Massive decluttering of house , what's wrong with me?

[Poodlelove]

Quick back story , ten years ago we had to clear a close relatives home , after they suddenly passed away.It took months .

I then began decluttering my own home so that our children didn't have this burden.They are all adults and have their own families.

Over the last few weeks I have been sorting out again , this time getting rid of big furniture that we are not using.
Getting rid of things that ten years ago I wouldn't part with .

I have got this feeling that I must do this and every time something has been collected via market place I feel so much better.

Today my husband said he was a little worried that he would come home and the sofa would be gone.

I am not yet 60 , I had a health scare in the January, but got the all clear , whilst recovering I couldn't do any housework , my husband did a good job but I got very frustrated that I couldn't do anything .

Has anyone else my age been through this ?

Thanks for reading.

Book marking this thread x

I am drowning in dead people's stuff after multiple bereavements and upheaval over the last five years, and am constantly at war with myself over "stuff" with sentimental connotations, especially my laye DPs and my Dad's. However, I am feeling a huge amount of guilt and reluctance to put my son in my position should I demise any time soon.

I've made a start, but as part of the grieving process the existential issues are a complete headfuck - particularly the occasional resentment that my only purpose in life is to not be a burden to my offspring x but I know that's a me issue....and part of the process.... I feel like a bloody tin of peas.

So here for the happy medium and practical tips and in solidarity with anyone with any sort of "stuff" issues.....

As an aside, does anyone else find it hard to actually get stuff disposed of, even when you're trying to? Charity shops locally seem incredibly picky, people who say they want your stuff via online methods like marketplace etc are flaky as hell, and the cost / benefit ratio of online selling seems negligible. As for auction houses, I'm not even going to start.

Anyone want nine accordions? They are incredibly hard to sell I have discovered. Sigh.

I get you. Am if a similar age and went through similar situation when parents passed. Vowed to sort my shit out so my kids didn't have to.
Did a Huge declutter last year with help of a professional declutterer. Worth every penny. I love love love my " new home". One year on and its still rubbish free. Things like my spices on a whirly plate. Tins in larder in order and in date. T.shirts stored like you are in a shop. Batteries in a bespoke battery case not the drawer of doom. It's the small things which bring you pleasure😀

My FIL died in August. We were up there a lot in July and started declining. 1.3 tonnes of stuff to the dump. We have had house clearance people twice. They are coming again on Monday and I reckon we will need another two visits to clear it. (To be fair we are leaving some furniture to sell the property. )
My husband moved in with me in 2020. I have been in this house 30 years. I have so much stuff but we have been decluttering for a couple of months now and it feels good. I have 2 grown up children and a lot of stuff from my first husband who died in 2012 so there's a lot of emotion.

I am so sorry for your losses.

Sentimental items are the hardest to deal with. Always do them last - pack them in boxes if need be and come back to them in a year's time. Do everything else first.

Sometimes it is not the actual item that you are sentimental about. For instance, a vase that sat on your mother's windowsill for thirty years. You remember it always being there. But - do you actually have an emotional connection to the vase, or just to its place in your mother's house? The house is gone/going. Mother is gone. All the things that surrounded the vase in its place are gone.
Do you actually love the look of the vase in itself? Do you actually want it, to deliberately put it in a place in your own home? Or is it of no sentimental value now that its 'place' has gone?

Take photos - preferably of the vase in the room before everything is moved. Photograph the whole room before you start.
Also photograph individual things.
(That also applies to your own house - photograph children's artwork then bin it after a week or two).

Does anyone else find it hard to actually get stuff disposed of, even when you're trying to?
If charity shops don't want it, and it won't sell or is not worth selling, then into the bin it goes. (general bin for landfill, or recycling bin).
You may think nine accordions are "worth" something, but if no-one wants them then their correct place is in the bin.
Yes sometimes there is a specialist charity for certain items - so google 'charity for musical instruments' or whatever it is. Then you have to arrange deliver or collection. Repeat ten or twenty or thirty times, for each 'hard to dispose' thing and it is overwhelming.
Most of the time, the appropriate course of action is to bin it.

