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Housekeeping

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Living in a clutter mountain

17 replies

WomanBornNotWorn · 20/08/2019 10:46

I've lived under mountains of crap for years. Not mine, my OH's. He cannot let anything go.

Defunct tech is a thing - obsolete things like video players, film cameras, analogue TV sets from 30 years ago, mini disc stuff, video cameras, digital cameras, palm top personal organisers, film editing and projecting kit, old mobiles, reel to reel tape players, etc - anything we now do with our phones. But still the kit stays.

Things that don't work - we have literally a stack of 8 kackered dvd players/hard drive recorders under the TV table gathering dust duvets.

Boxes and piles of media we don't watch/listen to - 45, 33, 78 records, cassettes, CDs, videos, dvds, 8mm film, colour slides, photos - again, we watch, listen & create on phones & computers now.

And packaging - every laptop, every camera etc came in a box. With polystyrene. And the boxes are … still here.

It's like tech Time Team here - open a box and decades and strata of obsolete media stuff stares back.

It's not only the piles, the dust and the overwhelm it's also the guilt - all those memories locked up in that unprepossessing tech. Family, youth, people now gone, achievements and experiences, things we loved back in the day. But not part of our lives today.

And the cost. How much money is represented by all that stuff. I know about the sunk cost fallacy but I still resent it.

I would like to hire a skip.

Well, that's how my mood often descends. But then I remind myself that a few years back I discovered the 365 day challenge - and started. Then I found Konmari - and continued.

The secret is taking photos of each room 'before', and every pile, bag, big thing that leaves the house.

And when I look at how far I've come and how much better things really are than they were, I get renewed energy to face the stuff. I can do this, because I've already done loads.

What's your journey?

OP posts:
jenthehen · 20/08/2019 11:03

You’ve just described my house. My DH will not part with so much stuff. Old phones, video games from the 1980’s, old IT gadgets etc. Our ‘spare’ room is full to the brim. He lost all of his family members and their belongings have added to the pile. It weighs me down but it’s not mine to part with. It’s been several years now and I’d love to have that space back. Any tips on how I can help him to move stuff on?

WomanBornNotWorn · 20/08/2019 11:23

Jenthehen - so difficult to tackle others' things. I've found my OH has started on boxes of photos, scanning and sorting them for easy access on computer which means he's actually looking at them rather than leaving them in an unopened box. And the scanned ones have started being discarded too.

Doing the Marie Kondo visioning thing - talking about how we'd like home to be, what we'd like to be able to do here without having to do massive shifting of stuff - has started to sink in.

Nagging, criticising, getting angry and resentful all cause defensive digging-in reactions. It annoys me I have to police my own feelings so I can modify my behaviour to influence how he thinks, feels and behaves. It feels like the long way round - but it seems to be slowly getting results. Glacier slow.

OP posts:
jenthehen · 20/08/2019 12:18

He has scanned the photos which is a start but he can’t seem to part with stuff. I’ve suggested taking photos of things for memories. One day hopefully we will get clutter free.

WomanBornNotWorn · 21/08/2019 07:17

Have you read Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up? It just made sense to me. This article summarises it well:

www.onekingslane.com/live-love-home/marie-kondo-book-declutter/

I think what I took away most from the book was:

Visioning - a very clear sense of what you want and why

Category not location - clothes first, etc - gives permission not to be overwhelmed by the rest

Spark joy - only keep what you love, want and use

OP posts:
PamelaTodd · 21/08/2019 07:26

Our breakthrough came when we cleared out the living room to put down a new floor and then made a conscious effort to only put back what we really wanted in there, instead of all the stuff that lived there by default.

The rest of the house was a disaster zone for about two months before we were able to find homes/storage/ part with the excess from the living room.

But being able to go into our calm, uncluttered living room kept us motivated to keep going and not just bung it all back in.

Mostly I use Dana White’s decluttering without making a bigger mess system. www.amazon.co.uk/Decluttering-Speed-Life-Dana-White/dp/0718080602?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

HandsOffMyRights · 21/08/2019 07:28

OP, are you married to my DH?

I work hard to declutter, yet my husband has a hoard of everything you speak of. This includes eight massive TV monitors from the 90s. We have 20 to 30 video game devices, hundreds of games. DVDs. videos, tapes, records, Polaroid cameras, toys, models, Spectrum User magazines, old copies of music mags (and free cassettes), broken printers, more monitors, old PCs...

When we moved house, we needed to pay for an extra van just to shift his stuff (I'd say he has a shop's worth of retro stuff).

We purposely bought a house with a double loft space where this all lives. As a result, I have little space to stash family items.

One day I made a ruthless choice to part with lots of old baby clothes and remember thinking "why?" when he still has every single box from every item he's ever bought.

I started decluttering after we moved. I realised I had lots of stuff and didn't want to be in a position ever again of having too much stuff. Im constantly sorting and feel pleased at the progress.

Then I look in the loft (and the garage, which is full of old boxes, more monitors) and it stresses me out!

HandsOffMyRights · 21/08/2019 07:30

OP, I see you mention mini discs and knackered old video players etc. I'll second that...

FredaFrogspawn · 21/08/2019 07:33

Would it be possible to get this stuff out of the house and into storage as a first step? It sounds hideous living amidst all that unused clutter - I’d feel so out of control with my environment.

Mmmmdanone · 21/08/2019 08:29

Same with my DH. I also want to hire a skip. Our garage is full of stuff. So depressing. He thinks he's doing well when he sends a few old shirts to charity. He has about 60 work shirts to begin with!

HandsOffMyRights · 21/08/2019 08:36

Part of it is acknowledging the issue. Mine can't even see how much stuff there is or that it might be a problem.

I persuaded him to part with an old lamp because it was broken. He had kept it because it was retro looking yet served no purpose (and is among 3 other lamps).

HandsOffMyRights · 21/08/2019 08:38

Mmm

He has more clothes than me, including many shirts from before we met 20 years ago..

MikeUniformMike · 21/08/2019 11:21

Thanks for the link Pamela, I am reading the 'Look inside' and it sounds like she was where I am now.

WomanBornNotWorn · 21/08/2019 20:51

Luckily i don't have a gamer to contend with. What I do have is a collector of 60 TV stuff. Commercial videos of The Avengers. DVDs of the same episodes. VHS off-tv recordings. Of the same episodes. Doctor Who and Gerry Anderson books, dvds, videos, plastic models of the Thunderbirds preserved in their boxes. Computer magazines with the free discs that are still attached and are 15 years old. Flyers and tickets and brochures from things wevwrnt to. Newspaper cuttings to be scanned. Some 30 years old. Clothes falling apart - oh dear just reading this I think we actually have a problem.

OP posts:
WomanBornNotWorn · 29/08/2019 23:55

He's actually ventured into the boxes of photos, slides and negatives, got the scanner going and is starting to scan, sort and discard!!!

OP posts:
HeadintheiClouds · 30/08/2019 08:44

This is utterly irrelevant to your thread, op, but I saw your username on the active threads list and just had to tell you I love it, it’s perfect!
Sorry, I’ll leave the thread quietly now...

WomanBornNotWorn · 31/08/2019 16:29

Aw ta! Not mine- I read it and thought 'yes', it does what it says on the tin

OP posts:
TobyHouseMan · 31/08/2019 19:31

Both my DW and I come from hoarding parents and we were the same. Over the years we've worked out that having more things does not improve our lives and about 6 years ago chucked out a vast amount of stuff.

Now unless it's sentimental if it's not used in a year then it's gone. We always say if we made a mistake we can buy another.

Our house is now mostly free of clutter and we have space to move.

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