I’m posting to subscribe too. Just reading through the last few pages has been inspiring, and I really, really, I mean really need help. I am seeing a shrink though and my depression from last year is mostly gone.
I’m in a two family house with a basement and it’s pretty bad. I’ve got:
Dad’s stuff on the first floor. He was a hoarder with the little pathways through the rooms. He didn’t let me into his place in the last 5 years he was alive. He died in January of 2012. I’m the executor of his estate, but thank goodness it’s pretty much settled. I became the homeowner a couple months ago. 1-800-got-junk are my new best friends when I can afford them, but my town does free pick ups.
Mom’s paperwork. My parents were divorced back in the 80’s. Mom went into a nursing home a few months ago. I recently had to clean out her place and put it on the market for the Medicaid claim. I steeled myself to not be sentimental about her things because I don’t have room to keep anything.
The basement. Grandparent’s things that my Dad never got rid of. A ping pong table that was set up in the early 1970’s and is piled high with enough junk that’s it’s sagging. The back half of the basement/laundry area is finally cleared.
My apartment on the second floor. I have clutter but I can walk around in here.
I saw myself heading down that slippery slope into hoarding like my Dad and I’m fighting back. I do the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, clean the kitchen and bathroom, but everything else is stacks of papers, books, CDs and DVDs. I never seem to post anything on CraigsList or eBay, but that’s the plan.
The hardest part seems to be fighting the part of myself that says “I worked hard all day, I deserve to sit around and relax”, my inner little brat that says “I don’t wanna”. How do I give myself a kick in the butt to get myself going?
One way to fight this, that works for me sometimes, is to give yourself permission to only do 10 or 20 minutes of work and to agree to call that a success and feel proud of yourself for it. Because those minutes will add up, making every time you can do just that much a mini-triumph.
I’ve found I’m more likely to do it if I’ve defined the thing (or several things) that I’m going to do in my next mini-stint; and if there’s an obvious difference over time. My next mini-stint is taking the stack of donatables from the living room to the van. Even if I don’t do it all at once, I’ll see clear space for each item I shift. Taking the van to the thrift shop will be a separate mini-stint.
And I’ll say ‘thank you, Yllaria’ when I’ve done whatever next bit I’ve done, cause that’s motivating for me. I used to have to actually say it aloud to get the feeling. Now I just have to remember to pause and glow.
I’m in a vicious cycle of amping up and getting a bunch of stuff done for a couple days, then work, social life*, health issues** put a stop to all that and then the clutter creeps back in to the areas I’ve already tackled while I am at a standstill.
*social life: I usually only get a couple days a week to see my boyfriend and since it’s my days off when we see each other that means it also takes time out of working on my house. I will not have him help me because that never goes well and I end up very angry at him. Example: This past weekend he “helped” by brushing some cobwebs off the ceiling, hit the hall light and broke the light bulb making more work for me because now I have to find something to get the broken bulb out. My plan for the day after he left was to clean my hall closet which is pretty much impossible in a dark hallway. So it was easier to just be annoyed at him and not get anything done. Then I ended up annoyed with myself because I could have just put a portable light in the hallway and worked.
**health issues: Fibromyalgia pain, menopause fatigue and craziness, back problems and severe dust mite allergies limit how much I can do at a time. Usually the harder I push myself the longer I am wiped out and don’t get anything else done. I am trying to at least do a couple small things when I feel this way, dishes, a load of laundry, sort some papers, etc. But that doesn’t always work.
I’m posting here with the hope of getting myself amped up again to start cleaning.
One thing I learned, that’s probably really really obvious to everyone else: the only way to clean and organize the desk is to move everything off the desk. Otherwise, I sat there being constantly distracted by the magical computer full of internets! Yes, I still need to do some fine sorting, and tackle my mom’s taxes and part 2 of Tony’s AFLAC claim, but I have e-receipts and on-line bank records, so I shredded a mountain of old utility bills and bank statements. I don’t need them! Everything else is in properly marked file folders, neat and accessible. Woohoo!
Huh, I decided to click into this thread for the heck of it and also because we’re paring stuff down due to an upcoming move, and I see this. (What did I link to? )
We just have had some clutter, and some stored stuff, nothing bad. We’d been cleaning out stuff slowly, but now we may end up in an apartment instead of a house, so we’re offloading a lot of things we ended up with by default, that seemed to be maybe useful someday, etc. Goodwill is totally our friend right now; there’s one not far away.
I just can’t do Craigslist or EBay for our stuff because I know I’m not going to be bothered dealing with it. I don’t want to set up meetings, I don’t want to box and ship, so fuck it, giving it all away or throwing it all away. If I tried to get money for it, I know I’d slack.
We got a monstrously huge and heavy bedroom set pushed on us by a friend of the family years ago, and since there’s no way we’re moving it, if no one we know wants it, I’ll probably call Got Junk and have them haul it out.
If you just can’t seem to get to the donation center or sell things, try throwing some stuff out. Even if it’s a waste or “perfectly good.” Hopefully it’ll inspire you to get rid of things and at least something will be gone.
I had I tool for removing broken light bulbs and lost it (somewhere in the clutter, probably). I know the potato trick but that would mean taking time to go to the store and remembering to buy a potato. I did buy some potatoes last time I went grocery shopping but I got them to eat and they are the tiny baby potatoes.
