Hoarding

Author
Discussion

Hoofy

76,386 posts

283 months

Wednesday 15th July 2015
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Dog Star said:
My mum has always been, I think, scared of rocking the boat and has just tried to keep stuff tidy and work around this issue. It's just overwhelmed her now, I think. It's upsetting to see but you get used to it and in the end just give up.

If he comes to my place and I'm working on a car and, say, lob a used brake pad in the bin he'll be in there fishing it out. You have to watch him and stop him.
Out of interest, what can he do with such an item?

daytona365

1,773 posts

165 months

Wednesday 15th July 2015
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In the mind of a hoarder I'd imagine he'd think something along the lines of. If the new pads develop a fault and I've no time to get new, or they're out of stock, then I've still got the old ones to get me out of trouble. ( Another 500 miles left in those yet ! ).

Dog Star

16,145 posts

169 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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Hoofy said:
Out of interest, what can he do with such an item?
Absolutely nothing. Same as you can't do anything with a holed engine block from a 1979 Pug 305.

droopsnoot

11,971 posts

243 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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daytona365 said:
In the mind of a hoarder I'd imagine he'd think something along the lines of. If the new pads develop a fault and I've no time to get new, or they're out of stock, then I've still got the old ones to get me out of trouble. ( Another 500 miles left in those yet ! ).
I think that's correct - if I've kept old brake pads when I put new ones on, it's because in the event of needing some right now a worn brake pad is better than no brake pad. Now, the ones worn down to the metal are in case I'm ever having a conversation about how brake pads wear, I can demonstrate how they go down to the metal rather than just describing it, by showing the poor unfortunate person I'm having the conversation with. If I can find them, that is.

Hoofy

76,386 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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Dog Star said:
Hoofy said:
Out of interest, what can he do with such an item?
Absolutely nothing. Same as you can't do anything with a holed engine block from a 1979 Pug 305.
If absolutely nothing, then I can't see the point. At least my tennis ball (with its lid) can could store something in it.

droopsnoot

11,971 posts

243 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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I have some obscure old bits of metal that are way beyond use. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I think they might be useful for a pattern at some point - there might be a time when someone needs a copy of this part, and I'm the only person who has one to base a reproduction item on, and I can be helpful and triumphant. Unlikely I'll end up with the only Vauxhall Viva upper bulkhead section known to man, and probably even less likely the person above will have the last 305 engine block. I kept the rotted rear exhaust section off my Audi coupe in case I needed to get it copied at some point, until I realised that some photos and the prevalence of "build on the car" exhaust companies these days meant there was no point.


C.A.R.

3,967 posts

189 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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I definitely am.

I build / collect radio controlled cars. I'm constantly looking online for some bargain upgrades or new parts for models which spend 99% of their time sat on a shelf. It's utterly pointless.

I have boxes of parts (overnight parts from Japan - haha) which have still yet to be fitted. I can't finish one project before thinking about the next. I've ran out of display space already, and there is RC car 'stuff' simply everywhere.

It needs to stop!

Tim-D

528 posts

223 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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I'm guilty of hoarding tendencies....can't stand general "crap" build up (no purpose / broken or otherwise reducndant then I donate / recycle / sell or dump) but as have been into old mini's since a teenager - for the last couple of decades with a "project" in the garage couldn't resist scrounging at every opportunity for whatever spares may be available - obtained - cleaned up / refurbed and stashed away in the roof or garage - realised a couple of years ago that one car - generally only needs one engine..... had enough "stock" to rebuild several cars...... so with prices of parts skyrocketting cashed surplus in..... turns out surplus hoard was a very shrewd investment!

Jaska

728 posts

143 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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Dog Star said:
My dad is going to win this.

He keeps buying crap and tools he doesn't need - a man with three cement mixers (all wrapped up, new, in the house. He won't lend me one "in case I dirty it" so I bought my own). Twenty or thirty vcrs , camcorders and hifis - keeps getting them off ebay.

He videotaped every single thing on TV. Has done for thirty years. Then keeps the tapes. He has tens of thousands of them stacked. No idea what's on them as he doesn't want to write on the labels. Same with audio cassettes. Thousands and thousands. Three mitre saws. Two mig welders. He can't weld. Old carpets.

Throws nothing away - brake pads, clutch plates, blown exhausts. They just had a load of building work done. Every day the skip would be full - rubble, old windows and stuff. Every morning it would be empty again - he'd empty it every evening.

It really is indescribable- you can't easily enter their house.

