DP has loads of ‘stuff’

A few years ago I found carrier bags full of unopened post and opened post that hadn't been dealt with. Including a couple of ancient cheques!

I’ve probably got 1000 books or more, but I’m a writer and DP an academic so it comes with the territory. But we have the shelf space for them and when we don’t, we cull. The trouble becomes when you start shoving books sideways on top of other books, and shoving everything else onto the shelves too: old envelopes full of random receipts – the envelope unlabelled, of course; fittings for a DIY project that won’t happen until you find the drill, which you can’t because it’s underneath a pile of stuff; seven bottles of shoe deodoriser spray that keep getting bought and forgotten about because they’re hidden among the crap; work lanyards and security passes from three jobs ago; pots of pens that don’t work but have a tiiiiiiiiiiiny bit of ink in them and “one day I’ll take those to the tip to be properly recycled”.

Once all that stuff is gone (and it’s finally gone in my house: either I’ve reformed DP or he’s hiding it all in his office, I do have to do regular minesweeps of the shelves to get him back on track), books are great. But they can also become a burden when there’s too many for the space, like anything. Few of us have time to read every book we own, and it’s OK to get rid of the ones you’re only holding on to for vanity.

I am a Librarian and DH is an academic. When we first got married we combined our book collections. To say there were a lot is an understatement. When we were expecting DS and needed space we made a big decision and got rid of two completely full Ikea Billy book cases of books. We also got rid of DH collections of 20 years of Private Eye magazines and The Economist. The magazines were donated to Oxfam bookshop. Some books were donated to our local library and the rest went to a charity shop.

I still have my collection of 1000 Ladybird books, in boxes in the loft now as DS had the larger room as his bedroom that I had as my hobby room when we moved him from the small bedroom. @Davros my 1000 are all little books :)

We are in our mid fifties now I am retired and DH will within the next 3 to 4 years. So I started going through things in the loft which had stuff just thrown up there for 24 years. I was amazed how much stuff was up there. So far 3 car boots to the tip and 4 to the charity shop. There were a few things we could have sold but the hassle didn’t seem worth it. I found two bin liners of soft toys of the children’s up there. Kept three toys and the rest went. Also a bin liner of baby clothes, kept the few hand knitted things and the rest went. Youngest baby is now 22!

I was inspired to do this after reading about Swedish death cleans plus we plan to move when he retires and I’m not paying to move tat.

But a hoarder won't put books on the shelves - they will be stacked up in tottering 'to be read' piles. My late DH had piles of such books, some borrowed from others. I would return these, but I have no idea who they came from. But on the other hand, unopened letters would be stuffed on a bookshelf....

ZiriForEver I agree with you a bit about books. I think they can look really good and constitute part of the "decor" and they warm a place up. But 1000?

My DP is exactly like yours. Years and years of mindless crap that never ever gets thrown away because he might "need" it. I throw it all in an ottoman and close the lid. I don't have clutter I can't abide it. My kitchen is my domain so it is clutter free apart from the obvious gadgets.
Could you do the same? Just chuck all his stuff in a box with a lid and let him sort it when and if he can be bothered.
My sympathies it's not easy 😔

I can't understand the hate books are getting in this thread.
Yes, thousand is a lot, but generally open bookshelfs are the best part of people's homes and having books around is just great.

We found out that part of the issue was we didn't have easily accessible places where things belonged, so we put them anywhere we could.

We have a box for receipts, for opened paper tissue packages, for pens... We have a box for memories from holidays.
That way we minimise buying duplicates and things lying around.

It’s incredibly difficult when there are such different view points. My ex is a hoarder, he struggles to get rid of anything. He doesn’t want to get rid of anything and says it will come in handy. Example being an old mattress - was second hand for the spare room when we got it and the springs were poking through. It was in the garage for months going mouldy before he agreed it could go, some months later I found 2 bins bags full of fabric and foam and a box full of springs - he stripped the mattress down to the constituent parts so he could keep it all. I just couldn’t cope in the end - we had a 5 bed house, 2 reception rooms and he had a double garage and 3 sheds, all of them full to the brim. He would get cross when he tried to do anything as there was no space to work - his solution was to build another shed. It took a huge toll on my mental health to live surrounded by such mess and clutter. I am not minimalist at all and like to have things on display but he would just not compromise at all. In the end I had to leave and it was like a huge weight had been lifted.

I am reading this thread with great interest as this is my house. I can't stand the chaos and disorder, pointless broken stuff everywhere. I feel angry that I'm being forced to live like this, the house is dirty as it's impossible to clean properly around his weird collections of rubbish.

I can't help as I've already tried most of the suggestions on this thread and failed.

He is currently in therapy and working through the Marie Kondo book. I'm hoping this one works or we will end up separating and I won't let our DC have overnights with him amidst the overwhelming chaos.

AI991 well I guess his ‘home office’ will be very cramped for him then ! We have started using the library a lot more since we got rid of the books, better for us and the library (it was threatened with closure of footfall didn’t improve). Our library takes donated books today, so that might be an option as lots of people would get to benefit from his books then ?

I would be clearing all the bits I didn’t want then all his stuff would go in his office to sort out /put on to shelves himself and I would shut the door. I bet he starts to get rid of it once the dust gathers and he can’t actually get around the room.

