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).

Gosh Elleherd that sounds so hard! Don’t know what else to say 💐

@Elleherd thinking of you and hoping for something positive and helpful in your near future.

Oh no Elle!

Good luck.

There probably isn't really much anyone can say, I feel so incapable, but the support's appreciated as is not feeling so alone with it all. Everywhere else I'm just getting so shouted at.
I just feel so stupid that I've managed to balance out so much and then messed it all up so easily, and no idea how to sort out what I've done at the moment, I just don't have any time left I've sold most of it to be able to finance everything.
I'm having to squeeze so much into every day as it is and barely coping physically.

There has to be a batch cook and the launderette over the weekend or we'll all come apart completely, but also a major start on building pieces of a huge structure for the contract I'm on. It isn't something I can move, progress has to be presented at a client meeting on Monday morning, and everything ready for a different one in the afternoon.

Having to travel to find a place to do the work in, as prices for hiring spaces with electricity have have gone through the roof and so many hireable work shop spaces have closed down. Not in a good enough state to drive, but Ds has stepped up over that, but is running late already. Aunt is pleading for help that I don't have time to give, but also can't wait. I've got myself into a right mess with it all.

I'm hoping everyone else is having a better start to their weekend and we all somehow doing a bit here there and everywhere, or perfectly planned and panned out, make the progress we need.

Hi all. Away at work at the moment but feel quite motivated to tidy when I return tomorrow. Small bedroom is top of the list as some mould appearing in the far corner, then kitchen to tackle as a lot of mess to sort. Electrics seems to be an issue as light not coming on in bathroom so if I need someone out, house really needs tidying.

Kitchen tap has a hole in the spout from when trying to attach a hose a few days ago. The second guy who was supposed to fix the gutter still hasn't been. Going to phone him Monday to chase up for the third or fourth time. I'm starting to think I've been scammed again and going to have to get a third builder out. It's rediculous, it looks such a simple job, wished I'd tried the leaflet from a local from a few months ago.

@TalkToTheHand123 we have a mould problem in the house too not helped by DP wanting to have the house like a furnace without opening any windows... I have the windows open every day when I WFH which does seem to help, but we do need to mould spray areas fairly often! Sympathies to you with the builders/ other trades - I absolutely hated having our extension done as everything would get held up when (for example) the plasterer suddenly went AWOL. That was 10 years ago and I still haven't forgotten the trauma!! We really need to have some re-tiling done but I just can't face it...

Sending hugs @Elleherd, that sounds really tough. You seem like such a nice person to be working on things for your family at the same time as struggling yourself I only wish DM and DF would allow someone to help out with their cluttered homes - DF's is so bad now that he won't let anyone in at all.

I'm still struggling on; my issue at the moment is that I can SEE what I need to do, I just don't have enough hours in the day to actually do it! The Organised Mum Method has been great to an extent but I just don't always have half an hour per day for cleaning (in addition to all the other time I need for cooking, washing up, tidying, laundry etc...!). How on earth do people keep on top of it? Is there some sort of grown up trick I'm missing here?!

Kitty I do Flylady and have found the morning and evening routines to be invaluable for the smooth running of the home and keeping on top of those basic cleanliness and tidying situations that build up into a unmanageable mess if left. I used to follow the Flylady thread on Mumsnet, rather than the website which I found overwhelming.

Good luck with your endeavours elleherd. I hope the presentation on Monday goes well.

Talktothehand I'm sorry you're having a hard time with tradesmen and I hope you can get the house tig enough for an electrician to sort out the light. Until then, you could get a battery powered light. I used to have them for a shed. The look like a dome shape and came from some type of poundstore shop. Took AA batteries and produced enough light to see by when you touch them, touching them again to switch off. There's a gap in the back for a nail so you could hang them on the wall if you wanted.

I have been tidying up the storage room using some solid boxes to corral a wobbly stack of haphazard and mismatched ones. These became available due to the emptying of them into some flat pack furniture I finally got around to putting together. As I was transferring items over, I weeded out anything that didn't belong to the main grouping of stuff. That's left me with one small box to go through and decide if I'm keeping these things or not. A damaged box got binned. The stack is now tidy with no extras piled loosely on top. The furniture looks far better than the stack of boxes it has replaced. The process has given easy access to another large box of I-don't-know-what that needs to be gone through. Perhaps there will be some decluttering from there.

Moving slowly here.

Lack of sleep.
Injured, weak, sore, strapped together fingers.

Good luck Elle.

Well done of furniture assembly.

DC is not needing driving this week so I may get some stuff done. I am at ex's doing washing. Got to take a kid to medical appointment later. Need to catch up.on sleep.

Fingers and broken car have delayed washing machine buying.

