The Hoarders Anonymous Thread Part Two...Still Sorting It Out ~ Together!

[Solo]

Sorting out the home when you're a hoarder (big or small) is never going to be easy and we should know! but having someone else to support you, talk about it with you and make you feel much less of a freak of mother nature makes a huge difference!

If you are any of the following:
A hoarder. In a mess. Untidy. Disorganised. Lazy with housework that has lead to something that you now feel unable to deal with. If you are ill and not coping with the housework. If you are emotionally attached to items for whatever reason. If you have a combination of any or all of these things or something completely different, please join us. No one here will judge you. We have something in common and we have a common goal. We share our ideas and we share our disappointments no matter how big and our celebrations no matter how small.

Welcome to thread number 2! :)

today I finally got round to renewing the insurance, only to find it had lapsed by a year. I gulped and started again from the beginning, getting new buildings insurance from same Insurer. Only to find it was £1,000 cheaper. Omg!!!! What was going on there? So I saved last year's insurance, and by skin of my teeth the house didn't burn down whilst I was uninsured,[all that crap in the loft would have gone up easily ) AND now I am saving an enormous amount every year for my sins...

Will teach me to keep on top of my paperwork honestly I am shocked that that one fell threw the cracks so massively..remembered MOT and everything else housewise, including Contents insurance but I think "buildings" used to renew automatically, but system must have changed and I didn't check. I've only just located the box with the insurance docs and noticed that it only dated back to last year...

How are you Solo?

Today's plan is to get stuff out from under the stairs, and put things in car to dispose of. I need a place for the hoover and the electric hotplate, which are beginning to drive me mad waiting to trip me up in the living room. Surely a bare minimum is to be able to put utility stuff IN the UTILITY cupboard? Yet again I have lost the plot over the years and filled the cupboard with random objects I do not know quite what to do with, knapsacks spare coats, tiles, cat baskets things to be drycleaned that never make it to drycleaners and get forgotten. I am constantly clearing it out, but it resists and sucks things back in again.

Woohoo, I did something. Not a big something, but a something, nonetheless.

I have bagged up a load of old birthday cards and kids artwork to go out in the recycling :)

well, I failed to do any de-hoarding today. But I did manage to do some family related stuff [taxi driver to dd], and at least I've thought about what I am going to throw away next

well done beyond it is difficult throwing out art work, and I linger linger linger over the birthday cards. I keep thinking, how will they know they had friends if I don't keep the cards? And they are all so pretty aren't they, the designs on the cards, I find myself spending ages looking at each one. Must get a grip.

I am okay thank you :) But today I called the water company because they keep on sending me letters about blinking smart meters! And they want to come into my house! I said "no, I don't let people into my house" (true) but he said they'll put me down as a refusal and charge me for it! So they will now send me a further letter. I suppose I could make the appointment and then postpone it when it gets close. I really hope I can get lots done on my 10 days off!

Solo I would check on the smart meter thing. I thought they were optional. Certainly the gas people were very pushy, until I said I was pretty sure they were optional and they agreed they were and stopped bothering us.

Now water meters might be different, but look into it before you agree to them.

Which says smart meters are optional

Yes but they are putting water meters in across the country (don't mind that) and mine is currently a shared water supply so they need to 'survey' where my stop cock is (in my hideous kitchen!). I have no option! I have to sort out and sooooooon! Wahhhhhhhh!!

Don't know why they call it a smart meter either

I think the watermen have seen it all. As have the Gas men. I hate people reading the meter in cupboard under stairs because it is impassable, but the meter man just waits for me to throw stuff aside...every time...

Had a dark morning of the soul. Everything seems to have backed up. Dd asked me to "tidy" her room, but it is the teenage hoarder room from hell. I just don't know where to start. In the end I just took laundry down (already in laundry basket), and threw some rubbish away (neatly already in wastepaper basket) put some textbooks back in the textbook pile. And cannot deal with spaghetti junction of cables. Might make her bed for her. It is not that she doesn't try and organise it, it is just too much stuff in there always. She hoovers and changes bedlinen and washes her clothes, hangs things up, makes compartments on her desk for pens and makeup, but there just isn't any where for anything to go anymore. "You cannot clean clutter" as the old adage goes. Anyway I promised to help her today, so I will just do those things anyway.