I concur with you! I've been selling, donating and dumping stuff regularly. My health isn't great & I don't want to leave a whole heap of old sh*t for my loved ones to clear like my uncle recently did bless him, (he had depression). It's quite liberating and you are definitely not being unreasonable.

We're your age, OP, and doing a similar thing. I'm finding it very therapeutic. Let's face it, when I die the whole lot will be junk, so might as well get a head start.

I bloody love decluttering. Swedish death cleaning is a great idea, follow Maria Kondo as well - does an item give you ‘joy’? Over the past couple of years I have got rid of loads of stuff - eBay, Vinted, charity shops and recycling.

No cupboard or drawer is safe. How many tea towels, mugs, sheets and towels do you need? Are you going to read those books again? I now can’t stand too much clutter and plastic tat. I now feel I have room to breathe and actually know what we have and where it is?

My next target is the loft!

My mother was a hoarder. It took me two years to clear her very large house and all the garages etc when she died. I am still finding stuff in strange places four years later. I vowed I would never impose that burden on my children upon my demise. Her financial records were pretty much in the same state of chaos, so it took me ages to administrate probate in a game of hide and seek with her records etc. i just bought a 'when I am dead, over to you' book to document all the important facts like the will, the business details, the bank accounts, my tax references and national insurance number. I am not planning on going anywhere requiring a harp and wings just yet, but I would like to know I would make the process of bereavement somewhat less stressful for my relatives. I think it is a basic courtesy.

I reckon the Japanese culture have it about right about homes. Less is more, and empty spaces are easier to navigate and clean. It is about peace and taking control of life, and knowing where essential stuff for day to day living is located. Now the house is fairly empty and ready for renovation. It feels like a different place altogether. Enjoy your decluttering, as it is therapeutic!

Currently doing the same OP. I’ve made nearly £800! Still got lots on eBay and Marketplace, but anything that’s left will go to charity on 1st December. There’s no wriggle room because we will be decorating for Christmas and we are entertaining a lot. It does feel quite cathartic. Good luck.

Is that actually a job a " professional declutterer" ? Sounds fabulous, I'd like to do thwt

You've got lots of people saying they are just the same and that it's healthy but like anything, too much can become a negative if taken to extreme. The tricky bit is identifying when it's got extreme.

This bit: "Today my husband said he was a little worried that he would come home and the sofa would be gone." Two questions - has it got unhealthy for you, and has it got uncomfortable for your husband? Because it's his space and his stuff too.

Within reason, I think getting rid of the odd piece of furniture is a natural latter stage of decluttering, because you find you need fewer storage places. The empty space that is "created" by getting rid can feel really nice. But only up to a certain point and obviously only with the consent of all its owners.

The day I sold an unused but good Kenwood food mixer to a young couple setting up a cake baking business - it Felt. So.Good. Put it on Facebook Marketplace at the average price and off it went.

Right. I'm doing this. I've lost weight and gone down a dress size so I can do this too!

When I was young I would never allow myself more than one large suitcase full of stuff. I also rented and the feeling of freedom, knowing I could just take off anytime, made me so happy.

I bought a house and filled it up. Am now de-cluttering and plan to sell my house and go back to freedom over possessions. I just clear one bag a week and do one small job around the house a day. My deceased brother had a house full of valuables but he was afraid to go on holiday in case he got burgled. Possessions can end up being a burden.

It isn't at all weird that you are now able to declutter things that you wouldn't part with ten years ago - another decade has passed, so you are further away from the initial reason you wanted to keep the object and you have had ten years more use or knowing-you-don't-really-use-it out of it too.

You are my inspiration! I've downsized (mid 60's too) and am on the last leg of the decluttering journey. Sadly that means it's all the most difficult stuff (personal, sentimental, legal, etc.)

But as peeps say, I think of my niece and nephew, who will inherit the chaos or the minimalism.

