Hoarders Anonymous. Thread #8. We Are Keeping On Keeping On. Fighting The Cluttered Fight.

[Solo]

We are a group of likeminded householders who 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 is), health issues within the family unit, wider family, or ourselves (me too) that means sorting out our households is challenging to say the least. So...

You are all welcome to join us for support, adding your ideas to help others out, storage ideas, and even tips on actually getting those items out of the house which sounds so simple when you say it, but this part can be so very difficult; we are often attached emotionally to our 'things', afraid of letting things go just in case we need them.

Encouragement and support abound here in our band of clutterbugs. We never ever criticise anyone! We even try not to criticise ourselves as it's not helpful to anyone, but this can be very difficult to achieve.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by clutter, mess, disorganization and generally don't know where to start. If you can't be bothered, but really do want to be bothered. If you think you are a bit lazy, or if you just need to see your highs and lows and everything in between on the screen here, join us, and we will help you. We'll virtually high-five your achievements - small or large, and virtually hug you when the need arises. If you want a hug, just ask because we are here for you, here for one another because we get it. The art of washing up is sometimes our great achievement of the day, but it's still an achievement

Some helpful links. They aren't for everyone, but have a look if you fancy:

• Help For Hoarders by Jasmine Harman (the author/producer of the BBC1 documentaries My Hoarder Mum and Me and Britain's Biggest Hoarders)
• The FlyLady Cleaning Method by Marla Cilley
• The Organised Mum Method by Gemma Bray
• The KonMari Method by Marie Kondo
• A Slob Comes Clean by Dana K. White
• The Getting Things Done Method by David Allen

And a LINK-#7

I'm not sure if The Flylady link is working, but if not, you know what to search for.

Welcome to thread #8 of Hoarders Anonymous. Thread #8. We Are Keeping On Keeping On. Fighting The Cluttered Fight (and winning, one small step at a time).

Hello everyone and welcome /welcome back as appropriate. Will post properly later.

40+ miles done.
Petrol bought.
Food bought for ds to eat at his dad's
One load of washing washed but not hung.
Shopping bought and some put away.

Boiler suit put on long hot wash
Kid fed and got to school. (Improvement on yesterday)

have a plan to use the picture stamps for postage

You can only use barcode stamps now, assuming your UK

Thehillsarealive I wonder if the rain reduces the efficiency of the magic pavement... Well done dealing with stamps and coins, and saving another six hour trip.
Waves to Sameclutternewnamehope things are as good as they can be.
BlackeyedSusan The phrase 'all in bed, no one dead' comes to mind.
BlueSummerBaby Pictoral and Christmas Stamps without a barcode, continue to be valid. They made an exception for them when canceling the old ones.

Far too little actually packed up again, been berating myself that this shouldn't be this difficult, I've done similar enough times. Realized last night that I haven't entirely lost the plot, on the one hand I am just physically shot, on the other, where we've been living with everything in the centers of the rooms, (to give the builders wall access) it entirely changes how you live, and normal packing.
Hoping for that realization to make a bigger difference to how I go about things and results, today.

The door's terminal...lost the fight in an autistic meltdown.

Today we :
Fed teen
got teen to school.
Organised boxing kit
Took over trainers that I forgot to drop off.
Washed up
Put pots away
Put some shopping away.
Hung some washing
Tended to door related injury.
Sorted some Christmas presents.

Hi all. Haven't done much tidying last few days, just little bits to not let slip too much. I did mop some kitchen floor area yesterday though and swept out the front. Have been quite good with washing dishes.

Hopefully get a chance to do some tidying in the next few days and have some motivation.

I dealt with more cardboard recycling yesterday. How can we have so much, it’s never-ending.

Elleherd have they given you any idea how long the building work will take? Any chance of a rent reduction to compensate?

Can’t scroll back but hello to everyone and keep at it!

BlackeyedSusan Ouch! De-Cluttering doors sounds painful!🤕

Good luck TalkToTheHand hoping for motivation for you.

Sameclutternewname Not so much cardboard here, just constant packaging.
They think between two to three months once they get started. Given how long it's taken to get to this point it may be 'how long is a piece of string?' time tbh.
No chance at all of rent reductions, more raising everyone's rents to pay for their failure to maintain.

Yesterday saw another four bags of chopped greenery out. That task is never ending.
Of course having gone and brought more packing tape, I found three separate rolls of it that I'd put down with all the boxes! I did also helpfully find the labels I'd mislaid.
Got a lot more packed up after realizing what the issues that where making it harder where, but didn't have the energy left to get the boxes to storage unit.

Finished (paid) work and about to start on it all again.

Well done Elle!

I need to go and generate a list.
I only have one item on it so far...
<Sigh>
I have washed out a grand total of four plastic containers to recycle!

I've got stuff I should be doing...I think doing anything might be the way to go though today!

Bath and basin cleaned and unblocked plugholes.
Started on the loo.
Took pots through twice.
(Made child's lunch)

Ok so not loads but I intend to potter round for the rest of the day doing a little here and there. Not going to make a great difference but will stop it getting worse as quickly.

Susan Doing anything, generally better than doing nothing. Keeping things from slipping matters. Be pleased with what you've done regardless if you can see a difference, because you know all those things like ensuring plugholes aren't blocked etc, are why you don't have even bigger problems to deal with. (looks at blooming sewers)

Took down a small tree that has become problematic, chopped up and bagged, another six bags, but needs to go to dump not compost cycle.

Got packed boxes down to storage unit, then received some unexpected bad news that put a halt to everything and didn't manage to get back on top of it. Have given up with broken sleep and trying to plan out how to get on top of things today.

Oh no to broken sleep. Good luck today.

Started the day with a bit of washing up: some is away, some is drying. One pot rack full. I suppose about a couple of meals worth. When the pile is quite large it is difficult to feel like you've done washing up when there's as much or more to do again!

