How can I tackle clutter and suggest sensible storage before another move?

[MM1972]

We are moving for 4th time in 12 years. My partner has lots of stuff. Boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff. At least 6 bin bags full of soft toys. Several years worth of cheap tat bought unseen and against my wishes from Amazon for Christmas presents for our kids. (It was never played with). The previous move was from a house with garage to an apartment, a shed was bought to store the 'crap'. It had not been looked at in the past 4 years. We are going through it this morning. Stuff is being thrown out that was bought and simply never used. Other stuff that was being kept has been totally destroyed. Anything on the bottom on the shed was been damp and is now mouldy and decayed and infested with woodlice.

I was against buying the shed and thought we should have thrown the stuff out, instead the shed gradually filled up with more and more crap. To the extent the shed door could not be opened. Some of the stuff might have been sellable on vinted / eBay. Now it's mostly for the bin.

There are still things that I can understand should be kept. Old photos etc. However the photos are framed and there are three massive boxes of these from deceased parents and our children at various stages of school life, some of the glass is broken the boxes are infested with insects and spiders.

it would be tragic to lose these photos. We maybe just got them in time. The boxes they were in are full of dead wood lice that gout in and couldn't get out. They stink of ammonia.

I am going to suggest removing them from their frames and digitising them and perhaps keeping some in an album?

Does anyone have other ideas or how can I stop someone compulsively buying and hoarding crap?

It's taken me a very long time to declutter. I'm still a long way off but the place is a lot better than it was. What's helped me has been having stuff packed away, bit like your shed, and realising that in all these years I haven't looked at it, so that's helped me to either donate or bin it. Yes, including photos.

If you clear the shed (and don't have another), would your OH stop buying stuff?

Nature loves a vacuum so definitely no more sheds, filling the attic, spare rooms or storage units etc
I would save the best photos and get them in one of those album books you can do online.

If they won't stop buying then try one in one out and explore looking at minimalist podcasts, social media and decluttering threads.
Don't just spend money on storage solutions, really try and assess what can be got rid of.
I genuinely think it can be linked to poor mental health issues.

What helped me, was getting to a point in the house where everything had a home.

If I didn't have a home for something, I got rid of it or demoted something else to give the new item a home. I watched a lot of Dana K White videos on the container method, might be useful.

Once one part of my life that worked like that, it can become a bit addictive. I realised how much time and energy I was wasting wading through 35 odd socks or tupperware with mismatched lids. I held a lot of shame about getting rid of things. But the joy of a streamlined life became better than the pain of letting things go.

I then didn't want to buy anything else, until I had to replace a specific thing, because I would need to find a home for it.

But it really has to come from the person who is overbuying. My mum has hoarding tendnecies (probably where I got it from), which my Dad hated. He took a bin bag to piles of things out of sheer frustration at multiple points. It never got through to my mum and the crap reappeared slowly over the following months. The only thing that ever happened was my childhood was miserable with them fighting about it constantly.

Your DH needs psychiatric help for the mental illness known as hoarding.

You can tackle the symptoms til the cows come home, but only a doctor can address the root cause.

It looks as if you are the only one addressing the symptoms too. Is he at all invested or engaged in the clearance? Are you ready to embrace the possibility of a hoard gradually building up again over the next few years, with a periodic repeat of the shed of doom scenario as long as you both live?

Was coming on to suggest this. Hoarding is a mental illness - he needs help to get to the root cause and you need to stop enabling. He should sort out the shed himself.

Does his compulsive buying cause you financial problems? Obviously it causes you huge other problems, but you should not stay if it is causing financial issues too.

If he won't do it for you, tell him the effect this is or will have on your DC.