The Problem With Being A Hoarder:

I'm not a hoarder, I just have a hard time throwing anything away.?ÿ And a hard time not accumulating more neat stuff that I might need someday.?ÿ And I don't really mind doing all my office work on a cleared desk space that's about 1 foot square because the remainder of my spacious desk is obscured by mountains of paper and hardware of various kinds.?ÿ And the only reason I don't pile stuff on top of my keyboard is because it's an uneven surface.?ÿ

But at least I'm not a hoarder.

When I moved my family to Oregon from Canada in 1995 we (read "my wife and children") did a draconian paring down of all the crap we (read "I") had accumulated. Several dumpsters were filled over a period of weeks. Luckily for all of us I was in Oregon working while she was in Canada doing all this, so I was obliged to accept the fait compli.

I have not missed even one single thing out of all that crap. I can't even remember what there was.

We had to do it again about 4 years ago when we did a major renovation of our house. This time I insisted on saving several boxes of papers. Today, those boxes are up in the garage rafters gathering dust. I think that I will make a point of recycling at least a couple of those boxes before pickup day a week from Wednesday. You know, as moral support for Radar.?ÿ?ÿ

I currently am working off and on to go through a 10-ream paper box of newspapers from the home town, that had accumulated before we moved to this house in 1995.?ÿ I mainly look to clip pictures or obituaries of people I knew, so it goes pretty fast.?ÿ The grocery ads were entertaining, too.

We actually sold a keyboard and amplifier in the last month and have another amplifier currently listed.?ÿ I need to work more at putting things on Craigslist. Tip: if you use CL, do NOT make your phone number visible, and also do expect the first couple responses to try to get you to communicate outside the CL system.?ÿ Lots of scams.

So there is a little progress, but it would take decades at that pace to clean out.

Like Jim, I have about a square foot of table space open beside the computer.?ÿ I also have a large basement shop that now just has a path through it as the only open floor.?ÿ I have occasionally used repair parts from some of the old electronics piled there, as justification for keeping most of it.

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FIL has an unoccupied house. In the back sits a shed. In the shed is a broken lawn mower, weed eater also not working. Some usable hand tools, a 60 year old electric circular saw, a broken door, ect.?ÿ

SIL spends a week in the house "cleaning up" the place. She is disturbed that the door to the shed isn't locked so she puts a padlock on it. NOOOOOO!!!!

Let someone take whatever they want out of it.

Maybe they have a use for a couple gallons of roundup, or 5 year old gas, or the broken lawn mower,,,,,take whatever you can........please!!!!?ÿ

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Retired surveyor woes

I have a motivation anomaly with SWMBO. Our house is way too big for the two of us and I want to unload all the non essential, unused junk everywhere just as if we were going to sell it. That way it would be easier for any greedy people in the will to sell when we croak the bucket. I like to preplan. Havenƒ??t reached the point where I wonƒ??t buy green bananas yet.

But like others, when I start throwing my own junk out it never makes it. ?????ÿ

In August I had to pack my Truck and be prepared to abandon my house from what turned out to be 2 approaching wildfires. I was spared, but my logic was "why take the painstaking time to file everything away just because I was completely organized after spending every Sunday for six months putting everything in order just to have it burn down"? Next Sunday I start filing everything again

@mightymoe

It has become de rigueur?ÿin my neighborhood to put unwanted stuff at the curb with a "FREE" sign on it. If no one takes it within a week or two, off it goes to the dump.

One town I worked in had a traditional spring cleaning week. People put all their unwanted stuff out on the street. Scavengers would come from miles around to collect the good stuff. There was quite a lot of good stuff and a goodly portion of it was carried off. Whatever remained at the end of the week was removed by the trash collectors.?ÿ ?ÿ

My desk has two of the handy dandy slide out thingies that create additional flat space.?ÿ In the olden days when typewriters were commonplace this is where they were placed.?ÿ One of them is always out because that is where the job files land.?ÿ The other is normally kept in so that I can pull it out to use for temporary work space then slide it back in.?ÿ Sliding it back in is somewhat automatic because it partially blocks my path to anywhere else.?ÿ Hitting that sharp metal corner with my thigh is painful.

