Beware of those shredders, they can often only be used for 20 minutes max and then need to cool down. Easier to find a shredding business that will take the load. Hereabouts, there is a veteran-run shredding business that I love to take boxes and grocery bags of papers to. Poof, it all disappears in minutes.
Now, what I actually came here to say is my friend, another packrat, has committed to doing a Lenten purge. I’ve decided to join her. She’s committed to removing a small moving box of goods a day out of her house, either to trash or church charity shops. I’m not religious and I (having purged and moved) no longer have that much stuff to get rid of. But I still have much more than I have room for and I want to quit paying for a storage space. Therefore, I am going to create a list of stuff I am getting rid of. Minimum is two items per day, and I will document it. Because my friend and I live a couple of states apart, I’m going to enlist a local friend to help keep me honest.
Ash Wednesday is February 26, but I might start sooner.
I just put it in my phone calendar. I will receive a reminder every day for 40 days.
That’s not an angle that would have occurred to me, but good luck and let us know how it goes.
Pat on the back to me - today I…
… filled up one regular garbage bag and tossed it in the dumpster.
… half-filled the next garbage bag
… two bags of burn/shred items
… moved my leatherworking tools/supplies to the new place (that’s about 200 pounds of stuff, as some of it is heavy)
… Got together all the bits and pieces of my late spouse’s telescope for selling on eBay
Not bad for an hour and a half, huh? And I remembered my anti-allergy gear so I still feel physically good after all that.
I’ve had a setback of a sort
My plan was to next move all the stuff in the storage locker home, so that I could stop that bill, and sort the stuff in comfort.
However, a squirrel got into my house (access point has now been blocked, so that part’s taken care of). I thought the tree rat had gotten out when it had a chance, but no such luck. Now, it’s mostly hanging out in my computer room, which now stinks. 
Unfortunately, that was the room where everything that I couldn’t figure out where else to put it went.
I’ve got a trap, but the stinker hasn’t taken the bait in nearly a week. I think I may have caused a delay, because I couldn’t take the smell, so I burned some incense in there. Incense plus squirrel funk is marginally better than squirrel funk.
So now, instead of clearing space to bring boxes back from storage, I have to move stuff out of the computer room to other areas of the house (that had nearly been cleared up). Then hopefully, the stupid little tree rat will take the bait and the next task will be to clean all the surfaces in the room. And maybe burn more incense.
Sorry to hear that - but based on my own experience having setbacks is actually pretty common and normal. Get through it and get back to work! It’s not how fast you finish, it’s that you keep going towards your goal.
My plan for the Lenten purge kicks off tomorrow. However, my new job kicked off yesterday and I’m in two weeks of training. We will see if I have the energy to do both tasks. But the daily reminders are still in my phone.
Good work Broomstick!
At first I thought - well, we’ll have to stay at home, but maybe, since technically I’m still a tenant at the old building I can go out there, where there is no one else, and get some work done.
Then HOLY CRAP WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM HERE AT WORK WHAT DO YOU MEAN 10 HOURS A DAY 6 DAYS A WEEK WTF???
This week I was able to cash in some vacation time and, being a tenant at the old building AND there being no one else around I was able to get some work done. Not a lot - just catching up with laundry and house cleaning took up a chunk of time, plus catching up on my rest - but managed to toss out a bunch more stuff, gave away the third sewing machine to a neighbor who expressed interest in having one, and sorted through a bunch of stuff I want to keep and am bringing over to my new place.
So… despite a large hitch in plans still slowly moving forward!
Hampered in that Goodwill, etc. are not currently taking donations and while the Ebay guy is still selling the stuff I got to him before the pandemic getting more to him at this time might be problematic. Still get the occasional e-mail about stuff being sold. Haven’t had tremendous luck at talking to him about payment, I’m probably going to ask him to send me a check although I’m not opposed to a curb-side pickup.
Well, my Lenten purge plan has been unexpectedly derailed by Covid19 lockdown. But I do have 80 items to donate but no way to donate them. Foiled!
Yeah, I’m having problems unloading stuff anywhere but the dumpster.
I got ahold of the eBay folks who sell stuff for me and they’re sort of working part time. I can’t drop off anything else but they’re still selling the stuff I’ve already dropped off. I’m supposed to to a curb-side pickup of a check today.
Because I now have an abundance of empty plastic totes I’m think of putting donation items in them until things open up again.
Meanwhile, I can still sort and dump actual trash.
This whole project is taking MUCH longer than I anticipated…
Real life always intrudes! I pulled a bunch of stuff out of the “junk room” - the extra bedroom where all the boxes from the move ended up. Mostly photos to sort.
I went through two boxes (as big as shoe boxes), and threw away a lot of really bad pics, plus duplicates. Then I lost interest. It is hard for me to stay focused.
I almost got away with throwing away a bunch of computer cables, but Mr Rebo caught me, and promised to do something with them. He did do a quick sort, and threw away a few things. That was last weekend. I can’t give him too much grief though - he did a ton of yard work and the backyard looks great!
I’ll try to do a little each day. I have brand new photo albums to put the pics in, but I have to sort them first! Ugh. I don’t want to scan them, I want the actual photos.
I’d love to do a little bit each day but I now lives several miles away from the Old Homestead and there is this whole stay-at-home thing to worry about.
I just keep chipping away at it, bit by bit. I do see progress, even if it is not as fast as I’d like
I did some major backyard cleanup that was years overdue.
