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).

@BlackeyedSusan get well soon wishes to you too. Are you enjoying the break from all the school run driving over the holidays? Hope you can get the plumbing stuff sorted soon too.

Absolutely enjoying not driving! I have three longish drives this holiday. But so much better than three a week. Had just one the week before Christmas holidays as well.

I am trying to tackle the kitchen under sink cupboard.

It needs serious reorganisation. But for now, just emptying. It is a Jenga tower of sponges, nail brushes, washing up gloves, brushes, cleaning stuff, and other assorted random shit. Stuff is getting dumped in the living room until Friday. The living room is too stuffed with things as it is.

DD is tackling stuff in the bathroom. We are sort of spring cleaning some stuff as we go. Some is just getting shifted.

Best go back in.

Cupboard empty.
Bathroom nearly ready.
Sadly kitchen and hall not hoovered.
Washing up not done.

I wrote a post yesterday wishing everyone a Happy New Year and apparently didn't post it! Not the best start, but better late than never so; 🎆Happy New Year! 🎆

@BlueSummerBaby No concession to not buying /acquiring is insignificant, however small. It's all habit building. Some people can go cold turkey, some do better building up, and this time of the year is the hardest time to be starting practicing non acquisition. Inevitably another box of stuff has come in here, in the form of presents.

@BlackeyedSusan Good that DD's doing bathroom. Sympathies with the need to clean behind the plumber visiting to quote, but it sounds like you're reasonably on track for the main visit. Is it today they're coming or do you have a bit more time?

I put a very basic shelf with a cut out for the U bend into my under sink cupboard. Bottles mainly on the bottom, and plastic boxes in ascending order of likely use, to keep the rest in. Pulling boxes in and out, both for use and cleaning, reduced time and mess. (Tidy does however remove any incentive to reduce the cupboard contents as a whole.)

@TalkToTheHand123 Well done on things looking tidier, breaking it down to achievable chunks, and good luck with your plans.They're very sensible.

Still chaos here.
Threw away last of the wrapping paper and kept none for re-use. Big improvement.
Storms brought some damage and mess here, but only really done the fence as being ill, cold and wet is de motivating me and the amount of energy expended on morning and evening routines without consistent help, is sapping energy.
Sorted some bills but forgot to do gas and electricity readings.
On the good side, Aunt's neighbors insurance company sorted out B&B rent without issues and have promised progress updates next week.
Have to start prep for paid work properly today, have been picking away at bits of it but need to get on top of it.

Plumber here now. I'm stressed. It's still mucky in places.

Sorry it's so stressful. Remember he will have seen worse and probably doesn't care anything like as much as you might feel. Hopefully if it isn't over yet it will be soon, and then it's done and you can enjoy the results.

Still pottering along cleaning the kitchen. It's reached a bit mucky but not terrible stage.

Actually one work surface is terrible...but two others have improved. Need to clean out the washing up bowl and wash up!

Currently got a chicken in the oven. Heating up the flat in case it all goes tits up with weather and power later.

Hi all. House clutter has increased the last few weeks. Hoping to fix this over the next few days.

@BlackeyedSusan Pottering is what it feels like here too, but not always being at full pelt probably isn't a bad thing. Hopefully you're warm and the weather didn't affect your power?
@TalkToTheHand123 Clutter always increases here over Christmas. I love the season but it increases chaos and clutter at the best of times.
Hope the 'fixing it' is going well and you managed to get someone to look at the leak.

Struggling to get back into the groove properly and worried I'll pay later.

Still unwell, too much pain and my energy reserves are low. It's still chaotic here and the tree and last visitors are still here.
Carer should be back tomorrow which means so much less time, pain and effort going into getting up in the morning, and I'll be able to have more routine again.

Did eventually get over to aunts yesterday and started on cleaning up the sooty contents of bathroom shelves as she's insisting everything is good to use. It isn't, but it's hers. Got all but one shelf done.
It did motivate me to come back here and go through a box of bathroom stuff that's come back, and throw away a small carrier bags worth at least.