@spmpls

Pen knife

Nail Clippers....

Hey c'mon let's go to the other island....

I saw Carlin live twice. Amazing!

Last October my sisters and I cleaned out my father's home and three outbuildings.?ÿ The home was only 35 years old but is on the farm that my Great Grandfather bought in the 1880s.?ÿ None of us has a place to store a lot the memorabilia that we have loved to kept.?ÿ My father was not a hoarder, he just couldn't throw away anything that he thought he could use in the future.?ÿ There must have been over 100 pounds of assorted nuts, bolts, washers and screws.?ÿ At least 25 assorted screwdrivers, twenty hammers from tack hammers to 16 pound sledge. Three operational (mostly) refrigerators, a 200 pound (at least it felt like it) television, assorted bits of furniture.?ÿ We would begin digging into stuff, stop and laugh a while and cry a while.?ÿ

He told us a couple of years ago that we were going to cuss him after his death because we had to sort all that stuff.

We didn't.

Andy

You have done quit preaching, and went to meddling.?ÿ
im not a hoarder either. But I do dearly hate to throw stuff away.?ÿ
Remember, ƒ??no religionƒ?. Well, Jesus this thread should be nixed.?ÿ
grin

nate

@holy-cow

Old school!!!!!

It's not hoarding. It's keeping your life's experiences in physical form. For me as a surveyor, I am not going to throw away my old instruments that cost several thousands of $ to purchase. My very first Ashtech GPS receiver is still with me. How can you throw away something that costs more than a car when it was first purchased? It reminds me of how scared I was to charge the cost on my credit card and wonder if I would be able to finish the work it was bought for so I can collect the payment to pay for it. Or what would happen if the client would not pay for the work and I am stuck with the credit bill.

?ÿ

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It was probably about 15 years ago when a second cousin of mine moved into the house that had been built by her great-grandfather on a different branch of her family tree.?ÿ As they were going through the "cleaning up" phase they had worked everywhere in the main part of the house.?ÿ Then they remembered that there were some items that had been stored in the unfinished attic.?ÿ Christmas lights and other things usually not needed.?ÿ While working in this area they discovered some things they definitely did not expect to find.?ÿ There was quite a collection of items indicating that her great-grandfather, and possibly her grandfather, had been active in the KKK.?ÿ Much more than just the standard attire.?ÿ Books, pamphlets, meeting records, news clippings, etc.?ÿ She was horrified to discover these items.?ÿ Considering the location of that house and the area of the country from where her ancestors on that side of the family had come, I was not surprised.

Speaking of surprises, a common source of startling information is the PBS show entitled Finding Your Roots.?ÿ An episode that I caught a portion of last evening focused on the ancestry of Roseanne Cash.?ÿ She was fairly certain they would find some slave owners in her ancestry, and they did.?ÿ But, they also discovered she was descended from two slaves, one clearly identified and the other much more vaguely described.?ÿ I believe both would have been about the fourth great-grandparent level from her.

Might be an urban legend, but the story goes that there was an appliance dealer with a lot of non-functional or barely functional washers, dryers, stoves and refrigerators. He had hauled them away as a courtesy when delivering new machines to his customers.

Just to see what would happen, he moved them all out onto the sidewalk in front of his store one Friday afternoon, put price tags on them, and closed up for the weekend. By Monday morning, they had all been stolen.?ÿ

The three appliances I grabbed from his sidewalk are still working today. ???œ ???œ ???œ?ÿ

My wife and I are as bad as anyone at hoarding, not because we want to keep it but because we don't want to deal with it right now, so into the north room it goes. My wife had an organizer lady in once and in a couple of hours she had that north room all cleaned up. I was impressed. We need to get her back in here.