Books invading my house

mrseyes

Can someone tell what to do. My husband is a bookworm. He buys so many books. The dinning room, living room is overflowing wit books. And then the books are everywhere in bedroom, under the bed, beside the bed, over the cabinets. In garage you can't even put your foot in as books everywhere. its driving me crazy.

I have mentioned to him to sell the ones he has read but take no notice of this .

I have often feel like packing my bag and go.

Ok he get joy from reading but this is getting out of hand and so I am wondering if someone can give me any advice on how to deal with this without upsetting my husband.

LilMissEmmylou

would he notice if you removed some and gave them to charity or sold them? Perhaps if u priced how much they sell for on amazon or ebay the £££ signs might talk to him? Failing that, couldn't you box them up for the roof space? It might be a pain but I wouldnt leave somebody you love because they own a lot of books. Hope you find a solution soon x

Mrs_Thrify

Hiya, It sounds like the books are getting out of hand and need reducing. Talk to Oh and make a desision which ore the faverotes - to be put on one wall of bookshelfs (pref. in the dinning room) and get rid of the rest.
Best of Luck....

Ps. If all fails invest in a puppy! ours shreds everything :eek:

MoaningMyrtle

Put some in boxes and date the outside, if they aren't touched in six months or a year, bin them or give to charity.

How about hiring a storage container in a warehouse?

Get your OH to write a list of the books he has enjoyed, then get rid of them gradually, he can always buy or borrow the same title in the future.

judyjetson

If you find a way, let me know! I know exactly how you feel - you wouldn't believe how many books we have here. I've asked oh not to buy any more, or get rid of some that'll never be read and to be fair, he has cut down slightly, but there's not a single room in the house that doesn't have any books in.

In the meantime, I can highly recomend the tallest Billy bookcases from Ikea!

Karensteps

I'm guilty of the same thing! Though, I just filled bin bags with books, I won't read again or have read so much I know the whole plot.
I filled 4 bin bags...Whoopsies! And the cupboard where I have kept the ones I want, is still pretty big.

Just start collecting them up, stick them in boxes, and see if he notices?

Savvy_Sue

mrseyes wrote: »

I have often feel like packing my bag and go.

Ok he get joy from reading but this is getting out of hand and so I am wondering if someone can give me any advice on how to deal with this without upsetting my husband.

Two things: one is that you need to talk to him and tell him how you feel. And the other is that you probably can't do this without upsetting him. So, him or you upset, which shall it be?

Now, you could just start to get rid of some. But you'll have to be cunning ... I was trying to cull the books when we moved, and put DH's old maths books (from A levels / degree) into a box. Unfortunately he found the box. And although it was nearly 25 years since he'd had cause to use these books, and they were mostly secondhand THEN, he wouldn't let me get rid of them "in case the boys wanted them."

At the time, the boys were 11, 9 and 7. And yes, it was already clear that they knew their geometry from their algebra, but even so ...

I tried arguing that they would have more modern text books IF they decided to study maths, but "I often found it helpful to see different ways of tackling a problem".

We still have them, in a box, somewhere.

Although I confess that I am as bad as him with books!

So, a couple of other things, if you search the whole forum for 'selling books' you will find threads dealing with selling books on ebay or in the Amazon marketplace, and another site which has been mentioned is GreenMetropolis which I think I must look into myself as I have piles of books which I don't think DH will ever read and I won't read again.

And secondly, because there's an element of de-cluttering advice wanted here ...

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to the Old Style board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Smashing

Get that man a library card!

He could also use read it, swap it or say that for every new book, an old one must be sold/donated.

Failing that, hit him over the head with a hardback one.

SoggyMoggy

I got rid of loads of DH's Amway (spit) books by underhand methods; he's never missed them. He'd get a new tape every week and a new book every month and he never listened to or read any of it. We had a Discussion about it when I found a stash of 23 unopened envelopes containing books and/or tapes, and I eventually did manage to persuade him to stop getting them, but the problem remained. So I just started boxing them up and putting them out for charity shop collections, taking them to charity shops and book sales and things like that. The tapes went to the tip. He never noticed their absence, even after I'd told him what I'd done. Out of sight, out of mind.

I hope you find a solution that suits you both.

littlelibrarylass

this is why i work in a library. i have books from my childhood that i cannot bear to get rid of. i now buy less fiction as i borrow those from work but m non fiction habit is still growing
if you could persuade him to use the libary then he could limit himself to those books he would read again. perhaps its the smell of the new books he loves ?

razra

you could always list them all on http://www.greenmetropolis.com/index2.asp that way as they sell gradually you could sneak them out without him noticing, and if he does you can always show him the pennies mounting up:D

Its free to list them although they take 75p from the sale to cover their costs and you can put postage costs on to the price you want to sell for. Ive found it really handy as if they dont sell it doesnt cost anything