Please will you kindly support and advise me, as I try to help a friend sort out his home?

[EatingTheElephantInChunks]

Yesterday I started to try to help a friend sort out his home. If I tell you that it took me nearly 3 hours to clear a space on the bathroom floor about 3ft x 4ft, you will probably understand how things are. Today I did a little better. In about 2 hours I cleared another space the same size, which meant I could open a cupboard. Two shelves were almost empty, so I was able to clean those and use them for storage. I will carry on next time with the other 2 shelves and continue clearing the bathroom floor.

It was very satisfying to get rid of a whole binbag of rubbish yesterday and a half bag today, plus a bag and a half of recycling, and a small bag of confidential waste to shred. There is a folding storage crate of things to keep so far, but I'll go through that again to see if I've missed anything that should be thrown out or recycled.

My friend has got into this situation after many years of serious illness and close bereavements, has no family left and few friends, certainly not really close ones. He has been at the stage for several years where he doesn't have visitors. He needs many repairs and much decorating doing, and is getting to the stage where carers visiting would be helpful. I am hoping to get him to the stage where that will be possible. He is such a nice guy, and it's a shame that life has gradually got smaller and smaller for him over the years. It must be terribly lonely.

I feel honoured that he has trusted me with the truth of how things are. I can't talk to anyone IRL as I know it's essential to protect his privacy, and I have changed my username in case anyone makes the connections. I could do with some mumsnet wisdom and support! I have never felt such a sense of achievement over a bit of floorspace 3ft x 4ft, but equally the enormity of the task hit me.

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The author - writing under the pseudonym EatingTheElephantInChunks - claims and owns the copyright of all her posts dated on and after 14th August 2018 as her intellectual property and as a moral right and which are all her own individual and original work. Reproduction in whole or part or any other use is strictly prohibited without her prior written permission.

[Edited by MNHQ at posters request]

Not wanting to blow my own trunk, or over-egg the currant buns

This made me think immediately of the wonderful picture book The Elephant and the Bad Baby - do you know it, Nellie?

Hope you’re enjoying your weekend off! I have been absent from this thread because of my own real life sifting through piles of hoarded treasures, aka my DC’s bedrooms. Unlike your friend, however, my DC put no trust in me at all not to ruthlessly apply black bin bags

I’m not that evil really, but I have perfected the art of surreptitious sleight of hand in slipping plastic tat and half-completed papers straight into the bin.

It’s the upkeep though that’s tricky - remembering to nag them to stay on top of tidying. I could definitely do better on that score. I hope your friend is managing the upkeep of the bathroom etc.

Relate a lot to your piles, leeloo - I have found it helps to a) designate just one spot for things like empty shoe boxes & storage crates and when that spot is full up, any extra ones must get chucked. And b) don’t ever pile to ‘sort through later’ - take something immediately to the place you know it definitely goes or if it doesn’t have a ‘home’ take it where you’d look for it first. This takes longer and seems less efficient but the ‘later’ pile is just the worst thing I can do- later never comes and the tidy pile attracts stuff to it until it’s buried again. I think they call it the broken window effect in cities - one broken window seems like it could wait to be fixed but before you know it vandalism is on the rise and suddenly there’s damage everywhere. So better to just fix the window when you spot it.

nellie who you calling lost!! I'm just catching up on your efforts after a huge cleaning frenzy of my own. Which involved making the bed and putting a wash on .., I considered washing the kitchen floor but thought better.

You are awe inspiring. I hope you got some time in the sun this weekend - or it'll be beri-beri for you my girl.

Crack on.

Thanks nosquirrels you're so right, clutter definitely attracts more clutter! :( I'm going to try to be better at keeping on top of it!

Thanks for all your lovely messages.

Definitely feel better for the weekend off - well, not off exactly, but a break from Chunking at least! Back to school preps now (belatedly!) in full swing, but hope to be back to it and the thread soon.

Hello and welcome, lee. And bucking, you're back!

PS Two new verbs for you:

To chunk

and

To destuff

How is it going? Have you dared enter the bedrooms yet?

Reading and offering you long distance moral support. You are very generous to be doing this, I know from a little experience it is physically and emotionally exhausting.
Take lots of breaks

I got the impression that the 'keep the change' was light hearted! I think the op found a significant sum of money (£100?) which she definitely didn't keep.

Just a quick update for now, to say that I popped in to drop the crates off and all is still well so far in the bathroom, and on the stairs and landing

Just checking in to say well done again

Just checking in to wait for your soothing and mellifluous prose, and updates on the tidying. Soothing and satisfying all in one post. What could be better?

I check at least twice a day for updates...please keep posting! The resemblance of order (even a little bit) in a sea of chaos gives me some hope for my frantic life

Hello everyone and thank you for your kind messages. It's been a hectic few days at home with last-minute back to school preparations, and unfortunately we've been tripped up too by a nasty bug. It's doing the rounds locally, and was shared with us by an over-generous acquaintance, (now known to us forevermore as The Rotter).

My friend expected me to take a little time out just now, so luckily he's not feeling let down or worrying that I've changed my mind about helping, which is really important.

Despite the real challenges of the task, (and I'm not minimising those), I have missed it in other ways. There is a lot to be said for the sense of achievement from doing something tangible to help someone. I've been guilty in the past of saying that well-known phrase 'let me know if there's anything I can do', and of course people don't usually let you know, do they? They limp on, and either things get better for them without any help from you or sadly they don't. This time, I'm following through.

Sorry to hear you were all ill. Hope everyone is on the mend now.

Yay for improvement! And for clear patches remaining clear!

Have the lurgy cold and am being somewhat pathetic, but inbetween burning up and coughing m'bits up you've inspired me to plan to head into the study at the weekend and return it from Desolate Dumping Waste Ground to my Useful and Serenely Quiet Spot, sans Stuff!

Get well soon Mrs, and I'm cheering you on with the destuffing!

Thanks Ring. One of us is feeling mostly better now and I'm hoping that the rest of us will soon be too. Not great timing, but these things happen!

Lovely to hear from you both again.

Welcome and hello, Atreus. It's posts like your's that will help keep me going through the more difficult times ahead. Thank you

Hello again Ring. What a lovely post! Thank you.

And hello again Well. Lovely to hear from you and thank you.

Hopefully normal service will resume again soon.

Hello again Cleaners and apologies for the slow and germ-soaked response! Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to explain your thoughts. I completely understand where you're coming from, and your post was far from inarticulate. No hard hat necessary on this thread, and you come across as nothing less than a perfectly reasonable person - certainly no mooing detected! Anyway, I like cows, and appreciate that they need to know where their next winter silage is coming from

I'll come back later to try to answer some of your thoughts when hopefully my brain is working a bit more clearly

Hello and welcome Elbbob. Thanks so much for your kind support. Do you want to say any more about your experience? Having an unexpected long break now, (as you might have read), but looking forward to that cake sometime soon!

And hello again Archers. The only thing I've done is in the main bedroom so far - I managed to put a new bulb in the light, which is something very small, but important I think. The ceiling in there is as high as the bathroom, (which you'll remember I can't reach yet), but the lightfitting is on a long cord so I could just about reach that with the stepladders. I was still trying to blast my way through the landing when school and the lurgy got in the way. Any dynamite you can send would be welcome for when I restart!

Sorry to hear you have been unwell Elephant. Take it easy for a few days - Rome wasn't chunked cleaned and relit in a day.

I can't understand how you have the time and energy - well done for helping him. Would the budget not stretch to two strapping young men and a van though? Surely they could have it done in a couple of days. Considering two of them moved our whole house in 3 hours. You'll wear yourself into the ground.