Calling all hoarders out there......why?

[muriel76]

My DH is a bit of a hoarder. Some of his family are the same but particularly his mum, she seems to keep everything. They both like to also display pointless things ie books that will never be/never have been read etc.

Don't get me wrong, it is not a big deal or anything but I do want to understand why. It's hard to understand as my mum is the complete opposite and I am the same. DH and I have agreed to give the house (another!) big clear out and it would help me to hear a hoarder's view!

(Obviously I have talked with him about it many times BTW, I am just looking for other people's more neutral insights)

Thanks for any replies.

You're expecting DC5? Wow!
Just take it easy for now, as you say you dont have time restraints, so can you wait til the kids go back to school after xmas? Wouldnt she prefer the idea that all's left alone at home?

But there is no point leaving it alone, she has been in hospital since August and had none of her own things so needs must and I had to go and sort some stuff out for her - I am moving house myself in the new year! which is an epic task.

The thing is nothing is where it should be so to find some things has meant really digging about - it took be 3 hours of sorting to find one small suitcase of appropriate clothes for her to take in with her. On the upside because of the hoarding, she had packets of new nighties/pop socks which I just put through the wash and ironed. Still she hasn't got what she needs and I think going and buying her some new clothes and cardies and such might be the better option time wise for me - and nice for her to have a few new bits.

If I feel better on Saturday I will pop in and do a couple of hours before I have my hair done. What I wouldn't do for a magic wand.

Like I said I wont be making the same mistake when I move I am having a MASSIVE sort out.

If you find that magic wand, please lend it to me...

It is entirely possible that I shall find one buried in my Nan's detritus - will happily lend out if that is the case x

Good luck with your nana and her house pinky.
I'm pretty sure my parents have the incentive to declutter that they know I'll get rid of stuff when they have to go into nursing homes and a couple of their friends have had to recently. They've got all the boxes of books out of the garage finally, and I've disposed of all the ones I got given - made about £25 on Ebay and the local charity shops very happy.

We finally sold the fish tank and large desk via Gumtree which seems to be the easiest option if you're in London - free to list, people phone/email you, ideally turn up, give you cash and take the item away. So now decorating.

Still not managed to sort ds's toys at all, as pregnant with SPD and can't get to the floor easily. And anything left within his reach is immediately scattered across the house...
Have been asking people to give him small presents for Christmas and put any other money in his college fund (he's 3 and doesn't care for big presents any more than little ones). But then I've tried that previously and said fund still stands at nil!

Yeah, i dread the extra tat that will appear at xmas. I'm going to have a look at gumtree, am i right in thinking its easier than ebay?
Well i finally have my new business premises available. Grrrr, 5 weeks late. Totally exhausted with moving stuff. Have cleared out home office completely and made it into a lovely homework place for DD2, who is utterly thrilled. Now her room can be tidied and she has a little more space. Looking out for a proper little dressing table for her, with drawers for all her girlie stuff.
I now have a storage facility. Where the hoard can go. I can then work on sorting a bit at a time and have a house clutter free. Seriously hoping i'm not kidding myself. The stories of other people having to do this job for relatives is the motivation to not be like that.
But for now theres 5 weeks of delayed work to catch up on and the busiest time in retail to maximise.

^^

my DH is a dreadful hoarder-garage full, boarded out the garage loft and filled that too- any old crap that you can think of- old tellies, paperwork, car mats etc. He dresses this up with the excuse that bits may come in useful eg he took his mums old hoover in case he could use the parts. I used to say that if I died before he did, I would get a skip and throw it all, which made him most upset. I have long suspected that it comes from some childhood emotional thing and used to be quite sympathetic but recently it has become really intolerable right up until today when he has bought a new kitchen bin as the old pedal bin broke, and now he expects me to keep the old bin in the garage in case, you guessed it he can mend it or use the parts!! He will not accept he has a problem, so I'm sure all his crap will provide some emotional security blanket for him when me and the kids leave as he seems to prefer things to people, sadly

my name is lilmamma and im a HORDER!! i dont know why iam like this,my parents were never horders,or my siblings,my dd is a thrower out,and when she does i say dont throw that out it will come in and save it :(

I envy people who have tidy sides of the couch,i have a pile of stuff next to me,no one else can see it,unless they sit here,my coat cupboard is so full you have to drag everything out to find a coat !!..BUT when i do get my mad chucking out head on,i can get rid of some stuff and do FEEL great,but i can never completely get rid of everything why ????

