advice on hoarding tendancies

[misdee]

this is one of dd2 quirks that does really really bother me.

every bt of shiney paper, every bit of cellophane is treasure or really useful.

i try to throw bits out when she is at school and just weedle out most of the crap. but today was caught out. as i had found many cardboard boxes and tubes under her bed and binned most of them yesterday at school. apparently one was her 'treasure box' which she wanted to put a piece of string in which i had told her to thow in the bin. thus ensuring a paddy before we left the house and huge upset.

I am fed up of finding scraps of paper everywhere. I am not expecting a pristine house, but i am getting rid of a black bag of rubbish most weeks from dd's bedroom alone and most of that is under dd2 bed.

its getting to me, and its not doing dd1 health any good either, no wonder she is struggle more with her asthma lately.

so what do i do?

Dh likes to hoard things (i'm sure he has AS), dd1 (AS) also has collections of things (stones, marbles, old toy cars), i just chuck it away when she's at school. Dh has a collection of China (cups, tea pots etc..) under the bed .

You could just give her a large container to put her bits in and tell her 'anything that's not in the tub will go in the bin', you could use a large storage container and get her to go through it with you once a week and chuck away anything she's not likely to use.

Ds (10) is the same and it gets to me (and my dodgy lungs) too - so I really feel for you. The advice from CAMHS was to give him a safe place to store a limited number of treasures. School have a box in the playground he is allowed to keep one leaf/twig after each play time but not take it beyond the door from the playground- and at home anything not in his plastic tub is fair game for my hoover! He still hides things everywhere (including food under the sofa) which drives me insane - but I can clean it up. The other habit is making magic potions ... (sticky messes from whatever ingredients he fancies helping himself to - nothing is sacred! sigh)

Errr DS2's is bus tickets...it wouldn't be quite as bad, but due to school runs, I get 5 bus tickets a day, 5 days a week, and more at weekends if I have to go out. And they end up in his room. And the rest of the house. And in his trouser/fleece/coat pockets, especially to block my washing machine filter...

And then I get the meltdown for 'deadding his magic ticket'. And a flooded kitchen