House mice and DH

I'm sorry OP that's exactly what a hoarder would say and they always get super angry when anyone threatens to remove their hoard.
You are deluding yourself and need psychiatric help. Hoarding can really destroy families.
There are different grades of hoarding. It doesn't mean your rooms are filled to the rafters with old newspapers.

No employer is going to let you have 3 months off but maybe sacrificing a couple of days in the new year to have a long weekend to do it might not be a bad idea.

Now, you need to have a clear route for everything that you sort as in bin, donate or keep.

Anything you do keep must be kept somewhere practical as yes, it's lovely to keep 500 photos but not if you end up storing them on the dining room table for 3 months whilst more clutter accumulates around the pile.

When you say stuff could be useful to people do you mean for those in your house like hand me down clothes amongst the kids or are you talking about the screwdriver set you've had for years and never actually used??

A lot of useful stuff can be donated so just get rid of it. Find your local charity shop and incorporate in to your school run or on the way to work or even taking the kids swimming. There's charity shop next to the sports centre where we go swimming, so I take a bag full of donations with me when I need to.

Even joining your local Facebook community page to give stuff can clear a bit.

Throw things away, bag it up, and in the bin it goes, especially the day before bin collection day, if you have space still in the bin, grab a bag, fill it and out the house it goes.

Don't feel guilty about throwing stuff out or donating it, because look at the grief its now causing you. All this stuff is really weighing you down mentally, is it really worth it?

You can do this but it will take time, Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.

It is far more difficult for the non-hoarder to declutter everything before a move, however much they want to. We moved about eighteen months ago and l had had a massive decluttering session of my things, but DH could not make any decisions about his belongings. In some ways, it was actually easier for me to sort through things after we moved as I was able to put everything we wanted/needed to keep where I thought they should go. Everything else either went to charity shops or DH took to the tip. I had to make sure that he didn't know what was in a' lot of the bin bags. We have a lovely, tidy home now and DH loves it, but I have to go behind him, picking up items he discards and forgets. @HugeDeal, it sounds very much as if you are a hoarder and it is too overwhelming for you to deal with your belongings. Hoarding is considered to be an addiction and can be helped. A characteristic of hoarders is that, like you, they cannot decide what stays and what goes so that when they are supposed to be sorting things out, they spend hours moving them from one pile to another. This is called churning. My advice to you would be to let your husband make the decisions about what is kept and what is discarded. Also, a very good book on the topic is Buried in Treasures. I could recommend this for both of you to read.

If he can't contribute to the solution, he dosen't get to complain about the problem.

Yes, Dana White all the way!

you could also watch Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out, and see if you recognise your thoughts processes in any of the families.

Also have a look at the long-running decluttering and hoarding threads. Something there may resonate with you. Posters there often suggest how to dispose of items in the least painful way.

For myself, I’m well aware of why I’m fearful of disposing of anything, and at the same time I have to create as normal as possible environment for other family members.

So I have a sorting corner where I tackle one box, tub, container, at a time. It becomes a daily habit and part of my routine while listening to a podcast.

He throws his stuff away and helps you with the children's stuff so for example you have very clear guidelines ie all clothing that is x size or smaller can go all shoes smaller than x size can go etc etc

Other than that, you need fast sorting strategies, empty boxes "keep" "throw" if your really struggling. Have a third "think about" and go head on at it

But don't let him badger you because that makes things difficult

Sorry but you really do sound like a Hoarder.

You don't need to sit and ponder whether to chuck something or not - you see what it is and decide to chuck or not in, literally, a second.

It sounds like hoarding, yes. Moving house is known to be incredibly stressful so it is very hard to dehoard around the same time.

People saying 'just throw it away' are being unhelpful - if it was that simple for a hoarder to do, they'd do it.

Talk to your husband, explain you want to tackle it but need some help, then get the help.

Good luck!

Just throw the shit away, you will feel better once it's gone. It doesn't take ages, you need it or you don't. One pile donate, one pile bin. Get it done, be ruthless. You do sound like a hoarder in denial.

MIL is a hoarder. It’s infuriating listening to her debate every little thing before putting it in the bin and not even starting to tackle the problem.

Im with your DH. It should not need 3 months to throw some rubbish away, if you haven’t used it in the last year and it’s not hugely sentimental- bin!

You absolutely are a hoarder and you are likely driving your husband mad. Get a skip and put everything you don’t use in it. Half packet of curtain hooks…bin them. Children’s toys, books, dvds. Bin bin bin. It doesn’t matter that they may be useful to someone else. It is clutter. Put it all in the bin

Yeah I was going to suggest keeping the mice & getting rid of the DH!

How to say you know nothing about 'hoarding ' without saying you know nothing about hoarding

@HugeDeal

listen to as much as you can by Dana K White, she is brilliant. If you follow her method, you NEVER make things worse and you NEVER just move stuff around. You can do 5 minutes and it's always BETTER.

she has loads free on YouTube, podcasts, Audible's etc etc she has books too (libraries stick them).

basically start by deciding the function of each room (not always as obvious as it seems.