I'm returning to try and restart this thread, as I found it very helpful. I stopped posting 5 months ago and I return five months pregnant !

Wave to any lurkers :)

House wise
COMPLETED - Hall & Stairs, Kitchen, Bathroom, Our Bed Room, Living Room and Dining Room
WORKS IN PROGRESS - Garden Toys, Children's Toys

Clutter wise, I have finally started AND finished sorting the mountain of clothes under our King size bed, resulting in two car loads of clothes out of the house, yeah me :)

I also managed to sort through all of my clothes and the children's clothes and throw/charity everything which was outgrown or scruffy.

So now I have maybe 6 loads of washing which need washing or drying or ironing (or all three), some of which will be charity stuff too and that will be a line under the clothing and I feel so much better from having tackled it.

Then NEXT WEEK I'll enter the final arena to battle...the children's toys !

I am thinking chuck/charity for the toys the children won't miss. One lidded crate for downstairs in living room and two sets of tubs upstairs, one in their room to play with and one set under our bed in our room...swap every month. Hopefully this will cut down on amount of toys to be picked off the floor daily. What do you guys think ?

I'm not saying my home is or will ever be a show home (it won't) but it is getting much less cluttered and everything has a home and that makes it much easier to tidy. I am, getting the hang of throwing things, as long as it goes straight outside to the car or bin I can do it.

Guess I'll have to set up a rota, to resort out each room in turn so I stay on top of everything ?

Hey Babies!! congratulations!! both on the pg and on the sorting!

I'm glad this is resurrected actually :) it was very helpful wasn't it?

Me? well, things are going, but I'm still in a state. This weekend, I got rid of the highchair which has been up and unused except as a clotheshorse for a long time about 2 1/2 years or more. I lost the stupid tool that allows it to be adjusted/tightened up or taken apart, and the footrest had been broken by Ds so was not really usable, but I managed to rehome it to someone that needed it to demonstrate childcare or something :) I'm really pleased that I've got it gone and that it wont be wasted.
I sold a big bag of toys.

Not sure if I mentioned selling the virtually unused car seat (Dd's father bought it and I didn't like the fit in my car) and the baby view mirror earlier this year.
Got rid of two big sacks of clothing that Ds has outgrown including loads of uniform to a freecycler.

Several smallish bags of clothing to the charity shops...
Am about to Gumtree the Maclaren techno XLR, so will hopefully get some money in too. Must do the same with the cot and the bedding.

It does seem that you can't give certain things away. I've got some perfectly good Clarkes and StartRite shoes up for free and not a taker in sight.

Been doing part of the garden with my friends help in order to get that second shed for all the fabric and wool stash I have...getting there...getting there.
Oh yes!! I cleaned the oven too

Solo welcome back :) Oo, Re the Maclaren techno XLR where abouts are you, I'm interested in replacing my ebay bargain £10 Maclaren with a more modern version.

Sounds like you are doing well. I would try Ebay for selling children's shoes, they seem to go well and would make some money for you at the same time :)

I have been concentrating on laundry and kids toys.

Down to 2 loads of washing to do, 2 loads drying on the line outside and two loads ready to iron. I'm slowly catching up, just need to keep plugging away at it !

House is so so, fairly tidy atm. Just need to deep clean bathroom and mop kitchen floor this afternoon.

Toys wise, I managed with my mothers help to remove 4 massive bin bags of broken/charity worth toys out of the house.

