The decluttering on thing a day thread - part 11

[StealthNinjaMum]

We’re still here.

After 10 threads my house still isn't tidy!

So join me and a lovely group of mumsnetters who simply get rid of one thing a day and report back. Gradually we’re developing good habits, reorganising ourselves, often improving our mental health and having friendly chatter along the way.

So newbies are welcome, just check in with your news and join in the general chat about recycling, organisation and housework.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3760076-Decluttering-one-thing-a-day-part-10-the-countdown-to-a-clutter-free-Christmas?pg=1

ALSO many of us have set a target to get rid of 2020 items this year and will report on that.

Well, at least our carpet fitting tomorrow has been officially cancelled. That is fine - it was the uncertainty that was really stressing me out.

I have checked our council web site throughout the day. They are now on around the third different version of the info about recycling centres and bin collections. They have now closed all recycling sites for at least 3 days. I don’t know if that means that they are going to introduce new measures to keep people apart, or what? We have to put bins out as usual but they will be concentrating on emptying all the landfill and the garden/food waste, so if one of the others doesn’t get emptied take it back in and try again next month!

I hope to get some gardening done over the next few weeks, so hope I can get rid off the waste OK.

Sorry about the carpet, Purple, but at least you have certainty now, as you say. I've had a Twitter smack from the council for pointing out their advice doesn't match, apparently I am not keeping up with the evolving situation. I am getting very childish and just blew raspberries at my phone to relieve my feelings.

DH wants us to stop recycling altogether now they're not collecting it, and put everything into landfill. That feels like an awfully retrograde step to me and I think will ingrain bad habits very quickly, but we're rapidly running out of space to store recycling til this all blows over. I think we may need to resolve the green bin problem by resurrecting the compost bin.

I have been surprised by how much daily decluttering has become part of my life, now I can't do it. We have had to empty DS1's wardrobe so he can put all his uni clothes away, and I want to go through the stuff that's come out and sort it, not just stick it in a suitcase, but what's the point? Right now, it's all on the floor of our bedroom, driving me insane.

Hoping to get some windows open today and to rationalise the utility room again, even if it is just shuffling things about

Fell off the thread! No recycling here either and no garden, so can’t compost . We’ve been advised to keep recycling somewhere dry, but no update as to how long it’ll be before they can start it up again.

Have managed to get rid of 25 old and not so old bank statements, 1 old debit card of DPs (expired three years ago and was in an unopened envelope 🤷‍♀️), and a couple of bits of kids artwork (clutching at straws a bit here!). Hope everyone is doing okay

537/2020

purplefrog its a good thing that it's been cancelled as presumably you won't lose money by cancelling it yourself and like you said you have certainty, but it must be frustrating when you've been looking forward to something to improve your house.

My tip is closed too but as I mentioned yesterday I'd have to take the dc to the tip and it probably isn't essential. I imagine councils are struggling with sick people and having to redeploy their workers into other areas.

I've been looking at small incinerators for the garden but don't really want to upset my neighbours by burning it. I know that other councils have cancelled green rubbish collection and I can see why it wouldn't be a priority but from a selfish point of view spending time in the garden with dc is probably one of the nicest things I have to look forward to in the next couple of months.

greenwillow do you have recycling centres that take other things than bottles? Near me we have a supermarket that has a cardboard collector and we have a few Salvation army clothes banks that I can use next time I go shopping. This could go on for months and to be honest I would be putting my recycling into the landfill too. It sounds selfish but no matter how well you wash it you just don't want food and meat wrappers lying around for months. And I don't want food in my compost heap because I've seen rats down the road before.

Hello all, it’s a long time since I have posted since I’ve been struggling to keep on top of life since finishing maternity leave. Some decluttering has happened but it’s been slow going. Obviously I’m now saving commuting time but as you all say, nowhere to get stuff out too!

Willow our council has done exactly the same for waste collections, I wonder if you are near us! We are due to have recycling collected today and there was no cancellation notice so have put it out and crossed my fingers! It’s been a lot of hard work to get my DH on board with recycling so don’t want to waste it.

