Ever feel like throwing everything in the bin?

I’m not too bad.  My wife is a huge hoarder. I find it very very upsetting and stressful ?

I’ve recently begun a binning mission. I’m slowly recovering space from junk that was in the house when I moved in and stuff that no longer has any use. Empty boxes for products I no longer own. Old bike parts that are obsolete and worn out. Tools that I will probably never use again are being condensed and stored in tool boxes. Paint tins to the tip. I need to go through my clothes, I don’t buy many but then I don’t wear half of the shirts that I seem to own.

It’ll probably take me a good while to sift through stuff then sift through it again. I guess I’m looking for clarity with the junk I keep?

I guess I’m looking for clarity with the junk I keep?

I do that too. Sort through, find something ice not used in ages and think “oh I’ll keep it just in case…”

And it’s only a year later that I finally go “well I’ve still not used it so it’s off to recycling…”

Classic one was an ISIS BB tool. I’ve not had an ISIS BB for years! But there it was, in my toolbox. There’s a mental block to getting rid of stuff like that. It was expensive, it’s still in good condition, it shouldn’t be going straight in the bin but it’s too much effort to take just that item to recycling. So it stays there for ever…

After all, it’s not “in the way” as such, it’s neatly in a toolbox. Along with half a dozen other tools that haven’t been used in 10 years… 😉

Classic one was an ISIS BB tool. I’ve not had an ISIS BB for years! But there it was, in my toolbox. There’s a mental block to getting rid of stuff like that. It was expensive, it’s still in good condition, it shouldn’t be going straight in the bin but it’s too much effort to take just that item to recycling. So it stays there for ever…

Find a local bike charity and put anything like that to one side to take in, I’ve just had a big clear out of bike stuff I’d been keeping, fames, bikes, etc and in my head I knew I’d never ride or build them back up so someone might as well get some use/value out of them.

I have watched my parents house gradually sucumb to clutter over the years and recognise the same tendencies in myself. I’m a bit of a sucker for things but they and be fairly ruthless with them. If it’s not something I regularly think about (unless it’s specifically seasonal) then it goes. When we moved back from Oz it was really lovely as we had slimmed out lives right down to what we would pay to ship. It’s bloated since though 🙁

I tend to have a big box in the garage and stuff that I should get rid of goes in it.  Very occasionally something comes back out but normal stuff just lingers in there until I get an 80% eBay fee deal or I decide to take it to the tip.

I’ve got a pile of clothes I’ve washed for the charity shop but they’ve not made it out the house since COVID yet, probably as if I put them in said box they’d get damp and manky!

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BunnyhopFull Member
‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or, believe to be beautiful’ – William Morris.

Lots of useful stuff that might not get used, and beautiful stuff that’s just in the way.

I heard a more pragmatic approach the other day where the question is “do I want the job of managing this?”

Stuff kept/hoarded doesn’t just sit there, it takes up space, needs to be shifted when you’re spring cleaning/sorting, looking for something, certainly takes up space in your head every time you think you have to much stuff. Gets you frustrated because of how much stuff you have to move it shift through to find the thing you need.

Is it worth all that management of all that stuff to save a visit to Wickes and £5 on the bit of wood you need?

My mum died 18 months ago and her big 4 bed house was full of stuff.

…the abridged version is – don’t leave a house full of crap for your kids to sort out – it is really emotionally draining for them…

The long version

It was a nightmare to clear it all – partly because it was really sad understanding why she’d kept all the stuff but just binning most of it.

Basically dozens of trips to the tip and charity shops with van loads of stuff – fortunately it was in North Derbyshire where they have a very lenient vans-at-the-recycling-centre policy.

A van full of stuff went to auction and made about £800 and that was mainly some silver and a coin collection.  The collection of pottery and porcelain was basically worth bugger all – and that was the best of it.

