Need to urgently declutter a room fast. Hire storage or not?

[IncessantNameChanger]

I wrote a long post but my phone went flat and I lost it, so bear with me if I drip feed a bit.

Basically was me, dh and four kids in a three bed cottage. Eldest had his own room and went to uni in September but has had a mh crisis and is coming home end of Nov.

Situation before was ds20 had the box room. Ds16 and ds12 shared. Dd had a bed in my room and a bunk bed in the boys. Ds20 moves,out and we all shuffle,about so ds16 has the box room.

Ds20 can't have his old room back because it might be for a year or long term. I suspect he wants to stay at home medically unfit possible as a long term thing. I can't cope with that.

The plan is to move him into the dining room. But I need,to empty it plus I need to decltter other areas and store his uni stuff.

Is hiring a storage unit insane? I'm.quite the hoarder but decluttering anyway..I know I can't empty a room aline in month. It was dd toddler room so full of her toys and clothes plus furniture. We partitioned it off and it's tiny. I have no one to help me unless I pay for help. But ds breakdown has sent my mh spirlling and I'm not sure I'm in a good head space to cope with a Stacy solemn moment right now

If you need to store it you're not using it, so just get rid of it.

Give your 16 and 12 year olds £30 each or something to clear the room and take everything to the charity shop and broken things in bin bags. Then book a bulky waste collection through the council and get them to pick all the rubbish up. It will be cheaper than renting a storage unit just to store things you don't need.

It's almost impossible to get a horder to clear up without someone ruthless egging them on so I think if you try and do it yourself it will take a long time.

I'd be focussing more on supporting him to stay at uni.

He's an adult now. He needs to stay there with support- how are the uni supporting him? Has he applied for disabled students allowance? He can use that for support- it's very generous.

If he does leave he needs to find his own space.

Can he get a room in a shared flat near the uni so he could restart easily?

Dropping out is a last resort.

Has he been hospitalised?

Is he on meds?

What treatment is he getting?

Giving up on his future seems quite extreme atm.

Even if you weren't 'quite a hoarder' you probably wouldn't ever empty a storage unit.

He's only bringing four boxes so don't blow that up in your mind to be loads of stuff.

It's a good idea to get your twelve and sixteen year olds in on the act. And you have a month, that's a good amount of time.

Stuff isn't as important as your son being able to fit in.

I'd spend money on a skip instead.

Create a small floor space of 'working area'

Grab boxes / handfuls of stuff and dump into working area.

Agree with PP - from the pile, pick out the things you would save in a fire...

Skip the rest.

Definitely get the other kids to help.

You can do this!

I’d hire a professional declutteree helper rather than hire a storage unit. Probably cheaper

I couldn't disagree with this more @unmemorableusername. Being home, among a family that cares for you, is exactly where a 20 yo needs to be when they need safe harbour. Not in a flat on their own with acres of time to ruminate.

Only rent a storage unit if you want to keep renting it FOREVER.

Yes, a skip! I dream about skips.

What was the plan for when DS1 came home for the holidays anyway?
Can you move DS2 & 3 in together and give DD the box room and put her toys in there? That would also give you your room back to an extent so you could go there for some time away from the DC.
With the dining room, what size bed can you fit in? Can it be one of the lift up ones with storage underneath? What about the IKEA Kallax hack where you make a base for a bed out of Kallax units?

Why do you need to keep his toys and old clothes?

Yes yes to this ^^

If a skip is too expensive, look at buying a massive skip bag. They are about £30 i think and then you pay for collection separately. When we moved into our first place together and had no spare cash, we put ours on the drive, filled it with all the clutter and then waited until after next payday to pay for it to be collected (I think it was around £200? But I might be misremembering).

Planning on doing it again after my youngest gets out of the toddler years.

Yes we use it, can't live long without a dining table. Definitely not keen on eating Christmas Dinner off my lap for years to come! But could put it in the shed until eldest moves back out.

🤣 I wouldn't save any of my daughters clothes in a fire or the toys, but her things like her uniform is in that room. To move it all out I've got to get rid of stuff in another wardrobe and ds12 already only has two draws of clothes. It's not just I have mountains of shit ( well I do ) but also six peoples stuff doesn't fit in a 3 bed cottage. I need to get all her stuff into the boys old bedroom and I could possibly if I threw out every single book to get get rid of a bookshelf in their room and every toy in the house. Dd is only just turned ten.

Storage would allow for the summer stuff to be out the house. I feel so overwhelmed at the task. I could throw out everything she has I guess but it seems a bit extreme it would clear her room for her brother. She is only one who really doesn't and ne er has a space I one set room. She is little nomad

Ask your dd to look at her own toys. She might be better at it than you are if you like to keep things.

So dd doesn't actually have her own room? At 10 she's sharing with a late teens brother or her mum?
Surely she should have the box room and the boys share?

