Hoarder's Anonymous, Part 6

[Solo]

Well, here we are embarking upon part 6 of our epic journey of sorting out our homes.

We are a varied group of likeminded householders that are leading somewhat challenging lives; be that living with too much 'stuff' that we find difficult to deal with, houses that are falling apart (mine included), health issues within the family unit, wider family, or ourselves that makes sorting out our households challenging, to say the least. So...

Anyone and everyone is welcome to join us for support, adding their own ideas to help others out, storage ideas, even tips on actually getting those items out of the house which sounds so simple when you say it. Encouragement abounds here, and we do not criticise. EVER! We even try not to criticise ourselves as it's not helpful to anyone.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, don't know where to start, can't be bothered but really do want to be bothered...think you are lazy, just need to see it in print here...we'll help. We'll virtually fist bump your achievements - small or large, and virtually hug you when the need arises, and if you want a hug, just ask because we are here for you. Here for one another because we get it - the highs and the lows, the art of washing up is sometimes our great achievement of the day, but it's still an achievement.

Welcome to thread #6 of Hoarders Anonymous - Carrying On Sorting It Out

HERE

Oh my gosh. Today I was going to tackle this that and the other but I procrastinated! Does anyone else do this?! I drove to the shops to buy a duster and a few other bits, selotape and groceries. I found many things to do but couldn't get myself to tidy my room, which was today's goal!

In the end I told myself to just clear one square meter of floor space and dust and hoover and I'd be happy with myself. Honestly I have to talk to myself like a child sometimes! I've cleared that area and I've got the hoover out.

I'm honestly pleased with progress even when it's baby steps.

@Nordicmom yes my OH would definitely agree with you about my clothes!
I'm retired now, so I've decided that I'm going to spend time listing them on ebay and facebook and anything that doesn't sell within a week will get bagged up again. I need to check if they're still doing it, but H&M will take bags of clothes in exchange for a voucher, not that I'm getting more clothes but they'd be handy for my grandchildren.
I had a further wardrobe cull and have SEVENTEEN empty hangers which certainly sparks joy!
I've sold some furniture this week and have some household stuff listed on FB, if it doesn't sell it's going to the charity shop next week.
I posted on one of the earlier threads that I was having a meltdown over sorting my towels out, full on foetal position snotty tears, but now I'm quite ruthless. When you're ready you're ready!
Last time I was having a manic sort out was when I was about to have a baby, hopefully telling my daughter I'm doing a Swedish "death clean" isn't a premonition

Well done to everyone who is making progress. Especially to anyone dealing with clothes. My clothes are beyond a joke and it takes a lot for me to confront how big an issue they are. My weight yo-yos, so I have clothes for every season over three dress sizes, casual wear, office wear, formal wear, coats etc. And quite a lot of them. I have five double wardrobes and loads of bags for life (maybe 20 or so) of the smaller sized stuff. And shoes too.

I think if I could sort the clothes then I’d feel a huge relief and could make real progress on the rest of the house. The DC only have the clothes than fit them (and hand me downs from DC1 which I am keeping for DC2, but they’re al bagged and organised, and DH doesn’t have loads of clothes at all, just two double wardrobes). So it really is me. And if is only me who can sort it.

@WellTidy the clothes were hard for me too. I know a lot of people box up their winter clothes in summer and vice versa but that wouldn't work for me.
I went for ages wearing clothes straight off the rack and never rotating them.
Then I had the bright idea of wearing everything out of my wardrobe (obviously not all at once ), then deciding if it fit, was it comfy, did it have a purpose, then either bagging it up or putting away. Except I never dealt with it as I went along and ended up with a clothes mountain on my spare bed.
It took a while to find a system that worked for me.
So today I put my clean laundry away, almost lost the plot when I found something that needed a hanger , but I just pulled something out of my wardrobe, bagged it up and didn't touch my spare hangers.
I will work through the drawers as I go along now.

I've been cleaning in my bedroom. I got DH to pull the bed out so I could dust and hoover. I've done one huge section of floor. I got him to push it back again after I'd finished. I filled up a bag of trash. On a different day I need the bed pushed over to the side to do more hoovering. If I had to tackle the whole room at once I'd never get started.

DH has been rearranging furniture in one section of our living room. It's a bit like Tetris.

Tetris
One of my goals is to have nothing stored under my bed, I've got boxes of linen, shoes, clothes that don't fit, junky stuff.

