to want to cry that we are giving up storage space when my DH is a hoarder?

[MooncupandPizza]

I honestly could cry. Our playroom/office space is filling up with his crap and, though this is not its final resting place, it is depressing the hell out of me as it's never going to be able to be as out of sight as it was. (conversion of the store room to more living space)

We moved here about 8 months ago and I was just feeling like things were coming together and looking a bit organised - it's not anymore.

woe is me.

What is he hoarding and are you objecting to him about it?

I have talked to him about his hoarding and is trying to get rid of stuff and not acquire too much more stuff but the hoarding is part of the way he is - it's where it goes that's the prob, not so much the fact that it exists! (it's lecture notes, bric-a-brac such as chairs, chests, an old bike...old text books)

Are these chairs a) family heirlooms that you plan, eventually, to use yourselves or b) some old crap your dh picked up in an antique shop, which, when he has time, he is going to reupholster.

Text books - a) books he uses in his current job, or a job he hopes to get in the next five years or b) his a-level maths book.

If a) you need to rent a storage unit for them. If b) throw them away.

Basically you can't just go filling your family's house up with random chairs that you don't need! You need to put your foot down.

I agree. You need to agree a one in, one out policy. When he acquires something something else, the same size, has to go. It's worked for us.

I agree. Living with a hoarder is extremely demoralising because it feels you can never get the house straight. Never tidy is one thing but if you can't at least feel that everything has a home to go to eventually I find it swamps any desire to try and keep things looking nice. (And I'm not just saying that because I'm a lazy beatch).

You sacrificed storage space for more living space, presumably with a plan for what to do with what was in the storage space? Was it: declutter or find new home? I'm guessing it wasn't: store the same crap but now in an open rather than a closed space.

I would also advocate off-site storage; it's very good value for money and may remind him that keeping all his crap comes at a (literal) cost.

I sympathise, my dh is a horder too. I only cope by demanding that certain rooms are out of bounds for his rubbish. So if he leaves something in the kitchen I demand that he puts it away. However I have learned that if we don't regularly use a room or if I don't police it, then it will fill up with his 'stuff'. Things came to a head with us when he started talking about a second shed as the first was full (of 'stuff'), and I put my foot down. The thing is, I don't want to spend my life tidying up after him, so I put up with a lot of 'stuff'.
Sigh, it's dreadful really, I try not to think about my nice home hidden under all this 'stuff'. Oh god, I'm depressed now

I'm fantasising about him moving out (but us still staying married somehow) so I get my nice uncluttered house back. Sob.

Sage - likewise. I love the idea of a second shed. And when that's full, a third, then a fourth, until your entire garden is covered in sheds.

Do you have enough space that you can give him his own 'room of crap' and say 'only this and no more'? My dh has a workroom (smallest room in the house) and I don't go in there. But everywhere else it is fair game; I will accept a certain amount of 'we must keep that cable because it might be useful!' and a drawer (one drawer) is assigned to that purpose.

But it is pathological. I came across all the fittings for a chest of drawers from Ikea that you would use if you were going to attach the chest to the wall, or (I assume) put one on top of the other to make a tall chest of drawers. I was like: well, as we won't be doing either this goes in the bin. And he was genuinely trying to make a case for: but we might (we won't) and these might be the ones out of the box that hasn't yet been put together. Yes, these are from inside an unopened box, that is very likely.

At the risk of sounding like I've just stepped out of the fifties, have you got space for a man-shed? My grandfather had an excellent one for hoarding stuff in and I think that kept the peace in their house (and was a place of junk wonderment for the kids)

If it didn't fit in the shed, it didn't come home with him.

You could probably sling out at least a third of his 'stuff' and he wouldn't even notice

My husband has a "room of crap". We are very lucky in that we have a fourth bedroom (well I say bedroom, but that's an optimistic description as I don't think you'd easily fit an actual bed in it, even without the "crap".)

It's solved a lot of my problems, as if he leaves stuff in the rest of the house I just tell him to take it to "his" room, or I fling it in there and shut the door.

As Sage says you've got to keep an eye out though, he keeps trying to seed areas in the house, and once you let a crap-pile get established somewhere it grows.

This is non-negotiable, unacceptable behaviour. Rubbish is rubbish. Hoarding is unhealthy in many ways. I think your DH needs to find a solution to his problem. How about buying him a few hours with a professional declutterer for his next birthday/Christmas present?

cybbo - I did that when we moved house. I Freecycled stuff of his without telling him and 5 years later he hasn't noticed.

I should say on one level I feel it is wrong to ditch someone else's possessions without even telling them - but when rational discussion has failed to find a way forward more extreme measures may be necessary.

I would freecycle it all.

Ha! Cross posted with tribpot

DP has a cupboard for his crap. I however have a problem with books. I have millions of them and would LOVE to cut down to 1 tidy shelf. It's v.hard deciding which books have to go... a bit like Sophies Choice

yes, once a crap pile starts in a room, the whole room is at risk of being taken over.

When I first moved in with my DP he had 2 useable bedrooms out of 4. Now we actually have a 4 bedroom house because I have made him chuck out old crap. I have no idea what is up in the loft (out of sight out of mind for me) and there is a large outhouse/shed full of crap that hasn't made it to the tip yet, but at least indoors is nice.

I found taking the piss effective for some things (vhs tapes for example! They ended up in the bin!). Having a baby on the way has also forced the issue, although that is quite an extreme way of making him clear a room out if you weren't planning on it.