@StealthNinjaMum, I'm very concerned that ultimately the choice is rats or smoke from burning rubbish. We have a waste disposal built into the sink that can deal with cooked food, but not bones. What do we do with that sort of waste?

@IWillWearTheGreenWillow I would only burn garden rubbish - as I believe plastic is toxic and therefore illegal to burn - but even garden rubbish is horrible to burn and in this weather people are starting to put washing on their lines. I’m really trying not to moan about this because I know relatively speaking i’m lucky - for a start I have a garage I could put rubbish in - but if we lose rubbish collection for several months it’ll be awful and I think people will resort to awful bonfires and fly tipping. Anyway so far my council are doing all waste collections so i’m worrying about nothing.

I thought bones could go in a waste disposal, I had one in my last kitchen, I would just check your instructions - if you haven’t decluttered them!

Just sorted through some of DDs clothes .
Some for the attic (in Space Saver bags) that she's keeping till next winter

Anything she's not keeping in other bags - no Charity Shops open round here and I don't think they want to be storing a load of unseasonal gear .

Some clothes to go to fabric recycle , put in bags and stashed in the junk room.

So nothing "out" but some things "moved" .

It's alright Stealth, I'm not threatening to burn everything! Just trying to have a plan at the back of my head. But it is a worry. We've moved over to handkerchiefs from tissues already.

I know I don't have the instructions for the waste disposal, it was put in by Our Idiot Builder 13 years ago and he binned everything, fitted it wrong, then blamed us. It wasn't working properly because he left it packed with plastic, but clearly that was our fault . I'll see if Google can help.

I have decided clothes and shoes for recycling need to go in the loft for now, carefully labelled to come out when everything unlocks again (that makes it sound like a computer game!). Paper can be shredded as it takes up less space that way I think. Or does it? Cardboard can be properly flattened and stacked in the garage. The council say put everything in the black bin, but I'm really not happy with that. DS1's spare clothes are in a spare suitcase, so are not taking up any extra room at present!

greenwillow I think shredded paper takes up more space. If you have a box I would just keep your ‘to be shredded’ paper neatly out of the way. Do you have any charity shoe banks? Your post just reminded me that my local Sainsbury’s has a shoe bank recycling box but I imagine they won’t be emptying it once it’s full.

While doing an ‘art’ lesson with dd2 yesterday we found 3 colouring books to go in a big bag for the charity shop.

And for breakfast i’ve just had half a tin of peaches that went off three years ago with yogurt. The peaches were fine.

Stealth, most car-park recycling has been withdrawn in the last year or so round here, not sure why. I would almost certainly have to make an unecessary trip to find any as I know for certain neither Tesco nor Lidl have any.

Glad the peaches were tasty!

If you are lucky enough to to have a garage then maybe you could sort the garage first!! Then when it’s all sorted then maybe you could put charity bags in the garage ready to go to the charity shop when they reopen. You could but black bags of rubbish in the garden as long as there is no food in them. ( would use garden thick black bags ).

One of my friends got a skip delivered on Monday , just for decluttering, she has gone half’s with her neighbour, luckily they have a shared drive. But it might be there for months now as the company has now shut down!! Was only supposed to be there a week.

Luckily our council is still picking up household rubbish but not the recycling or the garden rubbish.

nanlisa that’s quite a good Ida to buy strong garden bags. We have a wheely bin for garden rubbish but I think i’ll get some bags anyway because lots of people don’t have a garden collection at the moment and I think it’s only a matter of time before my council stop the collections too. My garage is relatively uncluttered but the stuff left are things I can’t physically pick up like doors, tiles, a desk. I kept meaning to advertise them on freecycle but never got round to it because there’s always more to do in the house.

I just had a salad with lentils that I am decluttering. My dc were not impressed.

Stealth - the carpet is paid for. We had to pay the fitters on the day. We won't lose the carpet or any money... unless the shop goes bust! It is part of a national chain so I don't think that will be the case.