Well, another set-back - during the most recent [del]rainstorm[/del] monsoon we had another Epic Ceiling Leak which resulted in emergency deployment of buckets and mops (and admittedly some sobbing on my part - thank Og we had a plastic drop cloth otherwise I would have lost at least half my book collection). Stuff got hurriedly re-arranged and shoved into corners and there is now a heap o’ messy rags piled up/hung up until I can get to the laundry mat.
On the bright side, all but one of the prior leaks were successfully mended by the landlord but apparently he missed that one in the back of the roof…
This is NOT the way to Clean Up Your House.
So, this weekend instead of forward progress I will have to be doing some reworking lost ground.
On the upside (I’m always looking for an upside) the stacks of old magazines have gone, in my mind, from my precioussssss… preciousssss to get this crap outta here! Yes, I think I am psychologically ready to toss 99% of them (I am keeping the ones with my published writing). So, in addition to Continued Monsoon Clean Up I will be stacking them up to take down to the recycling center on my next trip (usually first week of the month). Yes, I am still big on recycling. It’s because for some reason I find it much, much easier to take crap to the recycler than to simply toss it and that is the way I’ve gotten a lot of stuff out of the house. It works.
Well, yesterday we took everything except the dresser and armoire out of the master bedroom so we could vacuum, mop the floors, wash the baseboards, and put down the new rug. I am not putting everything back that was in there - the blanket chest has had its contents stowed elsewhere, except for some extra pillows that are currently in the washer, and then the chest itself is either going back to Mom’s house, given away to a friend, or possibly given away on Craigslist or Freecycle.
Now to deal with 2 plastic tubs full of old school papers, which are currently sitting next to the kitchen island…I am keeping my defended, sealed master’s thesis, but I think much of the rest is getting tossed.
Ah, yes, old school papers… that’s on The List somewhere after the old magazines and the old bills/envelopes/receipts from more years ago than I care to admit.
Yay on the recycling, boo on the leak :(. So true about not the way to do it!!
We mucked out the unfinished storage room in our basement last October, the day after Hurricane Sandy: we lost power, the sump pump of course did not work, and we had 3-4 inches of water. Most of it was on shelves, some stuff was on the floor in bins, but some other stuff was on the floor in boxes etc. and therefore got wet. Much of that got tossed, some was able to be laid out and let dry. We also threw away all the outdated emergency supplies we had down there. And we put another set of shelves to get everything else up off the floor.
We hosted 3 high students from Spain and Italy this summer so had to muck out and organize the habitable part of the basement. It’s still not great but the carpeted area is at least usable.
Beyond that, we’re badly stalled. Maybe this December when I’m burning up my use-or-lose vacation time I can make some progress.
after having 28 boxes + a handfull of space/big hefty zipper bags brought over from my storage unit. i’m down to 18 boxes today.
i ended up watching the entire first season of elementary while sorting. some things will find new homes in my flat other things (off season clothes, seasonal decorations) will go into the new smaller storage unit in my building.
Just weeded out about 90% of those 2 tubs of papers. Am I ever again going to need photocopies of 1990s poly sci journals? Probably not, and if so, that’s what libraries are for.
I need to join this thread, I’m not a hoarder, but before this I used moves about every 2 - 5 years to weed out excess stuff. It has now been 14 years since the last move and two children adding to the stuff accumulation. So although the house looks fine, the storage areas are full and need culling badly.
I have been slowly, slowly getting rid of things. I went through my pants and long sleeved shirts and got rid of any in bad condition, not fitting or just can’t remember the last time I wore it.
Next I’m going through my t-shirts and socks. Then the hanging clothing.
I pulled stuff (pans and serving trays) from the pantry that haven’t been used since we moved into this house and sent them for Donation.
Last year after Christmas I pulled out a few decorations that I have no use for and were taking up attic space and gave them away and also trashed any broken ones that I can’t fix.
A couple weekends ago, I had my 12 year old child go through all her clothing drawers with me and pulled all the stuff that is either too small or she just wont’ wear. Any thing torn or stained was turned to rags or tossed and anything good was placed in a labeled box for her younger sister in a few years. It let us see what new clothes she really needed. She is amazed that all of her drawers now open and close so easily.
Next weekend I’ll do the same with the younger child.
I hope by joining this thread I will continue the motivation to keep cleaning out stuff.
Moved things around in my bedroom last weekend and had to go through all my books to be able to move the case. Pulled not quite ten for donation. Then went through my cassette tapes. But I still have a cassette player, so I only got rid of about eight. Sorted out some broken cases and went on to sort CDs. Got rid of maybe six of those.
Behind the CDs I found a couple of small boxes of 2 1/2 inch floppies. The boxes were each about half the size of a shoebox. I went through about fifty of them and didn’t see anything that would be useful to anyone. One of the boxes was wood and may be useful for other things. The other was cheap plastic, and starting to crack. So that’s stuff that I’ve carried along for about ten years. Eh. Could have been worse. And they’re gone now.
That has worked well, so I started sorting the shelves by my desk. More books to donation. Old three ring binders donated. Old notebooks tossed. Now I’m thinking of getting rid of one bookcase and rearranging the study. Cool.
For those looking for a little guided inspiration, one of my favorite blogs/websites does a Kitchen Cure every year. They give an assignment a day for 10 days for cleaning out and improving your kitchen to make it more functional.
I will be doing it at a slower base than the site does because of the whole “I have a job” issue, but I will get a head start tomorrow with a good clean out of my fridge since it is already mostly empty.
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