I can’t stand all the junk

[Sweetashunni]

In this fucking house. A 2.5 bed with 2 children, DP, me, dog. It’s not tiny, the rooms are a good size (apart from bedroom 3) but storage space lacking.

A guitar he hasn’t played for years
A computer that is so old it no longer works
bags of kids clothes he accepted from friends but never made any effort to unpack, wash or sort. Half have shit stains on them.
Bits of toolbox lying all over the place where he has tinkered with something but can’t be bothered to put it all away
Bags of old toys - half scribbled colouring books, puzzles with pieces missing, from DC1 as ‘DC2 might want them one day’
a fucking step ladder that lives on the landing because he needs it to get into the loft but can’t fit it in with all the junk up there

I could go on and on. I could scream. I asked again and again ‘I’ll sort it’ he never did.
I lost it, shoved a load of crap in black bin bags and put out the front for him to take it to the tip (it’s out of town, I can’t drive, having lessons)
half of it found it’s way back into the house

today I desperately needed to find something but couldn’t amongst all the junk

This is part rant, part looking for empathy, part looking for opinions/ideas

He was tidy when I met him!!!!

Yes this would drive me insane! Do you have those collection bags that come through the door for the clothes at least?

https://anglodoorstepcollections.co.uk/about-us/#collect_items
Things got on top of us and we recently used this company, they collect a range of things which are then sold abroad. We’ve already booked another collection for next month as it was so painless !
We also took loads of my daughter’s old toys to a local school jumble sale, wool to the charity shop, clothes in the Salvation Army bin at the co op and loads in the bin.
Good luck.

Just chuck a bin bag out with household waste each week.

You appear to live with my 'D'H. It drives me insane!

Hire a skip... 😊

I had a mass clear out, one room per day for a week and did a tip run at the weekend. Except I had support from DH and kids and a firm 'if you keep anything, find it a home. If I see it anywhere it shouldn't be, it's going out!'.

So, if I was you, start binning anything that fits in your wheelie bin. Little by little! Public bin nearby? Take a bag of crap there so it can't be retrieved. Tell him no more Wombling, unless you actually do need the friends unused kids clothes and if he's going to bring stuff back, HE needs to sort through it that day or you'll just charity bag it.

Petty me would hide some of his important daily stuff (but not mega important stuff) and hide it amongst the clutter. Let him spend 15/30mins rooting about for it 😁

I HATE clutter that has no use or no clear place it needs to be, so you 100% have my sympathy and solidarity. Having a mass clear out every few months really helps to keep on top of it. Get firm and ruthless!

Thank you everyone good suggestions and I will look into them. It’s like our possessions are haunted - no matter how I try to get rid of them, they find their way back into the house again. It drives me fucking spare.

He seems to have an issue with throwing things out, he’s convinced I should sell everything on vinted but seems to have zero idea as to the effort that goes into that - making items presentable, photographing them, making an ad, finding somewhere to store them in the meantime, then packaging them up and taking them to different collection points according to the courier selected. He doesn’t get that sometimes this is a time consuming road to nowhere, and the only way to make a real difference when you have this much junk is just to bag it up and bin it.

Are we married to the same bloke?? 🤣

Oh god yes we have a stepladder on the landing too and it drives me mad. He had a shed built to store the stepladder but it still lives on the landing !

Posting in solidarity with you.My late DH was like this, he really was a hoarder.NOTHING was ever chucked out, it's taken me over a year to sort out his stuff. Please get some help and get the stuff to the tip. Do you have a friend who would help you take it? Is there a company who would do it? Don't keep anything that isn't absolutely necessary, if he brings stuff in take it straight out. Otherwise you will end up like me, I was stressed, anxious,depressed because of the junk.

If we are you can keep him 🤣

Just to continue this free therapy, it’s also turning me into a shouty mum - because the junk makes me stressed but also because it means when DS runs about the place (as kids do), I’m constantly having to monitor him and shout ‘MIND THE STEPLADDER/BOX/WHATEVER SHIT IS IN THE WAY’

Do you have a car?

