Hoarding - Springing Ahead

pigpen

posted 7 ebay things.. 1 more to go today.
Corner sofa out the front so I need to arrange the council to collect that and a chest of drawers.

ivyleaf

GreyQueen wrote: »

Good luck with the house you made the offer on, RadioHorse.

Well, I'm looking around at my tidy sitting-room and thinking that I should really live like this more often.............:rotfl:

Seriously, the sofa is clear but for a cushion, the table is clear but for the breakfast bits which will be washed-up soon and its all so soothing.

Yesterday afternoon, I was doing a last tidy around prior to my pals coming over for 5 pm and I had a small molehill of kipple on the table. I'm sure you've seen similar; mixed lot of small misc, papers, etc. Some may be important, some are clearly not, but sorting takes time and time is just what you don't have at that moment.

I quickly grabbed a couple of things out of there and put them away or thru the shredder, boxed the rest (box is about 6 x 8 inches) and popped it onto my bed to keep it away from the guests. Had to bring it thru again after they'd gone (on account of sleeping in the bed, natch) and grabbed another couple of things from it to de-kipple.

This morning, I took a moment to glance thru an official letter in there, realise that I'd dealt with it and it wasn't a keeper, so will shed that. Plus, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, hauled a kipple pile off the corner of my desk and sorted it into scrap paper (which I keep in a fruit punnet in the cupboard and use constantly) and shreddables. I shall shred at a civilised hour, bit too early yet, might disturb a neighbouring flat.

All of this activity has caused me to have a few Thoughts. Which were probably had a long time ago by the tidy people of the planet;

1. It's easier to deal with papery stuff when you first get it, rather than opening it, parking it, putting mugs on top of it and eventually de-kippling it.

2. Clutter begets clutter, therefore even small pieces sitting on otherwise uncluttered surfaces are important. A flat clear surface is soothing to the eye and a cinch to clean in seconds. A cluttered surface looks terrible and takes forever to deal with. Plus I feel like a slob.

I am really really going to try hard to keep the sofa and the small table clear. It won't be easy as it's running contrariwise to my nature, but life is so much easier when you can use things for the purposes which they were intended, hey? :rotfl:

This really resonates for me, GQ. My OH in particular has a habit of sitting surrounded by carp, to the extent that he loses things which he knows are "definitely here somewhere". Yesterday our son asked if OH would mind paying his car insurance, as it was due and he doesn't get paid until the end of the week, when he will repay the money. So OH said Of course, and took out his wallet to get the credit card he uses for such occasions....not there....searched the pockets in all pairs of jeans...not there...checked his credit card account and he last used it to buy something online "So it's definitely in the house!".....went through all the carp around his chair (paperwork, magazines, boxes of meds, Lego models, railway dvds, cds),....not a sign of it. So he's going to have to ring and ask them to cancel that card and send him another one, just because he puts things down rather than putting them away.

I do have a small amount of "stuff" on the table by my armchair, but it pales in comparison. Yesterday he lost the TV remote control (thankfully we now have two, because he lost it last year and had to buy a new one. It eventually turned up somewhere "I could have sworn I'd looked!") and this morning I see he's failed to put the phone charger away in the nice wooden box it shares with my Kindle cable.

bless him, he does try, and he's on a lot of different meds which can make him a bit dithery, so I try not to get too cross with him

catshark88

I've just read a book by the guy that runs one of the cleaning firms in the US programme about hoarders on CBC reality.

He spoke about hoarding not actually being related to the number of things one has, but by the inability to process stuff/ treat it at stuff rather than an emotional support sort of thing. To be fair, he phrased it 100 times better than I have and it made a lot of sense.

I found it a helpful way of looking at things, cos I can struggle to let things go, though my house is pretty tidy. I'd keep reading the book and then get up to sort out stuff in a cupboard, but which was bothering me as I knew I hadn't "dealt" with it.

I didn't want to feel I was trying to avoid a part of the house because there was something lurking in a cupboard, which I didn't want to have to face.

GreyQueen

ivyleaf, I have lost my mobile in the kipple in this tiny living room and had to ring it from my landline in order to find it - that's baaaad. Particularly when the mobile is turned off and you end up ripping the gaff apart looking for it.....

TidyWorld is still going on. Slung the remainder of the catalogue, went to work, came home and was putting on a washload when SuperGran turned up unexpectedly - prompted her to admire the unusual tidyness of the place and she remarked that she'd never seen the table clear before. Well, she's only known me a decade, these things are perfectly understandable.

Asked a colleague if the plastic screw-top jar which my after-sun cream (have just finished it up as handcream) came in can go in the recycling bin and it can. Must dig out the next old suncare product to serve the same purpose, the 2013 sun block.

I have been experimenting for over a week with a wicker basket which I already owned, about 14 x 8 inches x 4 inches deep. I'm using it to contain things which I use several times a day and which wander around the coffee table, the computer desk, on the sofa and Somewhere Else, which is where they go when I can't find them. There's about 8 small items in there, and the basket is parked on the top of the back of the sofa. This keeps it out of the way but to hand at the same time.

Might look a little eccentric but it's working for me and it's a very attractive basket.

Was teasing the maternal parental unit about tidying on the phone this evening; I'm visiting shortly. She told me that she was rummaging in the understair cupboard where she thought she'd left her puffa jacket, not used since Spring, only to have a big pkt of toilet rolls leap out at her. Jacket was on one of the lower layers of the coat hooks in the hall, buried several deep.

She also told me that on Tuesday she and Dad had got soaked out shopping. Since both of them have very expensive and very waterproof coats, hers only a few months old, I asked how come?

