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).

Basin!

Ex has to move house. DD and I have started emptying 350 litres of compost out of them and bagging it up. I've washed out the containers and will take them to mum's garage to store. Emptied out the potato growing pots and washed them. (7 altogether)

Well done Susan! Funnily enough I'm about to be moving big plants from aunts, probably tomorrow now.
Gave up sleeping around 3am, had great plans - vehicle didn't!
I'm absolutely filthy from dealing with vehicle issue, and have bunged carer a bit extra, had a bath and am starting my day again.

The making space I use (that owes me lots of use still!) is potentially going under by next week, so I have to get everything out of there at exactly the wrong time, and return some borrowed things. I've been grabbing small bits of paid work while I could, as really worried about the future, and possibly because it allowed procrastination about clearing out house for builders, ('I can't, I'm out working for money' 🙃) but have as good as come to the end of all paid opportunity yesterday, so it's onward, and upwards...

@BlackeyedSusan good to see you here again. Best of luck with whatever you need to do around move, I hope ex will sort a lot of it and you got to harvest of any food plants.

@Elleherd wishing you continued strength with making and mending.

We’ve been working with a clearance firm on hoarding parent’s house. We pay per van load… this will get expensive and it is mentally and physically draining. Just trying to keep going and learn what I can. 2 boxes to charity collection today, which removed a little bit of stuff (and a large empty box) from my house as well.

Got home from work last night and did a declutter of my kitchen food cupboards and freezer audit. Few nasty ancient lurkers out to the bin and some albeit slightly out of date dry stuff out to the magic pavement outside the house. Some stuff has been taken I'm told!

@rokaaroundthechristmastree magic pavement 😂
I’ve experienced this with metal but impressed it worked for food!

Literally anything you put out there goes within the day!

Finite hope the situation with parents house works out, and hope it's a large van at least. I can appreciate how hard that must be on all levels. Well done with the charity collection boxes,(& empty box) and hopefully their will be more 'cross over' happenings, as a result of having to go through this.

rokaaroundthechristmastree Well done. Love the term 'magic pavement*! 😂
You seem to be in a good spot if it goes within the day.
We can't put stuff out on ours, wretched neighbor throws it into our garden if we do.
Thank you for the reminder I need to tackle our freezer at some point!

Update: I've started the big sort out finally, but more unexpected problems here. Ds is changing jobs, and overnight brought home everything he's been keeping at old work place. I did know and unsure what I was expecting but it wasn't the literal van loads that have come in during the night and been dumped in doorways so I can't even get into rooms! Seriously unimpressed while recognizing he's working beyond ridiculous hours and has just gone for really bad emergency dumping to get the stuff out of where it was, having left everything to the last minute. But talk about really poor timing.

After vehicle issues threw yesterdays plans, decided to make the best of the afternoon by starting attacking the jungle our garden's become, hopefully appeasing neighbors a bit.
Cleared six chopped up sacks worth, but you can hardly tell!
Next doors tree that crushed the fences on that side, is entirely hidden from view by over growth gone wild!
Managed to repair a fence panel between us and another neighbor but only temporarily, it all needs replacing.
I've been ignoring the back tbh and it's got much worse than I'd realized, 😳and the builders need access to the back of the house too.

Managed to get the cut greenery down to the compost recycling place, but they're looking very full in terms of taking in much more.

Two weeks on, and I've managed to clear, clean and decorate one very small bedroom. I'm now start to bring a few things back from the storage unit, and it's been much easier to decide what to keep and move along (for me anyway) when trying to put them into the cleared space.

5 bags to the charity shop yesterday, all of which I had previously thought that I absolutely had to keep.

And I've booked a new carpet for another small bedroom, which is being fitted next Wednesday, so the pressure is now on to get that room empty in just 1 week.

I was so embarrassed when they came to check the measurements, and I had to show them a room packed floor to ceiling with - well, who knows?

I'm hoping that this will all be worth it 🤞

Great to hear everyone’s progress and it is really encouraging to be part of this group.Quite a few people seem to be juggling the generations and their stuff! Our magic pavement is pretty magic too - a lot of footfall - so I shall be challenging it with more stuff tomorrow. 4 bags to charity shop and one to tip yesterday and 3 boxes to ziffit and music magpie today.
Sorted through a couple of drawers today and managed to let go of the vintage Christmas cake decorations from my childhood - which I love but will never use.

currently WFH due to the plaster cast and not being able to drive etc - I had to go in all through the pandemic so I’m very excited by the extra time I get when not commuting, although will be happy to go back soon and see people. Many items are still hard to let go of but I’m getting better at this. Also being kind to myself and the 50 per cent thing I find really helpful- I don’t have to get rid of everything but getting rid of quite a lot will make space for the more important non physical stuff.

Wishing everyone strength and ‘Ganbatte!’ ‘Persevere’ in Japanese- it’s said a lot and I kind of think we could do with using it more in English!