Put the old clothes and children's tat in the boot and drive to the tip.

I think you might be married to mine actually!

I have super powers. DH puts things down and they somehow become invisible, and only I can see them. It's amazing. He will walk past them for the next couple of weeks completely oblivious to their existence. Drives me insane.

Plastic stacking boxes with lids. And a few sticky labels. One box in each area being infested by his crap.

Put all his crap in them and add all future crap that appears in the same area. When the box is full, put the lid on, put one of the labels on the front of the box saying "to be binned in October 2023" and put the next empty box on top and repeat, maybe put "November" on the next box.

When you get to October, empty contents of the box into a black sack and put in bin.

OP can’t drive and is having lessons.

@loislovesstewie 💐 that must be very stressful at an already stressful time.

Youve hit the nail on the head, it’s gone from ‘annoying junk’ to depressing me and having a real impact on my life.

I’m too embarrassed to have guests round. He thinks nothing of inviting guests over, he’s probably not as embarrassed as he knows they’ll assume it’s ME who doesn’t tidy rather than him.

its mentally oppressive being surrounded by this much rubbish, it also collects dust and makes the house smell stale if you know what I mean?

tired of constantly having to step over/round things rather than just walking from A to B

I’m worried it’s going to cause one of the children to have an accident

it’s impossible to clean properly or hoover round it

i can’t find anything

Every fucking time I get rid of something either it comes back or more junk funds it’s way into the house.

I tried to sell a load of stuff at a kids market but he went round buying more ‘in case we need it’ while I was at the stall!!!! He buys shit second hand crap constantly which is stained and not even usable

he doesn’t check with me if the kids actually need more stuff just buys it anyway and duplicates things

I just want to scream!!!!!!

I'd be doing more than screaming.

I would be putting it out with the rubbish if I couldn't get it to the tip.

And as soon as something came in, if it wasn't needed I would bin it.

How much money is he wasting?

I hadn’t even considered the money side I dread to think!

Right that’s 2 bin bags packed and by the door ready to go tomorrow, he’s got a cats bum mouth but who cares

love the box idea above, I may try it!

I've hired a skip before!! £400 quid bloody mind, it was better than therapy.

I filled it up to the brim and found my DH standing in it one day digging about to see what I was throwing out. 🤣

We were doing a renovation so had lots of other junk as well.

But when you fill bin bags can't you take them, so he has no chance of getting stuff back in the house?

He needs to think about why he keeps buying stuff.

But in the meantime I would bag it and put it in the car and tell him it's not to come back in

Stopped reading after shit stains
Take whatever drastic action you need. He will see how much better it is when you have space again. Then tell him it’s not to be filled up with more shit. Some people are not good at this kind of thing and you’ll need to be firm

I live with a hoarder too. It's horrible.

Call a friend with a big car and beg them to do a rubbish tip run for you?

Bag of rubbish, straight into the bin. Some councils will take additional recycling stuff in a clear bag on top of the bin, see if your council does.

Every time you go into town take a bag of charity shop items with you.

Stained clothes, run through a wash and then dump in a "rag bag" and use for cleaning, kids crafts, garden plant ties etc".

Big box for tools and dump them all in there. If they're hard to sort it that's his problem, not yours. If he doesn't put them away properly then into the big box they go.

Get into the lift and throw enough crap out to make room for the ladder. The. Get it off the landing.

There's another thread in here from someone who has taken control of the sorting and is no longer asking/listening/or giving into her husband re the mess and hoarding.

Ex was like that. In the end I divorced him. It was a question of the children's living environment. Hoarding is very hard to treat and I tried everything to help.

OTOH if it's depression or something, lay down the law, help him have a big clear out, get him medicated and insist it stays clear.

In your shoes, I would be watching him very closely to decide whether it was hoarding behaviour or just laziness. Laziness is easier to fix. But you might have to scare him straight.