Hoarders Anonymous. Thread #9. 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 a huge challenge; we are often attached emotionally to our 'things', afraid of letting things go just in case we need them, or it belonged to mum or gran. This is tough stuff to deal with.
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.
We hold one another's hands, dab away tears, and snot virtually.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by clutter, mess, disorganisation 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 support 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, we're 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. Every small step is an achievement.
My own journey is very long, I've tried to get it done, bug it's a work in progress. Single working mum (children now both over 18, but youngest has many physical issues as well as ADHD and ASD). I have chronic illness, and am in my 62nd year on the planet, so I need to deal with it. The point is. You aren't alone if you are also suffering.

Some helpful links which I hope are still valid. 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

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).

Decluttering Expert: Dana K White of A Slob Comes Clean
Learn more about decluttering expert Dana K. White and her cleaning and organizing blog: A Slob Comes Clean. Author, podcaster, blogger and YouTuber.
https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/about-me/

Hello,
I’m newly accepting of the fact that I’m a hoarder, I’m so embarrassed by the state of my house! 🫣

I’ve been on MN for 18 years but haven’t seen this thread before.

I’m not really sure where to start. Has anyone used a decluttering company? I nearly made an appointment then DH got ill and that was my excuse to cancel.

wearyauldwoman you have got to tell me what a wee shop is so I can stop giggling about it because nobody is purchasing urine, that much I'm sure of, so what the heck are they selling?!

Hi demelza I'm just decluttering slowly by myself. Start slowly with easier things, that's my advice. I keep thinking I'm done, then deciding I really should get rid of more but struggling with the actual doing of it, then I go shopping and bring more in 🙈! I'm winning the fight overall though, learning to be more ruthless one item at a time.

I've decided if I win the lottery I'm buying a second home - I'll have one to keep the stuff in like a kind of homely storage facility and I'll live in the other one like a minimalist and "shop" my own stuff from the second home when I need something. I'd be very ruthless and do a strict one-in-one-out on the lived-in home so that one didn't get hoarded up too. I think it could work quite nicely, but first I'll have to win the lottery 😁

Sorry, @BlueSummerBaby - it's just the small shop on the corner. At one point, we'd have called it a general store, but they built an extension and it's now a mini-market - a Scotmid Co-op.

Great minds think alike - that's also my plan for a lottery win...probably the wrong mindset. I have my eye on one of the wooden holiday homes on the shores of Loch Leven - close enough for me to nip over for things.

In the meantime, I have allowed myself to chuck out a pair of sandshoes. I got rid of a pair of slippers the other day.

I started to throw out DH's ordinance survey maps, but could only bring myself to chuck out one. (He used to do a lot of hillwalking.)

I've realised that I have a spare speaker and leads...There should be two, to tell the truth. Have also found a microphone, but can't see a lead that fits it.

DH used to be a folk singer and then decided that I was going to be playing my piano accordion at old folks' homes and the like. ["Haven't they suffered enough?"]

Unfortunately, he never got round to showing me how to set up the gear.

When he died, I asked his daughter if she wanted his guitar. The difficulty in finding a carrier that deals with musical instruments!

In the end it had to go via DPD.

One thing that I did manage to get rid of a few years ago was all my notes from uni... I'm 66.

Today, I shredded the last of my worksheets from supply teaching.

Oh it's a Scottish "wee"! Why didn't I think of that?🤦 I am an idiot. I'll go crawl back under my rock 🤣 🪨

I like ordnance survey maps, used to pour over mine for hours. They do go out of date though after enough years and paths getting changed/closed.

I sometimes think I'd like to empty this place out completely, only put back what I currently need and put the rest in a storage unit, but storage units are one of my deal breakers. Not because I wouldn't go through the stuff and shop from there and continue discarding, but because they're expensive and things go mouldy etc anyway in there. So if I was going to do that I may as well hire A skip, bin it all and just replace anything I regretted parting with, it would probably work out cheaper in the long run.

A second home seems much more civilised, it's a second place to stay too and the stuff would maintain its good condition. I doubt I'll win the lottery though so it's wishful thinking really. I'll just have to continue plodding along here until I've found the sweet spot between where maximalist tips over into hoarder. I do know some people buy a second home and just ram it full of stuff before leaving the home and contents to decay, then start hoarding the new one. That really would be a spectacular waste of money. Think of all the therapy for hoarding a person could buy with that amount. I guess those ones don't have much interest in being cured.

Last couple of days has been launderette for all as well as shopping and batch cooking for the masses. Some making (paid work) dealing with contractors, and trying to get on top of paperwork. (badly)
Did mange to go through a carrier bag, throw some stuff away, and ear mark other stuff to go to a charity in a couple of days.
Today's going to be hospital and hopefully a lot of paid making. Back at that point of working to pay for storage, that I need the time and physical fitness to be working to clear.

