KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Karmacat

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Kittie, I had moths last year and they ruined a wool carpet, although it was very old. My mistake was not moving the furniture often enough to vacuum underneath it, they lay eggs in the dark apparently. Make sure you vacuum very thoroughly under the beds etc and keep repeating to get rid of them.

Slinky wrote: »

kittie there was something on the BBC website, I think today, that there's been a huge increase in clothes moths according to a study National Trust have undertaken.

I've had about half a dozen moths this year, and I always have a few - didn't realise about all this I've got to get my act together a little bit more.

[Deleted User]

oh I didn`t see that re moths. There must be millions lurking hidden away until they find a way in, through an open window or via something second hand. It was good underneath my beds, carpets are still pristine but I cannot wait for the vac packing stuff to arrive, I also bought moth spray and more sachets and hangers. I found some of my cedar deterrents yesterday, they just need a quick sand to bring out the scent again. I only saw the one moth but remember mum and moth balls and the damage

Cost me a lot of money in lakeland online but the new vac stuff looked very good. I have wool duvets, wool pillows, wool mattress protectors as well as all the natural fibres in clothes, fabrics, bedding. Arghh, packing it away is going to be one big job but labelling will be key to my sanity when looking for things. I already have normal vac bags, so have to do a major co-ordination. I also ordered `store and protect` bags with zips for my in- drawer woollies.


If you have never seen a textile moth, they are very distinctive, small and shiny like satin

https://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th8a.htm

GreyQueen

I've had experience of these same moths, I liken them to toffee-coloured and they seem to prefer to run rather than fly, although the website indicates that the pregant females are the runners and the males typically fly.

In my case, I was living in the basement of a rented house where there was one large walk-in cupboard used by the landlord for storage. He'd a lot of truck there, including old clothes just chucked in willy-nilly.

I lifted a rug over the carpet remnant in my LR and found several of the feeding tubes with the larvae inside, which I squidged. I then went on the prowl for the source and found the clothes in that cuboard literally running with moths. Yuck. With LL's agreement was able to sling them outside in binbags but it was a horrible experience.

I was beyond paranoid about moths for the next year or so but never saw another. The emptied cupboard was treated with a room spray.

I do need to wash a wool rug which was formerly in the LR but is temporarily without purpose due to a re-arrangement of stuff. It's not large, was h.m. from yak wool and isn't going anywhere but it needs to be clean before being rolled up with herbs and lavender, as dirt attacts moths as well.

Thanks for the tip, kittie, Mum wants to monetize her lathe, chisels etc, they're not affluent people and there's quite a bit of value tied up in there. I'm going to propose a course of action points to get this resolved, the first of which is to get the power back up in there (3rd phase, professionally wired workshop) and then research values and perhaps approach her former woodturning club to see if they know anyone etc etc.

The trick with any task like that, imo, is to piece it into things which need to be done in order that other things can be done and just push on through them.

In the spirit of leading by example, I am just about to round up all the 'ponents of something and get it onto freegle.

[Deleted User]

GQ I didn`t nean gratis. Tools are offered for sale to the group at a price or offer and it goes from there, better than ebay. People will come and collect and move

GreyQueen

kittie wrote: »

GQ I didn`t nean gratis. Tools are offered for sale to the group at a price or offer and it goes from there, better than ebay. People will come and collect and move

Oops, sorry, misunderstanding.:o

Is there some natural law that when you're bored (and your home is tidy) and you'd not mind a visit, no one ever knocks.

Be upside down behind a piece of furniture with the vac and barefoot in your scruffies and what happens.............! Good job it was SuperGran and not anyone I don't know well.:rotfl:

Righty, must get on with listing that item, now I've rounded up all the bits (and de-fluffed some of them, lol).

Karmacat

I'm kind of doing well on kondoing the garden - I do need to do one more little incinerator burn, and then the next stack of branches can be stood on end to dry out as bonfire fodder, a la GQ. So today, I started on the huge number of weeds that have grown up. Only digging up a few - I'm concerned not to let them seed, so I'm collecting the "bodies" for now, I'll dig up the roots later - there are some terrible areas in the garden, particularly one grassy bit right in front of my kitchen window but as a whole, it's better, and its paying off: more light, more air, more plants and fewer weeds. Just got to keep going, an hour at a time.

GreyQueen

Keep plugging away at the garden, slow and steady wins the race.

I've got one ask for the item within a few minutes of it going up, will wait a bit longer, perhaps until breakfast, to give a chance for others who maybe aren't sitting on top of their pooters.

If we get to brekkie time tomorrow and no one else wants it, I'll accept this request and ship it outta here.

I like getting rid of things more than I like acqiring others, must be a feature of living in such a tiny space.

Wanna laff? Spoke to the 'rents tonight and Mum found a washing up bowl she didn't remember she had. It was at the top of the airing cupboard holding some spare flannels etc and nearly landed on her head when she was getting something else out.

It was an opportune moment as she was about to buy a new one this week as the one in service had developed a split.

No one knows where this w.u. bowl came from or how long it's been up there. This isn't at all uncommon at GQHQ, I think C-space is probably involved.

PS, if anyone is missing a strong (slightly-used) grey plastic bowl, you now know where it went......... :rotfl:

Siebrie

A man in a van drove by, asking if we had any scrap metal, so we gave him the decrepit old bicycle we were already worrying about how to get it to the tip. Success!

DD2 tried on some more clothes, my parents have left again and dh will be back on Sunday

PollyWollyDoodle

Karmacat, I've adopted a '30 minutes a day' policy with the garden. It often turns into more, but by setting a limit I avoid getting too fed up and worn out. If I said to myself 'I'm going to spend the next two hours weeding' I just wouldn't want to go outside but half an hour is bearable, and I usually get stuck in and don't want to stop.

It's made a big difference, I'm embarassed at the way things had got really out of control last year. Like you I'm mostly just clearing growth to avoid seeds being produced. I'll go back and tackle the roots later.

GreyQueen

There are plenty of times when I don't feel like allotmenteering, although I know I'll be glad I went, I still have to motivate myself to bike 1.25 miles over there before I can even get cracking.

Sometimes I trick myself into going by saying to myself; OK, I won't do any work, I'll just drop off the compostables and have a quick look-see, make sure no one's broken into my shed.

So, off I go, do that, now feeling invigorated by the gentle bike ride and say to myself; OK, I'm here now, that energy has been expended. Might as well do a little, am I up for half an hour? Yup, can do.

Once I'm working, I don't feel like stopping, on Tuesday night what was intended to be an hour or so slipped into 2.5 hours, I was so happy in my work and enjoying the blackbird and robin who were 'helping' with organic pest control and the frog peeping out from the pondlet. I was so in the zone I had no idea of the time and was gobsmacked to find it was 7.15 pm (had started at 4.40!).

Have just decluttered some money to my futility provider who'd sent my bills overnight. Funny how their estimates are always high, despite their having several years of data for my consistant usage. Leccy bill was 30% above actual usage. I sent them my own readings and paid those immediately.

Have accepted the freegler's request, hope to have the item picked up some point today from the outdoor hidey-hole. I do hope this one goes smoothly, sometimes I have a run of bad experiences with freegling no-shows and give up on it for a while, whereas other times it all goes smoothly and I love it.

Righty, a little interwebulation (is that even a word ) and then I must get on with the day. Have a good one, whatever you're up to.