Would I be awful to get a skip and clear out?

[OnAMatOopEre]

Every cupboard, drawer and other available space in the house is just crammed with stuff. Not like absolute hoarders but I could see it looking that way in a few more years.

So im thinking about hiring a skip and having a massive no-mercy clear out. However, there's probably quite a lot of stuff of all sorts of genres that would either fetch a small amount on selling sites or would benefit someone on free cycle etc but... I just dont have the time or the energy to list things, negotiate with buyers, wait for them to turnup etc.

Theres a lot of clothes/bedding and the likes, and these I will send to charity, but for everything else - am i a bad person if I just get a skip? And just lighten my mental load as well as the physical? I feel like I cant breathe. Am I awful to send it all to landfill?

there may be jumble sales coming up?

I splashed out on a massive skip a couple of weeks ago, took 2 days off work and cleared out my loft, garage and shed of 20 years of stuff! It was expensive but worth every penny. I sold a couple of things on Facebook, took some cuddly toys and clothes to charity shop , recycled cardboard boxes etc but most of it was rubbish and so cathartic to get rid of it all. Do it…you wont regret it!

I’m doing this with our garage. It’s been a shit pit for 20 years and a dumping ground. I’ve had enough of it, so in will come a skip and 99% will go in the skip, regardless of what it is.

I don’t have the time or inclination to go through it and charity shop certain things. In the skip and it’s then taken away, job done.

it’s all going to end up as landfill anyway OP. If you clear it via skip, or tenderly find a new home for each piece, ultimately it’s all landfill.

great suggestions here. But don’t get too caught up in complex solutions that aren’t helpful.

the over consumption has already occurred- keeping everything in your house is simply delaying the inevitable & making you unhappy & stressed. This stuff can rest at yours or rest elsewhere but it’s all ending up in the bin anyway.

be sure to address the habits that bring stuff into your home.

Where I live it’s really normal for people to leave stuff thats decent but they no longer want out on the pavement in front of their house. Everyone knows that if it’s out then it’s available for anyone who wants it and stuff disappears in minutes. Put a drum kit out once that was old and needed full re-skinning and cleaning up. It was being walked away before I got back in through the front door. If you’re area is similar then that can be a great way to get rid of bigger items free of charge.

I agree completely @RobinEllacotStrike

Thereve been a number of cases of licensed skip firms just dumping the skip contents in unofficial unlicensed dumps, often resulting in prolonged fires, pollution etc. You can’t assume every skip firm will pore over the contents and sort into recycling.

If you don’t mind, I could recommend a few things I did when I did a huge monster declutter, which reduced my stuff by about 50%.

The main thing was getting things moving, so I dedicated a space where everything went as it was declutter, which was like a holding space, and everything in that holding space had to go at a certain point, in my case it was the weekend, when my partner and I distributed things to their places.

Places that things went…

The tip, and into the recycling. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of stuff for that. But there was a bit!

I went on the Oxfam website where you order enormous bags, (free) and then you post them, it explains what they take on their website, if you google donate to Oxfam by post, and then they will send the bags out to you, I would do that sooner rather than later. I packed about five enormous bags full of bits of everything really, good stuff that I knew they would either be able to recycle, or sell.

Clothes went to those clothing banks, if I didn’t think they had much life left in them. Most of those clothing banks, again if you Google, will be sending stuff to be recycled fabric rather than using them as clothes. So don’t be shy about marking up a bag as a rag bag, if you think things are on their last legs.

I then checked out local churches, as a lot of local churches collected quite random things for various charities abroad. One of our local charities collected gardening tools, as well as DIY tools, old and broken mobile phones, and spectacles. Which was a really good way of getting rid of old subscriptions, there was simply just a box in the church at the back, where you could put things. That was really useful.

Then there was of course conventional charity shops.

I know there was also food banks for any food which was in date, and had a value such as excess bags of pasta, or tins, probably a bit less irrelevant.

If you look around your local area, you might find toy banks as well, as well as those book boxes on the corner of the street, where you can put secondhand books.

also, the local tip took a surprising amount of things like DVDs, books, videos, et cetera. So worth scouting your local tip as well.

Our Salvation Army shop also does collection for large items of Furniture, provided they pass by safety et cetera, so that was a good way of getting rid of that. Again that does require a bit of a holding area though!

Final mention was for book donation, I can’t remember which site I used, but all of my books, DVDs and CDs I scanned very easily using an app, and I ended up making about £70, again you boxed stuff up, but it’s free postage, when you get paid really easily.

if you have any higher value of items or shoes, I would use thrift plus as well. You’ll get barely anything back, but again it’s all about putting stuff back into the system for reuse.

I would put your top layer of stuff in these places so it can be reused. And then think of the skip for things which are more like rubbish, or when you get to the very bottom layer.

It takes a bit of organising, but I would do it a bit by bit. And honestly, I can’t recommend the ox farm donation thing highly enough, it was really easy to post and free.

Good luck!

I bloody love having a skip.

Just do it OP.

Very hard no on free cycle or selling it the conventional way though. An absolute complete pain in the arse. But if you’re not motivated by money, there’s no point. Don’t put additional barriers in your way, the additional listing, getting interest in navigating replies might just not be worth it mentally.

Worth doing some research first then I guess, to find a reputable one. This is what I was told when I used a clearance company.

