SDMB Slob Reform Club - The Resurrection?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I’m in. In fact I think I am a lifetime member. You’ve seen my username, right?

Things were going along fairly well for me for a while. But the holidays have really been tough. Not only have I had almost no time to clean via a regular routine (the best way to keep up with it), but there has been an ‘incident’ at the Stinky houshold.

I was running out of vegetable oil, so I went out and purchased a huge jug of it - maybe a gallon or two’s worth. I’m sure some of you can see where this is going already. Anyway, StinkyDog decided that it would be a perfect thing to chew on one day. But before he really got to chewing he dragged it out from the kitchen to the middle of the living room on top of my antique oriental rug. And that is where he decided to chew the top off of the jug of oil. About 80% of it drained out onto my rug.

Well, at this point you may be thinking that the oil spill is the ‘incident’ that is making my house a candidate for the Slob Reform Club, but no, the story continues. I did a little research and determined that talcum powder is recommended to sop up the oil. So I go to the drug store and by several huge bottles of baby powder. I sprinkle some on top of the rug and some under the rug. Then I wait a day and scrpe it up and sprinke more on. Eventually it all gets soaked up and the rug looks ok.

Well in the mean time, every single surface of my house is coated in a fairly substantial coat of bably powder, and there are little doggie and kitty footprints all over the place. It is going to take me a long time to clean all the baby powder up. And as a bonus, my house reaks like baby powder. Yeah.

But at least I don’t have a floor pie.

22

Okay, once you get past the emotional, “BUT THEY’RE BOOKS!!” feeling, books are very much one of the easiest things to get rid of. Trust me, I just slashed my book collection in half and then in half (or more) again in the past six months.

It comes down to one simple question: How likely are you to find the book you’re looking at in a library? Nora Roberts, George RR Martin, JK Rowling, etc can all go away, right now.

Basically, if you know you’ll find a given book in the library, get rid of it. If you’re highly likely to find a given book in the library, get rid of it. If you’re unlikely to find a given book in the library, consider keeping it. If you’ll never in a million years find the book in your hand in the library, then you can keep it. This is an almost no mercy plan, but it doesn’t require you to get rid of everything. Furthermore, once you’ve done that, you have a little breathing room for those few books you have for sentimental reasons. Sentimental beyond, “BUT THEY’RE BOOKS!!!”, I mean.

The library is the bibliophile slob’s friend! I’m down to a short three-shelf book case of hardbacks and two boxes under the bed for paperbacks.

23

Blue Kangaroo, you have just high lighted my wife’s and my biggest weakness with clutter. We can get rid of clothing, paper, utensils, and even furniture but getting rid of books is almost impossible.

My wife has two large Ikea bookshelves worth of books and several boxes hidden in various closets in addition to the two boxes of stuff printed on computer paper.

I have two small bookshelves of books in addition to the several boxes of books hidden in my closet. I think I need to start pruning.

24

I’m in. I’m sick of living like a slob. It makes me feel unhappy to come home to such a mess every day. I’ve been slowly throwing or giving away bags of stuff, but I have a long, long way to go.

Zsofia, my house looks similar to yours in clutter. You are not alone! I’ll try to work up the nerve to post pictures.

25

I’m in!

Nothing like the holidays to help you realize you’re in danger of turning into your parents. We took 300 boxes out of their basement last year so that the workers could have a path to get to and fix the boiler, and there were at least that many left when we were done. I’m moving to a larger place this year and am terrified that I will acquire my own box-room.

I like the library idea - there will definitely be some purging of still-in-print books tonight. Thanks!

26

This is pretty much my system. I try to only buy books that I really, really want to keep permanently and know I can’t easily get in the library. This is still a large number of books, though–I like oddball books and it’s not that great a library. My real weakness is the library donation table. I’m a librarian, so I like books to be free, and there’s this big table filled with donations, all for a dollar or less, and I can pick through them before they go to the sale. It’s pretty deadly, but I got a nice Britannica! And for some reason book in Danish show up every so often! (see?) So I wind up taking those books home. Plus the 50+ books I have checked out at any given time…

I’ve just cleaned off my side of the headboard and nightstand. cough cough It was a little dusty, but I took 15 or so books off the shelves, and I cleaned out my nightstand drawer, which was about 80% junk. Now I can put useful things in there.