Everything that's staying has to have 'a home'.

Have a rubbish bag (and recycling bag/box) and a donatable donate box (so not a container you want to keep)

start in an area that's visible (the area that people entering your house will see first is best) look for easy rubbish(we'll just call it rubbish- rubbish & recycling) things that are obvious & not things you have to think about.

next put away things that 'have a home in another room'. Presumably as you've not unpacked much there will be space in the correct place for everything (at this stage).

If you're interested look her up or I can blather on about her method for ages if you want a hand to hold.

DH just chucking stuff out is not helpful for any of you.

To add I am also a hoarder of memories (until recently) I have literally all of my DD's baby clothes in the loft and probably every picture they've ever drawn.

I find it's easier if you have somewhere to put the stuff you don't want anymore rather than just creating more piles. Get some big boxes label them 'chuck' 'charity' 'keep' and work through it. Once a box is full shove it in the car and take it where it needs to go. I think the thought of having 'stuff' everywhere is half the problem.

Absolutely. And the idea that @HugeDeal has to check everything before it's thrown away and that's there's years of clutter.

Your dh doesn't have patience for it because he doesn't want to ponder over every cable or whatever it is you're authorising the binning of. For ot all to have to go through one person is the slowest way of doing it and relies on that person having the will to do it.

He could do more with the kids to free your time up?

Kindly, I don't think your dh is entirely in the wrong here.

Moving house is the perfect opportunity to throw out/ sell/ gift all the stuff you don't need. Bringing it is a waste of time, money and space. Sounds like you're a bit of a hoarder.

Either way why did your dh not declutter before you moved if you find it difficult? Start by going through a box or two a week. Chances are if you haven't missed what's in the box (unless specifically seasonal) you don't need it.

TLDR- moving house is shit and my mental health has taken a battering. Just do it OP. You will feel better 💐

We just moved house and my husband is a hoarder. I was a bit terrified. I hate clutter and I untidyness. He isn't untidy but he doesn't use space. He has cupboards jam packed of useless items just stuffed in.

He packed all his "stuff"
I make sure to keep it separate
He did thrown 90%of the rubbish away (literal rubbish he was hoarding old newspapers and jars etc)

He has designated areas for his stuff. Family areas are not for storage.

We threw away more when we got here.

You just need to unpack and chuck. Get a skip
Put the boxes in the correct rooms

Letting go of the emotion of it being a waste of money and forgiving yourself for financial mistakes is the key to this.

Keep one memory box per person of a size of your choice.

Declutter 10 items per day per room.

You can do this OP!

@HugeDeal you had the energy to pack up all the clutter you bought with you. So it's doable.

My friend had a skip delivered. Everyone joined in the declutter marathon. Takeaway meal at night. Maybe a friend or relative can roll up their sleeves too.

The toys she put out with a help yourself sign. They vanished fast.

Are you really going to miss things you haven't seen in years? I'm going through something similar with my husband at the moment. He's been chucking stuff into the loft for the past decade (think empty boxes for electronics, ancient computers and phones, old pillows and duvets, offcuts of carpet which are too small to be useable). A lot of it came from his Mum over the years and she's since passed away, so there's all her 'could be useful one day' stuff as well as his to deal with. He'll 'sort through them one day' (which never happens) because let's face it, who wants to spend their day off going through boxes of crap and doing tip runs.

We now have no space to store things and find things which are actually useful like tools, decorating supplies etc. I constantly feel stressed from having to shift boxes and piles of junk around just to try to keep the house reasonably clean.

Obiviously, they'll be bits and pieces like photos, memoribilia etc which you'll want to keep, but realistically what percentage of the stuff would you say is that and how much is just junk that you could be rid of. Worst case scenario, you could buy it again in the future inexpensively if it turns out you made a mistake in getting rid of it?

This was the sentence for me that suggested hoarding…

On top of that I am terrible at throwing things away that could still be useful to someone else perhaps

Along with the fact that you said it would take 3 months to sort.

As you have no time to declutter, why can’t your DH do it?
It reads like you feel you have to do it all by yourself.
If you are worried he might throw away something you need or are attached to, then have him put items to be removed from the house in a big tote somewhere in the house so you can have a peek when it’s full before the items disappear.

For bigger clear outs, don’t under estimate the power of 1 hour, you and DH can do 1 hr each weekend focussed on 1 room or closet. A large room or garage would take a months worth of weekends.

Then set up an annual cycle where you both spend a few weeks going through each room, all your clothes and such and declutter have a clear out.

But if you get rid of things as you go along, you don’t need to go on a ‘mission’ to get rid of stuff.
Also, wouldn’t it have been just as easy to chuck stuff away pre move as it was to pack it all and move it to the new house?