<p>One idea for those of you cleaning out and clearing out - several years ago we made an international move and simply couldn’t take all the sentimental bits with us. It bugged me to throw away the kids’ school projects so I took pictures of them before I tossed them. This approach would work for lots of things, although Mollie will still be chilly snuggled up to a picture.</p>
<p>That’s a really good idea Puzzled88! I saved some big trifold board projects from my kids because they were so nice and the kids worked so hard on them. They were on a shelf in an outdoor storage shed. But some little squirrels found them to make great bedding, so photos would have been better in the long run!</p>
<p>I have taken photos of some of the 3-D projects–the models of historic buildings, the Indian Long House, the Maine lighthouse–rather than keep them forever. Proud, snaggle-toothed kids standing next to them!</p>
<p>mythmom–I have you beat. My 86 year old father has lived in his house (with same phone #) since 1956.</p>
<p>mythmom</p>
<p>My in-laws did that. Never could bear to get rid of anything–had a rented storage unit filled with dusty old junk for 30+ years. SIL and I started pitching our a lot of stuff after they died, but then other SIL (who inherited the hoarding gene) came over and boxed up everything. She’s already paying hundreds of $$ a month for rented storage space because her house is crammed full of stuff. Someday her kids will have to deal with it.</p>
<p>I vow not to leave such a mess for my kid.</p>
<p>My mother-in-law (an only child) lived in the house where she was born in 1920 until shortly before she died at age 83, with only a brief move out for a few years when she got married. When my father-in-law went into the service after WW2 (he was deferred during the war because his job was defense-essential), she moved back in with her parents. Also, her grandmother lived next door to the house where she lived with her parents. When f-i-l came back from the army, he stayed there and that is where they raised their three kids. She saved EVERYTHING - not just school projects but hw and spelling tests! There was generations of stuff in that house when my husband and his siblings had to clean it out.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years… My 23 year old son has his own apartment on the opposite coast, very neat, clutter free, and simply furnished. Last night I spoke to him on the phone about doing something about his room here. It is filled with trophies, projects, books he will never use again, memorabilia of various trips and programs, and who knows what else. He told me that I should leave it as is since it is HIS room (unless I want to rent it out, he said 
). I guess it isn’t doing any harm to leave it the way it is, as my husband uses it to do work on his laptop at home, but it just seem weird to have a permanent “museum” of an adult child. Maybe I will wait until he has been living on his own for few more years…</p>
<p>I consider my son’s room more of a shrine.</p>
<p>Bethie, I consider my sons’ rooms a toxic waste dump… :)</p>
<p>Found DS’s glasses this AM. They’ve been missing a week. Stuck between the bed and nightstand… He’s blind as a bat and has been wearing an old pair with a way out-od-date Rx instead.</p>
<p>I’ve already told him that when he leaves, I am taking over at least part of his room as my fabric studio (and thereby removing much clutter from the living room, where my sewing machines and such currently reside). He has the best natural light in the house and a very useful workspace. If I can install a table over/in lieu of the bed, all will be copacetic – or at least I can close the door on it!</p>
<p>I offered to help both guys re-paint their rooms if they’d clean up so we could work…no takers. Two summers in a row. They’d rather have cute, outdated animals on their walls than clean rooms.</p>
<p>However, when DS 1went away for six weeks, his dorm room there was pristine (he sent pics). I live in hope… :)</p>
<p>Bethie - My husband also referred to my son’s room as a “shrine” (half-jokingly). Your son is only a freshman in college - your situation is a little different than mine. </p>
<p>Speaking of toxic waste dumps, my daughter left to study abroad at the beginning of September, but this weekend was the first time I had the time and momentum to venture into her room. She left in a flurry, so I cannot blame her too much for the untidiness, but, among other things, I found dirty clothes (including undergarments) still strewn around the floor. Her mess has been frozen in time for almost two months!!! How nice…just as I was beginning to miss her, I felt just like she was still here with us at home… :eek:</p>
<p>I’ve been asking S to clean up his room for 2 years now. I even offered to do it while he is away and was told to leave it alone because he knows where everything is. Strange too, because his room at school is like an oasis of neatness in his shared apartment. Any ideas for me?</p>
