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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU for living in a shit hole?

130 replies

Cuppaand2biscuits · 17/12/2015 18:57

Posting here for traffic. My house has got into such a mess, literally every surface or corner is cluttered with crap. Not actual rubbish but toys, clothes, junk.
Can someone please help me and tell me where to start? I need a big kick up the bum.

OP posts:

OTiTO · 17/12/2015 20:59

Honestly you have to stop with the excuses. It's hard with a two year old running around but it's still doable. Prepare yourself for a few day of exhausting work. Roll your sleeves up and get stuck in. Dont bother fannying around asking for tips on the Internet just get on with it.

It's not easy or fun but you will feel loads better when you have done it.

BIN or charity shop as much as possible including toys. How is your DC meant to even play with them when the house is so cluttered.

caker · 17/12/2015 20:59

Really good ideas! People in our street just leave unwanted things outside and others take them if they want them. All sorts from white goods and furniture to toys.

Dec2015 · 17/12/2015 21:00

at south east onion. That sounds like a great place to live!

Op - I also subscribe to the 'beautiful, sentimental or useful' mentality.

My 8yo dd does not. I hate it. I hate all the trappings of small children. Little bits of paper, beads etc. Drives me nuts!

squoosh · 17/12/2015 21:01

'Don't fool yourself OP. That stuff will never find its way to a charity shop'

Of course it will. It's much easier to send bags to a charity shop than drag it all to a tip or wait weeks to shove it in a bin bag by bag.

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 21:02

When we moved we had so much crap and shit i was mortified i binned recycled charity shop our local tip has containers for different charites and recycling its amazing just bag and dump. Years i lived like that its so draining (im sure it added to my anxiety) new house is clutter free and if i see a pile forming i deal with it and i get the family to deal with it.

squoosh · 17/12/2015 21:03

Or yes, leave stuff out on the street with a sign saying 'in working order, please take'. People do that in my neighbourhood. I recently got rid of a TV and DVD player that way.

Castrovalva · 17/12/2015 21:03

That's an interesting thought about the toys not being 'yours' to decide

Think of it this way

The space in which they are kept IS yours, so much like a desk or locker at work, the manager gets to decid how much space is allocated, the individual decides what to put in that space.

Whilst the child is small, it is your responsibility to help them manage the space, so removing toys they had broken, outgrown or just aren't bothered about. As thy get bigger you teach them about outgrowing toys and making space for new, more suitable ones.

We tell the kids that Santa only brings toys to boys and girls who have space for new toys and they have to show Santa how kind they are by giving toys they don't need to help children who don't have any toys ( by taking them to charity shop)

It works pretty well, I go in their room with a bin bag in November time, asking them to decide what they have outgrown and they are quite keen to prove they deserve new toys by being kind. :)

OTiTO · 17/12/2015 21:04

I forgot, here is your proverbial kick up the bum courtesy of Father Ted

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 21:04

We also took clothes to a cash for clothes place didnt get that much for it but bought us our tea from the chip shop that night

Domino777 · 17/12/2015 21:05

Marie kondo book. Brilliant!

Oysterbabe · 17/12/2015 21:06

Check out this website. Helped me a lot.
www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/

hmcReborn · 17/12/2015 21:08

I recently decluttered when moving house. I never really took stuff to charity shops before because they are always located in the middle of town (to maximise pedestrian traffic) and often have no parking directly outside them. I didn't feel that I could lug big heavy bags of donations from car parks often several hundred metres away to the charity shop. However, I discovered if you collect a considerable volume for them (eg at least 8/9 full black bin bags) and ring them to explain that you are only giving them good quality stuff and lots of it, some will consider coming to your house to collect. One particular charity shop paid two visits to me on two occasions to collect stuff - easy!

