Advice for decluttering before a move & overcoming hoarding tendancies

[MyFluentOliveGoose]

I'm posting hoping to hear from people who have successfully managed to do a major house clear out & declutter whilst overcoming their hoarding tenancies. I will soon be moving in with my partner, we're buying something together.

I'll be leaving my terraced house I've been in for 15 years where I've bought up a child as a single parent. I'm early 40s and have overcome poverty, homelessness and trauma in my life and have managed to build a good life and career for myself. I remember when my child was v. young me only having 3 pairs of footwear, 2 with holes in, my coat was ripped and my glasses actually held together with sellotape and I had to use a food bank. I'm now living in abundance, I have LK Bennett boots, cashmere and and fancy handbags spilling out of cupboards but I can't seem to get rid of anything.

I did a major clear out last year that resulted in 10 black sacks full of clothes. I was so pleased with my achievement it had taken me back to back weeks off work to achieve that. When DP came over and saw bags in living room ready to be taken to charity shop he (definate hoarding tenancies too and a great partner in general) got upset and begged me to just sell them on Vinted instead as its 'such a waste'. Bags are now in shed.

This month I've started decluttering kitchen and have boxes of food and tins ect from my covid era hoarding spike. All out of date. DP wanted me to keep those too saying they should be ok to eat. I've ignored that loaded it all into my car and taken to the tip. Tip had a massive queue and then closed it's gates so I now have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I have 2 huge boxes of kitchenware eg jelly moulds, empty biscuit tins, plastic kitchenware I've replaced with pyrex ect. to work out what to do with.

I just find it so hard and wonder how others manage it? It's random things like my child dedided to take my yoga mat camping and it got a bit damaged so I got a new yoga mat but can't get rid of the old one as it seems useful for beach trips.

Also, selling all those clothes on Vinted is going take ages I'll need weeks to put it all up to sell. I've also got a loft and 2 sheds full of crap eg. broken bikes, tents, old furniture after decor changes ect.

I'm so overwhelmed and need to hear from people that have been through similar and managed to sort it. We will have a garage in the new house so plan to put things there and try to gradually sell / get rid of.

I just need to do the decluttering. I feel so much shame and I also feel guilty to myself and my loved ones for having to spend so much time (so much annual leave and weekends) and energy to deal with all this physical stuff that's somehow been accumulated. I don't want to spend yet more money on this.

I identify with your examples so much!!

I leave knick-knacks on the front wall occasionally, with a sign saying “free to a good home” and loads gets taken. Books get put in a ‘little free library’ box next to my work.

I take cheaper clothes to the clothing bins at the supermarket, mid range stuff goes to the charity shop (if you’re on social media look for appeals from homeless shelters, women’s aid etc, I’ve started washing and bagging up winter wear as I know there’ll be a request for coats and scarves soon) and put the sellable items on Vinted/Ebay or give to friends.

I still have boxes of stuff I can’t let go of though. It is ridiculous.

Re cots and prams: we kept the ones we bought for our DD. Used them for 2nd DC. 25 years later, with a GC on the way, not only did DC not want either, we even discovered that there were fixings missing from the cot! What a waste of space keeping them had been.

You're showing a great example, OP, keep going!

My I add that - thanks to the Martin Lewis site - I have found out that this is even more beneficial to those of us in Scotland.

The rules take account of the fact that we pay more tax in Scotland. I didn't know this.

I've paid the Intermediate Rate for a few years now 21%, I think. We can claim if we're paying that. Also, the Higher Rate for Scotland kicks in sooner than the rest of the UK and we pay 42%. (It's still the old 40 something threshold for us.)

Now that I have my State Pension, I hit the Scottish Higher Rate for a small amount of my income.

ETA Barnardo's sends me an end of tax year email stating how much my items sold for.

I don’t have hoarding issues but I did move house after quite a long time, so had plenty to go through. I started very early-as soon as the house was being prepared for sale, and I did each room methodically. Then when I was packing to leave, a month in advance, I got rid of more. It also meant I was very organised around the move, which was great (per room, every box numbered and with room it was intended for, plus a master log of all of it). Doing it this way made it easy to take stuff to charity or the city dump, or donate etc, as there was enough time to fit it all in.