Ds1's room is frightful. Stinks. no attempt at anything, but luckily he won't mind me clearing it out, only advantage to his temperament, he has no real attachment to possessions, just no desire to tidy either

then there is the rest of the house, the laundry pile, the christmas food still to be bought, various people to see. Ds2 to entertain in meantime, he has gone off to see friend thank goodness.

Ds1's room very very clean and tidy now. Decluttered a lot of Gsce papers and dustbunnies.

Dd's room is a bit better. However, nothing is thrown away, so until she decides that she has too much stuff the problem will continue. She threw away one pair of leggings. The other six remain all apparently for different occasions, all black. Same with the hoodies and the teeshirts, although they were different colours at least.

Knitting you are doing so well! I love to read about your progress!

I know that they have seen it all, but they haven't seen mine! And when I did have the British Gas man in to sort my hot water or lack of it out, I did get the hallway, stairs and the room the boiler is in to an okay point (the hall and stairs were good in fact), but I couldn't allow him access to the dining room (through the kitchen - both rooms dreadful) and he wasn't very nice about it at all. He also threw the empty packets down the side of my hot water tank in the airing cupboard which kind of said it all to me. Never again until I can open the door and smile about it will I let anyone in.

oh dear that must have been very upsetting - his irritation and dismissiveness, when you knew there was a problem and you were desperately trying to solve it, and HAD managed the hall and stairs. It doesn't take much for ignorant people to cancel out baby steps

Ds1 said to me, I love my tidy clean room. He is now refusing to leave it, first day of holidays.
Dd said to me..why isn't MY room cleared I want clear surfaces!! And then, No, I refuse to throw away those bags. (she collects shopping bags and displays them on a peg like an art installation) She wants the impossible.

Today I took out some stuff from under the stairs. I also managed to give a mattress to my sister. Backwards step, I retrieved some towels that were on their way out and gave them to ds1 (who had run out of clean towels due to laundry backing up )

Found some Christmas presents for nephews and nieces in there. Determined to wrap and give them away this year. Last year I was so indecisive and disorganised I missed a deadline and then thought maybe they won't be suitable, this year, I am just giving them!!!

some more dressing up clothes have gone
some bits of fabric and an enormous "good" bit of upholstery material to a relative with instructions to not give it back if they haven't a use for it

went to see a friend today who wanted advice about her living room and how to make it better. It helps when you see more clearly what mistakes other people are making, and then you return and and see your own mistakes and clutter, EVEN more clearly. In her case, very cluttered bookshelves, full of ornaments and files, and the visual effect as you walked into a clean and tidy room, was nevertheless unrestful, furniture blocking window etc etc. And colour scheme very dense (don't want to say anything in case she reads this by mistake) And it could have been so easily lovely, just a problem with the impact of too much stuff in a small area. She felt angry with other family members for leaving stuff there which she couldn't move, she felt. It reminds me, of what a blessing it is, when you are actually responsible, and CAN make decisions yourself, not everyone has that power, and has to consult others and negotiate etc/argue.

I have to do that with dh sometimes, but most of the stuff I am having difficulty with is actually MINE!

Merry Christmas my friends!

Merry Christmas Solo and all others on the thread!

I am feeling very respectful to my possessions today, the ones that make this home lovely...and to the others (you know who you are soon you will have kind new owners....rubs hand at thought of NY fresh broom...

mess everywhere as usual at Christmas, but I've appreciated all the new things that have arrived, (books to read, and food gifts mainly) for once instead of feeling quite overwhelmed.

btw the cupboard under the stairs, the fridge and the laundry seem to be quite incorrigible over the last few days, they are all ganging up on me it feels Some sports wear of ds that I really needed and had completely lost spewed out at me when I tried to locate some stocking fillers that I had also lost, and dd's sparkly socks never even made it into her stocking, I had to give them to her separately this morning, so embarassing..