I wonder if it would be more appropriate for her stuff to be in your room rather than her brother's? She is not that far off puberty, periods etc. If you have a male partner could his stuff go in with the boys, and hers go into your room?

Very hard to get everyone's needs met. A butterfly dining table would fold away into almost nothing, perhaps in the living room, but could be brought out for highdays and holidays.

She doesn't want to do that yet. The plan was ds17 goes to uni before she goes to secondary but now it's all out the window. She won't sleep on her own.

Gosh, OP, tricky tricky. What does your DH think? Is he helping you to declutter?

So the DC are 3 boys and a girl?

3 boys in the largest bedroom
DH and you in the next biggest (adults don't usually spend much time in the bedroom except for getting dressed and sleeping (.
Daughter in the box room.

Get a storage unit BUT have it for a finite time.
Empty dining room.
Clean and/or decorate.
Sell dining table.
Buy folding dining table.
Create a study space for your DC in the corner.

It’s this post that highlights your problem. In your mind, it’s not just a question of decluttering the dining room, you think before you do so that you ‘need to get rid of stuff in another wardrobe’ and you ‘need to get all her stuff into the boys old bedroom and I could possibly if I threw out every single book to get rid of a bookcase in their room and every single toy in the house’.

Nicely, this shows you really are a hoarder and it’s at the point it is a problem.

Really, all you have to do is declutter and clear the dining room. I get that that is a big job. However the words you’ve used above effectively show you aren’t thinking of decluttering the dining room, you are actually thinking of just storing/hoarding it elsewhere. Yes, there may be things in there that need to be kept (eg current school uniform), and yes, this should actually be in DD’s room now. But this is one thing. I bet 90% of the rest can go.

This really is a hoarding issue. The timing of your son moving home isn’t the issue, just that it has suddenly shone a spotlight and put a deadline on hoarding/decluttering that you can’t put off.

Obviously this is up to you. But you need to face this, including getting professional help if needed. Your DS12 shouldn’t only have 2 drawers for clothes. Your DD should have to keep her uniform in a separate room. You need to have a rule for everyone in the house - if it can’t fit in the room it is supposed too, then something in that room has to go to make it fit.

You say it was DD toddler room and full of toys and furniture, but you've just said DD is 10. Does it still have toddler toys and nursery furniture in? Agree with the others that you need a skip, not storage. You say no time for Stacey Solomon, but I would advise watching that for inspiration, it's what motivated me to keep on the decluttering battle when I'm overwhelmed with stuff in the house.

No, we converted the room when she was a toddler. Much as you move to bigger house when you have another baby to fit in somewhere. You don't keep the nursery items and baby clothes. But a box room is fine for a cot. It's not fine for single, warobe, draws and a desk. Every item of clothes she has fits her right now and it's just a small child's wardrobe from IKEA. The size of a 2x4 PAX unit so it's not huge. It's half empty on the pax cube side.

I have had lots of therapy. Over the years I have had 2 lots of cbt, direct 1:1 psychologist working with me and right now I'm in small group therapy with two clinical psychologists. I honestly don't need more therapy. I buy hardly anything now. I have being getting rid of over 180 items a month. I just need to clear out so much faster to clear this room.

Anyway I was looking a dd Halloween dress up outfits and ds17 built in wardrobe is in fact half empty once I pushed everything to the end. So her wardrobe contents will fit in without any issues after all.

I'm not sure what toys she will wan't to kerp or not, but I think she would find it overwhelming going through everything in a few weeks. She has autism. I have told her we need to fit everything into one toy box in the living room so 50% has to go. I'm going to focus on doing that with her and I'm going to box the rest after me eyeballing it then put it in the loft to do a box a week after eldest comes home.

It's really stressful as dd doesn't want the eldest back ( on the surface of it they hate each other, maybe the really do). Eldest has left due to his shitty MH and possibly undiagnosed ASD and or ADHD ( was borderline as a teen but extremely bright si knew what they wanted to hear. He told me a lot of the answers he lied as he is very against being diagnosed with asd). It's a lot to cope with and my normal coping mechanism has one ( shopping) and on top of that I need to go through emotionally triggers which is why to the toys was left for last.

Dh said he will help me sort any toys and take then to two of kids Christmas fairs as donations. The rest is going in the loft. I can't just be a normal person and get over it any more than a alcoholic can decide one day to be normal. I wish I had to turned to drink rather than this.

I'd love to do that, but I only have under a month. Need to dismantle a super king, a bunk bed, single, clean and put it all back together. Our bed alone takes up mist of the room dismantled or not. That's where storage would be handy to deep clean and paint. Dh works long hours and I'm not sure I could dismantle it on my own. Dinning room looks like the quickest fix. We can ponder a better solution once he is home. Just got to concentrate on this fixed return date and having better than a sofa on offer. Which right now is what's on offer or a bunk in with the 12 snd ten year old and he is 20. I don't want him in with them.

Honestly I’d book a skip and just clear the room.