You might need that one day.....hoarding.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Donate it! Or recycle. Just don’t contribute to the landfills!

I’ve spent hours calling catalog companies to get off of mailing lists, and spend about an hour every days going through paper stuff and getting rid of it. I’ve moved a lot, and sometimes haven’t had time to go through old files before the move, thrown everyhting into a box, but never got back to sorting afterwards. Well, now I am.

But I used to get rid of almost everything before a move, and then had to rebuy later. Rebuying furniture is costly. Books become more expensive to replace, and some go out of print. The Kindle is fine for ligth reading, but for more complex reads, where you have to go back and look at previous pages for reference, the Kindle is a slow, clunky PITA compared to a book on paper. Besides, I don’t want an electromagnetic pulse wiping out my library! :wink:

But I’ve got another bag of odds and ends and doodads and useless (to me) kitchen gadgets ready to go to Salvation Army, and six boxes of books to take to the Friends of the Library sale. I’ve emptied another box of papers, and broken down the box and taken it to recycling.

Speaking of boxes, though, it is hard for someone who has moved a lot to get rid of a good cardboard box. They are not trash, but gems of great price when moving time comes around.

82

One December my son happened to glimpse a large group of bags on the floor of my bedroom. Looking at me in horror, he said, “You’re a hoarder!”

(Actually, they were the not-yet-wrapped Christmas gifts.)

83

My father used to hoard things that would come in handy one day.

Mostly nails and screws. Anything that had nails or screws that was dismantled or disposed of, had all nails and screws removed. They were cleaned and kept in a tin.

And never used again. Ever.
My mother used to keep buttons and zips from old clothes and laces from shoes. We had tins full of them too. Occasionally the buttons came in handy for something, don’t remember the zips coming in handy for anything. Laces do have their uses for various things. I recently bought a pair of runners and the laces were too short and too thin (round instead of flat IYSWIM), so I replaced them with a saved [long, flat] pair.

I buy an organic deodorant, that comes in a recyclable plastic bottle with a pump action spray nozzle. I have a habit of keeping them -because they’ll come in handy. Well last year I noticed something, the spray nozzle has been altered on the bottles now and it sprays twice as much deodorant over a much wider area than previous incarnations. So I found one of the older bottles, cleaned it and the nozzle up, and decanted the deodorant from the new bottle into the old bottle (the old nozzle wouldn’t fit on a new bottle). Voilà I now have deodorant that sprays a reasonable amount over a small area again.

So there you go!

84

The one-hole paper punch is great for when you have a cheap vinyl shower curtain with a few ripped holes - just punch a new hole next to the ripped one, pop the ring through the new hole, and you can get a few more showers out of that curtain.

Yeah, I know shower curtains are less than five dollars.

85

I haven’t seen an actual shower curtain in 20 years.

86

Yikes, well don’t blame me when he dumps YOU! :smiley:

87

You have been trained well that you recognize the distinction!

88

Anybody who’s been an office worker in a country where binders have four rings? At a guess.

89

I am vicious about throwing things out, because my SO definitely has some hoarder/packrat tendencies. I am just not very nostalgic, or if I am, a picture of the item suffices just as well. I hate carrying things from one house to another when moving that we haven’t moved at all. Next time we move I intend to dispose of even more.

And I throw away hole punches. If I really need something punched, I bring it into work and use the electric hole puncher.

90

Even contributing to the landfills is better than making a landfill out of your house, though. At least public landfills are regulated and maintained, unlike a hoarder’s house full of trash.

Message to anyone who’s keeping stuff because “we paid good money for it, and we can’t get rid of it without getting that money back” (or something similar): The money you paid for your stuff is a sunk cost. You’re not getting that money back by keeping something around that you aren’t using. Things are only worth what you can convince someone else to pay for them- we all should have learned that in the housing crash a few years ago. People buying your stuff don’t care what you think it is worth or what you paid for it.

Also, most stuff loses value over time. There are rare exceptions, but this is the general rule. Most stuff wears out over time. You can’t keep fixing it forever. Eventually it’s going to wear out, and the only rational thing to do with it at that point is to throw it away (or recycle it, if the materials it is made of and your circumstances allow for that). There’s little point in donating or trying to sell broken, moldy, or worn-out stuff. Nobody else wants broken stuff, either.