Sorry 0P just another one for me, also unopened hygiene products, boots hygiene banks. They also might be somewhere that you can post things like that too.

There was also a charity called pens for Africa, who took good secondhand, and new pens, I had so many pens!! Again, I posted, I did pay for postage on that.

To me that sound worse tbh.

If you've let clutter and stuff gradually build, it usually can't just be swept en masse into a binbag - because there will be some stuff you genuinely need or want or treasure mixed in with the crap. It's not just chucking, it's sorting. The thought of having to do it all in the short space of time I had a skip would tip me over the edge.

Getting rid of stuff is hugely cathartic but I wouldn't underestimate how much time just one thing takes.

For us, a couple of months ago it was clothes was the worst thing. Fucking everywhere, all wardrobes were crammed with too-small things (dc), stuff off hangers on the floor, my dining table was almost to the ceiling with clean dry stuff I couldn't put away quickly because inside our cupboards had got out of hand. It took us an entire weekend but we did it properly - every single wardrobe was emptied, every item looked at, full huge airing cupboard sorted with 50% chucked.

It was 'just' one thing but it made the entire house function so much better and the relief was immense.

I would pick one thing. Do all the clothes. Or 'just' one entire room. But do it so properly that it takes a weekend. You'll feel amazing. Then do it again and every weekend you do it, the benefit will be cumulative and it will just get better.

If it were, and it has been in the past, I’d find the time to do it slowly in an organised way. Sell the stuff that’s sellable, ie clothes, toys, cds, in bundles on eBay or local Facebook pages, create storage spaces, ie shelves for photo albums, drawers for stationery, batteries and tools, a cupboard for cleaning products etc. Make piles of decent stuff for charity shops, unsellable old clothes/materials/shoes can go in a Salvation Army collection point. If you are anywhere near a Uni, they often have containers near the accommodation blocks at end of year for the unwanted bedding and kitchen stuff to be left for resale to the new intake by student union or for recycling. We make at least £1k per year selling unwanted stuff on eBay and Facebook and we’re not impulsive spenders - we always resell books and dvds as soon as we’ve read or watched them whilst they are still popular and have value. Likewise clothes that we’ve grown out of or otherwise have no use for. You’d be amazed what people will buy - we once sold two ramshackle sheds that were rotten and falling down- bonus was that the buyer came to dismantle and take away leaving us not having todo it ourselves nor pay for a skip! We only go to the tip maybe once a year with a few odd things, and only rent a skip when doing major houser garden renovation. Putting anything into landfill is the last resort for us - we always try to donate or sell things first.

It would be cheaper to hire a van for a day and take it all to the car boot with signs saying everything is free.

We did this but it always included stuff in the garage/garden shed so slightly too big or awkward to bring to the tip in person.

It's quite freeing to just dump things. I tired advertising but it never goes anywhere, time wasters or no-show.
Some things like toys we leave in our drive way on a dry day as we are on route to a primary school and it's quite the norm. Out in the morning, in at night and maybe one more day and after that it's binned if not taken.

We book a slot at the tip sometimes as well and fill the car, our tip is luckily easy to reach, the booking system is great and they are very organised what goes where.

Trouble is they seem respectable if they’re licensed. It’s often years later when you find they’ve been illegally dumping.

Such as

https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/emergency-incident/former-a1-supa-skips-director-sentenced-after-illegal-waste-storage-led-to-major-blaze-in-lancaster-5276734

When I want to get rid of stuff I take some of it to local charity shops (if it is in good condition only) and advertise on Freegle.

It really should not be that much trouble.

You could also have a one off car boot sale if you have a front garden.

I think it is a bit silly to hire a skip and you will end up with other people dumping their rubbish in it as well.

I too am a skip fan and I try to only put proper rubbish in it but often things are still taken (which is brilliant). I do get your need to just rid, it's overwhelming.

When I helped my friend clear his late mother's entire house we did it in 2 days. Clothing went to a charity shop, proper junk went into a skip, we advertised everything else on FB for free and left it on the drive. By the morning of day 3 even the skip was half empty and all we put in there was TVs and mattresses and random junk.

I know it seems like a lot of work but might this be a plan? You don't have to hang around for people to pick stuff up (but we were there anyway).

Where I live people just put stuff out the front with a free sign. I have got rid of cupboards, chairs, bedside cabinets and gained a leaf blower and a shoe rack.

That's the best part people take things out so you can fit more in.

Before I have a just put everything together take a photo box it put on ebay as a carboot sale job lot as an auction It's surprising how much they can go for and they come and get it.

This is absolutely what people should do, but if OP is anything like me it will never ever happen. I feel my brain running away screaming just reading that!
Get the skip Op. Once you've done it, you can be more careful about taking things to charity or selling them when the amounts are no longer overwhelming.
Just don't bin any birth certificates or things like that!

I think what's important here is that you harness the energy. What you do and how you do it is up to you. If you just need a skip (or a Hippo bag?) to get it into, do that. But the energy bit is important. Do what you need to do to feel better.

I'm another one to say bin the lot.

Trying to organize for charity, selling and giving away is great if you've got a little, but if you are in danger of being in the hoarding category then you only add to mental load by creating the extra work of sorting and categorizing and that encourages procrastination and avoidance, ime.