Hi all. Cleared a bit of upstairs landing and a little bit of the small bedroom. Managed to keep on top of the gardening, although big pile to get rid of in the corner.

I'm finding targetting little projects and time tracking helps to get motivated and going. I'll tell myself even if it's just 5mins, then once I've started I can sometimes last for 10mins!

Did ironing yesterday which had been there a couple of weeks 🤭.

@Thehillsarealivewithbutterflies lots of persevering here, love that little nugget about ‘Ganbatte’!

I lost last weekend to hoarding parent and the house of doom but determined to do something in mine this weekend.

Hello friends! Well done with all the successes. I don't have many...

Cleared up Dds mess at the side of her bed and vacuumed. Big improvement! I got her to clear up the bedside table and I scraped the utter crap goodness knows what off the top so that looks a whole lot cleaner.
Cleaned bath and basin and the nonslip bath mat.
Changed bed linen and washed it.
Gave a book away. Brought 2 more in .
Washing up kept on top of and cleaned the kitchen sink.
Rubbish collection today and chucked out 3 'fresh' soups that have been in there for a very long time!
Laundry up to date - just one dark load to do tonight.
Emptied my car whilst on holiday and had it cleaned inside and out.

My ME is causing me to struggle this evening. I feel really 'under' under the weather. I went back to te office following my annual leave this week, and have not felt very productive there, either.

@Elleherd My Loknstore has been bought out/taken over by Shurgard. I think that's across the entire business, not just my local branch.

@Solo that feels like a lot (especially factoring in negotiating time). Better than before and progress is progress 💪

I’ve been scoping out local storage and have noticed another take over too.

@TalkToTheHand123 I’m trying to work with time too. I have such time blindness and rest is so important.

What is ironing…?

@FiniteSagacity that was over around a week; maybe a bit longer. I need to do more. I need to do a lot more!

@Thehillsarealivewithbutterflies i just googled as I wondered if Ganbatte was linked to Ganbarimasu and I see it is. I picked that up from Takeshi’s Castle and often think of it/say it

for all those in challenging, time pressured circumstances. I did manage to fill our garden waste bin this week and recycled a bunch of boxes I’d been hanging onto. No other progress to share.

Good luck all!

Hello again, again!

Taking the opportunity for a new month and a new start.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to adjust back onto my ADHD meds which I mentioned in my previous post in July. Had to stop them on medical advice due to worrying side effects (heart related). So back to square one! I’ve now been prescribed my first type but they’re subject to even more shortages and I’ve asked in five different pharmacies this week to no avail.

The house has been pretty awful since the meds made me unwell, I did have a trip to the seaside for a while but I’m back and determined to try and make things better. I persuaded H to have the kids at his for three nights in a row starting tomorrow, specifically so I can try and make a decent impact on the house without distraction from my little (well, age 17/15/6) tornadoes!

I’ve tried to make a head start by getting through laundry and throwing away some obvious rubbish with a little help from the younger two this weekend, but that’s worn me out so I’m quite worried about how much I’ll manage while they’re away. I am so scared that they’ll come back on Thursday and I’ll have achieved very little. I feel very much like I haven’t a clue where to start.

I’ve ordered some large boxes to pack stuff into, because the clutter is all over floors and surfaces and I want to get it off them first. It reassured me reading near the end of the last thread about more boxes being helpful (think it was Blue 💐) as I was fighting with myself about this method. I aim to be reasonably strict when putting stuff in those boxes - not letting any obvious rubbish go in (unlike when I sweep things into random bags etc!) and maybe keeping a couple of categories too such as one for toys etc.

Then hopefully I’ll manage to get at least a few areas of the house to a manageable state ideally with labelled drawers - we have a lot of Trofast units and one thing I have managed in the last few months is writing our names on big drawers to keep our shoes tidy. So if I can do that with a few other drawers for various household categories then that might help a bit. The main thing is that without H here I should find it easier to maintain these spaces. One of the delightful things about him is that he never listened to any change I was trying to make in the house, eg when I got a tray for tea towels to live on top of the microwave (they literally didn’t have a home at all before this, we just used them out of the dry laundry and then shoved them on a counter) it took about 2 hours before he’d put other random crap in there. Not having your ideas even listened to is not fun and I need to get back to enjoying reclaiming my space!

Finally I will also be collecting more stuff for H to take to his flat. There’s still a load of stuff in a cupboard that he never organised to move over (he’s lived there six months!) so once I’ve collected everything else of his - including some toys he’s bought that our youngest can keep there - I’ll have to get more assertive about him moving it. Hard without a car but he’s got options.

Despite all these plans I am still feeling hideously overwhelmed about the next few days and how much I can or cannot achieve!

Much love to all - I’ve not caught up with this thread yet but I will soon 💐

@@Jaffapaffa well done! Generally I and others warn against using storage as it's so easy to get stuck In it. It's really good to see someone using storage well.