91

Magazines. Newspapers. Coupons. Clippings. Notes, instructions, pamphlets, brochures,catalogs. I am drowning in paper. I make attempts at organizing all this. I have a file folder to put things in (“mom’s stuff”, “Christmas presents”, “clippings about accident”, “local restaurant reviews”). Oh, and I tear out pages from things that I want to read later, or save (well, that’s something). I realized one day I haven’t looked in the file folder in months, the pages torn out have sat there untouched, and the stack of newspapers (I really should cancel my subscription) is getting to be three feet high! I only read the recipes and the comics, and I usually read the paper online. So now I’m making a real effort to get rid of paper - if it sits there more than a week, out it goes! On trash days, I pick up an armful without looking, stuff it in a paper bag, and take it out in the recycling bin. It’s a giddy feeling, being able to see the table again. Next: those VHS tapes, the 10,000 plastic containers, and my arts n’ crafts cupboard.

92

My solution is to keep the pages I want for information, then either punch holes in them or put them in plastic sleeves in a binder. I only have about two or three binders, separated into “cooking”, “crafts and sewing”, and “miscellaneous”, but it saved me a paper nightmare when I was doing the three year wedding planning game, as everything was in one spot.

Libraries only have so much space, and public libraries weed their collections or only use specific kinds of donations for a multitude of reasons. The main three are “is there going to be an infestation that will ruin our other books?”, “Do we need a copy and is this one in good enough condition?”, and “Is this even remotely up to date and useful for our collection?”. I work at an academic library now with special collection needs, and we will sometimes get callers who want to donate 30 years’ worth of magazines that are of a specialized nature-- but it’s always copies of stuff we already have bound and archived that they want to donate. “No, I’m sorry, ma’am (it’s always a woman who can’t throw things out for some reason), we already have copies; maybe you can look into the local high school [topic specialty] program and see if they need it.”

The weirdest donation thus far that I’ve seen was a 20-year-old copy of a gynecological textbook in Spanish, complete with graphic photos. Why yes, every Spanish language section in the public library desperately needs your old medical textbooks! We’ll just put them here right next to the romance novels. :rolleyes:

Did your mom do a lot of sewing? My mom did stuff like that, but she also used a lot of her collection in regular sewing projects.

93

That’s an awesome idea. I’m going to buy one for my daughter. Right now we are using tongs and working on scissor skills. Thanks!

94

Oh, I can understand this. I did take a couple of library science classes (many years ago), and culling the collection was one of the topics that was lightly touched in 101 (I assume that more advanced classes would cover it in more detail). I’m addressing the people who think that if they donate books to the library, that those books will still be available to them whenever they want to read those books again.

And I just used my hole punch a couple of days ago. I started a new cross stitch project, and I punched holes in a couple of index cards, and sorted my floss, and put the floss in the holes. Oh, and I labeled the colors, too, with both the DMC numbers and the symbol that the project uses.

95

I don’t know if this idea would work better as a trainwreck reality show or a workable therapy idea but…

What if a group of traditional OCD sufferers and a group of OCD hoarders (they actually have similar neuro issues) worked together in a serious fashion to clean the hoarder’s houses AND run a support network? I know it was somewhat mentioned upthread, but I could see some benefit toward a deliberate mindmeld here. I’m going to have to mull this one over. I definitely see a great trainwreck houseswap-type show (what was that called? I don’t really watch much tv) but also much more…

96

While I probably do lean toward keeping a bit too much stuff (not anything close to hoarding, though), my wife has a weird variant of the problem.

She’s dead set against hoarding household items, clothing, books, computer parts, and the like. So much so that she regularly tries to get me to throw away my potentially useful computer cables, somewhat worn T-shirts, and the like. She throws out a lot of stuff and in some cases replaces it with new stuff. It energizes her to throw stuff away.

But she does keep plain trash. She is persuaded that all junk mail must be hand-shredded for security, but it’s enervating to actually sort and shred it, so it goes into bags, hampers, and baskets, and stays there.

She takes it upon herself to pick up commercial signs people illegally place in the median strip. These signs might be useful for her activism if re-purposed and painted over, so they are saved, along with their metal support rods. We probably have 70 large road signs now piled up in my computer room, unused.

Meanwhile, two days ago, a pet (parrot) chewed through the cord to my computer headphones while my attention was distracted, and I simply replaced the headphones with my older backup version from the computer storage hutch behind me, and kept going. The act of plugging in the replacement headphones was very difficult, though, because the walkspace behind my machine is crammed full of illegal signs.

Sometimes I feel like if I didn’t keep a sharp eye out, all the useful stuff would be thrown away (and half of it re-bought) and the house filled with trash other people mailed to us against our will or left on the highway median.

