The Hoarders Anonymous #5

[CherryMargo]

Thread #1 | Thread #2 | Thread #3 | Thread #4

Is your house/flat in a complete mess? Do you often feel overwhelmed and helpless when it comes to sorting it out? Do you procrastinate a lot? Do you struggle to declutter due to emotional attachment or decision-making fatigue? Are you embarrassed to invite people in?

Then you and us have a lot in common!

Join in for advice, encouragement and support. Here we share our struggles no matter how big, and celebrate our progress no matter how small. Welcome to thread number five! 🤗

P. S. Here are the links to various methods mentioned in previous threads:

The FlyLady Cleaning Method by Marla Cilley
The Organised Mum Method by Gemma Bray
The KonMari Method by Marie Kondo
The Getting Things Done Method by David Allen

www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/self-help/

I'm also posting this link because it helped me, even if it doesn't apply to most of us.

Hi, can I join you please? I have actually just sat down to look at my phone as I've been trying to sort out the playroom all day and feel like I've got nowhere!!! My kids have too much stuff, people buy them too much stuff for Christmas and birthdays and the room is a mess! Like beyond belief, I just read that last article and the room really can't be used for its purpose and I also do a lot of churning!! I just want the toys to go to a good home! I did sell a lot but there is so much more and I'm feeling really overwhelmed by the task ahead. Any words of advice, i don't think I can stress how bad the room is!!! If I tidy it a bit the kids go in and trash it again. I'm beginning to hate weekends as I feel I just need to tidy all the time and don't do anything nice with my kids!

Thank you for the new thread.

Daisy, I reached end of the linitis when kids were five and seven and started "rotating" the toys (put several away in loft for six months at a time) DH was very resistant, and had this thing about categories of toy needing to stay together ie all the Lego, all the cars, all the puzzles. This is where I went wrong too, I spent more time sorting and categorising than they spent playing!!!!! In truth what they liked was rampaging, building houses out of sofa cushions and singing and dancing. Only D's liked cars and trains...and I was the adult and should have structured how much was in the room. Because he too had difficulties with executive function, I should have limited his choices more and he would have been happier than having a big melting pot of toys...
And do you know, so many toys just meant they watched TV!!!!
Don't necessarily sell them but just remove them from the trashing zone on rotation and see if that helps.

It is lovely to have a playroom but it can become a overwhelming warehouse of all these toys that aren't really being played with, just thrown around, causing stress to parent, rather than fostering creative interactive play. We were so lucky to have one, DH used to layout the traintrack and they used to dance around but then it made me so depressed it was always a source of bad feelings. I changed it to a big kitchen.

Disclaimer: playroom at the time was also meant to be dining room/TV room for adults.

Thanks for your wise words @Nettleskeins everything you say makes sense and you're right, they are watching too much tv as the room is a mess!! Lockdown hasn't helped as I've been working and homeschooling and not had time to keep on top of it!
My kids are about the age you mentioned but if you never knew that you would think we had a toddler as well as old toys need to go, and so many teddies 🙈
I actually said to DH earlier, it's almost because we have the playroom we are in this situation, if we never had it we simply couldn't have all the toys, and people think, oh they've got room for them and keep buying us them!

Hello @DaisyDyson toys are a nightmare. We have just one child who loves collectibles and will never part with toys. Nightmare. My heart sinks when I see another gimmicky 56 pieces of plastic tat to collect

Thanks for the thread @CherryMargo

@Nettleskeins thanks for the parent partnership suggestion on the other thread & also the link above.

@BlackeyedSusan are you finding the changes are helping with acid reflux? The doctor recently floated acid reflux as a possible cause of some annoying symptoms I’ve been having. I don’t have any indigestion symptoms though. My house has various in-progress DIY jobs that were started with the best intentions years ago and then left half done

not sure if they are making much difference, some difference yes. I could up the dose of the tablets as I was first prescribed one a day but later upped to two per day but forget as I can't remember anything. I need to go to the Gp as I am tired all the bloody time.

I've got rid of 3 Dyson's this weekend, plus an empty tool chest ! Slowly but by bit .....

I'm reading the link helpforhoarders. Blimey! It's a bit on the nose. I'm guilty of a few things. It's certainly food for thought!

I'm hoping and aiming to clean up my bedroom by the end of the month. I can see setting a timeframe is important and that it's a good idea to keep me focused. I'm glad I've read that (on helpforhoarders) and I can see it'll be good for me. I will push past too much procrastinating.

I'm really thinking about getting a curbside pickup of some cot mattresses and a single mattress that are serving no purpose in our garage.

I made a phone call today that I've been procrastinating about! Phew. Done!

I hoovered an area of my bedroom today. I'm cleaning area by area. Actually any progress is feeling good. And a nice hoovered area looks great. I also wiped down half of the window sill. Half is better than none!!

I took out loads of recycling today.

Thanks for the new thread. Good luck everyone and good work.

My youngest has started school this year and it's a lot easier tackling tidying and cleaning without any pre schoolers under foot.

We've got far far too many toys for the kids. They play with some of them. I find it hard to get rid of any!

I am going to concentrate on downstairs today.
Living room, dining room and I still have a double cupboard and the fridge to sort out in the kitchen . But that might be tomorrow's job.

