Enough already my ass

[ArcticChicken]

Frankly, I recognize some of my own tendencies in the people in those shows. I am not a hoarder...but I bet I am walking a fine line.

I know what you mean. I'm in the middle of a purge of the crap that was under my bed, and I'm having serious trouble getting rid of it. I've decided that the only way I'm going to be able to get this done is to do it in several rounds. Round one is getting rid of actual trash (no food or anything nasty, just old papers and things, crafty things that aren't for specific projects, and gifts that I hate but haven't been able to get rid of because it feels like a rejection of the person that gave it to me.

Not quite sure what round 2 is going to be, but eventually I'm getting it down to a single trunk of stuff.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I find stuffing it into a big black plastic garbage bag helps. Then I can't see it and start thinking about it.

[AriGriffin]

I have a ton of junk I need to get rid of- most of it is stuff I have gotten for my birthday or Christmas that I didn't like, want, or need. I feel that I would hurt the giver's feelings if I get rid of the items.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I know what you mean. I'm in the middle of a purge of the crap that was under my bed, and I'm having serious trouble getting rid of it.

If you have stuff that is good and you don't want to throw away, consider donating it. I just went though all my childhood toys and had a hard time giving up a ton. I found a community center in town and I realized that I might love a stuffed animal, but it's collecting dust here, and there might be a little kid who just lost all their own toys and would love it so much more then me. Made it so much easier to get rid of stuff, the same for clothes I don't wear.
I did prefer the community center over Goodwill, I wanted my fancy toys to be loved, not stuck on a shelf by a collector. That might be personal preference though nothing wrong with Goodwill.

Side note: Toy story screwed me up, I felt bad and found myself explaining to a box of toys that it was ok and the kids would love them as much as I did...I'm so messed up.....

[RecoveringKinkoid]

It does make it easier if you can give it to someone who will enjoy it BUT (and this is a biggie...possibly a deal breaker...) if you are not the sort that will actually get off your backside and take the stuff down there, don't pretend you will.

That's how people get messed up, they say they're going to goodwill and then five years down the line the stuff is still in a box waiting to go to goodwill. Y'all know who you are.

I settle that by running an "Online Free Garage Sale". Sort of an on again off again freecycle. I offer the stuff free to anyone who will take the time to haul it off. I give a deadline. After the deadline, anything I still have goes to the dump. I've gotten rid of quite a few appliances and pieces of furniture that way. I actually cleared my yard of cut-down trees like that. But if you are a procrastinator, don't set up yourself to fail.

For toys you love, here is a solution: Take the stuff down to your local children's home. That's my one exception to the rule, mainly because it's a cause near to my heart and I actually WILL make a trip across town to the orphanage with a vanload of goodies. Goodwill, no. I can get lazy about that. Buncha abandoned children? I can get motivated about that. Those kids have had some of the worst of what life can sometimes throw. Some of them grow up in that place. They don't have much. If the toys that made you happy can make some lonely kid happy, well, that's a good thought to have to motivate you.

[Squeaksmyalias]

They don't have much. If the toys that made you happy can make some lonely kid happy, well, that's a good thought to have to motivate you.

That's why I picked the community center, I'm dropping off other stuff I found I had too next week, I had a bin full of blankets I didn't know I had. The women working there were just so happy about me donating my stuff. For them to be that happy that I dropped off stuff that I didn't need, just I'm not sure how to word it how I feel about it. I can only imagine how happy the kids will be. I know they also work with a therapy program for disabled children, one of the therapies is horse back riding. I have a saddle I don't use anymore along with a band new helmet I'm thinking would be best to donate, It's not a fancy saddle and I wouldn't make any money off of it and I would much rather it go to someone who needs it.

[ArcticChicken]

If you have stuff that is good and you don't want to throw away, consider donating it.

I have a trash bin, a recycling bin, and a giant box for donations sitting in my room right now.

It does make it easier if you can give it to someone who will enjoy it BUT (and this is a biggie...possibly a deal breaker...) if you are not the sort that will actually get off your backside and take the stuff down there, don't pretend you will.

I'm giving myself a deadline of two weeks after I finish sorting my things to take things to wherever I decide to donate them, after that they're going on the curb with a sign that says 'free'.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Roadside drop off with "This Works!" signs on any working appliances is the way we do it out where I grew up. Stuff would be gone within the hour.

Sort of a backwoods freecycle system.

[protege]

Sort of a backwoods freecycle system.

I got rid of several cinder blocks that way. I'd taken down a garden divider in the yard, and grew tired of the blocks sitting on the patio. They all went to the curb, and I spray-painted "Free!" on them. They were all gone within hours.

I get quite a bit of grief when relatives see the mess in my basement. Yes, there's stuff piled everywhere--computer parts (to be given away), the model railroad, my workbench (which is piled with various projects), parts for the car (removed during the restoration, and not refitted), furniture, etc. It's a bit of a mess down there right now. But, considering that I work full-time, enjoy my hobbies...and the living space upstairs (well, most of it...my office is a mess too ), what do you expect?