I started several replies recently but deleted before posting.

I enjoy reading the updates though I have little progress to report myself. I still haven’t gone to the charity shop with my bags and boxes. I’m broadly on top of laundry, grocery shopping, cooking and dishes, and several kitchen cupboards are much less crammed - makes them much more usable.

Clothes is one area where I’m not too bad. All my clothes are currently in three big IKEA malm drawers in a 2+4 chest of drawers (the last big drawer has bedding and the two small drawers are full of random crap), plus I have probably a laundry load’s worth either being worn, or in the laundry system, plus a very small number of dresses and jackets hanging in a wardrobe. Still room for improvement (not so much needing to reduce the quantity, it’s more needing to replace stuff that’s reached the end of its life, but I can’t face clothes shopping).

Well done on the bedroom deep clean DownUdderer - doing it in manageable chunks is such good advice. It’s tempting to think you can’t get a job done from start to finish so put it off to when you have more time (i.e. never!). I’m very guilty of this.

Hi, I'm new to this, but can I join? I have a pile of bags for life full of stuff like tins of beans and packets of soup and an overflowing cupboard and things piled everywhere and I can't get into stuff. The whole of my house is full of piles of stuff in front of other stuff. I'm reading back through the thread but if you don't mind I'd like to keep dipping in here to keep me motivated.

Hello, can I join in?
I started decluttering this month and it started off well but I’ve just gotten overwhelmed and basically given up. My house is stuffed with junk and I’m ashamed that it’s not really clean. I know what I want my house to look like but it’s still not enough to motivate me to do much. Dc just had a scream for 45 minutes, I’m already drained for the day. I don’t know if I’ll manage anything this afternoon/evening.

I've just been sorting through a shelf (one shelf!) and I've thrown out a load of expired tins. I'm so ashamed of the waste.

@BeefSupreme I've just joined, so not sure that it's allowed, but I'm sending positive thoughts your way.

Hello and welcome!

I was trying the minimalist game @BeefSupreme and read the threads without posting. I only made it to day 18 though (I should pick up where I left off).

I know deep down that every single item removed from my home helps, but so much needs to go in order to make a visual difference that I get discouraged and overwhelmed. It’s hard to stay motivated.

@Tyredofallthis1 could you donate some of the excess to the food bank (if in date?) or is it stuff you will actually eat? I’ve been making a conscious effort to eat from my cupboards/freezer and managed to get to the point where I have free space in my cupboards, which is a revelation!

I’m now only buying tried and tested things my family will eat (not trying new brands, not buying weird ingredients for a new recipe etc) and also have one on the go and one extra policy on things like ketchup, rice, washing up liquid etc.

Please don’t beat yourself up about the expired foods, it’s happened to me and probably everyone else on the thread.

You have just inspired me to Google recipes for borlotti beans as I have quite a few tins languishing in the cupboard.

@Miaowse I've donated loads in the past, where I've been told that they really can't get enough of x, so I stocked up on a sale, or could only get it on Amazon and so ended up with a box, and then son refuses to eat it.

To be fair, there are valid reasons why he 'baits and switches' with food, but other stuff has just been hidden in piles and then expired.

I'm also a little stressy about stocking up as I have food intolerances so I like to have some in hand in case I can't get stuff or weather is bad and I can't shop.

Thank you for replying. I know what you mean about visual noise. I've been chipping away on and off all day, and there is still so much to do.

Hello new people! Everyone is kind and caring on this thread we all help each other where we can.

DH hung out the wet laundry for me today. I was glad he did it.

I think I've got the face Christmas decorations pretty soon. Perhaps I need a few things cleaned and tidied before doing Christmas decorating.

@DownUdderer Thank you for your kind welcome. I'm dreading the decorations to be honest. My late mother always used to insist on waiting until Christmas Eve. She said that, as we made a lot of the decorations, it tired the kids out. I suspect she was also overwhelmed. She struggled with housework.

I hate it when a simple job isn't simple because you have to do five other jobs before you can tackle the job you want to do. It's tiring before you even start. I get annoyed with myself. I get annoyed with all the stuff and I get annoyed that I don't know what to do with it all.

I should be feeling happy to have tackled a few little jobs, but instead I'm stewing on my annoyances.

I know stewing about it doesn't really help. But sometimes I can almost see a solution to a problem when I try and think clearly. Sometimes I've turned a blind eye to a particular problem (like the laundry mountain that is out of control) for so long that I don't step back and try and see a proper solution (like I need to get rid of some clothes to make the pile smaller).