Seriously though, it's not fair if your kids could have a useable playroom but they can't because the room is full of shit that isn't being used. The house is meant to be used and lived in, and that is more important than hoarding unnecessary chairs and lecture notes.

The questions to ask about items are:

1. when did I last use this? If you haven't used something in 2 years you are unlikely to ever need it again.

2. Why have i still got it? Sentimental value is ok for some old items, there's no need to ruthlessly chuck everything out, but often it is just because you haven't been arsed to take it to the tip yet.

3. If I keep it, where will it live in the house? Obviously space is limited to it might be that something else has to go to make room for it.

There's some great advice on this thread.

I would like to second those who say deal with it pronto. You have a new house so its logical to keep up the momentum of moving things around making your new place a home and gettng rid of things. If its chairs you don't need and they are not to your taste then they have to go.

It will be difficult and will cause quite a few cross words or tense conversations but it has to be done. Best of luck with it.

....he keeps trying to seed areas in the house, and once you let a crap-pile get established somewhere it grows.

Yes, what a good description.

I have tried the throwing away surreptitiously - it works pretty well. What's more DH doesn't know because he can never lay hands on his crap valuable items anyway.

Storage space - we tried that. What stuff is getting stored? Well, typically boxes of vitally important information notes from a course he took and passed/failed twenty years ago. Not just a neat folder of notes, or marked essays, but all those pages of rough workings and crossings out! And other such stuff! What a waste of money.

Does anyone remember that programme Life Laundry with Dawna Walters back in 2002-4? DH had a bit of an epiphany when watching that. He saw Dawna sort out someone whose child had no bedroom to sleep in, and was camping out in a space on the landing, because the bedroom was full of the husband's crap. Well, my DH was suitably chastened because he recognised himself. (DW was good because she tried to understand the psychology of the hoarder.) Long term, the lessons learned from Dawna didn't work, and on those rare occasions now when we get a freshly cleaned space it's not seen as a place to be enjoyed and lived in, but a blank space crying out for the installion of more crap.

My parents used to have the same problem. My mother used to tell my father that when she was gone he could have a lovely time throwing stuff out to his heart's content. The trouble was she outlived him, and my brother, SIL and I had to slog through all the stuff after she was gone. In the end we gave up and got a house clearer in.

It's an ongoing battle, I tell you.

Oh dear we have similar problem - DH already has garage and 2 sheds full...

Today I am going to take a bag full to the charity shop, I've been spurred on by this thread!

Can I join in? We have a 3-bed house with a garage. The garage, loft, front entrance hall, downstairs loo and the largest bedroom are floor to ceiling full of DH's crap and there is an area in our living room of about 6 square metres that's home to a load more. He absolutely won't hear of getting rid of anything (I was nodding in sympathy at trib's story of her DH making the case for keeping the fittings for the chest of drawers) and gets really upset/actually angry if he catches me sneaking old shit into the bin or charity shop bag.

Things he has refused to get rid of include a carrier bag full of grubby, bobbly mismatched sports socks he collected from the changing rooms of the sports centre he managed 10 years ago ("what if someone challenges me to a game of badminton one day?"); VHS versions of films he owns on DVD (I should add, he can't even watch videos anyway because he is deaf enough to require subtitles); a threadbare lilac polycotton sheet for a size of bed we don't even own that his mother managed to foist onto us.

I've decided to go down the storage route too, but he's not going to like it.

I am a hoarder, my stuff may be 'crap' to other people but it means something to me, thank you very much. My husband has accepted it, and we have lots of plastic boxes in the garage to contain my 'hoard'.

We're moving.
When I made DH pull out his shed there were boxes of yoghurt pots?!? (in case they're useful)
That was the tip of the iceberg.
10 estate car loads up the tip later we're about half way there.

LizzieMo - Don't know about you but I have about 6 stacks of those Tuff crates in the garage with each stack about 7 crates high. The DCs sometimes go into the garage to get their bikes or tennis rackets etc so it is a potential health and safety thing. Plus I don't have the room for new 'crap'. So I've started to dump some of my hoard.

I started with 4 crates of VHS tapes and now I am down to 1. The crate holding DCs 'art' from nursery is gone (A4 paper with dabs of paint :) ) I have about 2 crates holding paperpacks which were soooo good that I read them once 20 years ago and never went back for a 2nd read since. That crate is gone.

I'm guessing that even if I discover an incorrect credit card charge from 20 years ago I'm not going to get a refund so I might as well dump the CC and bank statements from the last century eh?

My SIL's house, by comparison, is virtually junk free. Apart from the bedroom and kitchen she doesn't have cupboards. The attic has been converted into a living space and the garage holds the usual bikes, king size tub of ketchup and the like. I guess they are anti-hoarders. Is this what they call Ying and Yang? :)

Just my 2 pence worth - I'm a hoarder who also hates clutter (is that an oxymoron? lol). Most of my hoardings are confined to our bedroom but it's a state as hubby won't take our daughter off my hands for any reasonable length of time so I can organise it, and he won't let us buy a wardrobe (he has one for his stuff, I just have a clothes rail) as he says I'll just fill it full of crap. I DO notice if he throws things, maybe not straight away but I do notice when things go missing. Most of my hoardings are personal, my writing, artwork, photograph albums, scrapbooks etc so when bits go missing it's really upsetting.

To 'just chuck things out as he won't notice' is very upsetting for a hoarder. Please don't do that. Sit down with him, supervise his chucking of things if you don't trust him to do it himself, but don't just dismiss his collecting of junk like it's a massive burden on you.