Hi all. Not really done much again. I did a little before I went to bed last night. Maybe this could be a new routine!

Go for it @TalkToTheHand123! Everything's and anything's better than nothing and for many people little and often works best.

Yesterday's efforts were designing some better kitchen shelving for aunts (as she isn't getting younger and might let go of some soot and water damaged formica shelves if offered something better) and cleaning the sooty window frames, window sills and contents, and the window areas in aunts kitchen.
One sill is soot stained and needs repainting, the rest surprisingly came up fine. Again bit of mirroring at ours, in that when I got back had a closer look at my own kitchen sills and chucked a couple of items that should have gone long ago. (Didn't clean anything as unneeded and trying to curb excessive cleaning)

Got lots of paperwork done and tackling more today and prepping for a load of upcoming work on Monday.

Aww thanks @Elleherd .

I put some bags in the wardrobe as they were getting on my nerves and stressing me. I know the contents will need to be sorted at some point, but at least I don't have to keep viewing.

I've been away at work for a couple of days and returning later. I should be able to tackle a bit more. At least now I know it's tiredness that prevents me from doing any tidying so if I can get into a decent sleep routine, I should be able to make progress again.

Sounds like some good progress by pps, every little helps. I often find putting things out of sight encouraging as I feel better about how the place looks, so feel less overwhelmed and I know I will get to it one day.

I’ve been finding the advice to put like with like really helpful and also I’m frequently getting rid of about 50% of things (as advised upthread) as this is often easier than all of something and definitely helps, today it was tea pots, ice cube trays and ice packs. I should have done the same with the injury ice packs kept both when one would have been enough now I think of it.

Also took some other stuff to charity shop, and a few bits to the tip. I’m getting better at not keeping everything that might come in useful but it’s hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Clearing out deceased relative’s home (even though not a hoarder) was definitely aversion therapy! I am so bored of dealing with stuff and work is a blessed relief.

Hi all. I tackled a big mountain of clothes in the middle bedroom, sorting into a few bags. Found some carpet! This room doesn't appear out of control at the moment, just the small bedroom now. Kitchen is probably the second worst room so will try sort a bit of these rooms next.

Talk to the hand: meant to react by clapping you as in , well done for your progress but after I clicked on it, I saw that clapping hands means thanks on mumsnet! So anyway, that sounds like you are feeling more in control of things.

@TalkToTheHand123 Well done, keep going, always good when when you've got more carpet than stuff on it. If you work out how to get a sleep routine under control please share!

@Thehillsarealivewithbutterflies Yes lifetime habits are hard to break, and it does get boring constantly dealing with trying to break the results of them.
Well done with the tip and charity shop drops. One of the good things, is decisions can always be revisited when we realize we don't need the amount kept. For me it seems to be an annoying necessity when it comes to 'useful' things. I now know I'm stupidly afraid of not having what's needed, so getting rid of some things all at once tends to set off maladaptive behaviors in me, whereas getting rid of half then half again etc, works better to end up with less overall. I used to feel stupid saying things like that, but at this point I'll accept whatever works and hope it might be useful for some others.

I nearly got caught out on the new react button too. (The 👏as clapping, is still further down from faces on the emojis button.)

Only managed mentally identifying and writing some things on a list of 'to go' yesterday. What I need to get done for start of work tomorrow is a lot more than I'd realized.

I had to let some tradespeople in. Stressful. It mostly involved temporarily piling stuff in another room but some things were thrown out in the process and a lot of dust bunnies were cleaned up.

I also tackled the bathroom and threw away/recycled several bags of clutter. We had lots of shampoo/shower gel/moisturiser bottles with just dregs left inside so I set a timer for 5mins and started sorting/chucking. If I felt like continuing I reset the timer for another 5. I did about half an hour in the end and it was surprising to see the difference. Still much more to be done, but it’s better than before.