@BlackeyedSusan Well done! You are so entitled to cry. It's a hell of a long road to travel just to get to that point. I cross my fingers for all of it going forward. It's probably inevitable that there will be more to come, but it will at least be different, and they say a change is as good as a rest.
One day, I will dare to burn or shred the collections of evidence bundles from everything from fighting SS, taking them to court, educational tribunals, to Judicial Review. (Or I'll go find the two most awful officials who tried to prevent Dc's education, and use all that to commit murder by 10,000 paper cuts!)
Well done on the domestics, and actually managing to get some craft done too! Hoping this is the positive stage of a new chapter.

@WearyAuldWumman you're doing really well, especially in the application of logic, and Blue is spot on about your mindset change. All these situations didn't get built in a day, and can't dismantle in one either. We just have to keep doing the work on ourselves as well as the stuff.

@BlueSummerBaby It would have to be her moving in here which would need permission and her downsizing a lot. I don't think I could cope with her and cats as a permanent situation, and would quickly be reduced to a 24/7 carer for all
I don't talk much about who's still stuck at home here, but there's two, one not able to be fully independent who works hard long hours and has nothing left to look after themselves with, one with very high needs who can do very little for themselves, who rotates round the family a fair bit, for everyone's sanity, but I carry the Lion's share.

The 'past me' is often I think, about coming to terms with moving on, but I've noted it raises old feelings that I thought had been dealt with, too. It IS complicated!

You may actually have done enough work on yourself to run that dream 'shop', not sure about the rest of us, no matter how tempting. Personally I think a lottery win would just make a lot of things I had prior to being able to just buy anything, worth more to me in a weird way. I would however be able to get rid of all the practical 'might need that's' really easily, and actually that's a lot...

@RubySparrow Well done with stopping bringing more in. It's a big part of the battle. The guilt will get better, or at least more livable with IME.

@MissDemelzaCarne Welcome.☕ Unless you're someone whose happy to have someone else paid to make decisions for you, I wouldn't recommend most of them as the answer to realizing where you are at.
Good ones will help you reason out and understand your compulsions by talking things out, in the same way we do on here, while encouraging you to move at whatever pace works for you. But that pace is usually slow (it needs to be, to be lasting) and expensive as a result.

I've worked de-cluttering others, but wouldn't work for a company as they're mainly too 'physical stuff gone' results driven. The 'stuff' is the symptom of an underlying issue. Removing the symptom without dealing with what's causing it doesn't work.
For many it leads to more acquisition, replacement + acquisition, and a nasty cycle with problems left untreated, and others making money keeping it that way.

To my mind 'results' is measured by when someone can approach the problem tendencies (or full behaviors) equipped to deal with them, not simply by carpet space.

The former deals with the problem, the later with the symptoms of the problem.

If you're someone with too much stuff who just needs someone else to tell you what to keep and what to get rid off, they're excellent.
If you're someone who actually has a problem with how you relate to stuff and struggle to let go underlying it all, they're generally not that good a use of money, emotional energy or time, and can make the underlying problem worse.

Had lunch at our favourite farm shop yesterday.

Dropped off the pack of unused half-pencils I came across (from my teaching supplies - I bought my own) and also a few books which are still relevant to the current curriculum and one of DH's. The shop has a bookcase with second-hand books, used to raise money for the local children's hospice.

Managed to prise off and bin the old telephone junction box thingy yesterday and that's it in the bin now.

I'm waiting for FedEx to pick up the router that's to be returned to the previous broadband provider. I was able to use up some more of my wrapping supplies.

I'm stuck in her until 6pm...Pick-up time is between 10 am and 6. Good job I'm retired, eh?

Taking it easy but also pottering and decluttering as I go.

Still have a loft of teaching resources. Out of sight, out of mind. Need to get the living spaces sorted first.

I have sponged a long side of the mattress and washed the wall next to the bed. One side of mattress to go, a charger/cable to retrieve then I can sleep in a bed. Oh pillow protectors and bedding to wash too!

Some more of the wallpaper bits was washed off as I washed the wall. The rest is unaccessible next to the bed frame. Really ought to do the other side of the room first before shifting the bed.

I need to tackle some prep for a big group craft project.

Thanks Elle, that's really helpful.

I was contemplating going shopping. Maybe I'll put it off for a bit.

Local yarn shop is closing. Yarn hoarding tendancies coming to the fore. I'm drowning in yarn. This is not going to be easy to resist.

I need to get on and get this craft project sorted to return it to it's group home and not my sofa.

