Hoarding - Springing Ahead

GreyQueen

Yeah, when you start thinking that running away from home/ arson might be a valid housecleaning strategy, things have come to a pretty pass.

One thing I have noticed from both personal experience and bloggers/ forums, is that everyone speaks of decluttering in the same terms; a weight off my shoulders, lighter, easier.

It's not as if we are like snails personally transporting everything we own on our backs 24/7. Nor are most us nomadic and packing everything to move home every few days or weeks. But somehow, on a deep level, we can feel the weight of those items dragging us down and tiring us out.

Not to mention the tiresomeness of physically shuffling them around our habitats. I've speculated on the amount of fossil fuels spend moving unnecessary carp from A to B by road, rail, air etc. Must be shocking.

thriftwizard

I think I might be part nomad, actually! Most of my family/friend/neighbours/fellow traders are completely baffled by my love of camping and choosing to trade at the kind of shows where we have to stop overnight, but I actually enjoy it! And I travel very lightly; I can get everything I need for two weeks in the sun inside Ry@nair's measly hand-baggage allowance, as long as I don't need to take a tent & sleeping bag.

The Quakers have an interesting take on it; excess possessions are "cumber" from which we get the word "encumbrance". That idea certainly "speaks to me" as they also say. I know I'm far from the worst-afflicted; when we do finally manage to move, I shan't have to hire a container to store my excess possessions, as one of my friends did. When she finally got into it to sort it out, about a year later, after moving from her family home in Oklahoma to Nevada, something wet had split open and everything was soggy & mouldy; she'd paid thousands to have it all shipped across the Atlantic & halfway across the States, and just had to throw it all away in the end!

One of the car boot sales near us has several stallholders who sell on the contents of self-storage containers whose rent hasn't been paid. Allowing for those who've emigrated & decided they're never coming back (we've stored stuff in our loft for years for my in-laws, who moved to Spain. They're both dead now - but we still have quite a bit of their stuff up there! I somehow doubt they'll be back for it...) there's a phenomenal amount of stuff that people have paid good money to store, and have then effectively abandoned. And much of it wasn't worth paying anything for in the first place, IMHO.

Where my other stall was, there's a little self-store facility across the road. I used to watch people coming & going with suitcases full of less-than-useful stuff; they'd often just bought the suitcases from me! Strikes me that the self-storage thing is a hidden hoarding epidemic; their homes are probably pristine, but their clutter is still costing them time, energy & good money.

Anyway, busy today too, but as that involves hopefully offloading quite a lot of stuff profitably, I'd better get on with it.

GreyQueen

Have a successful de-cluttering day, thriftwizard.

On the subject of putting stuff into storage, everyone I know/ have heard of who has had paid storage has ended up not wanting the stuff they'd paid good money to store, sometimed for years, and then sold if off for a few ££ or binned it.

The one exception known to me personally was a friend whose house-buying plans were precipitated due to the actions of the tax office (they did his private landlord for MIRAS fraud, he should have been living in the property he was renting out) and my pal had to get out in a hurry. He lodged with one friend for a couple of months until his house purchase went through, and another friend stored most of his stuff in their garage. Yours truly was the van driver to move the stuff from A to B

Going up to the lottie when I've finished this cuppa and made a PNB sarnie to sustain my efforts.

mothernerd

Grey Queen I love the Ruskin quote.

Thrift Wizard your stories are lovely.

I am still struggling to get rid of the large items in my house. Our internet broke down yesterday which didn't help but I know I have been procrastinating. I may still phone the charities which take large items, but feel that as I am so short of cash I really should make more effort to sell things.

The drawers and small table need to go (very useful as bedside space after my operation). They could be made beautiful but I don't want to be the one to do it or rather I already have enough time consuming projects and don't need more things needing attention that I don't have time to give them. I spent most of my childhood sanding and painting old pieces of furniture and then did the same for my children (including making my own Sonic the Hedgehog stencil as there were none commercially available).

I have a fridge freezer to give away and a washing machine to sell (gave the first to DS2 when he moved out, bought him the second as his Christmas present two years ago). I still feel that the house is a mess and am ashamed to let people in.

Everything is getting on top of me at the moment (I am aware that there are a lot of 'shoulds' and 'oughts' in what I have written and what I am thinking - not a lot of what I would like to do). I also seem to be in a stage where the more I try to sort things out, the more others (people/ organisations/ situations) seem to mess up and it is wearing me down.