PS anyone who uses house clearance firms (I had two different sets) if you want to avoid potential fly tippers, choose a firm that's registered with the Environment Agency. https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/search-waste-carriers-brokers

I'm the same age as you and I love a periodic de-clutter. It's liberating. Having too much stuff that you never use just drags you down and makes you feel mentally overloaded as well as physically overloaded. I'm hardly a minimalist, I still have enough books and kitchen gadgets and bedlinen sets to sink a battle ship but every now and then I force myself to thin out my collections of everything, from clothes to crockery and I always feel better for it afterwards.

I naturally lean towards having too much/too many of everything rather than too little/too few, but I am careful not to let it stray into chaotic hoarding territory. I hate a disorganised and over-cluttered home where there are piles of stuff everywere that never get moved.

I am an absolute master at cupboard and pantry organisation and even with the things I probably have far too many of, I still keep them in an organised and tidy system of some sort.

I’m 53 and “declutter” often. I say declutter, but there isn’t any clutter in the house, very minimalist here. I have a rule for my things which is, if it hasn’t been touched in 3 months, it’s out the door. I don’t put tools and decorating kit in this mix, as they are needed as and when.

our cupboards are clutter free and I reckon we could empty the lounge, dining room and kitchen of everything in less than an hour.

No way that I want to be living around a tonne of unnecessary stuff.

We have a massive plastic lidded box in the loft full of old family photos. Some are of me and DH as children that we inherited after the death of our parents or grandparents, but most are of our own kids taken before storing digital photos in a cloud was really a thing. We also have half a cupboard full of photo albums which I am really loathe to get rid of but they take up so much space and we rarely get them out to look at them.

I think I'll make it a project next year to have a really good sort out of them. I'll thin out all the loose photos and re-organise the albums, just keeping the better ones, ditching all the duplicates and the boring photos of the garden, or people we met on holiday in 1998 or whatever.

Then I'll create three modest sized piles, one for each DC. They can each have a share of the better photos of me and DH when we were kids, and some of their grans and grandads when they were young, our wedding photos as well as photos of themselves and their siblings and cousins as young children. But only a carefully curated selection of the better ones. Not boxes and boxes of them. I'll hang on to them for now, but when the time comes they can each have their one sensible sized box, or a couple of albums.

After my dad died last year and I had to clear his house out (he lived there all his life, there was stuff there from over 80 years ago) I swore I wouldn't ever leave my kids with a huge job like that. It took nearly a year and was nearly a 200 mile round trip every other weekend, all completed while in the stage of life of having 3 young children.
I had a one month break as I felt totally burnt out by it all (also had to do the probate and house sale with no help from siblings) and them I started on my own house. I still have a very long way to go but can see the difference already.
One thing I can recommend is to book in a charity collection. I use Anglo doorstep collection and book in a monthly collection. Bag it up, label the bags and leave it on the drive on the day of collection.

I feel maybe it's more to do with moving forward to the next stage of life. My youngest is now turning 13 and I have become almost ruthless with removing any childish stuff, a few years ago I was sentimental about everything. I'm done with being a child mum and want to move to the next stage of my life and I think you are similar. Just one stage ahead of me.

Thanks all, you prompted me to clear a bit of the wardrobe that I haven’t used in a while, all my old workwear.. I retired nearly a year ago, it’s now all bagged, and in the boot, and ready to poke in the nearest charity shop metal mushroom.

We too have had multiple bereavements and somehow all the stuff we couldn’t decide on ended up in spare rooms here. Gradually getting through it, one boot load at a time. I have promised the kids they won’t have a mess to sort out like we have had.

Agreed.

It would really cheese me off if my husband was giving away furniture while I was at workm

While it is good to regularly declutter, I don’t think it is good to do it to the point that you throw away things you might want. I am not sentimental over things and I don’t have more socks/bras/knickers than I need but I do have stashes of fabric/threads/ wool etc. Really, there is always house clearance when you die and it wouldn’t bother me in the least if my children used this. I used this service when an elderly aunt went into a nursing home and she was a hoarder.

Look up Minimal Mom on YouTube. She’s great.