Oh! And I cleaned a lot of toys out of my closet–the kids’ extra toys go in there when I want to circulate. So I have a large bag of toys to donate, and also some trash I threw out, like the fitted sheet that tore and I thought I should use the fabric, and the :o collection of cardboard brewery coasters I collected in Germany 17 years ago. You know, those ones you get in restaurants? I kept two from places I really remember and tossed the other 80.

27

Caffeine.addict, I understand completely. I am not so capable of getting rid of things in general, but I was (and probably still am) terrible at letting go of books.

But the sort of “system” I mentioned above really worked for me. When my ex-husband and I split in April/May, he took all the books he wanted, and I got to deal with the rest (by mutual agreement). I literally took four good-sized boxes to the Friends of the Library. It took a handtruck to get them all in there, and they were astounded by the size of the donation. When I moved again, I got rid of about half (or more) of what was left by giving most of them to friends I knew would appreciate them. That part, knowing they’d be appreciated really helped. The rest went to good will, or on PaperBackSwap. I haven’t redeemed my credits on PBS yet.

glamazon79, it really helps to remember the public library exists. We don’t need to own books to enjoy them, but I think it’s hard to feel as if you can identify as “a reader” without a huge personal library. But if you can get past that, you find that you’re still reading, possibily even more diverse things, and you’re saving both money and space. It’s really quite freeing. No doubt I will still acquire books, but hopefully many fewer.

I will post photos of my desk and room soon enough. I guess since I mentioned it first, I should also participate. The room itself is okay (better than okay, since my roommate’s cleaning ladies came today), but the desk and surroundings are messy. And the bathroom drawers need help. Help that I hope to get this weekend!

Good luck to everyone!

28

Oh, if only I had things in boxes!

29

Here are my photos. No idea what went wrong with the focus, but it should at least give you all a sense of what’s what. There’s commentary with each photo as well.

Desk area.

Bed Area

Closet.

This is all of my totally private space. There’s a bathroom that’s mine, but it’s also the guest bath, so it can occasionally have others in it. I have stuff in the other rooms of the house too, but it’s all shared.

Anyone have any suggestions for organizing 1/2 a large pantry (tall and wide) for a short person?

30

Hm. I have a problem.

My outside recycling bin is jammed full, what with Christmas and cleaning out, and also a few weeks ago we forgot to put it out on the curb on the right day, so we’ve been playing catch-up anyway.

My inside recycling bin is jammed full.

My outside trash bin is not quite full, but it’s certainly a lot fuller than it usually gets and it won’t take much more.

Trash day isn’t till Monday, and I have an irresistible urge to throw out more stuff. But where can I throw it??

31

Ok, I’m in. I need some accountability. Is there someone willing to get on my case if I don’t make progress?

My mom was a super-clean neat freak (as in I think she was actually mentally ill, such was her fear of germs) and I have leftover issues about cleaning. Plus I’m such an awful packrat. It’s a terrible combination.

It seems like I always will get on a cleaning kick and whirlwind the house up. But then instead of having junk in piles, I just have junk in different piles. Zsofia, my house looks very much like your own.

Plus my boyfriend is ridiculously, almost pathologically sentimental about stuff. I try to clean things out, but of course I would never throw his stuff out without letting him see it first. Then I get, “hey, you can’t throw this receipt away! It’s from the night 12 years ago when we had that romantic walk in the woods and stopped at that little inn to get cocoa, remember?” And how the heck do I argue against that?

32

I decided I should post some pictures to make Zsofia feel better. Most of our apartment is better than this room, but we’ve basically stopped going into the ‘office’.

The shelves
The futon
The desk
The closet

By the summer, I want this room to be a workspace for me while I write my dissertation/guest room. I need to work in total neatness, and I’ll need to clear some space for at least one bookshelf to hold the books I’m working with. Most of the stuff is my boyfriend’s, I think.

33

I feel awesome! Thank you for the motivation, folks!

I went into my kitchen and pruned with ruthless abandon. Two 18-gallon garbage bags and two 18-gallon going-to-goodwill bags later, my cabinets are looking amazing. I still have to get the counters, sink and floor scrubbed, and I need to tackle the glasses and stemware I will never, ever use, but I have more sparsely populated, organized space in my cabinets now than I have since we moved in.

On top of that, my cleaning spree motivated my husband - we went to Home Depot and got an LED bar for under a cabinet, to see how it works. The answer, if you’re wondering, is that it’s completely awesome and we’re getting two more to go under the other two cabinets that are always shadowed.

