Maybe the spring season has me spring cleaning. Perhaps I am bored. In any case, so far this morning I have thrown away…
an old iPod that I have not used in many years,
three old eyeglass cases that came with the glasses,
An empty peanut can,
A magnifying mirror in the bathroom I never used for much,
A box of some medication labelled in Arabic,
A stained polo shirt
A pair of old socks
I am trying to decide about a set of old X-rays.
Go for it! We’re about to put our condo on the market and are doing much of the same. Whatever is good enough for someone else to use is getting donated.
But it’s been kind of liberating to realize “you know what, these half-dozen pairs of prescription glasses are literally not usable for me anymore, but they would be awesome for someone else who needs them.” And donate them. The classic literature that hasn’t been read since college? Donated. The broken trash can liner? Out it goes. The clothing that hasn’t fit me in 10+ years? All gone. It’s amazing how much more space there is now!
Feels good, doesn’t it?
But where are you going to keep all your empty peanuts?
mmm
We did a big purge in our basement not too long ago. There were boxes that hadn’t been opened since we moved here 13 years ago, a Christmas tree that had never been put up, long dried-out paint cans… just a lot of stuff. Some went to the local thrift store, much went into the trash. We also went thru our closets and liberated clothing that was just occupying space. Boy, do we have spare hangers now!
As soon as it warms a bit more, we’ll do the same in our garden shed. And once I’m finished thinning my yarn stash, I’ll attack the disaster that is our smallest bedroom (walk-in accumulator) and make it fit for habitation again. So, anybody want 10 assorted teacups and saucers that my mother dumped on me?? 
Sometimes I feel like doing that,but if I lie down for a while, the feeling goes away.
My current disposal project is the contents of my refrigerator and freezer. I lost power for several days last week and they both thawed out.
The problem is I have a tight schedule to work with. My trash pickup is on Wednesday. I don’t want to load a bunch of food into garbage bags and have it sitting around inside my house for days. Nor do I want to have bags of food sitting outside for days. So I want to be able to clear them out of a Tuesday so I can put stuff outside for only one night. The problem this week was we had a major blizzard on Tuesday and I wasn’t going outside (and didn’t know if we’d have a garbage pickup Wednesday).
I love clearing out stuff. I’m having a day of that, too. Whee!
I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now. It’s amazing how much stuff I kept, on the basis of “Someday I may have a use for this”. Well, I’m 71 and in poor health, and when I’m no longer around, I don’t want to leave my husband tons of trash to sift through. Especially all the old clothing that will never ever fit me again, or all the old art supplies for media that I’ll never work in again. Or worse, old letters, etc. that my parents had saved that I inherited.
I have helped a couple of friends with hoarder tendencies when they had to move. It is very simple as long as you have no attachment.
You make three piles: keep, give away, throw away. Notice there is not a ‘maybe’ pile. The give away pile is the most work, as there is rarely one organization or technique for all the different things that need to go.
My husband has a brother who is a hoarder. They both inherited a lot of money from their mom’s estate when she died, and his brother could even buy a new house and move out of the rathole he’s been living in for 40 years. But he won’t, because he can’t leave his piles and piles of worthless junk.
I can understand not being able to face the sheer effort it would take, but it’s way more than that. He truly cannot let go of the broken machinery he lugged home, the rotten lumber, the piles of newspapers. He just can not. I really do not understand this at all, and nobody can explain it to me.
Over the last few months i have given away some large tools that were taking up space and I wasn’t using them. I gave them to people who would use them.
A 220v stick welder
3- table top craftsman table saws
3 4"X36 belt sanderss
a bandsaw blade cutter and welder
a thickness drum sander
a router
a hand held angle grinder
I trashed stacks of t-shirts and old levis.
went through sock drawer through out all older socks and underwear
Got rid of my stacks of tablets that I use to figure and doodle in.
My place still needs work and more thrown out.
I’m all for clearing the decks. My wife always says “save it for a garage sale”. Problem is, we never have a garage sale, so the shit just piles up. We’ve been in this house for seven years and there is still only a narrow path in the basement to get to the furnace and electric panel. Much of it is “garage sale” stuff, but there are moving boxes of papers that are useless for anything and need to be gotten rid of.
Is there a charity type sale that she could be persuaded to support instead? My mom donates that type of stuff to her church rummage sale. There must be other charity sales as well (Humane Society, Women’s Shelter, Homeless Shelter, etc) that you could pick and be doing a good deed. “Let’s donate it to the Shelter Sale honey” is a slight variation of the “Let’s give it to the kid’s who need toys” talk I give my kiddo. Might work.
We have a ‘bistro set’ I picked up at Rite-Aid for $70 a few years ago; to chairs, and a glass-topped table. They sat in the rain for years, and last week a weld on one chair failed due to rust. I used a couple of zip-ties to hold it together, and it holds my weight. I can think of five ways to make a stronger repair. Mrs. L.A. ordered a new, larger, bistro set, and I put it together yesterday afternoon. It’s under the deck roof, so it’s protected from the rain.
I put the old table and chairs out by the telephone pole with a ‘FREE’ sign. That works pretty well around here. (I also put put one of those hanging strawberry planters.)
My go-to is to drop it at Goodwill. Why she wants to hang on to it for some future non-event is, I think, resistance to getting rid of it at all.
Read Stuff. A fascinating read and I think gives great insights about why people hoard.
I have way too much stuff too. All those damned hobbies I started over the years, and all that other stuff I knew I’d use someday. I’ve been thinking for the past few years that once I turn 50, I’m getting rid of the majority of it. I’ve got a year and a few months left. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through all of this stuff when I drop dead.
I had a collection of old salvaged electric motors I threw away more than 10 years ago that I now regret. Motors have really gone up. I am always building things that require motors.
Freecycle.org and the Craigslist Free section are your friends.
Caring for stuff that serves no purpose consumes time from your life that you’ll never get back. So purge!
I have found all sorts of bits and pieces of CPAP masks. All into the trash. A lot of unidentified cables too.