What are you keeping?
Inspiration or success?
Any failures?

I’ve just threw into the recycle bin:

Hundreds of cycle mags from 2004-2011. 😆

Except the torn out workshop guides on shocks as you never know… 😳

Bin guy/gal will think there is a dead body in there lol

Still can’t walk into my garage or service my bikes 😳

I just did something very similar except I also cut the Mint Sauce cartoons out of any MBUK’s…

Wait and see the ad I’m about to put in the classifieds 🙂

Don’t get me started on people hoarding houses…

I have a couple of rolls of old colour T&E electric cables, if I alter an older circuit, I prefer it all to match. And an ATARI 400 from 1979ish.

Yup, books and magazines.

Had a whole floor full – Bike mag from 1981, Q from issue 19, WORD from issue 2.

Thousands of paperback novels.
Walls of ’em, all ordered by author.
😐

Loads of reference stuff, Britannica, Atlases, maps etc.

It was quite impressive tbh, but had to go – the weight was causing damage to the house and Mrs S and I were about to move in together.
😀

It was painfully at the time, but I’m glad I did it.

Sold a couple, left lots on the train, in pubs etc.
Hardbacks to charity shops, mostly.

Kept quite a few, still got boxes full under beds in our new place, plus all of my wife’s books too.
Proper shelving up soon so I’ll have a final cull when I know how much space we have.

Still got every record, tape and CD I’ve ever bought though.
🙂

The garage is pi$$ing me off.

Boxes of stuff that I never unpacked from being too busy at work.

I do feel the air flow/aura in my room now but still full of junk and yes classifieds will be my point of call when I dwell too notch stuff but don’t have the space, will get a low price offered but hey at least I can use the man cave.

Sold another road bike last week and yes I miss it… Sitting there in its glory…of cobwebs lol

I just found a new credit card from 2013… This is just crazy stupid and sick of all this sh…

I love getting rid or stuff, give stuff away to charity shops all the time. My wife, on the other hand, loves hoarding stuff and can’t throw anything away!

Been in current place 12 years. How one bloke can fill a 3 bed semi with large garage full of crap is beyond me so in last 12 months have been ruthlessly clearing stuff out 8) but you know the house IS STILL FULL OF CRAP 🙁 so now find myself having a clear out day every month, and slowly am starting to see space. Bikes and parts remain the Achilles heel though 🙁

And have now introduced the revolutionary concept of STOP BUYING STUFF…. 😡

We’re both clothes hoarders so we do a “when was the last time you wore this” [/*]war discussion every six months.

I keep t-shirts that don’t fit because I like the design. Mostly overpriced hand pressed cotton ones from my bachelor days. There’s one with a Fear & Loathing one that now makes me look like Patrick(Spongebob).

Oh christ on a shedful of bike bits yes.

we movedinto a smaller place with one room less and with nearly zero storage cupboards to boot, just an understairs cupboard to play with. Thought I’d chucked a load of stuff in the move but now re-appraising my folly as we have whole bedroom and a shed packed high with junk. It’s not like we need all of it, been living with less for two month as most has been boxed up unopened.

Worse still, didn’t get all the stuff in the Luton van when moving so a kind friend filled his Yeti and stored in a barn. So my hoarding is now affecting other people. It’s a grim thing, hereditary in my case. Fathers garage was/is always chocka but his wife wasn’t as ‘understanding’ as mine so she saved their house space at least as she hates clutter.

The plan is to give a few items away every day to charity and/or friends. A visting service engineer took the tiffany lamp with the naked lady sculpture last week as he mentioned his GF liked Tiffany lamps. He was well chuffed. Awesome start. Amazingly I don’t feel guilty or bereft, even if was parental gift.

Different challenges ahead, ie bike tyres, bike mudguards, drawers full of old cables, broken PC, ‘put away’ saddles, coats x 6, boots and shoes worn out but keep because thrifty, various touring kit, camping gear, clothes I’m aiming to fit once more, aieeeeegh!!!! And lights with chargers. I have so many hand-torches and bike lights and head-torches it must be fetishism.

It doesnt end with physical clobber either does it? TBs of digital image files, software, old games, bits and pieces of ideas, semi-filed, mostly just dumped with vaguely cryptic folder names.

Makes me insane because I can’t just dump it all.

Friend of ours had a cottage fire. Lost everything down to last photograph. She said it was excoriating but ultimately liberating. That was 16 yrs back – now she once again has clutter mych like me. Is there no cure?

Hands up. We’re fairly bad in my house, though I feel I’m much improved. It’s very liberating having a good clear out.

We still have way too much stuff but apparently the answer is to build an extension and convert the loft so that we can have more storage. I’m happy to spend the money making the house bigger but on the proviso we end up with less stuff and that which is left must have a place (not just stuffed into a cupboard or under a bed).

I don’t know where Mrs North gets her hoarding from – her parents are ruthless declutterers. But my parents are as bad as each other, managing to fill each successively bigger house.