In your shoes my advice is 1. Don’t involve your boyfriend in any of these decisions he is a bad influence 2. Either pay someone to do the Vinted admin for you (lots of companies will sell your stuff online for you for half the profit, there are designer specialists too) or just go ahead and gift to charity - this is not ‘a waste’ this is you making a really generous charity donation. If you liked a cause and you were happy to donate £500 to it would you listen to someone saying this is a waste and you should instead do loads of being admin over weeks to try and keep £500 for yourself instead? Of course not. 3. Start in reverse. Put aside or in one room all your absolute favourites that you are so sure you want to bring to your new life. Keep the not certain stuff in another room. See how you feel in both spaces. I’ve actually done this, I’ve moved before selling y flat and have only brought my nice clothes and shoes and cookware with me and I don’t really miss anything that is still at my flat. You could use this method with your storage unit if you can’t bin it.

I’ve just joined a hoarding support group, it’s once a month and I’ve only been once so far, but the people are lovely, very non judgemental and genuinely a pleasure to be around. I wonder if you’re hoarding is partly ‘object emotional attachment’ - mine definitely is. For example, our tin opener is ancient (still works fine though), but I refuse to get a newer version, as I’ll feel like I have to get rid of my current one, that belonged to my grandma, given to my mum and then given to me 🤣 there’s no way I want to do that, so I hang onto ‘old fashioned’ things often. I don’t have any advice, sorry. Just wanted to offer a bit of solidarity.

If the food is still edible and just past it's best before date, couldn't you offer on Freecycle or don't dump it sites. I hate the idea of food being thrown away.

That sounds very familiar.

Involve as few people as possible.

Make a decision once and then get rid quickly. Leave no opportunity to change your mind.

Unless you are very skint, set a limit for selling. I will attempt to sell anything I could realistically get £50 for. Anything else (and honestly that’s most stuff) just get rid.

Anglo collections are fab. Hippo bags are also great if you have the cash - they recycle what they can and it’s much cheaper than a skip.

Do one room at a time. An empty drawer or shelf really is one of life’s luxuries. Flick through one of those fancy homes and gardens type magazines- those swanky pads are not piled up with crap and carrier bags full of crap in every cupboard. Folks snooping on rightmove are properly gawping at the hoarder houses. Believe in the aspirational affluence of less stuff and see if that helps you move on from your impoverished past.

Make sure that DP of yours doesn’t turn ‘self-improvement’ into ‘trying to improve YOU’.

Vinted will always be there. If you need the money pull out and decent brands, but I would say the focus right now is decluttering and moving!

I don’t think you’ve got time for vinted as well as decluttering and moving. Sounds like space / stuff is more urgent than cash right now. Get it all in the car boot and take it straight there the same day you sort it out. My top hoarder tendency tip is to factor in the time to ACTUALLY dispose of the stuff you clear out, same day. Do it, and take it. Doesn’t matter if it’s less than you’d get by building it up.

My other tip (risky!) is that I’ve always been better at decluttering when I actually move into somewhere. Filling up the nice new cupboards, I suddenly don’t want to put my messy clutter in there. Taking it away from its lurking permahome exposes it for the nonsense it really is!

Congratulations on overcoming such massive hardships op which proves that you can do hard things like the massive decluttering and moving job you have ahead of you.

A few tips:

Be ruthless. Everything you own costs you time and space and peace of mind.

Get rid of all duplicates. anything broken or damaged, any food that is out of date, anything that belongs to a past era of life, eg clothes from a previous job, anything that you wouldn’t bother to wash if it was contaminated by mouse droppings. When you are unsure about whether to keep something, let it go. Only pack the definite keeps! No “maybes” allowed.

You and your dp, by the sound of it, need to come together and lay out some ground rules and a clear strategy. The contents of two houses can’t fit in to one. You need to declutter by at least half, and he does too!
Keep it minimal. In twenty years or so you will be down-sizing and trying to get rid of it all again!

Allow the storage space and furniture in your new home to define and limit the number of items that you transfer over, eg fit your books to the available book shelves, the pans to the pan drawers, each person to have one wardrobe and one chest of drawers each and that’s it, only bring over the bed linen and towels that fit under your bed or in the linen cupboard.