Most of the office clutter is simply because I've been going through things, or sorting, and filing it away. Sure, there's a huge bookcase along wall, and another one in the corner...but I'm a bit of a packrat when it comes to reading material.

Since I'm heavily into models, most of the stuff is my research material. Everything I need is in one place--I have Model Railroader going back to '79, Classic & SportsCar to '91, several years of Practical Classics, etc. all of which are constantly being used when I build things. I also have quite a few brochures from various companies, simply for the color charts. They're great for seeing what various colors look like before I attempt to mix (or buy) them.

Yeah, I know that I can find the same info on the web. However, the photography isn't always the same--lighting and equipment (both my own, and that of whoever took the photo) always isn't the best, leading to poor color reproduction, and/or details that simply don't show up. Also, many "color charts" on the web, aren't all that great. None of them are "spot-on" when it comes to what the actual colors look like.

I'm not even going to mention the models themselves....

[AccountingDrone]

I just watched some show where a designer comes in to stage a house for sale, and the people had a pair of dogs, and this woman is railing on how unhygenic dogs in houses are, and that people will walk into their bedroom and see a pair of dog beds at the foot of the bed and be all about unhygenic it is, and that the breakfast nook where the dogs have their food and water is a waste of space.

You can tell that stupid woman is both a non pet person, and someone who firmly believes that all animals belong outside, and people probably would be better off without pets.

My solution for the bedroom would be to make sure the bedframe was high enough to slide the dog pillows under the bed and hide them with a bed skirt. My solution for the dog water bowls and food bowls would be to perhaps put in a decorative table with a tablecloth that goes to the floor, and hide them under while showing the house.

Rob commented to me that when I get a service pup, and we have to sell the house that the realtor is shit out of luck, I will not hide my dog or cat, or their apurtenances.

[EricKei]

And fortunately, he's got enough OCD contamination phobias he would never hoard food in a million years.

I definitely have some minor hoarding tendencies (nowhere near as bad as y Dad was, bless his heart) -- but I have a very simple policy when it comes to food: If I don't remember buying it/putting it in the fridge (because it's been too long), it goes into the trash. Period. I give a little more leeway for non-perishables in the pantry, but it still gets purged from time to time.

My old roomie -- to his credit, he helped me get rid of a lot of Dad's leave-behinds -- had absolutely zero concept of food safety (and this is an otherwise very intelligent guy who, at least casually, studied holistic medicine). He thought nothing of defrosting poultry in the sink all day (not even leaving it to sit in cold water), and looked at me funny whenever I would purge the fridge of items that were old enough to demand voting rights >_> The worst part was, I could never convince him to educate himself properly on the subject -- his mantra was, "It's never made ME sick..." I just hope, for the sake of the customers, that he never gets a job in foodservice >_<

[blas]

My parents have the same mantra. Unfortunately, my mom has a horrid habbit of buying fruits and other easily perishable foods and no one eats them....so she goes and buys more.......instead of putting those behind the older foods, she just crams the old stuff back, and back.

Hell, I've found plates with green dust on them way in the back of the fridge.

They also have left the same meat in the freezer for years. Not weeks or a month or two......YEARS. There was venison that made the move to the new house with my family.

I was grounded once for throwing out bad food at my parents' house. I had a friend over, we wanted to make breakfast, she found expired/rotten food in the fridge and I was humiliated, so we went on a cleaning spree. My parents came home, immediately reamed me out and sent her home, and they went through the damn garbage, screaming at me that we had to try to salvage this food. This EXPIRED, ROTTEN FOOD.

They actually took a lot of the rotten or old food in the garbage and put it back!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Wow.

My in laws are not hoarders, but they do that thing where they let food go bad in the fridge. I threw out so much stuff one time on a cleaning binge I had to get the guys to move the green box (I think you UK people call it a "wheelie bin") for me.

And my MIL tried to complain. I just said "Look here, it's a miracle you two have not poisoned yourselves. This shit was MUMMIFIED."

My grandmother, also not a hoarder, did the same thing, as did a friend of mine's grandma. I think that's an old person thing. Not sure why.

Those of you out there with hoarder tendencies, try this: watch a couple of episodes of "Hoarders" or something similar right before you do housework. Fix you RIGHT up, that will.

I tend to get more done if I do that.

[blas]

Kink, I tried to argue with my parents that I was throwing away food that could make us sick, or would just keep continuing to sit in the fridge for who knows how long, and I was told I was wasting food, and being grounded was going to teach me a lesson in asking permission before throwing away food and wasting it.

Oh, bonus points, they said if they ever caught me doing it again, I'd have to buy my own groceries.

Now, I'm not perfect, but there's not mummified leftovers or rotten fruits in my fridge.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I wonder what would happen if you offered to make supper using those same rotten food items? I seriously doubt they'd call your bluff on it and eat it.

Even the food hoarder lady on A&E was not so far gone she was actually eating the crap she was hoarding. She was buying new stuff and storing it away from the rotten stuff. So a few of her pistons were still firing properly.