I’ve got all these stray socks and I’m sorely tempted to just put them in the rag bag for recycling. I never seem to have enough socks, but I just watched that slob comes clean video about the three counter-intuitive things that mean you need to get rid of stuff & this seems to fit.

Well done to everyone - hope the plumbing situation is all sorted @BlackeyedSusan

What did you decide about the job @TalkToTheHand123 ? (I might have missed the update).

@Elleherd I hope having the carer back makes a positive difference and that work is going well. Your aunt should be very pleased with the new storage - might even agree to get rid of some of the stuff!

i’ll leave it there as my phone loses messages if I try to scroll back, so hope everyone is coping. Good luck with making progress, but don’t feel bad if things have stalled - it’s hard to believe (and I rarely follow my own advice) but a 5min timer can really help as a strategy.

Hi all. House mess out of control again. Been knocked out by flu last few days. Feeling a bit better now so hopefully tackle some over the next couple of days.

@Elleherd The flu and being shattered has helped for early night routine last few days.

@Sameclutternewname Decided to stick with job. If I power through for a few weeks / months, it should be ok.

Love the found some carpet comment!

Well done!

Today will be scraping the bottom of the barrel for tasks, however, recently have been to three medical appointments, been hampered by an injured finger, taken the car in for service and MOT, and back to garage to be repaired. (No car since Saturday. Been walking to ex's to collect his car, (Twice so far) so can drive kid to college. I emptied out my car of rubbish and stuff.

Today. Woke kid up got breakfast, chivvied him to get ready.
Sorted out laundry to find what we have got and what needs doing urgently.
One load of laundry hung.
Trousers spun. (Take heavy spinner to socket, find bowl. Try to balance trousers in the machine, spin, wait, spin,wait etc. )
Need to get them drying over the oven.
Started on some washing up , (scalding out boxes that had stored flour. ) (more waiting for kettles and soaking)
Threw some of the rubbish in the bin...
Rung ex to organise him putting football kit on to wash.

See barrel scraping for today's tasks! Hoping for a more substantial list later!

We've managed some washing up between us.
Trying to cook at the moment taking turns to chop veg
Put some pots away.
Checked fridge for shopping required
Rung ex to check he's put washing on.
Checked with DC about football.
Spun DC's thick trousers, hung to dry.
Farted about drying trousers over the oven, fielded 20 million questions on when they are going to be dry enough.
Topped up dinner money and sent proof to DC.

Managed a box to charity collection today.

Stalled in a take your house back all day declutter last weekend but two old electrical appliances to the household recycling centre and some annoying lingering items are out.

Better than before and little by little.

Wishing you all the strength to keep on keeping on too.

Well done finite.

Well done all for progressing, holding back tides, and keeping on regardless.
Things have gone wrong here and I've boxed myself into a corner.
I've been knocked stupid by illness and a very tough contract, injured myself, but had to keep going through it all. Somehow I managed to misunderstand a badly passed on message and thought the builders had said they were delaying their return to mid May. This had also gone round neighbors as a fact before I got any message.
Don't have the money to keep everything in storage waiting, especially as we've had to bring so much back to access things, so brought most of it back, messed up the systematized storage with the remains, and cancelled next months payment, saying we'll be out the day before payment due.
Lots more boxes have been partially emptied trying to find things, and I've put carpets etc back, and set up shelves so that what's come out of the boxes wasn't everywhere. Used up the only bit of usable time I had doing it, as the current contract is eating every hour of life for most of the next fortnight.
Found out yesterday the message was 'May be delayed.' Not 'delayed to May!'
I feel so stupid.
Very little I can do until my contracts done, I'm falling into bed when I finish work, and straight up back at it a few hours later. To add to it, their plan is to take windows out and use our flat to bring the scaffolding for the whole block through us, and want to use the garden to store excess.
Aunt's still stuck in B&B with very slowly progressing repairs, and I have no time to chase anything up. But her neighbors insurance company does seem to treating her respectfully at least.
So up stupidly early, trying to figure out what to do next.