Hoarding - Springing Ahead

mothernerd

The rule on returning items for repair in the original packaging is unenforceable. Under the Unfair Contract Terms ( Act - I think,can't remember the date and chucked the contract law stuff last week) it is unfair if you pay several hundred pounds for say a computer, for the seller to refuse to repair it if you have not saved a cardboard box worth pence.

However those of a nervous disposition who must keep the boxes (my mother had several cluttering up one of her back bedrooms) you can dismantle the boxes (fold in or out the bottom flaps, depending on type), flatten them and store them between the bed base and the mattress. You still have them if you need them, you don't fall over them/ have them fall on you if you attempt to enter the room, they take up hardly any space and you don't have to look at them. It works for ironing jeans as well, if you are really lazy.

Bought a weekly ticket this morning and was on a bus before 6am to go and put the black bin out at the other (up for sale) house. Spent some time shed clearing and tidying (stuff in DS3's room that didn't get done before my operation and I have had to keep apologising for during viewings because I couldn't sweep it up off the floor) a couple of weeks ago and then was too tired and stiff to walk back and put it out on bin day (lovely neighbour will bring it back in).

Hoping I can transport lots of larger plant pots (and soil) one pot at a time by bus hopping, now that I have cleared a little space here. On the down side, next door neighbour here asked why 'everything was in the back'. Five items the Council was going to collect, but hasn't,(no car and got told off two years ago when I took a large rucksack of wires and old electronic bits for recycling - apparently am not allowed on the tip site without a car) so I need to get back on to that. Failed to point out that I have single-handedly litter picked all the stuff at the end of the back over the past few weeks, which was much more unsightly than my five neatly stacked items.

Happygreen

I keep the boxes until the warranty runs out, after that they will be used to store other "stuff" like Christmas decorations, Easter nests, birthday props or will be used as removal boxes, bird house liners, you name it...
Important for me is that all boxes are clearly labelled!

I returned a pair of faulty earphones to the shop the other day and was asked by a somewhat bemused assistant why on earth I kept the packaging...

silvasava

Not posted for ages & only dehoarded small 'bits' however, I've cleared out my jam jar stash & only kept the ones that have a pretty shape or lid for my next batch of jams & chutneys.
Have offered them to a friend - if she doesn't want/need them I'll put them on freecycle. I've also cleared out my belts ( too many too small now - lol) to go to the CS and some trousers. I want to get in the garden today so I wont be clearing as much as I'd like but its on my list for next week when the weather wont be so good!!
Need to spend this evening catching up on the thread as SO many good ideas & tips
Hope everyone has a good day x

Just added: The Kondo message of thanking things before letting them go helped me immensely to rehome a lot of my late mothers things that had a emotional attachment - the thought that they would be used by someone else who would appreciate them instead of languishing in the loft worked as well!

thriftwizard

I like the thanking things idea too, silvasava. Feeling grateful is a much better frame of mind than grumpy resentment underlain by panic!

Not a brilliant tally today, because I was busy, but I took all the lampshades down to my stall - they never even entered the house, otherwise that would have been a bin-bag full - plus a lovely mid-sized leather suitcase, full of interesting fabrics including some proper green baize & some lovely bright 70s orange stuff, and a pretty wire-work cake-stand; it's a lovely thing, and I'd kind of like to have kept it, but I have no current use for it & it's in the way... and I've Freecycled a giant Readicut rug kit. That is a bin-bag full on its own, but it isn't going to leave the house today so doesn't count. Oh, and two of my Ebay items sold & have been posted off. So I have managed to keep the momentum going today.

Tomorrow I'm taking my disabled step-sister to the craft show in the next county; there are one or two tools I want to look at & possibly invest in, but they're small flat things (dies) that will enable me to get better use out of other things (ok, vintage wallpaper) that I already have. I will try very hard not to buy anything that doesn't fulfil the same spec. - i.e. small, easily stored, and enables me to use other things I already have better or quicker.

thriftwizard

Hmmm - I've gone overboard again... Just like the time when I decluttered all my decent winter dresses, because I hadn't worn them for months. I promised my mother a lampshade to fit one of her Sri Lankan elephant lamps, to match the others that she's had for years; a new shade would stand out like a sore thumb. I know I had it here somewhere... I have a nasty feeling it's gone down to the stall & already been sold! Not sure how that happened, but now there's less clutter for it to be hidden in, I can plainly see it isn't there any more. Oops...

