Hoarders Anonymous!

purpleivy

Am I the only one? I really don't understand 'ornaments'. I can understand 'vase' because I can put flowers in that. I can understand candlestick or candle holder, photo frame (but not so many you can't see the furtiture it's on! Glass/ceramic bowl or plate.. useful for food.

I just don't understand 'ornament'. I suppose a single objet d'art in an area might be understandable..... but ornaments come by the dozen.

lyndseyann

afternoon guys, just found this thread so i thought id tell you about me. my husband calls me "mrs trebus" [if anyone remembers life of grime program with the old man "mr trebus" who never through anything away] as i hav a habit of saying yes to people if they say " ive got so and so.do you want it?" and the house is full of stuff thats to much stuff for the house!!!! but i do lots of clothes[in case the kids have accidents] , plastic tubs[tupperware], and am one for keeping learning to get rid of the stuff ad saying " no" [well sometimes].....

Angelraesunshine

ok yes i am a hoarder i can not pass up a bargain and all spaces are full to the brim

angchris

lyndseyann wrote: »

afternoon guys, just found this thread so i thought id tell you about me. my husband calls me "mrs trebus" [if anyone remembers life of grime program with the old man "mr trebus" who never through anything away] as i hav a habit of saying yes to people if they say " ive got so and so.do you want it?" and the house is full of stuff thats to much stuff for the house!!!! but i do lots of clothes[in case the kids have accidents] , plastic tubs[tupperware], and am one for keeping learning to get rid of the stuff ad saying " no" [well sometimes].....

i call my oh mr trebus :rotfl: he was a lovely old guy but what a house!:eek: my oh has a thing about bringing home stuff that other people are throwing out (there was a very good reasons it was being binned! :rolleyes: ) my garage is heaving with "rubbish" as fast as i can get rid of it by binning it or carbooting it more reappears :mad: although last year we did ebay a v large mirror he aquired that i had been tripping over for years and made nearly £230 :j
at this present moment in time my kitchen units/shelves/window ledges are lined with about 30 jars of ragu bought in morrisons for 50p a jar and i must have 10 boxes of crunchy nut cornflakes bogof in tescos and 10 of frosties halfprice and enough jam to last me till im pushing up the daisys :rotfl: im running out of space to put my weekly shopping as my cupboards are bursting with offers theres only one answer...i need to buy a bigger house, but then between us we`d probably fill that to the rafters as well :rotfl:

mary43

originally posted by paddys mum
For those that hoard bric-a-brac or ornaments (as my hubby used to) try this method. Pick out a dozen or so little bits and box them in the garage or loft. Clean the shelf they were on and place one nice piece on it. Then take note of how quickly you are able to keep that one-item-shelf clean and shiny. If the one item stands out as attractive and an asset to your room, you will quickly realise just how much sheer drudgery you are inviting into your life by having ornaments by the dozen crowded onto every surface. Think what you could do that pleases you by gently pruning all the time consuming, dust collecting knick-knacks out of your home. Hold your nerve for one month .. still miss that box of gewgaws in the garage or find a strange peace in the orderliness of your room?

Thanks for that paddys mum.................I;m a compulsive hoarder though trying to find a cure.................this just might help. I know it works........done it in the past ............its just getting around to doing it now thats the problem.

lyndseyann

thanx for that angchris! i think my hoarding must come from when we had out flat 10 year ago,we hadnt got anything so when people like family say" oh ive got a table you can have,or "ive got some casserole dishes you can have" i said yes. but like hubby says it never really stopped!!!!!!! i am learning though!!!!!!!!!as they say" one mans rubbish is another mans treasure" "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

angchris

lyndseyann wrote: »

thanx for that angchris! i think my hoarding must come from when we had out flat 10 year ago,we hadnt got anything so when people like family say" oh ive got a table you can have,or "ive got some casserole dishes you can have" i said yes. but like hubby says it never really stopped!!!!!!! i am learning though!!!!!!!!!as they say" one mans rubbish is another mans treasure" "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i used to be like that as well am getting better now though. when i was 18 i had my son and i was a single parent for 10 years, to start off with i rented an unfurnished house and i had nothing but the clothes we stood in plus 1 change of clothes...no furniture at all, no beds no sofa no washing machine no fridge no cooker..nothing! for years we slept on the floor under a double duvet and coats with a wooden crate as a table and ate cold food, it was such a luxury when i first had a microwave and had means of making a hot meal . slowly by finding stuff i furnished the house. now 16 years later i own my house nearly outright (bought before i met oh) purely by being frugal. it does stick with you..you can`t help it, being careful with money is now second nature and hoarding cheap food to me is like having a security blanket that you are never going to be hungry again.

Contains_Mild_Peril

I remember Edmund Trebus from A Life of Grime. What a delightful character he was! I've just been reading his Guardian obituary, and this bit more than anything else brought home the dangers of hoarding to me:

Trebus would push a small cart around the streets of Crouch End, gathering discarded building materials, which he carefully arranged in the garden, doors in one corner, windows in another. There were washing machines, wood, motorcycles and bicycles. There was even one of musician Dave Stewart's old synthesisers, retrieved from the back of his recording studio. Like all the objects, it came to be forgotten about and covered up over time.

When excessive hoarding leads to the neglect of items of genuine value, that's when it gets scary for me.

lyndseyann

glad im not that much of a "mr trebus"!!!

hev_2

I have come to realise that the more stuff I have the more work it takes. You end up trying to do huge piles of ironing when really if OH had 6 work shirts, how hard would it to be to keep up to them?

I have two huge bags of ironing stuck in the loft from when we had the windows put in and needed to clear space - the windows went in Nov 2006! I am sorely tempted to just chuck the bags without opening them (but then you would never know if you'd thrown out something important, but if you didn't miss it how important was it?)

My neat freak dad is here this week which will motivate me to get going. My challenge - 20 bin bags for rubbish and at least the same again for ebay/charity shop.

TBH I suspect I could get rid of it without even noticing.