Cleaning after hoarding - advice on ethical disposal of items

sammanim

Hi - thanks in advance for reading

I've struggled my whole life with some kind of hoarding disorder. It's not emotional attachment to junk like a lot of people on the tv but, for some reason, I really struggle to keep a clean home and always have. My default would be to eg. drop rubbish on the floor from where I'm sitting and not pick it up - kick it into the corner of the room when it starts getting in the way.

I'm moving house and clearly have had to clear up my stuff to move. I've managed to make great progress and throw out/recycle all the obvious rubbish that was in the house.

My main question is what to do with things that aren't rubbish. My priority is to get it gone in a time-efficient way and, if I don't make a plan I'm just going to end up throwing things in the bin.

What can I do with clothes? The issue is that they're dirty - they were probably worn, thrown on a dusty floor, then had eg. greasy pizza box on top of them - and I don't have the energy to wash them to get them in a state for a charity shop. Is there somewhere that can make use of them soiled?

Any other ideas about places that would take other things in a dirty condition would also be appreciated - the clothes seem to be most wasteful and most effort to clean and dry though.

BrassicWoman

Book a service wash or two.

GreyQueen

Hi pet, I know it can seem overwhlming to deal with clothes in quantity, but do you have a washing machine? If so, it will be doing 98% of the work, you'll just be stuffing the clothes in, hauling them out and then putting them on a linen line/ drying rack.


If you set yourself to do a laundry load a day, or every other day, and simply bagged the clean dry clothes (no need to iron them) they could go to the charity shop who will steam them before putting them out on the racks.


It would, imo, be a pretty nasty thing to expect volunteers to sort through dirty clothing etc when it could be laundered with relatively small amounts of effort. But that's just my two'pennorth.

Saveomatic

Nothing like a house move to motive you to minimise! I've moved several times in the past 10 years and each time I get rid of loads more stuff!

If you have access to a car, it might be an idea to grab everything and take it to a launderette. They have much bigger washing machines than we have in our homes. You could run a couple of washes in one go and get it all done in a few hours.

-taff

You're going to stuggle to get someone to deal with dirty items, but as above, you can put it in black bags [ or those stronger woven mesh bags], take t to a laundrette, and either ask them to do it if they have a service wash, or shove it in a washing machine and drier yourself.
It won't take long, you might spend a few hours waiting for the machines to do the work.
If the clothes are not suitable for wearing afterwards [ if they're still stained for example, or have holes etc] you can go into a few local charity shops and ask if they take clothes for rag, then if they do, leave them in the bags and drop them off to them. There should be at least one who will take them.
If they are still wearable, either take them to a charity shop, or sell them at one of those places that buy clothes. Be aware, they will sort through the clothes in front of you to check the condition.

ivyleaf

Could you have a waste paper bin beside your seat so that any rubbish goes straight into that rather than onto the floor? That would stop the rubbish on the floor getting worse, though of course you will have to empty the bin once it's full

Sending best wishes.