You have my permission to laugh out loud. But it's actually a spanner in the getting-rid-of-things works; I have somehow disposed of something that did matter, which rocks my resolve somewhat.

Ah well, there'll be another one along before long. Probably...

Happygreen

thriftwizard wrote: »

Hmmm - I've gone overboard again... Just like the time when I decluttered all my decent winter dresses, because I hadn't worn them for months. I promised my mother a lampshade to fit one of her Sri Lankan elephant lamps, to match the others that she's had for years; a new shade would stand out like a sore thumb. I know I had it here somewhere... I have a nasty feeling it's gone down to the stall & already been sold! Not sure how that happened, but now there's less clutter for it to be hidden in, I can plainly see it isn't there any more. Oops...

You have my permission to laugh out loud. But it's actually a spanner in the getting-rid-of-things works; I have somehow disposed of something that did matter, which rocks my resolve somewhat.

Ah well, there'll be another one along before long. Probably...

I can't count how many times this has happened to me . I spoke to a friend about it who is a professional space clearer and she said that " my relationship with the items in question had been unresolved". In her professional opinion it is important to give "stuff" the mental space and respect it deserves as something that had fulfilled a function in our lives and then we decide fully aware that is is now obsolete. Not as easy as it sounds! I really hate having to buy things I previously threw out...OH is at the other end of the spectrum, he buys stuff because he can't find the ones he already owns or has forgotten that he already owns them , mainly tools...

DD2 wants to do a car boot sale in the summer and DD1 is moving flats, so all her stuff is coming back here for 2 months :eek::eek::eek::eek:, so boxes everywhere!
But a small bag is going to CS tomorrow and 3 large ones to Cash4clothes, they now take curtains!

thriftwizard

a small bag is going to CS tomorrow and 3 large ones to Cash4clothes, they now take curtains!

Ooooh, that's good news - both bits! Well done you, she says, eyeing up the curtains... but the nearest Cash4clothes to us is about 40 miles away.

The rug kit's been claimed, although it's not being picked up until Saturday, and another one of the big kitchen items has sold & will be posted off tomorrow, so I think I might relax a bit tonight.

thriftwizard

Hmmm - bit of a static day dismantling my hoard today. It's been mega-busy in other ways, and my feet haven't touched the ground, but all I've managed to do is to sort out the things that are going tomorrow (5 large items, in the end, including an ENORMOUS aluminium stewpot - the dyers will love it for an indigo dyebath - a big Burco boiler, two huge crates of posh yarns and a beautiful spinning chair that I'd love to keep, but can't) post off the mixing bowl, and sort out yet another bin-bag of fabric for someone who can't pick up yet as she's ill. So hardly anything actually left, but quite a bit should leave the premises permanently tomorrow.

I might have a rest on Sunday - and give you all a rest from reading about my efforts, too!

GreyQueen

:T Blimey, Thriftwizard, your home must be getting echo-y by now, so much is leaving. Isn't it great to have stuff going to places where it will be used rather than sitting unused in your home?

I'm cogitating on a few items in my own home (the low-hanging fruit of the decluttering world has long been harvested, lol). Going to be making some decisions in the next few days, as well as doing some gardening.

Have pulled three items from the allotment shed to recycle but will give a couple of them a quick splash through the washing up water first as they'd got a bit dirty.

My flooded airing cupboard last month was a real eye-opener and caused several underused items to leave. Not everything got wetted, and what did was launderable and only one item sustained a modest amount of damage ( hand-towel with plaster stains, not atrocious, now demoted to kitchen patrol).

What it brought home to me was that how every item you own becomes a burden when you need to move/ tend/ clean it in a hurry. And how it will be better to have fewer belongings, something which I am working towards in clothing and household textiles but allowing natural attrition to take them out of my life.

thriftwizard

Blimey, Thriftwizard, your home must be getting echo-y by now, so much is leaving.

If only, GQ! But it's just about possible to see the floor in places, now...

What it brought home to me was that how every item you own becomes a burden when you need to move/ tend/ clean it in a hurry.

Another home truth! I am SO fed up with trying to look after all this lot, and continually having to shift it all from pillar to post. I just want to live in a space with the things I actually need & a few well-chosen things I love, which don't need to be expensive or valuable in anyone else's eyes, and have time free to spend with the people I love, doing things I enjoy doing. And all this stuff is stopping me from doing that. I have actually felt tempted to run away & leave it all behind, knowing that it'd all be in a skip inside a week. But that does actually feel like dereliction of duty, somehow. All I can do is not let anything else in, and move it on as quickly as possible.