97

I think if I was single, I’d be like her.

98

As for me:

I’ve moved probably 25 times in my life…mostly I haven’t been the main decision-maker there. I go through periods of hoarding and dumping because so often I’ve allowed or been forced to allow others to decide what I get to keep. So I don’t know if “things” are important to me, or are supposed to be important to me, or if that’s a character virtue or vice. I’m a little messed up that way and I know it. I guess I’m at the point where I’m at least content that I recognize the above binges and accompanying attitude. I have weird attitudes about photos and mementos in particular.

Less emotional is clothing. Lots of weight changes, so I have lots of sizes in my stash, but I see no reason to throw away nice clothing that will probably fit in 6 months (truly!). But it’s hard to keep it organized, what with moves and a sizable household…and my husband and two of my children are close to my height if not size at least some of the time, so it gets a little overwhelming, so need a better system there. The only emotional bit is seeing my really nice suits and cocktail dresses that aren’t getting worn for a while. I loaned whatever would fit to my younger sister before the last move, so that helped a lot. :slight_smile: If I don’t get anything back, oh well, at least it didn’t get wasted. Anyway, I tend to buy very classic pieces of okay to great quality at deep discounts whenever possible, so it does pay off to store things well for some time. I will not store a size 2 t-shirt from Target for two years just so I can say “Hey, I used to wear this!”

Books: Sigh. Love em. Hubby has many, many more than I do, mostly medical and philosophical. He’s willing to get rid of lots. I don’t want him to! I might read them some day (actually, I do), or the kids might (Lord, I hope!). I just don’t have enough bookshelves and I know this isn’t our “forever home.” I’m looking really hard at getting some of those Smart Bookshelves that put together like Lincoln Logs and are supposed to be able to move easily. They are pretty pricey though. We don’t have Ikea nearby, and we live in probably the only cute Craftsman Bungalow that has no built-ins except in one closet. Most of my books are nonfiction how-to books, a few cool art photography/coffee table type books (or other things guests might like to flip thru, like reprints of 1903 Sears Catalogs), and a few used paperbacks I purge regularly.

Craft supplies: I mentioned this in another thread. Used to do a lot of crafts, especially painting. I have a one year old now and two teens, and a lot of other things on my plate, so I don’t do much. But I really don’t want to get rid of anything. That stuff is expensive, I don’t really have the kind of stuff that goes out of date, but I’m afraid of improper storage. My finished drawings and paintings are actually suffering more that the supplies and that is making me feel really funky.

Husband: Won’t get to much into it now, and he’s done a lot of purging over the last couple years, but he’s saved a lot of tchochkes that I’d never dream of hanging onto. Garbage bags full of faded Mardi Gras plastic cups and beads and bar flyers and who knows what. It’s kind of made me feel weird, maybe for aforementioned reasons. He’s a Katrina survivor, though, so I can understand hanging onto extra junk for awhile. I kind of talked him into saving just a few of the really cool ones we could hang up or actually use in some way, and that helped. I think the next time we move, though…and I hope it’s the last…we only keep things we really love.

I really could write reams on this subject though. On reasons of hoarding alone, if either of us lived any closer to family again, we wouldn’t be able to escape piles of junk. As it is, I used to get monthly little postal boxes of newspaper clippings, old jeans I wore in high school, expired coupons, random candy bar, a magazine, etc. from my grandmother. They’ve dwindled to once or twice a year, though, now. When I lived in the same town as her, they were weekly shopping bags!! But I’ll miss them when she’s gone. :frowning:

99

But what else are you supposed to do with it, if you have a 20-year-old copy of a gynecological textbook in Spanish that you no longer want? I sold my copy of my evil thermodynamics textbook (bad book, bad class) to Half Price Books for the same reason. I can’t think of any reason why anyone else would want it, but I wanted it out of the house, and Half Price Books can recycle it.

100

But how are you going to do that if everyone has thrown away the hole punch?

My mother was a hoarder, and when she died I took weeks going through everything just to try and find things we might want to keep, photos, letters things like that. I know a lot of stuff was thrown away or gotten rid of.

I’ve really started to get rid of a lot of stuff. The last few years I donated 3-400 books and a couple hundred CDs. Most of my house looks good. The basement is cluttered, but that’s because there are two tables and bookshelves there plus a kayak. I had to sell a vacation home when I got divorced and those items are better then the ones I have. I need to do something about that.