STW classifieds and Ebay are great. When you get yourself organised and sell all the stuff you’ve not used for years, you realise you’re sitting on a few £000s worth of stuff, which is nice 🙂

I used to keep all manner of rubbish and odds and ends and have trimmed it all away. A couple of life events have helped motivate that. I guess I still am a bit of a keeper in that ‘digitise everything’ respect. Last year I cleared out a ton of stuff that I’d stashed up in my dad’s loft. This included hundreds of drawings and paintings – everything from art school and before. I dragged them out on to the lawn, photographed each one and carted them off to the tip. I kept all my sketchbooks though. It would take days to photograph all of their contents.

I thought about all this recently after getting to know my sister’s partner who seems to be quite an interesting, curious about the world kind of fellow but is a terrible hoarder. He owns many bikes, all of them BSOs that don’t get ridden, lots of old typewriters and shockingly stacks of books even though he states that he never reads. In fact most stuff isn’t used at all. I’m pleased to recognise that I’ve become a doer rather than a haver though there are a few tools of creativity sitting round about me that haven’t seen any productivity for a very long time.

Yes I’m a horder. Changed out a 15yr old,wooden toilet seat recently and just for a moment thought that was too good a piece of wood to just discard. 😯

Failure is discovering I’ve thrown something away that I could have used years later 🙂

I think this thread needs “The Man Drawer” sketch …

Yup,lifetime hoarder,but it’s all quality gear your honour. 🙂
We emptied out our attic this year and I couldn’t believe how much crap great stuff I had had the sense to keep.Now,after a car boot and some gumtree action we only have a shed full of things to get rid of.

I really enjoy throwing/giving/charity shopping things away. I’m pretty sure everything I own (apart from my bikes) would fit in my car. I am a student though so have no furniture etc.

I used to be terrible. Probably stems from a time when I had very little, so anything I did have, was treasured. Fortunately, I have a wonderful partner who has made me realise that I don’t need to hold onto things. She’s helped me get rid of probably most of what I used to own, before I moved in with her. Stuff like bits of gutted electronics, old things that needed fixing but what I’d never get around to doing, old magazines, etc etc. Ultimately, pretty much all useless rubbish. I’ve managed to whittle it down to stuff that’s of reasonable value but that I don’t really want to let go, like an old MiniDisc recorder, some nice old speakers, and various bits of bike.

Hoarding can be a serious, pathological issue though. 🙁

When you get yourself organised and sell all the stuff you’ve not used for years, you realise you’re sitting on a few £000s worth of stuff, which is nice

If I really went to town, I’d probably be able to make enough to buy a custom Titanium frame!

Hang on! 😮

also binned a load of cycling and PC/Linux magazines. kept all the MTB ones though. but I’ve been kind to the bin men by only dumping about 1-2 years worth at a time ( covering 1996-2014 ish).

got a shed load of cover CDs to dump now. not sure which of many bins they belong in here, so i need to check before dumping those. unless anyone desperately needs a copy of IE2 or IE3 or Fedora Core 1 ?

edit: and next up is to sort the store room, which must have PC motherboards going back as far as Pentium 233, memory sticks that must be obsolete, and a whole load of ISA sound cards and ethernet adaptors. Prolly cost more on postage than that’s worth on ebay (and I refuse to use ebay anyway).

@Andy the rocketeer. I had similar a few years ago and SWMBO persuaded me to put all the sound/Ethernet cards on Evilbay. I popped them on in groups of ten as untested and could have sold them 100 times over.

Best thing I did was NOT board the loft when we moved here. I’m aware of my tendencies therefore I didn’t give myself the option.

The sheds however. 🙄

I have to remind myself how much every tiny bit of land has cost me and how much I really enjoy having the space. It doesn’t help that the crap is now so easy to gather with the Internet as an enabler.

Don’t talk about lofts…

C64, spectrum 48k rubber keys, Amiga A1200, PS1, PS2 and and Xbox1… Enough alcohol to blow the roof off?

My goal is to be able to move easily and have zero junk.

Scratching my head with 4 shelves of text books but will be out of date. Should have sold them ages ago.

Filling my boot and off to the skip a few times today.

I moved from my parents house into a 2 bed semi just over 10 years ago.
When I moved in I had a Suzuki Ignis, which needed about 6 trips to deliver all of my things.

About a year ago, I realised that even though I live alone it was starting to feel a little cramped in my house.

I use the smaller of the two bedrooms as the rear views are better, but the spare bedroom (originally intended to be a spare room to accommodate friends etc) was more or less full with the exception of a pathway to the airing cupboard.
The under stairs cupboard was home to at least eight different helmets of motorcycle and bicycle varieties, at least four different outfits for wearing whilst riding a motorcycle and several pairs of boots.

Shoe wise, I counted nearly enough to wear a different pair for every day of the month with 5 pairs of cycling specific ones.

I started having a clear out and on the first session managed to fill seven bin bags full of clothes as well as a half van load of random crap and the packaging for items which had broken out of warranty and been disposed of long ago. Old electronics got a shock too, CB sets and old mobiles saw new purpose and my ‘box of bits’ (actually half a dozen archive boxes) full of electrical components was rationalised down to one box of genuinely useful new parts with good value.