Our council has changed the bin collection info again. It is our paper/cardboard one tomorrow so I hope it gets picked up. They say they will prioritise routes with landfill or garden/food waste if they are short staffed. They have also just reduced our garden/food bin to 1 collection a month. I was talking to DP about incinerators as well. I think we might get rid our leaves in ours. We have 4 large oak trees in the back garden and we still have a LOT of leaves to get rid of. We also have a large plastic garden store where we kept the chicken food and bedding. ( Our last remaining chicken died around 12 months ago. ) The plan is to give that a clean out on the next nice day, and put any excess recycling there until we can get rid of it.

Why not make leaf mould with all your leaves, simplest way is to stick them into black bags and weigh down with a brick or stone. Ignore for about 2 years then use to enrich your soil.

I forgot I was going to try that, gassylady. Thanks for reminding me. This was supposed to be the year we got our garden back under control. It has been badly neglected for the past couple of years. I had plans to get some raised beds and start growing more than weeds. And if we place the bags strategically, they can act as weed suppressants as well!

Any idea if oak leaves are OK for that as they contain a lot of tannin?

We are aiming to get the garage decluttered as well. So far we've sorted through 2 boxes of DVDs which have been stored in there since we moved 4 years ago. They've gone into piles of 'to watch', 'to keep' and 'get rid'. I think there's a couple of boxes of books in there too which are next on the list.

At the moment we are still getting our weekly food waste collection, fingers crossed that continues.

I hadn’t thought to reuse my leaves, I’m not sure I could handle having them hang around for long. I’m still contemplating buying an incinerator and have watched lots of videos about them on YouTube (because I know how to have a good time!)

Today i’ve eaten a frozen Thai curry that went off two years ago. No food poisoning so far! I’ll also have more lentils for dinner. I have chucked out the contents of two hair styling products that have been hanging around for years - lets hope we have plastic recycling taken away next week.

I feel i’m doing quite well with decluttering three things a day and homeschooling although dc are yelling at each other. We haven’t been out for a week now so I might take one of them for a walk now.

Decluttering has absolutely stopped here, but that's partly because we've stopped buying things (mostly... Yes, I'm looking at you, DH). DS2 is so bored he's keeping his bedroom tidy (!). DS1 still hasn't unpacked since he came back from Uni a week ago, and I fear this is actually how he lives, with everything all over the floor all the time. I'm getting a bit concerned about his mental health as he was always very tidy and fastidious when he was younger.

Yesterday, I did declutter elderly broccoli stalks from the fridge into Delicious Soup, so I hope that counts. No-one is allowed to grow out of anything I can't adjust for the moment, so I'm hoping for now growth spurts.

PurpleFrog oak leaves are amongst the best along with beech and hornbeam. We now have a homemade mesh cage for ours but used the black bin bag method very successfully in a previous house.
Iwill I know what you are saying about no one allowed to outgrow anything my youngest is having a bit of a growth spurt at just the wrong time

I’m decluttering all the food that’s been siting around for ages while dc are having the main fresh food left over. It’s a good job we are socially isolating because the lentils i’be been eating have had a very unpleasant side effect

Last night I made mash with a big bag of frozen potatoes and filled Tupperware pots for the freezer.

Today I am intending to catch up with washing and do some gardening.

I took dd1 clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago but only found one pair of jeans that she deemed worthy so as it gets warmer she’s going to run out of clothes to wear. I’m reluctant to buy online as our post office is closed so if they don’t fit we can’t send them back.

DH has decluttered some Instant Porridge into his belly . It does smell lovely but I cannot be doing with eating it .

Hi everyone! I'm behind with the thread but so hope you're all well and coping OK with all the horribleness.

We've been sorting the garden and freezer today so my outs are:

6 big sacks of garden waste. (Will be turned into compost.)
Several packets.
Some ood food.
1 broken tupperware-type container with lid.

It's so much nicer to look out at the garden now and quite wonderful to open the freezer, which is beautifully clean and organised.

Oo, I forgot! I found one of my favourite chocolate bars in the freezer so I've decluttered that as well. It was delicious! (We ran out of chocolate treats a while back and I won't shop until I really have to.)

We have lentils in the cupboard, they are not the best .

Trying to work out how to declutter when nothing can leave the house. Had a day of sorting out the loft and decluttered some card to the recycling bin. Other things we'll have to make decisions on now, ready to move when normal service resumes, whenever that will be.