I feel better about my kitchen than I have in months. I refuse to get overworked and burned out, though - any more clutter smiting is going to be forcibly put off until next week, so that I don’t get sick of it before I get done.

(Of course, this doesn’t address the fact that I did this with our clothes in September, and the bags still haven’t gone to goodwill… we just won’t think about that at the moment, because I’m still busy doing my Clearing Shit Out Victory Dance.)

34

Your neighbors’ trash can?

35

I’m in. . . again.

Life happened in August and it took first priority. Things are still going on so I’m going to see if I can balance.

In honor of the resurrection, I just bagged up 3.5 bags of trash with 2 of those bags being ones of shredded material that I just shredded.

I’m still working the SHE system, but I put the declutter card on the bottom of the stack. But I think the system is still working for me. I’ve described it to a couple other people and they seem intrigued.

I’m also giving a speech at my Toastmaster’s group on Wednesday on. . . . organizing for the New Year! I don’t have to have done it to speak about it, right?

36

Sadly, it’s not accessible without some breaking and entering. :smiley: I am thinking seriously about looking for the dumpster that must be somewhere in the office parking lot down the street–it will be dark soon…

In happy news, I cleaned out my closet enough that I can now put our suitcase in there! It’s been living in our bedroom ever since my husband’s closet (aka the cable/battery storage area) got too full of stuff for it to fit any more.

37

In. ::sigh::

Most of my house isn’t actually too bad. But my guest/craft room is an absolute pig-sty. And the bathrooms need scrubbing. And I have two piles of clothes on my guest-bed, one to either donate or consign, and one of summer clothing. And a pile of clothes on my cedar chest that need to be either washed or put away.

This weekend was going to be a cleaning weekend anyway…and Christmas is going back in the box immediately upon my getting up tomorrow.

38

Im in. The hoarders thread has struck the fear of Og in me. The inertia in my house has always worked a little too well, plus I love things ( and deny that I do) and …
Well I moved in last year and things were going to change, I own my own house! and its beautiful! But its still me living in it, and Ive managed to mess it up a fair bit this year.

Well the scary thing is I went almost a year with a broken sink tap and when I finally got it fixed, it was only thirty dollars or so. I was able to pry the fawcet thing up and down and use the sink, but no one else could quite get the knack. My boyfriend moved in with me in September and I was forever getting on his case about not rinsing the plates…um… he couldnt even see the sticky-outy part where you pry up the fawcett?

I have weird piles of things, Ive been buying my son more underwear rather than find the ones he has, and getting upset my house is such a mess. Ive tried flylady before, but shes a bit… saccharine for my taste.

So well this thread is a starting point. Actually it started on my lunch I started dealing with the laundry so I could put clean underwear on my son tomorrow…then I put away three loads of clean clothes, did two, and cleaned my basement bathroom. I fear ending up in the hoarder house…

Also I want to get a dog this spring, but fear of ending up with third degree (or worse) sloth has kept me from it so far.

Pictures as soon as I can figure out how to use flikr or one of those sites

39

If I may pop in, not to gloat, but to offer encouragement that it can be done.

About this time last year, I had a disaster area for a home. February of last year, I had pnuemonia, a critically ill cat, a high pressure (but, unfortunately, not well paying) job, and an unexpected move.

I didn’t have the energy to clean, or hoard, or worry about sentiment, or if I’ll ever need it again. So I threw shit away. Lots and lots of shit. Since we had just moved 9 months before, I put any and all unopened boxes in the dumpster. Furniture I didn’t desperately need and/or adore went to the curb the day before trash day along with boring dishes, fat clothes, thin clothes, National Geographics, unloved small appliances and so on.

We moved in, got unpacked, hired an every other week housekeeper and made “don’t piss off Shannon” my driving force. Shannon keeps the place clean, and fear of her quitting keeps us from acquiring new piles of messy shit.

$150 a month for the heavy cleaning and the motivation to* keep* it clean, is worth every penny to me.

While I can’t recommend that you make your boss suddenly expand the business so that you have to move in a hurry, and I definitely don’t recommend catching pneumonia, there is a silver lining if all that should happen anyway.

Just keep trying, and you will find a method that works for you.

40

I’m in… well, all I can say is that my SO will need to make room for me and my daughter if he expects us to live together. Or, take the easy and expensive route and buy a new place, trash the old. =D