Dd got a skateboard from us, and I found a helmet from years back which worked perfectly, covered in cobwebs, buried in garden shed, or should I say unburied because we decluttered so much in there in summer. It actually came in useful. However that is an isolated incident isn't of something actually being useful...I only found it because I threw out other "useful" items no doubt...

Happy christmas :)

Our house is so cluttered with new toys for four children from all our family and santa.

For once I don't care. I managed to clear out the toys before Christmas and Tuesday is soon enough to worry about finding homes for all the new stuff :)

Looking forward to Boxing day and seeing more family. :)

Have you all had a good day? Surprisingly, we did! Played Articulate which is hilarious and Scrabble. :)

Hello all :) How is it going?

I have been doing some kitchen sorting. Pulled all the canned stuff out from where it is kept and discovered two old cans of strawberries in juice that had leaked out until empty presumably via the seams. I'm going to have a swap about because the canned foods are nigh on impossible to get to at the back. Will put the pans there and the cans where the pann are supposed to be and see if that works.

Got rid of loads of paper stuff in the kitchen but more to go . More tomorrow.

Hello, i need to join too. I've laughed my way through posts on here because i see myself in them so much. I'm ASD with ME too, i've always struggled with the contradiction of organized clutter. I also HE and i think that brings it's own clutter.

Currently i have 3 loads of laundry piled up in my bedroom, one load waiting to be done, one in the washer and one in the dryer. Since moving house I now have just a cupboard that is 4x smaller than my previous wardrobe and it's proving difficult. For the first time in years i've allowed myself some new clothing aswel so this combination is not working!

I grew up feeling guilty for everything i had, times were hard and my sibling got everything and so i asked for nothing and held onto it all to try and balance it out. I still have clothes from 15 years ago for this reason. I have long sleeved tops with stains on but i keep them because it's hard to find ones tall enough to fit and 'i wear short sleeved tops over the top anyway' so as to not waste them. It is ridiculous but also makes sense in my guilt ridden thrifty mind.

My mum is very nasty about the clutter (yet brings more stuff every time she visits, whilst simultaneously telling me off for having too much) and my health has been very bad, ontop of that i've been renovating the entire house. I'm barely hanging on to the dream of the finished house and for now i'm drowning under the mess.

I wanted to try something new and blitz the whole place for NY, but had that thought 2 days ago and somehow time has flown and now it's too late. I can actually see my dressing table top now, although still not clear. I've spent 2 hours on paperwork but still loads to do. I've bought tubs and sorted out all the Playmobil. All quite disjointed but i suppose any progress is going in the right direction.

Hi Sleepy and welcome . It's scary isn't it when you see yourself in other people and their problems. I see myself on tv sometimes these days and it's not nice. Storage space is limited here too, but I need to get rid of stuff. My own home improvements have not happened because I can't get straight! I completely understand where you are coming from. Stay and let us all help one another :)

Happy New Year Everyone! :) :) :)

Happy new year :)

Welcome Sleepy.

Before Christmas I attacked my big pile in our room. It took me days and I hurt my back from lifting so much.

We took a car load to the tip and another load to charity. I was so proud to have reduced pile 10%. Now it is back to where it was. :(

My one and only news years resolution is to destroy this pile and NEVER ever let another one start. Problem is everyone dumps stuff there when they don't know where it goes ...tears hair out.

So I have ordered and put up two sets of plastic shelves and awaiting rubber tubs to go on them. Next week I will fill the tubs with the needed stuff from the pile..so they have a temporary home. The rest will be chucked or given to charity.

Hopefully this will work. Let 2017 be the year when we only have the things we need in our home and that EVERYTHING has a home somewhere.