Til you see hoarding on this level you cannot believe it - what I've described gets nowhere close to explaining how bad it is.
The TV segment of this sounds exactly like my grandfather - You aren't family are you??

He has racks and racks of walk-in-wardrobe VHS tapes. Will tape things on tv, go back through the tape removing the adverts methodically, then label & file and never watch again.

Same with classical music CD's - Seems to think that when he dies all human knowledge of old shows and music will disappear with him, so it's like he's trying to hold on to it.

Reality is the family would hire a skip and brim it several times with his tape collection...

Love the guy, but have never understood this. He has a clean organised house, just every cupboard is VHS tapes. He's even with the times so has external hard drives full of films and shows, but still keeps and maintains his VHS collection.

Hoofy

76,386 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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hora said:
I live with a hoarder. She doesn't believe in binning shopping carrier bags whereas I don't believe in picking them up in the first place. She also doesn't like throwing ANYTHING non-rubbish away whereas if I don't see a value in keeping something I try not to pick it up in the first place...

We get married in two weeks laugh
Shopping bags - they're free bin liners. Makes sense to me, anyway.

austinsmirk

5,597 posts

124 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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I dated a girl for about 6 months who was a hoarder. Fundamentally as nice, pretty and thoroughly one of the best in the bedroom I've known, I couldn't live in such chaos. she couldn't organise her life, sort bills on time........ god forbid if we had children how the hell she would have coped.

I spent hours with her trying to sort her houses: getting rid of boxes of mail, magazines, old papers.

cleared an entire floor to ceiling bedroom of pure junk, clothes

literally emptied every kitchen cupboard out of out of date food -------- loads of cleaning products though, unused.

fridge freezer- wow- you could barely force the door open on the freezer- I took a hammer and chisel to de-frost it.

did loads of home improvements for her......... but 6 mths in, bye bye, fundamentally you're crackers and not for me.


so to the above poster- don't get married if you can't cope now.

cheesesliceking

1,571 posts

241 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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IvanSTi said:
Apparently I am a hoarder, only found out as we're moving house and I currently have 6 shelves of Subaru spare parts. Looks like I will have to get advertising.
DIBS!

Hub

6,440 posts

199 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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Jaska said:
The TV segment of this sounds exactly like my grandfather - You aren't family are you??

He has racks and racks of walk-in-wardrobe VHS tapes. Will tape things on tv, go back through the tape removing the adverts methodically, then label & file and never watch again.

Same with classical music CD's - Seems to think that when he dies all human knowledge of old shows and music will disappear with him, so it's like he's trying to hold on to it.

Reality is the family would hire a skip and brim it several times with his tape collection...

Love the guy, but have never understood this. He has a clean organised house, just every cupboard is VHS tapes. He's even with the times so has external hard drives full of films and shows, but still keeps and maintains his VHS collection.
If no-one did this, You Tube wouldn't be the fantastic archive that it is. So I'm glad someone out there is, but don't keep it to yourself!

The reality is that you don't(well I don't anyway) tend to re-watch stuff that often though.

Edited by Hub on Thursday 16th July 13:25

Morningside

24,110 posts

230 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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I used to do that. I would record every horror film that came out on Sky (the early analogue 80s one) and kept hundreds of tapes. Even purchased a Phillips DVD recorder (cost a bomb back then!) when they first came out to archive my recordings.

Then realised that they are all available to *cough* download or buy so I ditched the lot.

I am now starting to accumulate old 80s-mid 90s PMR, ham and ex services radios...as well as calculators, old computers and other hardware.

Must.stop.

Hooli

32,278 posts

201 months

Thursday 16th July 2015
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Hoofy said:
hora said:
I live with a hoarder. She doesn't believe in binning shopping carrier bags whereas I don't believe in picking them up in the first place. She also doesn't like throwing ANYTHING non-rubbish away whereas if I don't see a value in keeping something I try not to pick it up in the first place...

We get married in two weeks laugh
Shopping bags - they're free bin liners. Makes sense to me, anyway.
yes

Plus if you hold them right they do as poo bags to clean up after your dog.

Hoofy

76,386 posts

283 months

Thursday 23rd July 2015
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My Samsung S3 is struggling to play the latest 3D games for more than a few minutes as it gets too hot in summer and games just crash. Dusted down my old Compaq iPaq from 1999. It's a metal lump about the same size as my S3 that is now doubling up as a heatsink.

Hoofy said:
I'M NEVER GOING TO THROW ANYTHING AWAY. EVER!