<p>lkf725: Not so unusual. Both kids have pristine environments at school. I keep pleading that their rooms at home are fire hazards. Perhaps so weird tribute to the mind set of childhood, I really don’t know.</p>
<p>I think you have only three choices: leave it, “disobey” and box everything up and clean the sucker out, and offer a huge monetary reward to coming home and dealing with it.</p>
<p>Grrr. It is annoying.</p>
<p>Well, when my mom’s mess comes to me, I renting a dumpster and throwing it all out, sight unseen. She knows this. Her only bit of advise is to not let my brother near it because he will look at every piece of paper and it will take years instead of the one day my approach will take.</p>
<p>But I love 45 min. away from her and he lives across the country so i could probably accomplish it before he could even get here.</p>
<p>I think my approach comes from asthma. Dust = death.</p>
<p>I was sort of joking about the shrine, but only sort of. I cleaned and neatened it before he came home for break. He has dust allergies so I <em>had to</em> do it. It looks great and he likes it–if he hadn’t let me, I’d be annoyed.</p>
<p>Mythmom</p>
<p>Your brother sounds like my sister in law. I have trouble getting rid of stuff too, but it was sad to watch her total inability to let go of anything. It truly is a handicapping condition at that level.</p>
<p>“offer a huge monetary reward to coming home and dealing with it”</p>
<p>That’s what finally worked for us. My eldest kept her room pretty much intact throughout college. She stayed with us again for a few months after graduation. When an opportunity for a great apartment came along, we told her we would subsidize her rent for about six months but wouldn’t hand over any money until her room was cleaned out to the point where we could use it as both an office for her dad and a guest bedroom. She moved to the apartment and it took a couple of months for her to get desperate enough for money to come back and clean. The closets are still pretty full but we can use the room. Of course now her dad has it massively cluttered with papers and junk. But she has definitely given up her psychological claim to the room.</p>
<p>Money well spent.</p>
<p>CountingDown & WashDad… my baby boy is also nearly 6’3" (he’ll be 17 next month). He’s been wearing a size 15 shoe since he was a HS freshman. He’s the tallest of my guys… my 19 yo son is 6’ & a size 13 shoe, my husband is also 6’ with a 10 1/2 foot. Its so funny to see the baby of the family overpower the rest of us (I’m a mere 5’2"). He’s finally getting a sense of his body, and how to position himself. Last year his teachers complained he seemed so uncomfortable… didn’t know how to sit, where to put his long, long legs… in those stupid HS desks that are all-in-one.</p>
<p>TallSon and I have been working on replacing the paneling on one wall of our family room. I spent three hours sanding drywall yesterday.</p>
<p>Let’s just say I’ve added another item to the “Things I Really Wouldn’t Do for a Living” list.</p>
<p>Spent all afternoon on Sunday finishing D’s room so that when she comes home for Thanksgiving next week she can actually have room in her closet to hang clothes. It had become the dumping ground for all everything that didn’t have a place to go. It was so bad, that the doors had come off the tracks and H had to go to Home Depot to buy new hardware as the original had broken off. I just gave the teacher in the next classroom an “adorable” faux-leather jacket from Limited Too that D had worn in 6th grade - LOL! Her 11 year-old gets any nice hand-me-downs that are still in style, as my two nieces, both younger than D, have about 3 and 5 inches respectively over their cousin. Two plastic trash bags of trash, and two filled with clothes for the recycling bins later, her room is now clutter-free for the first time in years, as I had done her two bureaus last month. I did call her a few times while cleaning to ask if she actually wanted to keep certain things like her plastic bin full of Broadway playbills. She also wanted to keep her AP English notebook and binder “just-in-case”. She has about 12 pairs of jeans to try on when she comes home, but otherwise, everything that is still hanging in her closet are things she actually still wears. It feels so good to walk in there! Now, the triple and double closets in our room are the next major project, and then, the most fearful - the BASEMENT! Already have told H that OUR work has just begun…</p>
<p>Here is my boring day. I am waiting for a sewer drain person to come and snake out a pipe that is backing up into my basement (water all over the floor) when my washing machine drains. At least my basement is not finished. Fun, fun, fun.</p>
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<p>At least it’s only washing machine water…</p>
<p>So true! He just left. Hope that I won’t need him again for some time.</p>