Holy sh*t, I've got a lot of. . . sh*t!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

No, my friends, I discuss not fecal impaction. I bring to the table the subject of how much crap one acquires when living in one place for a period of time.

Here’s the current situation and plan: I’m going overseas in a month. I intend to move out of my apartment, pack what I can into my storage unit, have Uncle Sam come and pick up the rest–which they store for free, and bank my Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). When I get back, I’ll rent another place for a few months, and call the boys to deliver my stuff. In the end, I’ll be banking at least $900 a month in rent and utilities (for at least eight months). :cool:

So, over the month, I’m slowly packing up day by day, and leaving my “essentials” in the storage unit so that when I get back next summer I’ll have everything I need until Uncle Sam brings back my ‘creature comfort’ stuff.

Now understand, I’m not what you’d call a “pack rat” by any stretch of the imagination: yeah, if I see a perfectly good adjustable wrench laying in the street, I’ll pick it up, but I don’t hoard things. However, it seems that some sort of highly-directional gravitational force has embedded in my two bedroom (well, one bedroom, one office) apartment. But I just spent the past hour cleaning up half of the office (aka the “War Room”), and built enough boxes to fill the bed of my truck! Apparently, over the course of two years I’ve amassed enough office supplies and paperwork to put any Staples to shame. I’ve got more burnt CD-ROMs than some skeet ranges have clay. I’ve got more books and binders than a friggin’ college library. :rolleyes:

And I haven’t even gone into the “War Room” closet yet. All of the gear, clothing, tools, electronic parts, files, guns and ammo, etc. alone will probably take two trips (okay, I pack rat all of the gear the Air Force throws at me). But I dread the day I take on the kitchen.

Come to think of it, I dread raiding the bedroom closet. :eek: You know you can always turn good clothes into Goodwill or the Salvation Army, but there’s always that T-shirt you got in Cozumel for Spring Break you’ll never want to part with. Or that hat you sweatstained on your first construction job. Or your lucky sock. Or. . . well, you get the idea.

Oh man, this is going to suck.

Tripler
I’ll pay pizza, beer, and a couch to sleep on to anyone willing to come to Great Falls to help.

2

“lucky sock” :o

Heh.

Maybe you could go with the, “If I haven’t used it/worn it in at least a year, I’m getting rid of it,” approach.

3

I am a pack rat. I am married to a pack rat. I got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved into this house last summer, but I still have too much stuff. Especially books. I went to a used book sale last weekend and bought 21 more books. Now I have to find a place to put them - all of my bookshelves are full.

4

I understand - I came to Japan 14 years ago with two suitcases.

We now have a house, two kids, two cars and all the crap that entails.

Having moved every two years on average until a couple of years ago when we bought the house, I have been fairly good about shedding stuff.

If you haven’t set eyes on it for more than a year (unless it’s your work gear!) then you can chuck it. How about taking photos of the lucky sock etc? That will take up less space (won’t smell as good though).

When we lived in very limited space, I set up the apartment with the most furniture it could reasonably stand, then filled it with our belongings. From the point that every storage unit was full, we started the “one in, one out” policy. It worked very well. Maybe you could try that approach?

5

My wife and I are what we called collectors. Others say we have too much stuff. While on strike I have decided to reduce the amount of “collectibles” to a managable size. I have taken the first step already, I have place my over 3000 piece NASCAR diecast collection up for sale.

6

Noooooo! That stuff may be valuable one day!!

At least that’s what I always tell the wife…

7

I didn’t say I follow that approach. :smiley:

8

Oh, thank God.

:wink: :smiley:

I’d so be there if I had the money, the car, and the time to spare. I’ll be there in spirit!

9

But I’ve got so damn many things that I haven’t used, that I don’t wanna!

Like my box of 10-penny nails. I haven’t used 'em because I haven’t bought any new pictures, but I just know that I’ll use 'em somewhere! Or my paint fandecks, I keep 'em because I 'earned 'em when working for Sherwin-Williams and Home Depit. I loaned 'em out once or twice, but otherwise they use up shelf space in my closet.

