<p>I spent my childhood being encouraged to give away stuff in preparation for the next move. Needless to say, I have a hard time giving it up now!</p>
<p>Our company is full of packrats. Yesterday I pulled out a binder covered with about 4" of dust that had no date later than 2006 in it. One of the binders had CD-roms with “Medicare Updates” as far back as 1999. I’m sure those are still relevant! NOT.</p>
<p>Earlier this year I pulled out some stuff that belonged to a PT who left our company two years ago. I found one of her booklets from when she was in college… in 1989!</p>
<p>Last year I went on a massive cleaning spree and was finding invoices, etc from when our facility opened in 1996!</p>
<p>My medmal carrier says keep patient records for ten years, for kids several years past 18, and for cases with the potential for litigation, indefinately. So…yeah…</p>
<p>participated in a community wide garage sale, (yay, motivated me to clean out garage) and found myself acting very hoarder like when I noticed buyers picking up the the sweet baby blankets and toddler picture books that were inadvertently put out. I surreptitiously moved them back to the garage, (as if they weren’t mine to do whatever I wanted with) these are my treasures, and I want to hand them down to my own kids/grandkids. </p>
<p>house looks great, fairly organized, neat, attractive, but I think closets are another story ;)</p>
<p>Thumper 1, after my mother passed away I decided the same thing, and I’ve gotten quite good at it in the last seven years. I must have heard the same thing Kajon did (post #4), except that I throw away 6 things every day (2190 things a year makes quite a dent into any hoard) and I’m of the divide and conquer persuasion: only one small job at a time be it a drawer, a shelf, shirts, even tools.</p>
<p>my sister is the best de-clutterer I know. In preparation for her visit, I began doing one closet at a time. The pantry took a full day, as those metal shelves had to be cleaned with Clorax and toothbrush. All yucky towels became rags or were tossed. Most of my old sheets, that are too short to fit on my bed, got washed and given away. I kept no more than 3 sets of sheets for each bed (all different sizes). Freezer and frig were emptied out, cleaned, and organized.</p>
<p>My closet I left to do with sister. All the size 0’s got packaged. A Gottex bathing suit I got on sale last summer drew a response from sister, “What were you thinking?” In sum, 1/3 of clothes, PJs, almost all my best wool clothes that I’ve been hoarding for 20+ years (who was I kidding, when I go north I’m always in jeans), got packed into car and given to hospital thrift store. 3 bags of shoes, oh my!</p>
<p>For a treat, we went to Gap Body and bought ourselves new underwear.</p>
<p>The show “American Pickers” won’t exist if there are no hoarders…:)</p>
<p>I’m an anti-hoarder also. I’m pretty sure it comes from cleaning out one of my Nana’s homes (she hoarded them, too) and finding three hundred roles of toilet paper (must have been a great sale) and they were so old the cardboard had disinterested. Then there was the 100’s of boxes of lime jello…</p>
<p>^^^^^It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Makes me feel kind of bad, too, as it’s a clear sign that this person had pain that she was trying to ease with her behavior. Wonder what the deal was with lime jello?</p>
<p>Bookworm - may I borrow your sister? Please???</p>
<p>And to any northern New Englanders who are compulsive organizers (and won’t judge me too harshly), please send a PM. I’ve been using my son’s room for storage space . . . and he’s coming home in four weeks! :eek:</p>
<p>Three things that help–
- a critical outside eye helping you sort with the “what are/were you thinking!?” mentality.
- translate it into money–how much would it cost to build shelves/get a storage unit–what is the square footage cost these days? Is what you’re saving even WORTH the space? Not to mention how nice and organized everything will be if you toss it. It declutters your mind too!
- Do a good deed–what’s in your closet taking up space could really help someone else. And if you wait forever to donate it won’t do anybody any good. You nor them.