Did manage to take two items to the charity bin in the library yesterday so I will just keep plodding and try to focus on the things I can do something about.

whiteguineapig

you could try your local facebook selling page for large (and small ) items, ours seems very busy

GreyQueen

Mothernerd, I think it's just a blip in the de-hoarding journey, a metaphorical log jam. One thing will move and then - pffttt!!!! - several other things will shift all of a sudden. Keep the faith and it'll come good.

Have been decluttering weeds from my allotment and now have the onions, leeks and strawberries in weed-free splendour. That'll last about a week at this time of year, of course..........:rotfl:

Have been totally rubbish at consumerism, having spent precisely 50p in two days, and that was to get a clasp put on re-strung fake pearls, so now have all three of Grandma's necklaces in wearable conditon. They were double or triple standed necklaces which could barely go around my neck without feeling like a noose *shudder*.

Will spend some time sorting out the ironing and then cook my supper and chill out for a while. Have visited with a pal for a while this aft and had a natter over the phone with another, so have caught up with all the gossip.

Onwards, upwards and outwards!!!!!!!!!!!

thriftwizard

Mothernerd, GQ's spot on there; it's almost as if there are key pieces of "cumber" that block the flow of items in & out of your life. That's a kind of feng-shui-ish idea, but somehow things get a whole lot easier when one or two pieces have shifted. The one thing to beware of is that equally oddly, once you get into the habit of giving stuff away, fortune (or possibly the god of clutter) has a way of giving more stuff to you... I'm beginning to learn how to dodge now & let someone else be 'blessed"!

Success today! Three large items successfully re-homed, and a fair amount of other, smaller bits; I came home in a pleasantly spacious vehicle, with money raised for two good causes and even a bit for me. And the speaker was very good & highly entertaining, so although I was quite ho-hum about going, I've enjoyed my day and came home inspired to do something different with resources I already have - and can finally reach!

parsniphead

This thread is really inspiring at the moment.

I have been up and down over the past year with decluttering and have done little since before Easter due to sickness which has left me wiped out. I have got rid of loads over the year but it just looks like there is more left than before. Tomorrow I plan to get rid of at least one bin bag full to get me started again. I'm also going to focus on one area at a time rather than overwhelm myself looking at the whole house.

One thing which makes me glad is that I don't live near thriftwizard because my house would be stuffed full.

parsniphead

I have been tidying this morning and found a bunch of shopping bags filled with various bits of tat and rubbish by my little one. I feel l so bad that my ways seem to be rubbing of on him. It has to stop today. I feel very guilty that at just under four years old he is doing this.:(

I have other stuff like his kindergarten/nursery photos which are just sitting on the table with washing piled on top. My challenge is to get as much done today as possible. Then tomorrow while he is at nursery to hit it really hard. I have to stay in for a delivery anyway so its no big deal. Right first thing is clearing a space on the floor where some stuff has fallen and the fold the washing and iron what's needed.

I'm going to post on here daily with what's been done and don't plan to stop until I have a home not a dumping ground. Perhaps if I can figure how to upload photos I may do some a of shaming and proving what I have achieved.

thriftwizard

I've posted pics before, on a previous thread IIRC, and indeed they are a powerful motivator. I might join you; the conservatory is due for a bashing today as it's the one day in the last few weeks that I've not been booked to transport someone somewhere or do something else urgent. DS3 is due back from his stint in Provence in less than a week, though, and the room he's going into also needs some attention. However, sorting the conservatory will give me more satisfaction; most of the big items have gone from there now and it's just slightly random piles of stuff that need going through & rehoming properly when sorted. It looks a complete mess but shouldn't be too hard to sort out. And DS3's "new" room is pretty decent - just 3 rugs to find a home for. I don't feel bound to get shot of these; two of them are fairly new & very decent, lovely big fluffy cotton-rag rugs from Spain that actually belong to DS3 & DS1 and will go with them when they finally have real homes of their own, and one is a "find" which is rather old, very beautiful, and actually quite valuable. I'm planning to hang this from the stairway wall, when I find something strong enough to hang it from. Interestingly it's something that real nomads used to store their trade goods & belongings in, which also doubled-up as a cushion when camping; this idea pleases me! Hand-crafted beauty and utility.

I might be able to cut down on my "outgoings" a bit next week and make it half a bin-bag a day!