I hauled away pieces of broken fence, got rid of old playground equipment and other assorted junk. Took out many wasp nests, too. I think maybe one more big weekend of cleanup will be needed, to remove a couple unwanted trees, an old barbecue grill, and some junk tires that I’m not 100% sure how to dispose.
I’m proud though, my backyard is almost pleasant!
Tell us how you removed the wasp nests; some of us are cowards when it comes to wasps.
Broomstick, has the Old Place been uninhabited for so long? What if you rented it out and asked the renter to get rid of “get rid”-piles? They can take stuff to goodwill, the landfill or the ebay consignment store as well as you do, and they’re motivated to empty the house, they pay some rent, so that might be a winwin. You come
over when you have time, sort stuff into piles Toss Sell Recycle, and Lovingly Keep (or make a picture of, then TSR). They do the Tossing Selling Recycling for you.
No. It has been uninhabited for two years, ever since the utilities failed. The previous eight I and my spouse had been living there.
Well, I’m not the owner…
Aside from that - there are on-going problems with the building which prevent renting it out for habitation. Storage is fine, but not living there.
For several months you couldn’t donate to Goodwill around here, and while my eBay seller was still selling what he had he wasn’t accepting new items which didn’t help. That’s only changed in the past two weeks.
I have an attachment on my garden hose that makes a concentrated stream of water. First, I spray the nest with wasp spray (in the evening when most of the wasps are at home) and then I use the sprayer to blast it down in a day or two when it inactivate.
Then I run the mower over it to mulch it.
I have a neighbor that delights in planting wasp magnets like plums and peach trees, but is very vigilant about destroying nests, so a lot wind up in my yard. 
Also just clearing out old junk discourages the wasps.
I hate wasps. Ugh.
Managed to hit the old homestead today. Not much has changed (which is good news). I recovered the travel/emergency/isolation cages for the birds, which can be collapsed down into a very compact state, and my old tapestry loom and a box of scrapbooking supplies (yes, I finally decided I wanted to keep and use them).
So, more teeny steps.
Asked for some vacation time in July, if I’m smart I’ll figure out a game plan to cut through a lot of what remains that week.
Alright. Deal me in, I’ll play.
My break is almost over, but the quickie background is: cross country move after a couple of years in a HUGE house that had allowed me the luxury of having a bunch of stuff but not be in the way. Now, much smaller house. I brought a bunch of stuff “just in case” not knowing what my employment would be (different clothes for office vs. retail jobs, for example) and moving up north I wanted to keep all my warm stuff.
Work full time, not much energy after a shift so most home reorg. happens on my two or three days off - when often, I just wanna have a day off!
Okay, gotta run. I’ll come back with more later. I need a game plan. There’s been some good ideas upthread that I need to digest.
Broomstick, I don’t know how you survived six 10-hr shifts a week. I have four, and … well, I’m feeling my age & bad habits!
Anyway, previous post was banged out during the last seconds of a break at work, so lemme try again now that I’m at home and all the crap is staring at me.
Small house, small rooms. Neither bedroom fits bigger than a queen bed, and that’s assuming you didn’t want the luxury of a bedside table for your water. One bedroom has a smallish walk in closet, the other has none at all. There is a basement the size of the entire house’s footprint, but the floors get puddles when it rains so no cardboard boxes or wooden items. Oh, they’re down there alright: balanced on chairs and plastic milk crates. It’s a clutter-y mess downstairs.
Okay … it is dawning on me that some cheap-o plastic or metal shelving units would be an enormous help with basement organization. DING!!
I need to round up all the clothes that make me go “Ugh” since that’s gonna wind up being a ton of crap that remind me of old jobs I hated. No idea how/if they can be donated - some stuff is in nice shape, I just personally hate it. By the time I have some bags/boxes, hell, they may re-open more thrift stores. DING!!
A big part of my problem is hanging onto stuff in case I might need it later. I hate re-purchasing something I just threw away! I am also good at re-purposing items in unusual ways (“MacGyver-ing”) so a lot of stuff looks like useless trash … until it isn’t. For example, I kept a bunch of random floorboards from a previous landlord’s adventures in floor renovations … and now I have lightweight shelves.
Another big problem is my damn dead husband. I miss him like hell, and resent getting rid of anything he gave me, or that I gave to him, or that he used a lot, etc. I wouldn’t go out and acquire any of this stuff now, of course, but I have it & it’s emotionally very difficult to let it go.
Finally, I have a tendency to focus on the negative. Work my tail off unpacking and hanging and whatnot all day, and then in the evening get all mad at myself because I still haven’t swapped the contents of the silverware drawer with the other kitchen drawer yet. Then the depression and self loathing spirals.
Real life example. I just don’t have anywhere to PUT all the clean spoons and spatulas and stuff while I swap everything around to a better setup. Very limited counter space.
Okay. Borrowing from the process for a crab boil … maybe I’ll put a layer of newspaper on the floor, throw everything on that. Oh! I have a shitload of old towels I used to wrap breakables on the move! (Where’s that lady from upthread who stuffed her SUV to the gills?) I can lay one of those out on the kitchen floor instead; they’re solid colored and will make it easier to see. Hell: two towels, to organize into groups! DING!!!
Wow. Holy shit, this was helpful. Now all I need is a neighbor willing to swap a shelving unit for old towels!
Which reminds me: the code for NextDoor app arrived in the mail yesterday so I can join the locals. DING!!
I … could weep with joy. What I desperately needed was not so much even a big overall game plan, but simply the next few concrete steps I can manageably take myself. I have those now.
Thank you for the courage and inspiration, Dopers - if so many of you have eaten this elephant one bite at a time, then I guess I have a chance at it, too.