OCD tendancies are not helping.

I'm still trying to pull off the old telephone wiring and clips. I managed to get some of it off, but it's so old that the box was marked 'GPO' and the wires were adhering with paint in some places.

I'm trying to remember where I have the grippier thingies that will allow me to pull out the nails. I managed to get some out using scissors.

Gripper thingies: can visualise, but have forgotten the correct name...Not pincers, I don't think.

Pliers? Yeah, I get that as well, bloody nouns bugger off and hide in an in accessible part of my brain!!

An hour sorting craft stuff. Hoovered half the sofa. Collected some recycling and put in hall.

Still need to measure and sew backing for craft stuff.

Pliers! Doh! Thank you.

FedEx has picked up the router, so I am free to inflict myself on the Senior Flex class at the gym.

@BlueSummerBaby I was thinking about those people who have the finances that allows them to hoard out one house and then get another and start filling that one, and what you said about how much therapy they could buy and guessing those ones don't have much interest in being cured.
I reckon they're maybe people who think that starting again in a clear space will allow them to live normally and they think they'll clear the old house bit by bit, and then energy runs out, and life takes over, and probably the shame and need to hide it all, is compounded.

@WearyAuldWumman and @BlackeyedSusan well done! Bit by bit, all improves life.
@BlackeyedSusan I had the same issue when I went to drop off some stuff at a charity shop. Balls and balls of brand new donated beautifully shaded wool in two big wire baskets. I managed to reason it out via how many years would it be before I would be able to even consider sitting down to use it.

@WearyAuldWumman Good luck getting all the cables up. There are loads here of different eras, especially in the communal areas. The contractors have just cut of the ends and painted over the decades of paint already on them. It's hard to tell what they once where until you get in close. They look like giant dirt trapping slugs!

Today's more making stuff, and getting Aunt's meters changed over for smart meters and trying to sort out whatever's going on with her council tax.
Meter's are a bit Hobson's choice. She got into difficulties and ended up with key meters. They aren't as robust as old meters and are sited at floor level in the cupboard as the old ones had been, which is increasingly difficult for someone her age.
Both have been affected by the water and their screens now don't work.
She was really afraid she'd be charged for the damage and wanted to live with them like that, never knowing when she needed to top them up. 🙄
Turns out having smart meters fitted solves that at least. Now need to convince the engineer to bring them up from floor level for her, as requests to the suppliers haven't got far.

That makes sense Elleherd. Whenever I've seen people like that on TV shows they've always been older or had health issues and the second house has always been completely and totally rammed with all sorts, like they can barely open the front door and when they do are met with a wall of stuff. Plus the one they're living in the same but not as bad, so the fresh start didn't work for them. It actually often looks like they've added more to the old house once they left, instead of clearing any of it. Physically it would be a huge task for even someone healthy to clear an entire house by themselves, it would take a long time, but once old age or health issues sets in I guess it becomes impossible or at least feels that way.

I'm glad I saw things on TV like that growing up because remembering it gave me the wake up call when I realised I'd realistically run out of room here. If I hadn't tackled it at that point I'd have ended up with one of those homes like I'd seen on TV.

I think it helps me that everything is organised here too. I open a cupboard or box and see what I can let go of, so I'm only dealing with one small amount at a time. If the whole place was one gigantic pile of stuff that would be far more daunting to me. I was thinking if I had to strip the place back to bare essentials like a minimalist would, or when you're staging a house to sell it, it would take me years even with the progress I've already made, because of the mental energy of making each decision and the time that takes.

If anyone has that exact situation of piles everywhere and wants some inspiration there's a YouTube called peeling away the clutter (think I've got that right) where an ill woman is sitting there tackling her mountains of stuff one item at a time. It's not as depressing as it sounds, she's quite cheerful.

My progress this month has been one large trug and one medium sized box emptied of stuff. For now, I'm keeping those containers themselves tucked away just in case. I guess I don't trust myself not to fill them back up again, but it's good to see them empty. I've still got an empty large box from a few months ago too. It's encouraging because before that the only things I'd emptied out were cardboard boxes or damaged boxes, which felt like more of a necessity. Or piles of unboxed stuff. Now I'm starting to get empty bits of permanent storage solutions. It's a good feeling.

Still bit by bitting!

Yesterday I wiped/hoovered the sewing machine and some of the table so I could work on the craft project. At the planning, testing, measuring stage before cutting and committing to the design. We threw some stuff out, piled up other stuff though to think about later.

Today I have emptied the bin, wiped it out inside and out. (Small bin makes this a lot easier) And started cleaning the floor, side of freezer and radiator surrounding it.

