To just throw the boxes away?

[Vinomcstephens]

first posting here and possibly more of a WWYD but I'm very interested in your thoughts please!

DP and I have moved several times in the last 5 years and each time we hoik boxes filled with, well, I've no idea what they're filled with, as we haven't opened and unpacked them at any time since the first move 5 years ago! They live under the stairs and if either of us had to, on pain of death, say what was in them, we'd be done for as we haven't got a clue. So, here's the thing: we're going to be moving again in 6 months and I think I'm brave enough to just bin them! No looking in them - if we've not missed what's in them for 5 years it clearly isn't anything of pressing importance. DP thinks I'm insane and that we will take them with us when we move even if we haven't opened them.

I know, I know, we could just stop being lazy and unpack the damn boxes but then I KNOW DP will consider everything in them to be essential and will clutter the house up with it all, whereas I'm more of a 'sod it we haven't got room' frame of mind. We haven't got any family jewels so I know they're not hidden at the bottom

So.....WWYD? Unpack? Throw out??

Throw out. Wish I had before we moved, we now have a full garage. Which was supposed to be demolished...

I would be having a look inside. There may be precious photos, exam certificates etc. I couldn't not look.

I'd have a look while DH was not around. If you can't see anything like birth certificates/ photos etc, just take them to the tip.

I'd look incase it's family photos baby boxes etc. Things you wouldn't think to look at for 5 years.

P.S. I've got drawers full of crap like this. I just want to chuck the lot but DH is a hoarder!

I would check what is in them, because otherwise you will wonder forevermore when you realise something you havent seen in a long time goes missing.. or you will see something and think "ooh I have that" and remember it was in the boxes.. that you threw out.

How long could it possibly take to check out the contents of a few boxes.

YABU

Bound to be stuff in there you'll want to keep for posterity as well as crap. Unpack, sort and re-pack what you want to keep, forget to mention to DP that you've binned 80% of the contents, Label the damn boxes this time

As long as you are sure they don't contain any photos, mementos etc then why not?

BUT:
Prepare to be blamed by your dh every time he looks for somethin he can't find. He will swear blind that it was in one of those boxes.

I think I have a couple of boxes like this with stuff from my childhood in. My Duran Duran memorabilia is in one with my childhood cuddlies. They just sit in the loft.

i would have to look

Aw, ok, I think I'm going to have to have a look, and hettykett you've got it spot on - labelling will most definitely be done next time! It's not so much the time it'll take to look in them, it's just that DP will pounce on everything in the, and despite not having thought of said item in 5 years will announce it to be part of his life he cannot live without and will just create more clutter! But I concede that I'm in the minority and will ignore them for another 6 months make unpacking them a priority!

Don't forget we want to know what is in them. You might be on 'Tat in the Attic' or Antiques Roadshow.

don't let him in there
And pot back to let us know!

We sort of did this. Our spare room was full of bags of stuff. When we had the house decorated a last year the workmen took all the bags into storage. During a miscommunication with my dad who was organising it all, the bags got chucked. I know for a fact that there were no photos/important docs etc in them and every so often I think, "I wonder where x and y are... Damn, must have been in those bags" and that's the end of it. It's quite refreshing actually. I wish I'd given him more stuff!

Thankgodforcaffeine - true!! Hmmmm now I've decided to open them I'm actually starting to be intruiged by what I may find.....am 99% sure it will be complete rubbish though!

Start with a box....just unpack it and be ruthless. 90% of it will be tat.

Eventually you will get through all the boxes and have just 1 small box of precious "stuff".

I went through a load of boxes many many years ago and chucked out masses of sentimental "stuff" of my DHs - old school ties and the like. He has never asked about them. I was completely ruthless with my stuff too, and probably could do with being this ruthless with the rest of my drawers and boxes and hidey holes!

Sparklingbrook hey, how about you guys come and open them for me? I could take DP out for the day while you work your magic and take all the crap anything you think should be preserved for posterity? I'm fairly sure most of my university work is in one of them but since I haven't looked at it since I left many, many years ago, I'm not convinced I need it now!

Or maybe I'll a gwendolinemarylacey special (kind of) by binning them and blaming some mysterious mix up? But then you're all making me think that I'll spend the rest of my life in an agony of desperately needing to know what I threw out...

you can alway do it when he is not there

Well if your uni work is in there, that could go straight to the recycling and you would be down one box for moving. Personally, I would go through them whilst H was out so that you could be ruthless with binning the contents (within reason!). I am quite ruthless about binning and couldn't live with a hoarder. Fortunately DH is just as ruthless!

Check them first.

But wait till DH isn't around so you can stick it in the bin/charity if you don't want it. My DH and his family lost every single photo of them from birth when the family home was sold in their twenties, no wedding pics, baby or child pics, family pics etc, all gone as they were left in an old wardrobe which their dad paid someone a rennet to get rid of. By the time they realised everything had been burnt.

Chuckling away to myself here Sparklingbrook. Me too!

Then chuckling some more as I mis-spelled "chuckling" at the first attempt and predictive text suggested "chick liking"

OP, DH and me moved about once a yr for 5 yrs (sounds dodgy I know, but all above board) and we had 2 boxes we had never unpacked. 1 is still in the attic and is marked "Study" ( stupid posh name to give the spare room shit) and the other was full of rubbish photos from back in the day that you had to have your photos developed. I chucked most of the photos last summer (4 yrs after we had last moved) and felt so much better after I had done it.

Open, open, open (and don't let your OH near them - my DH has hoarding issues too)

I cleared out our spare room recently so it has gone from MIL's shit tip study to our spare bedroom. I was utterly ruthless and worked on the premise that no one had used it for years, she had moved out and not taken it with her, we've moved in and need the space so one weekend when DP was at work it went from study to bedroom.

I discovered smashing furniture is rather cathartic :o

I was thinking of chucking some photos valkilly. I have lots of ones of old boyfriends from 20 years ago. Is there a rule for keeping photos? Do I need my holiday snaps from 1987 really?