@Thehillsarealivewithbutterflies Another big well done! Totally relate to the not being locked down while everyone else got home or WFH time. Sorry you have to be injured to get it. Good to hear 50% is working for you, and loving Ganbatte! Definately need more of it.

@TalkToTheHand123 that sounds promising, especially doing whatever you can, then building up the time spent on it, well done.
I know what an iron is, but less sure about ironing...

@Solo I think you may be doing better than you think there, especially with the
time it takes to get Dc's doing I understand that when you're facing a mountain a path may not seem good enough, but you know that's how we end up not getting the path done either! In Agreement that progress is progress. I'm sorry your ME is flaring up, you don't need that.

IME when a storage store is first taken over, the customer is briefly king as they worry about a mass exodus, but I'm afraid it doesn't last. Generally it's two/three months down the line they start making changes. A word of warning over the whole industry, It looks like some may be heading to surge pricing models in a few months, which is concerning.😟

@FiniteSagacity Hope the weekend went better for you. If your situation requires storage, be aware that many companies are now limiting their offers to once only per store and no family members, even if there are years in between use, (just been refused at a store ex used years back!) and also see message to Solo about surge pricing. One way around this if it's a temporary situation, is if you are able to pay x months up front. I did the maths on it and discovered it was cheaper to pay low interest on a loan, than standard price rises, which was a suprise.

@Sameclutternewname Impressed by your wordsmithing! 🙂Garden bins and recyling are all movement in the right direction.

@SingToTheSky You are carrying an awful lot there! It is indeed a new month and a new start. Well done with all the prep steps!
If possible with the boxes keep them in categories, and label them, it really helps further down the process. If you can't, then label which part of the house/room the contents came from. Yes to chuck as you go, if you can.
I hope today and the next two days go well. Try not to let it overwhelm you, easier said than done at times, but breaking it into chunks can help.
Pace yourself, and look after yourself. Stay hydrated. It's no good throwing your all at it on day one and being unable to move afterwards.

Update of sorts: Got a couple of sacks of greenery at aunts chopped up and out, and managed to move a load of her plants so they can try and sort out her fence and keep 'the yout' out.
Took a load of plants she doesn't want over to mine which wasn't the smartest move probably, but they are rather nice! 😊Still a couple more to sort.

Cleared the remains of two dead pigeons, and feathers everywhere, and a carrier bag of rubbish from her garden, mainly take aways, drinks bottles, gas canisters and broken grinders from the lot that are using it as a place to party.

A small sack of stuff from ours has also gone out.
Sorted out launderette on Saturday trying to get ahead of myself, then disaster struck over vehicle repair which failed. Spent the whole weekend and most of today on it, and have hopefully done it properly now. I'm to old for this and hurt.
Having a quick break on here and about to start Monday again with a list of about a third of what I was hoping to achieve today!!

Exhausted!

Driven to mum's. Wood filler in one side of the window frame. No hole now. Need to glue in the piece of wood patch, fill the remaining gaps, undercoat and top coat.

The other side needs fixing as well.

Also cleared masses of bindweed and brambles from the garden. The compost is making well so next time there will be room to put in a lot of the cut up stuff. Still lots more to do there both inside and out.

Need to have a day on the flat. And get some washing done.

I hear you Susan, it is all exhausting especially the dividing of energies. The humidity isn't helping but well done getting a good start on Mum's window and garden.

Yesterday, late second half of the day, resulted in another two big sacks of greenery from ours chopped up and taken down compost recycling center, and some very basic tidying up of Ds's piles of stuff so I can at least get into rooms!
Litter picked the recyclables that he'd accumulated in the last few days which made things feel slightly less out of control at least.

Last big plant pots removed from aunts. The lot abusing her garden have been dragging them and her bench across her garden every time I put them back, to make themselves an area to take drugs and party in, destroying everything in the process, and just don't care.
Come dusk lippy 'yout' confronted and successfully kicked out before they could trash the place, which is King Canute ordering the waves back really, but it felt like a win.

Thanks Elle 💐

Day 1 went pretty well. Didn’t get started until midday ish when H left with the kids, but I got a lot done - in short bursts with rest in between. The big boxes arrived but I haven’t really put anything in them yet as I keep seeing stuff that can be put away or thrown away. So that felt quite nice.

I have now boxed up more of H’s stuff too and completely emptied a trofast unit which was full of random stuff - I’ve replaced drawers and labelled some for particular things. Is it neat and how I want it long term, nope, but it at least gives things a home that didn’t have one before.

I am feeling far less motivated today after a late night (obviously I am still default parent for anxious teen so was texting with her till 1.30!) but I’ve managed a bit more so far this afternoon. Just much more slowly.

Well done on all the successes everyone. That's really good work.

@Elleherd I don't think I've done much at all; I'm literally just doing the very basics so that we have clean clothes. I feel so blinking annoyed with myself for still having to climb over stuff.

One wash load done today and hung to dry over the rack in the dining room, and I changed the bedding while Dd was out at college. Cooked something to eat, washed up.