See? I’ve got knick-knacks. I can’t get rid of these things with a good conscience. What the hell am I gonna do?

Tripler
Oooh look! A cast iron frying pan. You just don’t get rid of those.

10

Tripler, if it weren’t for the fact that you’re in Great Falls and I’m not, (and that I don’t sleep with you) I would swear that you are my husband. We once had a three car garage that he couldn’t put a car in because he had all his “stuff” stored in it.

10 penny nails? A box of them? PSHAW, sir - we have CARTONS of nails! Paint color decks? HELL MAN - WE HAVE THE ACTUAL PAINT!! All 2" left in the various 1 gallon cans!! Knick Knacks? Trip, I have a HORSE mounted on my living room ceiling. Complete with it’s own PADDOCK!! You think I jest? I just emailed you a picture of my living room ceiling. In it, you will also get to see a lovely shot of one of my living room walls - complete with the HazMat signs that one usually finds on trucks. Oh, and the Lionel Train, complete with tracks.

Knick knacks - hmph. :wink:

PS - hope you like the picture!

11

You can NEVER have too many books!

Bookkeeper, who really means his username

12

I’m a single guy in a three bedroom house, full basement, 2 1/2 car garage and a shed.

I think stuff multiplies to expand the space available to it. Last winter I went on a bender and threw out 10 garbage cans over a few weeks.

I keep a lot of it because it’s harmless and I’ve got the room. If I moved at least a third of it wouldn’t go along. In the meantime there it all is.

13

I’ll tell you what you do with it, throw it away! My mother was a massive pack rat. Over the last couple of months I’ve had to go through her home and get rid of everything when she died. She had a 1400sq foot home, with a basement, garage, and a storage area. When it came time to sell it all, it took ten men, about seven hours to load it all onto four 24 foot trucks to get rid of it all. That’s not counting the 1400 pounds of trash I took to the dump, the two truck loads of recylced papers, or the truck load of clothes to the goodwill.

Everything was sold two weeks ago, I’m not sure how much it went for just yet, but I know it wasn’t much. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t break even with the sale and how much it cost to take it all out.

In all I spent 60+ hours there cleaning up. There wasn’t a thing in there worth crap. Had my mother not just bought crap she might of actually had money. After all of this I’m starting to get rid of things myself. Last night I got rid of a bunch of papers from highschool, all my love letters from then, and a bunch of other stuff.

My advice, get rid of it now so you don’t have to deal with it, or the worst happens and a family member has to do it because let me tell you it’s not fun at all.

14

When I married my husband, he owned a television, a mattress, a milk crate and a folding lawn chair.

Six years later, when we moved, we had to get the largest U-Haul truck available and make three trips. We have a four-thousand-square-foot house, and it’s full. We’re planning to convert the attic over to living space to give us more room. (Mind you, it’s just Hubby and I and the dogs. No kids.)

Do we need all this shit? No, certainly not. My basement has about twenty boxes I have yet to unpack, and we’ve lived here for three years. However, it’s stuff with sentimental value, or stuff we might use, or stuff we-just-don’t-know-what-we-want-to-do-with-it-yet.

It comes in handy. A few weeks ago, a woman I know collected household stuff for a friend who’s house had burnt, and I was able to make quite a few offerings to that end. But, realistically, most of it is just junk I haul from place to place because I’m too lazy to sort through it.

15

Holy shit, you weren’t kidding! Although I must admit I do share your taste in tin signs. Hell I even once found one of those USAF “WARNING: Restricted Area - Use of deadly force authorized.” signs laying in the road–the same one that now adorns the wall of the War Room.

But my Og, I’ve got more hand tools than most of the other guys I know. I have decent dishes and plates I bought when my folks came out last Thanksgiving. I still have a good majority of my books from college. I have more guns than I really practically need (but I’ll keep them until they pry them from my cold, dead hand!). I have hockey gear, clothes, professional gear, and more . . . shit than I ever thought I’d have.

Trust me, I have started going through things and tossing them. What the hell am I going to do with a stack of 14 old copies of “Maxim”?

Tripler
Now “Playboy”, that’s a keeper.