I have spilt the remaining toys into 4 medium pink tubs (currently in bedroom being played with) a few big toys on shelves and 4 medium purple tubs (on top of wardrobe out of reach of children) to be swapped with the pink ones next week and one large box in the dining room for downstairs playing.

It seems to be working. Still need to sort though kids books and soft toys though.

I also chucked a lot of bath toys and the ones I kept will be replaced/chucked next week. I have decided only to buy dishwasher safe things which don't store bath water for the bath from now on.

So looking to buy small plastic measuring jugs, baby stacking cups etc. That will make it much easy to keep things clean in future.

Plus I sterilized our clean potty's by putting them though the dishwasher, go me !

Next jobs.

Continue laundry/ironing
Sort out blue 'to do' tub
Sort out kids books and soft toys

Weather permitting sort/chuck/clean kids garden toys.

Hi Babies will PM you re the XLR.

Done nowt today; full of cold and had a loooong convo on the phone, so nothing done bar the dishwasher on and a quick sort through of some fabric stash.

I cleaned out fridge, general tidying and some laundry...more to go.

I've been slightly productive in the kitchen this evening! plus a small wash load.

Yeah for you Solo.

I have done nothing over basic cleaning in the house.

But I did splash out and bought myself a new pairs of maternity jeans (mine 20's are falling down when I walk) and a new top in the sale. The top was a 16 (down from size 24 last year) and I fitted well into 16 jeans too. But decided to get 18 instead, just in case I put on some weight in the next few weeks.

Congratulations Babies!
I now have a 3 month old and have recovered almost totally from what the docs diagnosed as 'unpleasant pregnancy' and SPD, so am trying to catch up.

How do people stop stupid amounts of paperwork building up? I swear i ought to write to certain charities/organisations and threaten to cancel my DDs to them if they dont stop sending me so much guff.

Paperwork wise. I followed a suggestion on the Flylady website to have an office box/bag, with stapler, hole punch, ruler, sticky tape, pen, pencil, envelopes, stamps and school envelopes and a couple of storage files all neatly labelled with appropriate titles....sounds good so far ;)

Then I have a medium blue tub, lurking in the hall with all the flipping paperwork I have not dealt with. I need to catch up with the blue tub and then get in the habit of sorting the paperwork out with my office box daily...that is the plan...one day.

What I meant to say was...Big congratulations notcitrus on your new baby and welcome back to the thread :)

Congrats to you too notcitrus!

you are all making me envious broody! :(

Today I attacked and defeated the blue 'to do' tub. I have already handed several forms to school today and have a couple more filled in and ready to hand in tomorrow. Plus several dates added to my calendar and one letter ready to be sent reordered delivery tomorrow, at the post office.

Now the 'to do' tub has been down graded to 'children's art to sort' tub and I will endeavour to deal with incoming mail/school letters the same day it arrives, just using the office box.

Today I reset my phone, as it had two different Google accounts attached to it and my phone contacts & calendars would not sync and or update. :( Before I did this I wrote all contact details in my paper address book.

Now I have one account and everything mail and calendars are syncing well, hurrah. I have adding all upcoming events to my three online calendars!

One for weekly events, I might attend if energy and money permits, One for school holidays/events for the children and One for all other appointments mainly mine.

Husband has access to all my calendars (not that he looks) and I can 'invite' him to my events if he is needed :)

I have also updated all the contacts already on my Google account and I'm in the process of adding birthdays and anniversaries to my calendar too. Hopefully this will mean I don't miss posting cards off in time.

I reckon this will be an ongoing piece of work, as I have to check on years of birth and some postal addresses. But I am pleased with how much I have done so far :)

Well done Babies!!

I've not done anything this week gone except washing and the garden!

I've not done much this week except keep the kids alive. I want to consolidate all my phone messages etc onto one phone but scuppered by Tmobile's refusal to let me move my number, so I need to write a nasty letter to their head office headed 'Disability discrimination complaint'...

Though have decluttered kitchen cupboards a bit by just eating a box of Pocky with a BB date of 2010!

Washing, gardening and keeping the children alive are all excellent tasks :)