Hi all. I phoned the builder today and he said he may be able to fix the gutter this week stating his van is still being repaired (over 2 weeks now).

I did do some tidying in the living room today though before leaving for work. Hopefully I can do some of the kitchen and small bedroom tomorrow when I return home.

Spent an hour tidying the small bedroom today. I'm setting myself 1 hour challenges. Lots of clothing in this room to sort. Put a few boxes in the loft. I have enough boxes now I believe just in case I need! Worse things to hoard!

If I can spend an hour in the kitchen tomorrow I will be feeling pleased.

Sounds good, talk to the hand, like the idea of a one hour challenge!

I haven't managed it since unfortunately, but did do a little 'tidy as I went' for about half an hour today. Passage is reasonable now and living room is a bit better. Hopefully have a good go at the kitchen tomorrow.

I was impressed with the hour because I’m more of a 5 minutes! But I do tend to set myself low goals as I just need to get started then I often exceed. My recent progress has been finding a couple of important pieces of paper that I’d lost and doing some garden tidying in small steps. Good luck with kitchen today!

@KittyTalbot In agreement with BlueSummerBaby regarding routines, especially laundry and batch cooking as survival strategies, but these things are harder when dealing with others changing needs all day long. Keeping it small and often helps, as does a do for now wipe to tide things over. Better something than nothing. Sorry to hear about parents especially DF.
@BlueSummerBaby It's lovely to hear you slowly getting clearer and clearer. I agree the Flylady website is too much, but also found the ideas on the Flylady thread helpful. Starting the day with a clean empty sink makes a big difference.
@BlackeyedSusan Hoping injuries are healed and you have a washing machine, but know these things don't always happen swiftly.
@TalkToTheHand123 Hope your builder problems have resolved, and well done getting on top of bits that needed doing.
@Thehillsarealivewithbutterflies All progress is progress. I think I'm about to borrow the 'low goals then exceed them' idea to try and get back in the swing here.

We're all over the place!
Big paid contract's done apart from a couple of follow ups and small one off jobs, but exhausted and there's been lots of dramas here. Very grateful to say builders remained delayed and apart from stress, nothing came of moving everything back at the wrong time, we wouldn't have coped.

Everything including furniture had to come back when I gave notice on the storage unit, as someone else booked it. Most labels have come off and half the boxes emptied looking for things,🙄and family co-operation is poor as everyone's fed up and had enough tbh.

Told now everything except beds and very basic personal stuff must be cleared again, ready for a start date of anywhere between mid Feb to Mid March. Project manager says this is absolutely the last change and everything actually has to go ahead, as they have a finish date to keep to!
Have had to book a storage unit again now to secure one, as less units allowing wheelchair users to rent. Prices have gone up.🙄

Launderette done and some batch cooking yesterday. Today will be a meeting, tidying up the mess I made getting my accounts in in time, then a deep clean and thoroughly tackling the bathroom which has been running on a lick and a promise for the last three weeks.

Hi all. Phoned the builder yesterday but no answer and no call back so going to request yet another one.

@TalkToTheHand123 I assumed our builder problems where mainly because they're working for the landlord or sub-contracting to the contractor, and see us as just in their way, but sounds like it's universal.

Bathroom's deep cleaned to as far up as I can reach. But not got off to as good a start as needed with other stuff getting in the way. But some paper shredding done, a few bits into the bin and enough into recycling to make a large bag that's gone to public recycling bin, so it's a start at least.

Hi. There must be something about the job. My usually reliable uncle said he would be over to check it, but didn't turn up. I have someone coming tomorrow and someone coming on Friday to give me a quote.

I did do a mad tidy up when waiting for my uncle so at least some tidying got done.

Touch wood my eating habits are improving recently, which seems to be giving me a bit more energy, so I may be able to reduce some more clutter soon.

My faith has been restored, touch wood. New guttering at a decent price. I was a little embarrased about the kitchen as they couldn't use the arch due to the neighbour's clutter and my gate being broken.

The kitchen tap and bathroom light jobs can wait a few days which would give me a bit of time to tidy to a reasonable standard for someone to come and fix.

Having a lazy day today so far but may do a bit tidying later.

Yesterday was spent shopping and at A and E.

Today was supposed to be recovery and rest but cleaned the bath washed up one pot rack full. Cooked big batch of food.

Farted about with drying washing too.
Fed boy twice.

@TalkToTheHand123 well done, glad you have it sorted.

@BlackeyedSusan Sorry about A&E 🤕and the lack of rest and recuperation, hope you're ok.
But cooking, washing up, washing, cleaning and getting food into folk sounds like keeping things turning over well.