I’ve cleaned my bathrooms, including shower tiles - but still side eyeing the extractor fans that I really should clean.

Also, this burst of cleaning activity is avoidance of decluttering and other stuff I need to do.

Trying hard to take the small win and have a short break. But @Elleherd is right that action leads to action. So just starting leads to better than before.

I've had no real sleep for days but I'm joining you all in trying to get on top of the cleaning so I can start next week afresh. I have a to-do list as long as my arm but I'm trying to be patient with myself. If I do even one small thing a day it will all eventually get done. I need some anti-stress techniques to help with that because being stressed isn't helping and is basically a waste of time. That's next week's first job. I am still decluttering in a haphazard way.

Thanks. Needed that. It's hard isn't it?

We do need to be proud of ourselves for achieving anything as it is a step in the right direction. Well done for bathroom cleaning! Keep going on something. It'll all help.

We all have I should be....but if you can't face that doing something else useful helps.

I should be doing the kitchen floor heap of stuff and the bathroom bin. Can't face it but have found if I tackle other stuff in the vicinity then the big thing looks smaller and more manageable when isolated and you can chip away around the outside of it and shrink it gradually.

Other people might be able to tackle it head on. But I can't.

I've thrown out a tiny hotel sample of conditioner. Even though it might be useful. I am not going to use it. It is very old. I suspect that not many would understand this as an achievement!

Also thrown out some o.o.d food from fridge and put the eggs away.

Cleaned the tiles over the cooker. Cleared off the cooker top. Wiped top and front down.

Washed up some more and put away.

Wiped down a tiny bit of work surface and tidied it up a bit. (Still cluttered but less crumby and dusty. )it looks better if not completely sorted.

Thrown away the bits and bobs of rubbish away from the cooker.

Put the recycling in the bowl to wash.

DD took down four things to the recycling bin on her way out.

Keep going Blue. It all helps.

Was going to start my own 'overwhelmed with the house' thread then saw this thread. It's now 420 and I've hardly made any progress with my to do list . Been busy all day with regular chores and not got to the decluttering chores 😭

Well done all. How do you eat an elephant? One forkful at a time. Which forkful isn't generally that important.

I've thrown out a tiny hotel sample of conditioner. Even though it might be useful. I am not going to use it. It is very old. I suspect that not many would understand this as an achievement!
Maybe many wouldn't, but on this thread you are not alone and the importance of the achievement is more than understood here. Well done.

if I tackle other stuff in the vicinity then the big thing looks smaller and more manageable when isolated and you can chip away around the outside of it and shrink it gradually. This is a perfectly reasonable tactic and it works.
I've mentioned before that I tackled a floor to ceiling house belonging to E.
It wasn't just about how to tackle the sheer amount, it was also about how much change at once she could actually adapt to and tolerate. There's something in there for those of us doing the thing as well as those living with it.

Welcome Burntout101, sometimes just the acts of stopping things getting worse are all we can do in the time we have. It's important to recognize that's achievement not failure, even if we hoped to achieve more. It all counts towards a better future.

Update; Launderette happened, shower curtain got bleached and washed.
Cut up tree made it to dump. Many bags of compost moved to where it was instead of in builders way.
Very quick visit to aunts to clear up rubbish 'yout' had deposited again.
Encased windows curtain extracted (bigger job than it sounds) and sitting in bleach.
Small amount of stuff sorted and packed. Have to stop now or won't be able to move in the morning. Tomorrow is another day.

Lots of pruning today, I always have more energy for outside jobs. Some putting away, and a bag to the charity shop, including beautiful dress I was so hoping I would fit into again but I’ve been hopeful too long in that direction and if I ever do make that size I’ll find another lovely dress, so in the meantime the charity can make some money and I’m sure someone will be really pleased to find it.
I agree doing something is better than nothing, I find if I sometimes follow my energy/do the easy thing first I end up tackling some of the less appealing stuff too, even if I just spend 5 minutes on decluttering somewhere. Trying to whittle down starting with the easy to let go of things, and the physically biggest things as these have the most impact.

I find camping stuff hard, tents have such happy memories of camping with DC and lots of friends, but as they grew we kept having to get bigger tents so now I don’t know which ones it’s sensible to keep and probably all the pegs and maybe some of the poles are mixed up. Will have to see if we can check one or two when the weather’s nice. Even if they’re broken I’ll find it hard to let go of the fabric in case I could make something from it, or use the poles in the garden etc. this is not complete fantasy I have made fancy dress from tent fabric in the past and it would make great shopping bags perhaps? Hmm, sometimes it’s easier to give away something functional as it will be used by someone.

Lots of activity, high fives all round! And welcome to the thread burntout101. You’ll find lots of encouragement and empathy and some very wise posters who offer great insights when you’re feeling stuck or discouraged.

I have washed much laundry today and a fair proportion has dried & been added to the clean laundry mountain. I removed some holey socks from circulation (but did put them under the sink to be used for cleaning )

I also excavated a path to the under the stairs cupboard where the meters live to take readings. The stuff in the way was mostly empty cardboard boxes so I may just break them down for recycling. They are all sturdy specimens, so I was hanging onto them in case I want to do some decluttering (donatable donation box as a slob comes clean recommends). As we have new cardboard boxes arriving regularly I can probably let most go for now.

Yesterday I gave the toilet a really deep clean and cleared a section of a kitchen worktop. This is more than I’ve managed for ages - feels good.

@Sameclutternewname I used old socks to clean two extractor fans - I know it was avoidance of something else but it’s better than before.

Welcome @Burntout101 and keep on keeping on with us.

ooh what a coincidence FiniteSagacity, did you bin them afterwards or put them through the wash to see (clean!) another day?