Pick your “treasures” to save wisely–unless it’s an heirloom or very special in some way, old baby blankets are just old…just saying. Take a picture and put it in an album–the memories will be kept and the closet is saved!</p>
<p>"^^^^^It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Makes me feel kind of bad, too, as it’s a clear sign that this person had pain that she was trying to ease with her behavior. Wonder what the deal was with lime jello?" </p>
<p>We think it’s because her parents were quite wealthy but as some point when she was young they lost their money. And then living through the Great Depression- though they personally weren’t affected. </p>
<p>As for the lime jello - apparently, one can never have too many jello molds at holiday dinner. ;)</p>
<p>My aunt, her oldest daughter, also inherited this trait and owns 5 homes so she can store all her stuff. She is unable to part with anything. She once accused me and some college friends of taking wire hangers (the kind you get from the dry cleaner) from my nana’s house in florida. And she still talks about it 35 years later!</p>
<p>I am a purger, but my daughter is a saver. I really get stressed out by clutter. That’s not to say I am particularly neat, but I KNOW if there is too much stuff I will NEVER get my act together. I think it is one of the many ways I cope with being a little ADD. I can’t wait til DD has a permanent resting spot and I can give her all of her things. She can keep them, store them, whatever, but just collect them from my house. I wouldn’t throw anything out or give it away - they are her possessions - but when I go to our basement I just cringe when I see all the boxes of Playmobile, American Girl stuff, and books, books, books.</p>
<p>The “keeping it for when they get their own place” hasn’t worked for me. They picked and chose from their rooms and left me 90% of it. Including, ahhh, the 5 deer heads…</p>
<p>My mother showed up with every.single.thing I had in her house and put all the boxes in my only downstairs bedroom in our newly purchased house. She was a real #$& about it. I won’t do that to my kids–don’t care if it’s in the attic until they clean it out. But…I really need to clean out their rooms.</p>
<p>In the vein of “I may need it someday”, I saw the cutest idea for S1’s upcoming wedding reception. Two doors mounted on a frame and swung out, with etched wording on the doors. I <em>had</em> two of the 1900 antique, full glass doors from my original farmhouse. Perfect, right? Past merging with future. Yeah, except in one of my big purges I wondered why I’d ever need TWO doors and pitched one of them. Sigh.</p>
<p>When I give stuff away, I admit there is a teeny chance I’ll need it in the future. But it’s worth that risk because almost everything that goes out the door will never be needed. </p>
<p>I have a hard time with old torn jeans and clothing that could be recycled (in a town 20 miles away or at seasonal events in our town). I still have it in a pile in a closet.</p>
<p>My mom is an actual hoarder. It is heartbreaking. She just moved in with us so we have to keep an eye on empty yogurt containers and candy wrappers. She can’t part with plastic, foil, paper, etc. her house will take months to sort out. At least we stand a chance now that she isn’t living there. I am the opposite for obvious reasons. Today I cleaned out the garage and I love the feeling when everything is in its place.</p>
<p>My father was a hoarder. I haven’t seen anything here that is anywhere near to what he had accumulated. He died more than a year ago and we’re stilling cleaning out his house. It was easy throwing out the boxes of paper and plastic bags etc. It was also easy throwing out his homework from 1930. I didn’t realize until my father’s death that my mother who died 13 years ago was also a hoarder. We donated a lot of her clothing including the 150 dresses that still had the tags on them that she never wore. I did have problems throwing away my stuff that they kept, but after I looked at them once, I thought what am I going to do with them?</p>
<p>It’s strange. I posted on here last night about the way I toss everything out, and yet, I just posted on the cleaning out the kids room thread about not throwing out my kids things.</p>
<p>I guess I am happy to get rid of everything but the memories of my kids’ childhoods.</p>
<p>After reading this yesterday, I tossed 10 textbooks in the recycling bin, including my HS freshman social studies book and 2 editions of Intermediate Accounting that I have a later edition for. (one was from my undergrad, other from teaching - version I kept is not most current in publication…). </p>
<p>Let’s not discuss the 2-3 rubbermaid totes each child has of stuffed animals that I’m not allowed to dispose of…</p>
<p>We are a family of pack rats and I’m the only one that parts with stuff.</p>
<p>Can I interest anyone in about 1000 science fiction paperback books…neatly packed into 6 large Rubbermaid bins?</p>