Launderette and cooking etc got done here, but mainly last few days have been all about sorting vehicle which (a bit unexpectedly) thoroughly failed its MOT, then issues trying to fix what it failed on, to try and put it back through today.
So much has had to be bought to replace what was stolen to get the work done, as well as needed parts, and several days lost.
New tools and equipment went back to one storage unit this morning for safety as working on it's attracted attention that there's new tools,😡and large pieces of vehicle parts now waiting to go to the dump.

The situation with different storage units all over the place is coming to a head. (multiple small one's we got moved into through flooding, are all coming up for moving everything back to original apparently repaired unit again, at exactly the wrong time. Am trying to work out how to make time to try to go through stuff while moving it, to try shedding some of it, at the same time as repacking and moving everything out of home again, into yet another one.
Haven't had time to sort out large number of boxes at home that have lost labels and been upended unpacked, looking for things, despite reassembling shelves to help sort it all out.🙄

After grabbing work to pay for this, the incoming invoices haven't been paid on time, so cash flow's worrying, aunts being looked after but her situation isn't getting resolved on it's own but I don't really have time to give, medical stuffs causing issues, and things feel on the edge of out of control, with thin resources.
It feels like potential for a perfect storm and trying to learn from previous ones and get ahead of it.

Also trying to keep reminding myself that despite all the complications, underneath this is still the ongoing plan and actions to get to a point of having shed large quantities of stuff, and ultimately storage, and this is what I worked to achieve in 2025, and these things are just going around bumps in the road, whatever their size.

This mornings big one is vehicle about to go back for MOT. Fingers crossed.

Sounds so busy Elle.

So, still absolutely shattered. Couldn't sleep last night as I had to get up early. (Weird right?) DD is still exhausted so emotional support.

Emptied car and took it to the garage. (1 hour +) Should be the last time for a while)
Have put some clean washing away in drawers.
Put some of the clean pots away.
Thrown some rubbish/recycling in bin/bag. (Barrel scraping now!)

This weekend I:
washed up and put away
Cleaned bath, basin, unblocked plugholes and cleaned under the basin.
Cooked a big batch of food.
Requested prescription for DD.
Sorted out the fridge/compost caddy.
Threw out some out of date food.

It's half term so I am exhausted after that, and all that driving !

I am trying to chip away at the edges though even though I am too tired to tackle anything large. Can't risk getting part way through a job.

Couldn't sleep last night as I had to get up early. (Weird right?)

Susan I get this too. With me, it's the stress of knowing I won't get enough sleep and will guaranteed feel shit the next day, that keeps me awake. It's why I never follow the usual insomnia advice of always get up at the same time no matter what, because that's counterproductive for me, it increases anxiety and stress and so increases insomnia. I just sleep when I can. Hope you can get a chance to sleep soon.

Elleherd does aunt have the finances to employ a support worker from an agency so she's got someone to come in weekly and help her with whatever admin needs doing, including phone calls and chasing things up? To take some of the pressure off you. She can write letters to the companies saying this named person has permission to speak on her behalf.
When sorting through the storage units can you just get rid of anything cheap that's only around "just in case"? Because the cost of storing it for a year is probably more than the cost of replacing it if you ever needed to.
Hope you get paid soon and sorry you've had your tools nicked.

I've taken another bag of clothes to the charity shop today.

Hi all. I did a little tidy up in the sitting room and cleaned the bathroom sink today.

By my standards the house isn't horrific, but I think most of my possible visitors would be a bit shocked, so hopefully I can get stuck in a bit more to take me to tidy levels I've never experienced before sometime soon (apart from just before I moved in!).

@BlueSummerBaby I've had a look at Flylady too but it's all just a bit overwhelming for me! I really need a proper month weekend of spring cleaning, then maybe if I got on top of things it would be more manageable to keep on top of things.

@BlackeyedSusan sorry to hear about your A&E trip - I hope you've managed to fit in some rest & recovery now

@TalkToTheHand123 and @Elleherd, you both have my sympathies with the building work dragging on!! It's ten years now since our extension was finished and I still shudder at the memory. The builders seemed to pretty much turn up when they felt like it, do a few hours and then leave again if no-one was keeping an eye on them we had one guy who told us with a completely straight face that he was sorry he kept being late, but he found it tricky to get to us by 9am every day as requested. He lived three doors away from us...

I'm definitely working on my routines Elleherd, it would be great to be in a position where I just worked through things daily without too much fuss. At the moment my big downfall is meal planning/ cooking - currently watching Batch from Scratch for some inspiration ChatGPT is also really helpful at working out menus, surprisingly.

Just thinking how much I would love to get everything out of the loft, stick it in a storage unit and go through everything there - sorry to hear about what a nightmare you're having with your storage! In theory our loft would be a great storage space but it's such an awkward shape that it's not easily accessible. I did a massive clear out about 15 months ago but I reckon there's plenty more that could go now!