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?

i totally get your urge to just clear out without the obstacles of making secondary decisions about how to dispose of all the stuff. But I think it IS a bit wasteful to just send it all to landfill.

You have a plan to get a skip, so why not have a plan to use one of these collection services instead.

I didn’t know they were a thing until this thread and now I’m very motivated to do the clear-out I’ve been putting off because I get overwhelmed thinking about what to do with all the donations.

It’s fine to skip it but it realistic to fill a skip in a weekend? That’s a lot of work.

Absolutely 100% agree with this.

I have been clearing my house for the last 3 months. Found exactly the same.

Agree with this.

My mum is a hoarder so I really try to resist stuff in reaction to that.

If something is broadly good quality/ I can see it being useful to someone I will advertise on freecycle or whatever but if the first person who plans to get it doesn’t turn up it goes.

Your house is functionally acting as a landfill for the stuff at the moment, at least in an actual landfill they may be able to incinerate parts of it.

This is one reason why I'm asking for no presents this Christmas. I just don't have room for anything else & there's nothing I need. Last year OH & DDs went over the top with presents for me and I actually wanted to cry

Skips aren’t really meant for clothes, old VHS and crap you’ve accumulated.

I have only hired a skip when having significant building work.

I would do tip runs for the next few weeks, few charity shop runs and binning in the recycling : normal bin.

Skip day is the best day! Don't think about it for another second and book the skip!!

Those hippo bags have a 6 month collection window. Not cheap though (cheaper than a skip).

Charity, a lot will come collect which is cheaper than hiring a skip. Just chose the charity wisely. We had loads taken from FILs house and had a free lecture about how wonderful Jesus Christ was, lasted about an hour, the amount of time they were there. Fine being religious, not fine lecturing!

It probably won't work unless you come up with an alternative! Ask for a family day out or a meal?

Just stop buying unnecessary crap going forward, recycle more, use less single use plastics etc etc

Many people went through a stage of buying new stuff and then throwing it away eg Xmas decorations - but I think most people have stopped doing that now.

At the moment charity shops are overwhelmed with donations but I can see in a couple of years it not being like that.

I think we’ll go back to buying longer lasting items and reusing things.
Everyone I know buys things second hand, which used to be seen as embarrassing but now it’s normal.

Have a clear out now and just promise yourself that it won’t need to happen again.

Easily fill a skip in a weekend. I’m giving myself a day for the garage, but then again for the garage it’s just “lift and shift” to the skip, I’m not going through anything.

If it's your stuff, you can do what you wish with it. Sorting possessions and disposing of them in batches can use up a lot of time and energy which might be better used for other things. If getting a skip would be the best course for your mental health and wellbeing, do it as soon as possible.

Omg do it and document it for us. That's honestly my dream. I have the soul of a minimalist with the heart, mind and home of a clutterbug and it's my absolute dream to hire a skip and just empty three quarters of my house into it 😍

Don’t put it in landfill! It would be unmanageable if everyone did that! Charity or licensed house clearances. Anything but landfill.

A skip would be an immediate fix, and I get thta you have too much on, but re the environmental impact that you are considering, what if you set aside the weeks now leading up to, say, the first week of december, doing a slow and ocnsidered clear out and deep clean, so that by December you home was clean and fresh and decluttered and ready for the holidays. That gives you time to think through what to keep, where it gets stored, what goes to charity shops, what goes to the tip. It takes longer, but gives your mind time for a proper change of habit. A skip is helpful when the need is immediate, but otherwise it's like a crash diet, you'll just keep the habits that got you into this state of thigns.

We have local companies that have skip hire and aim to recycle everything in it. A quick look suggests these ones are a little more expensive than others that say nothing about the environment on their websites, but this might be worth checking out.

It will work for me. The others cando presents if they want & find homes for them. I will also buy presents for them but ensure it's something they actually need

And if they take it and can’t get rid of it, where will it end up? Landfill. Just as easy to cut them out and get the job out the way.

As others have said, hiring a skip doesn't mean you get to avoid the sorting process.
Every single item needs to be picked up, and a decision made 'skip or keep'.

You could just grab armfuls of clothes out of the wardrobes and drawers, but what if you accidentally bin some of your favourites that you still wear? If you have an overflowing underwear drawer, you still need to sort it, item by item, you can't just bin the lot then be left with no underwear.
You could just chuck piles of paper in the skip, but what if you accidentally bin something important? And what about the risk of identity theft or scamming if too much personal information goes into the skip?
You could just chuck mountains of toys into the skip, but what if some of it was really sentimental to your DC?

No matter the method of getting stuff taken away, there is still a sorting and decision-making process that can't be avoided.
It is the decision-making that is so daunting. 'Decision fatigue' is a well known phenomenon.

You do realise that everything goes to landfill in the end.
Everything, except maybe a tiny, tiny, tiny, miniscule proportion of stuff that ends up in museums or antique collections.
The rest is all landfill.
It is just a matter of how many hands it passes through on the way to landfill.

I did a huge clearout and found a charity warehouse type place that took 3 bootfulls of our stuff over a couple of months. They were much less fussy than our local small shops.

Then no mercy to landfill.

It’s worth having a look at anything worth selling.

I got £1k from selling various bits and bobs on Vinted and Cex recently. Then once you’ve gone through the house and are sure there is nothing valuable it’s much easier to stick everything else in bin bags.

Never bothered selling anything before and it was quite easy as long as you price things well.

Do you live some where that gets through traffic. I used to live on a main road. When we were moving I put a free sign up and put toys, bikes etc outside. The lot went by the end of the day. I've done it with runner bean plants as well.

Im a minimalist, I hate clutter.