Turns out that they were wearing the old no-longer-waterproof coats which had been replaced but not removed from the premises, and as they are similar looking in style and colour to the new ones and on the same hooks.......... I think she has reached the point (this wasn't the first time this exact same thing has happened) where she's ready to lose the no-longer-waterproofs.

thriftwizard

Turns out that they were wearing the old no-longer-waterproof coats which had been replaced but not removed from the premises, and as they are similar looking in style and colour to the new ones and on the same hooks...

I did exactly that, a couple of weeks ago! Old waterproof now removed from the porch - one less item to tackle when I finally get out there.

Everything's ground to a halt for a day or two here; OH has been off as he's working next weekend, and I simply can't concentrate on getting rid of things when he's around. Hopefully I can get cracking again tomorrow, though come to think of it, I'm going west to help my mother choose a new bed, so I may not get very much done. Sigh...

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I was looking on the Daily Wail's website of pictures of storm damage and there was a curved block of 6 garages, seen from above, whose roof had blown off, all in piece.

From a hoarderish point of view it was interesting; of the six garages, two were completely full of misc clutter, obviously not usable by cars, one car was still in one garage which had quite a bit of stuff stacked at the end of it, the other three were car-less and empty at that point but had room for a car.

Anybody look at similar things and run the mental exercise What if the roof blew off my house or my garage and my Stuff was exposed to the elements or the nosy? What if my backyard shed blew away and my Stuff was blown all over the neighbourhood...........?

Worrying thoughts, hey?

thriftwizard

Anybody look at similar things and run the mental exercise What if the roof blew off my house or my garage and my Stuff was exposed to the elements or the nosy? What if my backyard shed blew away and my Stuff was blown all over the neighbourhood...........?

Worrying thoughts, hey?

For my insurers, anyway... that's where the bulk of my stock is! But the wind would have to remove the holly tree first, to get the roof off my shed, so the chances of my neighbours finding their gardens adorned with vintage glory are fairly remote. I can't see that as hoarding, BTW, though I know some members of my family do; I know several traders who rent private garages to keep their stock in. It may look cluttered, but most of us keep it in pretty good order; it's our livelihood & it pays to be able to lay your hands on things straight away when needed. I have clothes rails running down the centre, and shelves full of books & suitcases of table linen, curtains & lace in mine & can tell you almost exactly where anything is. It's crowded; I have to pull the clothes rails out to reach the stuff at the back, but I do need the clothes to be kept hanging if possible so I don't need to iron everything before every outing.

The garage is rather worse, because I'm not the only person storing stuff out there. My bit is at the end, where I keep my tables, mats, chairs & shelves; the "infrastructure" as I call it, and the "superstructure" (or gazebo) lives in the rafters above, for when I do a stand-alone stall - when we do pop-ups, there are usually several of us & we'll hire a marquee between us if we're outside. But I started off doing it off my own bat, and still do the occasional show alone or just with one other trader, in which case a 3m x 3m gazebo is big enough.

The vast majority of the kipple in there belongs to DS2 & TDiL, but there's also the big freezer, a smaller freezer for storing sacks of dry food like oats & rice, shelves full of preserves (it's a cool space) an apple store (sadly, empty this year - hail destroyed the blossom) the tumble dryer & a stack of cardboard, packing peanuts & bubble wrap; both DD1 & I sell online, so this is very necessary & in constant use, not a hoard. It's crowded, it looks quite chaotic, but it's a working space & again, I work hard to make sure everything is in its place & reachable when needed.

BUT the shelves behind it all are another matter - a shameful pile of completely random stuff that would be better off out of here! I'm letting myself off the hook though until DS2 & TDiL move out again; there's no hope of being able to access them until their belongings are elsewhere.

Right; on with some pricing. 4 of us are doing a 6-day pop-up Ooop North next week, so hopefully that will re-home some stuff & earn me a few bob too!

thriftwizard

Big car-load of manky, well-used old surplus bedding taken to the Tip this morning & only one 1950s cushion sneaked in when I wasn't concentrating. Sadly, though, some of it wasn't manky even last night, until our Feral Friend (who moved from under the shed into the house recently) got shut into DS2 & TDiL's bedroom! Never mind, we have too much bedding now we're down to a mere 6 inhabitants & it's good to move some of it on.

And thank Heaven, we now have a working washing machine after 3 weeks of Purgatory, so I've caught up with the washing mountain and got some of the less-savoury vintage clothing items in there on a silk wash now. Hopefully I can get them dry before tomorrow afternoon, then I can take a good car-load up to the village we're doing the pop-up market in and another load on Sunday morning. That will just about empty DS1's room of my stuff & I should finally be able to see the word for the trees; I'll have 6 days of it relatively clear to clean & decorate, and hopefully not nearly so much to bring back, if I price stuff realistically.

Beginning to feel that there is wood behind those there trees...

Happygreen

I'm so pleased with myself, I shifted a bag of teen clothes to Cash4Clothes and got £2.80, lol. But they are gone and I really could not face the thought of sorting them, taking pictures, and listing them on the ebeast. And for a change I fancied being a tiny bit selfish and not just giving them to the charity shop, which usually gets all our stuff. There is a bag ready for them with books and in-line skates , though .

silvasava

GQ - I've also got a small basket by my chair Its got my reading glasses, pen for doing the crosswords, some handcream (working through all those little ones that come in sets) & lip salve. It really does tidy up the bits that you always need to hand. I used a flower arrangment basket sprayed to match the room. I've also got one in my spare bedroom that holds all the sample sachets of shampoo etc in case any visitors need something.
Not got rid of much this week - mainly 'cos I've not been home much. Next week looks to be a lot quieter so hopefully will get a wriggle on then!