I’ve still got decades of photos to sort through so I can keep the good ones, plus other personal stuff still in boxes at my house I couldn’t bring myself to bin that needs sorting

@Bunnyhop mentioned books, I do keep my books as I do sometimes give them another read if I run out of new ones or the fancy takes me.

So books and off cuts of wood ….

My mum died 18 months ago and her big 4 bed house was full of stuff.

…the abridged version is – don’t leave a house full of crap for your kids to sort out – it is really emotionally draining for them…

This is what I’m dreading – my Mum isn’t dead yet and could potentially go on a fair while longer even though she’s very frail.

But the house will be a nightmare.

What’s worse is she had to go through the same thing with her parents. Every piece of paper in the house needed checking. It could be a sheet of music, an offcut of newspaper or it could be a critical bank or pension statement. All mixed up with no order, rhyme or reason to any of it – piled on tables, chucked in a corner of the garage or shed to “sort out later”, it was just so draining to try and get the end of life affairs in order.

I sometimes think about the “what if all this stuff just disappeared in a house fire?” scenario too. Just so much accumulated over nearly 10 years (and two kids) in the same house.

Thankfully both my parents went through sorting out loads of stuff from their own parents when they died. They moved recently but via a year in a little flat while their smaller new house was sorted out. Sold, gave away or binned almost everything bar a few essentials and a small storage unit for some pictures, photos, etc. New house is clutter-free, everything has a place to go, and they’re absolutely loving it.

Just been through very similar with the FILs house. Mountains of random paperwork everywhere, mostly junk but certain things popping up every now and then to keep you on your toes. However from an extremely full house it yelled a couple of bits of furniture and a box of photos. The rest was cleared.

Probably a long way off but I’ve started the process myself, to help those I leave behind. I no longer need my University notes that my folks handed over last year, some 30+ years after I graduated!

Went through the process of evaluating everything we owned three years ago.

We made the decision to jack in our normal life and hit the road.

Sold everything we didn’t want. Ended up selling lots of furniture that I had made. Sold five bikes. Anything that surplus to our needs was sold out given away.

Incredibly liberating process.

GF has a box of “things” at her folks place and a table she loved is at her friend’s place.

A mate of mine is looking after my Bullit cargo bike.

Otherwise, everything we own is in our van.

It’s surprising how little you need and scary how much shite you accumulate over the years.

Slight digression but Tim Kasser’s research in this area is always worth a re-visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw&t=152s

We’ll all feel an urge to liberate ourselves as the planet Neptune transits out of Pisces and into Aries.

Eldest daughter (23)  is currently tidying her room after we have been nagging her to do for ages. It’s an absolute sh!t tip, so much clutter, the floor is covered and every surface has crap on it.  She’s talking about moving in with her boyfriend next year. We’ve told her, she’s taking it all. Anything left when she leaves is going in the skip so we can reclaim her room.   Certainly aren’t having a shrine to her with dead plants and empty makeup bottles.

It

Drives
Me

Bonkers.

Well I’ve taken step 1 to having less stuff by…buying more stuff to keep it in.

I’ve bought a couple of plastic crates and anything low/no value I don’t want to throw away but ‘might need’ is going in those in the garage. If I haven’t needed it by the end of the year it’s going into a skip!

After writing this on page 1…

I’ve occasionally wondered what it would be like to have a devastating house fire. One where everything was burnt to a crisp (not people, obviously). 

Today a house a few hundred metres away was struck by lightning and was destroyed!

Well I’ve taken step 1 to having less stuff by…buying more stuff to keep it in.

My Mum does that. It helps for a short time until it is overflowing and the rest of the tat piles up around it. I’m going down there in a couple of weeks, there’s going to be a fairly ruthless clear-out!

To be fair she keeps talking about moving house as she has finally realised that the place is far too big for her to manage and she’s also booked a professional carpet cleaner so the carpets need to be visible rather than covered in tat so I’m hopeful that a clear-out might be welcomed!