@solo Here is the new thread, so you don't lose it

Anyone seen any spoons? Pretty sure I left some here somewhere!

So, yesterday 1.30pm...me: not sure I can do this resting thing

3.30pm.... just going to have a little nap

6.30pm...really must wake up

I think I did manage resting quite well.

This morning: one kids breakfast, found clothes, drink and chivied out the flat. Two kids driven to school. Coffee at ex's while side-eyeing the spider the size of a Dinner plate.

Home: wipe the shopping that was unpacked onto the floor. Hoover hall,stairs and kitchen. Empty hoover into a bag and wind up the wire. Put on a load of washing, empty washing up bowl and stack pots ready to wash up.

Collapse into heap and wait to acquire more spoons.

Rest of today:
Wipe hall paintwork (damp dusting)
Wash up.
Put some of wiped shopping away.

Rest of week: keep on top of washing up and washing
Wash stairs( painted)
Make progress on the worst areas of each room
Restock dd's milk and apple juice supply.
Finish census if it ever arrives.

I've found your last remaining spoon in the cupboard under the stairs Susan, masquerading as mop No. 3 ( the "spare mop* I'd forgotten was there)
Is is weird that I imagine these spoons as giant implements that I prop myself up on

Today the grime seems worse than ever everywhere. Crumbs, grease, dust on floor.

However the unexpected arrival of someone to read the gas meter has precipitated a pile of middle into the hall/ study.

My goal is to get stuff out and away from that cupboard so I can store the hoover somewhere.

Mop no 3 is doing no good in that cupboard buried under cardboard boxes and anoraks, for a start...

A pile of muddle not middle

I am thinking about buying one these trolleys. I am hoping it would be a way I could take the recycling out to the outside bins and a way to do a small shop at the supermarket.

As long as I can learn to control the trolley plus my chair, lol.

Or maybe I could attach it to my foot plate. It is a shame that the supermarket trolleys designed to attached to chairs don't attach to my power chair.
my potential shopping trolley

Today I have cleaned the kitchen and unloaded, reloaded dishwasher.

Washed one load of bedding, DH has put in the dryer! Second lot of bedding is washing as I type and will be in the dryer, after the first lot. We haven't used the dryer in months but limited drying room and desire to catch up the laundry, makes this a necessary at the moment.

I also cleared, cleaned and organised the fridge from my perching chair and did the sink based washing up and drying from it too.

The perching chair is super useful downstairs but I also need it upstairs in the bathroom. I can move it but it is very hard to get it on the stair lift with me! So I guess I need to buy a second one, which is an expense pain but needs doing.

Then hoovered living room from my manual chair.

Lastly I emptied both litter trays into recycling food bags, as it is plant based and can be recycled, which took forever and refilled via a scoop. Lovely fresh litter.

I still have a pile of recycling to go to the outside bins but DH will do that after he finished work.

I have had enough, no energy left and my legs/back hurt too much, to do much more.
I am sat on the sofa typing this post, then I will go upstairs have a lie down to get the energy together for a shower, then another lie down in order to be ready to either collect or welcome the youngest kids home.

Wish me luck. If I find any mops or spoons I will send them to you guys!

Babies that sounds very hard for you...I'm glad the perching chair makes things a bit easier. Lie downs are very necessary to get through the day when you are in pain.
You think they would invent a litter tray with a wide plug in the base...and a base frame for many things (ie Hoover's)that can be pumped up and down so you could change bags at the right height. There must be so many that would benefit. Did you consider getting laundry picked up and washed and dried if there is any spare money for that?

Here is a picture of the cupboard under stairs cleared...and with hoover fitted in at last. Several cardboard boxes, table cloths, and an enormous stash of supermarket bags removed, though I know it still looks cluttered...that's a 50m dog training lead hanging down. The mops have gone to corner of utility. Churning I know.

Hello Everyone. I hope you don't mind me joining. I've got a long-standing problem with having too much stuff. It's coming to a head now because I need to sell my flat soon and it's in no condition to let anyone in to see it. I need to make a start with a little bit at a time, but I find it really hard. I'm hoping that having some company to share this with will help.

Ive forced the teens to carry their school memorabilia upstairs. They can put it in the loft for me/them.
Ive put a framed picture out for the passersby to take if they want. A picture I bought from a charity shop for £12'and am now having such a lot of wasted headspace trying to let it go....but it is outside the house now.

Im staring at three cardboard packing boxes one from safestore (newish) that I need to get out of the house. Very annoyingly dh (the cardboard box hoarder incarnate in his office) said, why would I chuck good boxes..

Because I need to stay strong!!!!

How is the bedroom sorting going? (DownU)

And downstairs? Did you escape from the cupboard?

That's not cluttered nettle. Mine is packed solid to four foot deep.

Oh God, my cardboard boxes go in the loft. I am worse than I thought!

On the plus side: hall paintwork wiped, verrucas duct taped, snacks given, headache meds dispensed, lots of soothing noises made, clean towel delivered to disembodied hand around the door, another load of washing in, working on my yarn stash turning it into a blanket. Talked on phone for diagnosis follow up.

When I have found some metaphorical spoons, I shall use them to find literal spoons by washing up

On the plus side, we will be eating our way through half of it, literal eating.