Oh actually just read he has thousands of books. So he is a hoarder
Time to get him to a psychologist perhaps

Let him keep all his junk in 1 room

As a compromise

He still gets to keep his stuff and it less stuff everywhere for you and your mh

We used to have 2 floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books and photo albums. It was only ever me who dusted them and we didn’t have time to re read the books due to ft work and 3 DC

i found an on line company who scanned all the photos so then we chucked the albums away and now have only the odd really favourites picture on display in frames and we charity shopped the books

the lounge was bigger, clearer. Even DH (who is the hoarder) said it felt really good to clear stuff (difficult for him to still not bring tat into the house though !)

My DH struggles to get rid of things and is untidy. It is his house too. I do my best to organise but have to accept that we both live here and that my preferences aren't any more 'right' than his.

You do have my sympathy as my own DH can be very similar. He's rather a hoarder and rarely gets rid of anything. I am a would be minimalist.

At the moment we are managing to keep the majority of his stuff in two areas of the house - his "study" (man cave) upstairs and in what used to be the garage.

Containment that way is what preserves my sanity.

My ex was like this, her flat was like a warehouse, it drove me up the wall. One of the many reasons I could never have lived with her is because of her hoarding tendencies. She did actually get a little better at chucking away old crap, but left to her own devices things would just build back up. I don’t think she wanted to live like that, she didn’t want to be drowning in crap, she just couldn’t seem to help it. She does have ADHD as well, which probably doesn’t help. I think it’s very difficult for a hoarder to change, like PP have said, it fulfills some sort of emotional need. I couldn’t live with it though, I think it would make me depressed.

As an 'emotional hoarder' this post is great.

I have to admit that some of the posts on this thread make me feel physically sick. The thought of things of mine being thrown out behind my back - no no no! Those of you who pursue that strategy will find it backfires on you big time.

I know what I need is help organising what I have; part of the reason my house is in a terrible muddle is that my partner doesn't share my need for organisation and when I've asked him to help he doesn't seem to understand how to. And then I get too overwhelmed to be able to start setting up what I want so it will work. He likes to have occasional big sort-outs, and do it on his own because "that's more efficient". Well it isn't when he's piling stuff that's mine willy nilly together when there were supposed to be places it could belong. Like the time a new bookcase got filled with random books after I'd told him I wanted to sort things onto it carefully so our teenagers could see and use what we had.

I would strongly recommend to many of you, that instead of offering to help declutter / get rid / etc, you focus on, can I help you organise some of this stuff so that it has a place to go? Then, depending on your situation, your collector/prcrastinator/hoarder, will be able to discard some rubbish as they go along, see duplication when it exists, and begin to focus on what is really worth keeping. They will also be able to trust you to respect their feelings for stuff, which will help them be able to do more sorting out than when they start to panic every time they see you going into tidy-up-and-throw-out mode.

Minimalist is the current trend, like the colour grey, and bifold doors but it won’t always be.

You sound a bit judgemental. You thinking someone else’s stuff is crap doesn’t make it so. I bet you don’t think that about the man minimal amount of things you have chosen to keep and use yourself.

If you live with someone you need to both compromise so that you are both happy with the way you are living your lives.

Its not necessary true in your case but, as you have pointed out with your DPs childhood, some people use stuff (what can be kept, what is given emotional value) as a way to control and abuse others.

My DH has a very specific hoard, citadel miniatures (and a few other brands) he's been collecting since he was 16. He shipped a huge amount here from Canada when he moved here, and he just keeps buying more!
We just bought a house, and the models have filled a wardrobe in our bedroom, the shed, and the utility room (which I was hoping to use for food storage due to having hardly any kitchen cupboards).
He's crammed so many boxes into the shed the lawn mower has to live in the utility room on the only available bit of floor and be carried through the kitchen to cut the lawn. And he keeps buying more despite being told one in, one out.
Meanwhile all my hobby stuff fits in a wardrobe matching the size of his, and I don't buy more until I use something up.

I could honestly cry reading this, it's really helped me. Other threads I've seen on here on hoarding disorder have mostly amounted to 'LTB, he'll never change' and so on. Really interesting to hear from a hoarders' point of view too. I live with a hoarder and although he's improved a bit since I've moved in, it's still not ideal and there's a lot of stuff not dealt with which will come to a head when we move. Dreading that...

I do believe it's a mental health disorder but I can only guess at what triggered it in DP, he won't discuss it and I can't ever imagine he'd ever get proper help which is frustrating in the extreme. I'm the complete opposite, very focused on what I can pro actively do to solve my problems.

It's so reassuring to hear there are people who feel as infuriated and defeated as I do sometimes!

He needs a man cave

I'm doing this just now with my 13 year old nephew! I cleared a room (or space) and filled a box at a time and said keep or sell. He sorted through the box and put it in piles. Not going to lie it's not a fast way but its working. And if you know things he won't miss just chuck them!! Leave it out abvious and if he doesn't touch it bin it. Donate you clothes and put a few extra of his in ect clear it yourself I do this with my partner he has never noticed in 15 years xx

Sounds you have broader problem than just stuff. And many ideas in this thread sounds awful and disrespectful.

What is wrong with having games or books on display? It is relevant part of life and living room is for living, not for being a sterile.

What helped in our home was zoning. We have a fixed number of shelfs for books in the living room - and if we buy more books, some have to move to storage room. We have one part of the kitchen top for relevant things and one clear for work.
For "memory stuff" it is similar, there is a space for some of them and we can replace and store/reduce quantity when the place is full.

I suppose it is valid to want to have a "clean view" - one corner/area which looks your way. Have a box for "stuff that needs sorting" - everything which remains at designated empty area can be moved there...