A year on, this post reminds me that I have not actually looked in my ‘box of bits’ since, so that is going on gumtree tonight!

I still need to address the one-piece race leathers (at least two sizes too small now) and shotguns that I keep because they are worth more to me than they will bring if I sell them though…

Blimey, yes I am!
It’s scary when I open the garage….I’ve got my tiling stuff on the right and bike stuff on the left. All of this is interspersed with antiques and collectables…..or shite, as most other people call my treasures! I often pass things on for nothing, if the person ‘fits’ it though :0)
It doesn’t help that a good mate of mine is the boss at the local dump!
2 days ago, I HAD to make some space….my work locker was going to be thrown out, as the locker room was being refurbished. I filled my kangoo, including a decent Kawasaki rep mini moto, loads of road tyres and other things that I can’t bear to think of, to make room in one corner for the locker…..now I have filled that with bike stuff too!
I do, however, know where everything is….my gipsy eyes can’t be fooled! :0)

All I can say is – this place makes me feel a lot better – I recentlly boxed all of my CDs up an stashed them in the loft, got rid of 70% of my books and magazines – lets be honest – why fill a room with stuff that you can fit in your pocket.

It’s the technical stuff I need to get my head around next – APS and film camera, Broadband routers from previous ISP;s, previous Sky HD box..

mrs rocket likes keeping things I like getting rid of stuff

Works for us

at what point does being thrifty merge into hoarding?

I’ve been giving away all my 20+ year old climbing kit to local students via Cambridge Uni MC FB page over the last few weeks. They’re all getting stuff which is older than they are which amuses me….

at what point does being thrifty merge into hoarding?

Hoarding, at it’s extreme end, can be a symptom of a more complex set of mental health issues, even an illness. Extreme, irrational (to others) hoarding is the manifestation of a disturbed mind. I’ve witnessed this, and it’s really quite shocking. People can form attachments to things that they maybe can’t with other people, a form of substitute possibly. Like I said, very complex.

I’m actually glad I’m a bit of a hoarder; quite a lot of my old stuff has gone to charity, including some decent clothing, rather than simply into landfill. And it’s nice to pass stuff on to others who might enjoy it.

Contrary to what my friends and neighbours think, having several bikes is not ‘hoarding’. 😆

Glitch. 😕

Nope. I’ve managed to beat the hoarding bug and regularly throw away, give away or sell stuff. I’ve sold around 100 items including bike bits on Ebay and turned them into things I do want, mostly consumables like chains and brake blocks. In our house we have a rule: “One in – one out”.

Q from issue 19

I threw out a collection of Q magazines when I moved a few years back, iss 3 to iss 50. Tried to find a home for them but nobody wanted them.

I also threw out a selection of newspapers from September 12th 2001 – they depressed me every time I stumbled over them in the loft.

The garage is pi$$ing me off.

I had a big clear out in April, it was great. Garage is a place of serenity now. Only things on the floor are a car and a roll cab, everything else has its place or has been binned..

Yes, hundreds of motorbike and car magazines going back to the 80s. Loads of other random crap and no floor space left in the spare room.
Also I don’t find it easy meeting or speaking to folk which means I don’t sell stuff on when I get a replacement so I’ve now got 7 bikes and 5 motorbikes. The garage is rammed and there’s no space to work on anything.

Thanks to hoarding/ hoarders, I’ve got access to 7 snowmobiles, 2 canoes, 2 mopeds, countless BSOs, shedloads (literally) of timber and 5 chainsaws of varying sizes. Luckily, none of it belongs to me.

This thread has inspired me. I have 500+ CD’s and I can’t remeber the last time I listened to any of them. Tonight, I shall attack Music Magpie or similar.

Same with cycling kit, I have soooo much of it and, like most people, only really wear 1/3 of it. Time for a blitz I reckon.

Speaking about hoarding – I have three desktop computers with AMD 64 processors. I kept them because I thought they’re worth £50 each. I’m kidding myself on aren’t I? Would just like confirmation before I stuff them in the wheelie bin!

luckily I seem to be only afflicted with bicycle related hoarding, thankfully I can feel a purge coming on & I think moving in with Mrs DB next year will help keep me in check

Today I threw away 20 A4 binders, satellite LNB’s, 10 pairs of old shoes, washing machine, 90’s cassette radio deck and 30 planks of wood.

Found tons of PC cables and a brand new PC case.

Attempting to hang 2 bikes up tomorrow just I can De-Hoard as the garage resembles a trap for catching elephants.

Crap! Damn Xmas offers!

My landlord has just found another 6 cubic feet of space in the eves of the house i lodge in. he’s (sort of) boarded it out so he can fit more of what he calls ‘stock’ in there. he buys and sells tat job lots of the kind of rubbish you lot are all taking about chucking away at auction, sifts through it, then sells anything valuable. Except he rarely sells anything, as ‘it’ll be worth more in x years’ and he won’t chuck any of the non valuable stuff, as he’s terrified of slinging something that will turn out to be super collectable in the future.

3 pallets of this stuff arrived once. he’d paid over 2k for them. 1600 dvds another time…

This is how he makes his living.