We've put some washing out to take to ex's to wash.

DD has recycled some of the papers.

Please tell me I don't need parents evening notes from KS3 for kiddo with diagnosis who's now an adult!

Some dry washing is in the basket waiting to be taken upstairs.

The real wake-up call for me @Elleherd was when I became friends with an elderly woman. I allowed the friendship to drift away - it had become oppressive, with her trying to bully me. She obviously didn't see things that way - she'd have viewed it as being helpful.

Her flat was full of furniture, doll houses she'd made, purchases from QVC.

I tried to help by clearing her patch of garden, using my old van (which I no longer have) to take things to the tip for her (when I should have been doing all that for myself).

She just kept buying more things and sometimes passing things to me which she'd bought off QVC as 'presents'.

It became bizarre. I'll not go into all the details, but she'd put an appeal on a local page for funds to replace 'stolen' cameras. I was a bit vulnerable at the time - recently widowed - had met her at a memorial service for a historical disaster involving a family member - and finished up giving her £200.

There's much more to it than that, but...She tried to insist that I spend New Year in her flat and that I sleep on an air mattress which she had bought for me at my suggestion.... I can assure you that I had made no such suggestion.

Apart from anything else, with the state of my knees at the time there's no way I could have got up or down. She wanted me to 'bond' with her cat, which she wanted me to inherit if she went before it. (I had agreed to the cat.)

She informed that the cat would love to 'play' with my hair when I was sleeping on the mattress. No thank you. I told her I had other plans

There was no room for a mattress on her living room floor, I assure you. I felt as though the walls were coming in on me when I was in that flat. Shelves everywhere, all surfaces covered, collectibles everywhere, a garden chair hanging from the living room ceiling, QVC brooches pinned to umpteen cushions...I can't describe it all. Dioramas she'd made for old folks' homes and had then been unable to part with them..

She wanted me to be her executor (though she already had one appointed, a solicitor). I refused.

She demanded that I give her a plan of my house so that she could decide how I would house her cat. She wanted to give me the money to build a balcony for the cat...I refused and told her (truthfully) that we'd been told we couldn't get permission for that when we built our extension.

She asked what I would do when I was getting work done on the house. When I replied that I'd put the cat in a bedroom and close the door she became angry - that would be cruel, apparently.

Finally, she wanted me to build a catio in the back garden.

There's much more to it than that. One time I was invited round to see a picture she had of my great-grandfather. It was a printout of the one that had been in a local newspaper in connection with the disaster I've already mentioned.

While I was there, I spotted that she'd printed out my profile pic - a wedding pic of my husband and me - and stuck it in her photo album....

There were other things too weird to mention here. Couldn't take any more...

It was a salutary lesson, however. I don't want to end up like that.

Susan you don't need anything at all from your DC school once they're an adult. No exercise books, no artwork, no letters home "in case they want it later" they never do. Keep only what you want for yourself because it's sentimental to you. Is parents evening notes from KS3 sentimental, really? They have a diagnosis and are an adult, so I can't see that it's of any practical use at this point.

Wow 😲 wearyauldwoman she sounds like she has the potential to become a stalker. I'm glad you escaped her clutches. I wonder if she truly saw you as a friend or just another resource? She certainly sounds like a grifter begging for cash for things. I wanted to run away just reading about it! That stuff about the cat playing with your hair while you sleep was downright creepy. I can't help thinking whether the plan was for you to eventually move in with her, so she could hoard up your house as well as her own? I can't quite picture the part where the garden chair somehow hangs from the ceiling, but it did make me laugh. I hope you have nicer friends now.

Thanks, @BlueSummerBaby .

I did feel sorry for her, but it became too much. I haven't gone into it all, but it did become very creepy.

She's an author, supposedly, but it turned out that it was all vanity press and she has boxes of her books stored in her loft. (I also paid an exorbitant price for two of her books.)

She was furious because someone from the council had told her that she needed to clear out her flat and she'd demanded to know whether they were trying to get her sectioned... The council then backed off, according to her.

She claims to be a counsellor and to run a charity which finds lost cats. (The devotion to cats is certainly true.)

On FB, she used to post pictures of collectibles on FB which she claimed had been given to her people because they were grateful for her help. Once I got to know her better, I realised that all the thank you notes were in her handwriting, all in the same green ink.

She most certainly has genuine health issues, but I could see that the friendship was affecting my own mental health. As I said, seeing the state of her flat was a wake-up call: even her bath was full of things for the cat. (She had to move them out and back in to use it.)

She sounds like a walking talking advert for not spending too much time alone wearyauldwoman, like she lives solely in her own world now and is desperate for attention. Sad.

Yes, I think that's it.