PeteAndManu · 17/12/2015 21:13

I'd do 10 mins at a time, once or a couple of times a day. Break it down into small steps. Even with a small child you can get 10 minutes a day, don't try to tackle a whole room just part of a room and then keep going. Pick a room you use a lot, bedroom, kitchen etc and finish that before moving onto another. Enjoy having one room clear and then move onto the next. Don't feel guilty about the toys I'm sure they multiply when I'm asleep. When she is this young but them in a box, if she misses it bring it back out, if she doesn't in a couple of weeks take it to the charity shop.

Alicewasinwonderland · 17/12/2015 21:15

I would start with the bathroom, because it's the easiest. I can't think of anything that can be recycled from one.

Take a photo before. Then be ruthless:
Anything broken, stained, out of date, that you don't use (make up, curling iron ) bin. Any artificial plant, dead plant (I don't know what exactly you have in your bathroom!) bin.

Whatever you do, do not put anything away to think about it and come back later. Deal with it immediately.

munkisocks · 17/12/2015 21:15

There's a charity online thing where you can order bags to come then book a collection. I did this and they sent 4 massive sacks and organised a collection in my time. You need to be in when they collect and each bag has to be over 15kg but I got rid of loads.

SideOfFoot · 17/12/2015 21:16

I'd bin everything you don't want or need and forget about the charity shops, that just adds another job that it sounds like you don't need.

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 21:16

If you sit at night watching tv get a pile of paperwork go through it shred what you dont need

ghostspirit · 17/12/2015 21:22

my house is the same at the moment. over the weekend me and kids will have a general tidy up. then on 23rd we are gutting all the bedrooms. and getting rid of every toy thats broken or not played with. to make way for xmas stuff. going to make it all positive and get the kids excited

ClaireFraser · 17/12/2015 21:22

We all need to " piss around worrying about landfill" because otherwise it becomes the next generation's problem to worry about. I think you're being a bit patronising to the OP 90sForever, implying that she would not be able to take it to a charity shop.

Anyway, enough derailing the thread. You have my sympathy OP, it can be a bugged of a job to get sorted but you've had some fab advice. Yy to the one area (kitchen worktop, coat rack etc) at a time. Load stuff for the charity shop straight into the car. My local c.shops are always delighted to accept bags of all sorts of things.

'Put it away, don't put it down" is fab mantra to have, I've had to teach myself to follow it as was always a terrible one for thinking ' oh I'll just leave it here for the moment and do it later', but later never happens and nine times out of ten it's a two second job to just put it away in the first place/do whatever it was that needed doing. I'm the worlds worst prevaricator and learning to just get on and do these little Quick jobs is what makes it easy to get things sorted, and then to keep on top of it, because then it never seems like too big a task.

As the old saying goes "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time"

Good luck! This thread has inspired me to tackle my cupboard under the stairs tomorrow!

hmcReborn · 17/12/2015 21:24

Except charity shop donating doesn't have to involve vast effort SideOfFoot, as my post and munkisocks demonstrates. No more work then binning stuff if you get the charity shop to collect, and possibly less work because throwing out high volumes of stuff generally necessitates trips to the tip

90sforever · 17/12/2015 21:24

I'm not being patronising at all. If OP was inclined to do that this probably wouldn't have happened. It's not awful to not be able to take things to charity shops you know. Like a PP mine are all On high streets with no parking and I work full Time. It's a task in itself and when You're overwhelmed you are best keeping things simple.

hmcReborn · 17/12/2015 21:26

Arggghhhhhh

squoosh · 17/12/2015 21:26

But if she has tons of stuff the charity shops are a much easier option than spending weeks and weeks adding a bag at a time to the bin!

90sforever · 17/12/2015 21:31

Why would you do that? You can just take the lot to the dump in 1 trip, open 7 days a week 12 hours a day and my dump go through everything to salvage anything recyclable or saleable

Of course it might be super easy for oPto get her stuff to a charity shop and she might desperately want to. We don't know. But she has options

squoosh · 17/12/2015 21:34

And if you've got a car and are taking it to the dump well then it's far easier to drop it off for free at the charity shop.

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