Gosh it's easy to churn and not realise. I'm feeling much better now I've got this out of my head.

I think I've just pin pointed a pair of shorts that I own that I am going to give to the charity shop.

@DownUdderer I understand what you're saying.
I get annoyed at myself for spending ages googling and reading cleaning and tidying tips, then instead of starting I've ran out of time to do anything.
I've had to learn to be kind to myself and practice acceptance.
When I was younger, before my health deteriorated I could pull everything out, sort it and finish a room in a couple of hours.
I've had a real mental block on starting a room because I knew physically I couldn't manage it all in one go.
Now I'm more relaxed about doing it in stages.
I've only got paperwork (I've got it all stuffed into 2 bags for life and I'm a bit worried that I'm going to find a massive pile somewhere that I've forgotten about) and my kitchen to gut.
I've worked out something so obvious too, I need a very simple system for tidying. If it involves moving things, opening boxes etc, I'm just going to leave stuff on whichever horizontal surface is closest.

@DownUdderer @cherrytree63 Sending good thoughts. I think I know how you feel. I get overwhelmed so easily. I've so many different things to remember on so many different fronts, and I keep forgetting bits, and stuff gets pushed to the back and the heaps keep getting higher.

I've started making detailed to-do lists, as I'll put down stuff like, clear right hand side of table, check whether potatoes are fit etc and that has helped me. I'm also struggling to prioritise.

I threw out a sheet today. It was bobbled, grey and knacked and was only cheap to start with. Normally I would save it for dusters and cleaning, but today I thought that I had enough dusters and cleaning cloths and just got rid. I put it out into the wheelie bin straight away, so I won't change my mind. Feeling good about that.

Well done on the sheet decision!

Much more small scale, but I finally sorted through a box of random stuff and threw out many rubber bands, a single spare button in a little plastic bag, a plug cover and sooo much dust. There were many old lightbulbs too - I think they are all broken& awaiting recycling/disposal but have been shoved in a box and forgotten about. They are back in the box but I’m sure I read on a mumsnet thread that B&Q offer lightbulb recycling and that’s much easier for me to get to than the town recycling centre.

I also consolidated some stuff into like-with-like piles rather than having a big jumbled mishmash and then swept up a lot of dust. There’s a dusty theme here…

Dinner made, eaten, cleared up
Dry washing folded and mostly put away in drawers
Wet washing hung out
Dishwasher on
Many social phone calls made
Recycling put in the outside bin

I’ve had a massive sort out at work recently, and I also now have time to spend doing the same at home. There is no excuse anymore!

Decorations and tree are going up tomorrow. That will mean that some of the stuff behind where the decorations are us usually stored will be accessible, so my task over the next ten days is to sort those out. They’re basically a huge amount of toys, some of which my youngest has outgrown and some of which I am not sure he will ever play with (he has severe SEN/SN and I’ve kept them from my eldest, first not knowing about my youngest’s need and then wondering whether a time would ever come when he might like them). I think I need to actually work through them all now and make decisions.

I’m hoping that by the end of next week I will have done that.

I've swept and dusted an area today. I've wiped down the sink area in our bathroom. I've done two loads of laundry today as well.

I spent the morning wrapping Xmas presents.

Sometimes I have decision paralysis. So I know a room that needs cleaning and tidying and I don't know where to start.

Hi all, and welcome new people .
I've not caught up yet. I'll be back as soon as I'm able.

I’ve made progress, I am really happy! I’ve donated (to charity, friends and family) seven massive bags for life jam packed with toys that the DC have grown out of. It hasn’t made much space, as everything was so piled up, but I know that it has helped.

I now have seven massive tubs of DC books to go through and decide what the keep and what to donate. This will be harder, I don’t think I can be so ruthless.

@WellTidy sounds great! Anything going out the door is great.

Sending you all positive thoughts and pleased to see all progress. I haven’t posted for a while as I haven’t been well enough to make any progress but I appreciate these threads to keep me going through the piles.

I love Christmas but it does bring more stuff in so I’m trying hard to live a mantra I got from you lovely lot about not keeping toys/books etc for the children my teen and pre-teen used to be. I’m more sentimental about it than they are - pre-teen was pretty ruthless when I asked him to look at a pile and I had to hold myself back from making him keep things.