embarrassed like i am of having friends round so this was so important a milestone today. She hugged me tight at bedtime and thanked me for working so hard to get the place tidy enough for her friend to come and she told me she was proud of me

lovely to read this! and well done you.

Knit_Witch

johanne wrote: »

I want my daughter to be "normal" and not be embarrassed like i am of having friends round so this was so important a milestone today. She hugged me tight at bedtime and thanked me for working so hard to get the place tidy enough for her friend to come and she told me she was proud of me

This is lovely! Print it off and keep it handy for when you think the de-cluttering is getting too much for you

thriftwizard

Johanne, your daughter is a star! And the best possible reason to keep going, bless her.

Two binbags of surplus fabric & wadding have just gone off to a fellow fabricoholic, and an old dog bed & broken Foreman grill off to the Tip. I'm finally getting somewhere with mending the sad-but-worthwhile Haldane spinning wheel I picked up a couple of weeks ago, and now just need to re-glue it before offering it for sale. BUT, someone has just insisted on giving me a 1920s Art-Deco coat cupboard. It's lovely, in VGC, and will fit very well into the bedroom that I'm doing up 20s-30s style as a small wardrobe. The only problem is, there's so much of DS2 & 3's stuff and OH's footy programmes in there, as well as my fabric, that I can't get to the mostly-empty dilapidated chipboard jobby that's been doing the job in the alcove it's going into!

JustAboutThere

Johanne - Fantastic! Well done, you.

GreyQueen - Great news about your Mum. Let's hope it lasts.

Me - epic fail. Woke up in time to hear the rubbish cart rumbling by the house again this week.

There's also rubbish on the front garden that the fox(es) have gotten from what was in the bin. However, since all my rubbish is inside, its come from the upstairs neighbours. They seem to ignore it and unless I want a major fight . . . well, you get the idea.

There's also plenty of mail for the previous tenants in the communal hall. I've asked each of the tenants, politely, to take/send it to the letting agents and they've each agreed - its only two girls in the upstairs flat, and its still there.

I'm not their maid/keeper/parent. I've got enough of my own carp to deal with. I don't need theirs.

I've been at work late twice this week - to 7.30 and 9.30 p.m. I'm knackered. Hence why I overslept.

I want to crawl back under a rock and sleep for a week.