Good luck 💐

Get help. A friend of mine is a professional declutterer and does work for the council with hoarders. She’s trained in psychology so knows you don’t just go in and chuck stuff out. But she also works with people just need the extra help; I met her when I needed to declutter in preparation for moving into a house half the size of my old one. She will also sell your stuff (on eBay, taking a cut), and that helped pay for her services. So do not discount the help that’s available, obviously at a cost, but it really focusses you.

The price has gone up quite a bit recently hence me agreeing to try to get rid of some stuff. It's about 1/3 empty now. The first few years it was about half the price it is today so not quite so much money spent as almost £I3k I guess, but I know it's bad. DH stores a lot of his tools there too big things like trolley jacks etc.

Hire a small skip is my advice. Saves time going to the tip and you are far less likely to procrastinate on throwing things out.

Following for inspiration.

Have you watched "Sort your life out" OP? I always find that spurs me on.

If I haven't used something in 6 months it gets thrown away

But why would you get rid of it if it works fine? I am presuming it is your only opener not one in a huge collection. That just seems lovely to have. DOI have a few things from grandparents on both sides in our kitchen!

This is essentially the container concept used by Dana K White and it works brilliantly. Always go back to her book “A slob comes clean” if I need a bit of inspiration. The cowboy boots always make me laugh out loud too!

I second the suggestion to pay someone to help you.
Professional organisers will help coordinate off-loading responsibly and many will sell things on vinted/ebay on your behalf - it does sound like you could cover some costs by doing this if you have decent branded high end clothing/bags.
It also gives work to another woman (it's nearly always women who do this).

I have moved from a 5 bed house after a long time and dealing with all the accumulated stuff was a proper job for a few months (I am self employed so could do this).
Good luck.

How much storage does your new house have? Because ideally you want way more storage than stuff.

My dh has a tendency to hold onto things he believes 'might be useful' one day which i view as total junk (like a desktop computer from 2003, golf clubs he hasnt used for 20 years, a broken tent, the cardboard box the tv came in etc). When we moved in together I was very aware our house had loads of built in storage, but i was equally aware I didn't want him filling it with 'stuff'. So we decided that the garage was his to fill as he wanted, but none of it could be kept in the house (not even the attic). 14 years later our garage is overflowing but my attic and cupboards under the stairs remain empty.

In your new place could you put a similar boundary in place for each of you? One designated storage space each (whether its a spare bedroom, garden shed, garage, whatever) and an agreement to not encroach on shared living space? Because if you get rid of most of your stuff but he then views it as having extra space for his stuff it will build resentment.

With the clothes that you've bagged up, offer them to your friend who sells on vinted (say she can keep 70% of the sale price, and you get 30%). She'll be doing the grunt work of listing, posting, checking messages etc. If she says thanks but no thanks then just charity shop them because dithering about with online sales just won't be worth it time wise.

Dh and I have a fab relationship, despite him liking to hold onto things and my love of having a clear and clean house. I quite often do tip runs to get rid of kids stuff and general build up of clutter and will check with him if he wants his various bits taken to the tip or chucked in the garage. As the garage is now filling up to almost full, he is muttering about maybe clearing it out one day and I'm quietly hopeful that it will happen in the next year or so (although im equally aware that the empty space will be tempting to fill with more things that he believes might be useful one day and the cycle will continue)

I found it really helpful to stop overeating by realising that by eating more food than was good for me to "save it" from the bin, I was just using my body as a bin. It's the same with living with your rubbish to somehow save it from being thrown away.

Don't use your body as a bin. Don't use your house as a bin. Don't live in your bin!

I’m also trying to declutter! I have time at the moment but set myself a daily limit of decluttering 5 items daily. I’m becoming better at it. Once things are in a bag they need to go as I have this urge to remove things as they will come in handy. My partner will take it to the charity shop / recycling before the pile to go is to big because I have the urge to take it back from the bag in case …. I’m fully aware it is illogical. Upstairs is a huge huge improvement- I love the space.

This..

My empathy OP.

I'm peak sorting stuff out.. Am sick to the teeth of it! 😂

Been living with elderly dad who recently died... There is LOADS of storage... All full to brim. As well as lots of my stuff that I just hadn't been able tonput away as dad's stuff packed every square inch.

Partner and I hace very different ideas re binning /recycling stuff... I'm more ruthless... He wants to keep plenty of stuff esp tools... 'just in case'... I don't...