People who live in clutter...
Discussion
Anyone know/ live with anyone who has a cluttered house? My mother does, and after a trip to my house (She has not been in a year) she has been 'inspired' to de-clutter. Ive just spent the weekend with her and am exhausted with her attitude to thowing away what is clearly crap.
Theyre mentally ill, arent they?
Theyre mentally ill, arent they?
Having watched a few of these programmes it is clear that the obsessive hoarders are missing an ability to make decisions over what to keep and what to throw away.
I will admit to a slight hoarding tendency myself - I hate throwing away books. I have some that I know in reality I will never read again but somehow throwing them out or even giving them to a charity shop seems like a personal affront to the book. Mrs Bills is even worse as she acquires books in far greater numbers than I do and finds it equally as hard to let them go.
If you think of this as something akin to the balloon game but imagine that you were genuinely unable to decide who would be jettisoned then the balloon would crash.
Watching a compulsive hoarder try to decide what to keep and what to throw out seems the same. There is no ability to judge between any two items so everything becomes important. Whether in each case that inability comes from the same cause is impossible to say but the effect is the same. The balloon crashes down through carrying too much weight.
In many cases I think it is a mental illness but as with issues such as autism disorders it is a spectrum and I think each of us exhibits some element of OCD - except mine is CDO. It's like OCD but in alphabetical order.
I will admit to a slight hoarding tendency myself - I hate throwing away books. I have some that I know in reality I will never read again but somehow throwing them out or even giving them to a charity shop seems like a personal affront to the book. Mrs Bills is even worse as she acquires books in far greater numbers than I do and finds it equally as hard to let them go.
If you think of this as something akin to the balloon game but imagine that you were genuinely unable to decide who would be jettisoned then the balloon would crash.
Watching a compulsive hoarder try to decide what to keep and what to throw out seems the same. There is no ability to judge between any two items so everything becomes important. Whether in each case that inability comes from the same cause is impossible to say but the effect is the same. The balloon crashes down through carrying too much weight.
In many cases I think it is a mental illness but as with issues such as autism disorders it is a spectrum and I think each of us exhibits some element of OCD - except mine is CDO. It's like OCD but in alphabetical order.
My sister and her husband, they don't get shot of anything, I actually find a visit to their house quite stressful as it is just full of stuff, even on the stairs, it's not dirty but their house is very messy.
My dad died a few years ago and amongst the few things we manged to get out of the house was a case full of police training videos which he had used for work many years previously, for some strange reason my sister wanted to keep them, I took the piss but she ws adamant so they went in the garage, my dad never threw anything away either.
My dad died a few years ago and amongst the few things we manged to get out of the house was a case full of police training videos which he had used for work many years previously, for some strange reason my sister wanted to keep them, I took the piss but she ws adamant so they went in the garage, my dad never threw anything away either.
My ex-MiL
She used to have a large corner Victorian 4bed house over floors, plus yard and garage/carport
There was only one useable room (the living room), the dining room was piled to head height with a small path across the room to get to the kitchen, which in turn was rammed with s
t and had no ceiling where it had come through after the bath (above) had overflowed again.
The stairway was full of crap as were the bedrooms. It was shocking and a massive fire hazard (had the house not been riddled with damp to the point the concrete floors where crumbling)
She didn't have much money but what she had was squandered on useless tat that no one would ever use, just to store it - definitely an undiagnosed underlying mental condition
None of the exterior doors locked so on a night it was a case of put the calor heater behind the front door and hope no one comes in!!
I believe the house was repossessed and feel sorry for whoever had to do the clearance!!
She used to have a large corner Victorian 4bed house over floors, plus yard and garage/carport
There was only one useable room (the living room), the dining room was piled to head height with a small path across the room to get to the kitchen, which in turn was rammed with s
t and had no ceiling where it had come through after the bath (above) had overflowed again.The stairway was full of crap as were the bedrooms. It was shocking and a massive fire hazard (had the house not been riddled with damp to the point the concrete floors where crumbling)
She didn't have much money but what she had was squandered on useless tat that no one would ever use, just to store it - definitely an undiagnosed underlying mental condition
None of the exterior doors locked so on a night it was a case of put the calor heater behind the front door and hope no one comes in!!
I believe the house was repossessed and feel sorry for whoever had to do the clearance!!
I'm quite cluttered, not to the extent that you see on tv where people have years worth of rotting food.
I'm clean but every room isn't that tidy and I have issues throwing stuff away which may be of use, my gf made me have a clear out last year and I threw away a load of car parts which now I'm reverting my car back to stock I actually need
I'm clean but every room isn't that tidy and I have issues throwing stuff away which may be of use, my gf made me have a clear out last year and I threw away a load of car parts which now I'm reverting my car back to stock I actually need
I've been guilty of this in the past and I think that if I let my guard drop, it would be all to easy to revert to type.
With this in mind I have a routine to help me keep to 'normal' levels of clutter. I go through my pockets on a daily basis, glove compartment, bedside cabinet, kitchen drawers etc on a weekly basis. Wardrobes, cupboards, garden shed, and garage etc on a monthly basis. Laptop, workspaces and property as a whole on a bi-annual basis.
I remove anything that a 'normal' person wouldn't have in that space, then with my pile of removed items , (if I can't find a 'normal' place to put it) I sell or bin the item. The decision to bin or not is based on the question 'Would you buy this item second hand and take it home?'
A bit of a palaver but it keeps me 'normal'.
With this in mind I have a routine to help me keep to 'normal' levels of clutter. I go through my pockets on a daily basis, glove compartment, bedside cabinet, kitchen drawers etc on a weekly basis. Wardrobes, cupboards, garden shed, and garage etc on a monthly basis. Laptop, workspaces and property as a whole on a bi-annual basis.
I remove anything that a 'normal' person wouldn't have in that space, then with my pile of removed items , (if I can't find a 'normal' place to put it) I sell or bin the item. The decision to bin or not is based on the question 'Would you buy this item second hand and take it home?'
A bit of a palaver but it keeps me 'normal'.
I used to be bad for this and my mates used to take the piss. They put forward a simple rule "are you likely to use it again within the next 12 months?" No = bin/sell. It has served me well over the past decade that I've had this "rule" in place and not regretted getting shut of anything.
NoIP said:
I used to be bad for this and my mates used to take the piss. They put forward a simple rule "are you likely to use it again within the next 12 months?" No = bin/sell. It has served me well over the past decade that I've had this "rule" in place and not regretted getting shut of anything.
What if you threw something away that you need in 15 months' time?Hoofy said:
What if you threw something away that you need in 15 months' time?
The chances of that happening are so slim that it's not even worth worrying about. Besides, repurchasing whatever it was you got rid of will now be worth about a tenth of the price so you can be pleased with yourself that you made the right decision 15 months ago and have "made" yourself some cash in the process. Depending on what it is you could borrow/hire/loan one instead.Buy another on Gumtree.
My in-laws had their house rewired and new bathrooms so there was a skip to take stuff away and a need to move lots of stuff. One day I was there while one told the other off for not wanting to throw any of the crap away from the loft and the other told the other off for not wanting to throw any of the crap out of the garage. In both cases it's absolute rubbish that hasn't seen the light of day in decades and never will. Nothing made it into the skip.
The garage is a very useful space too, except that you can't get in there at all. I ended up clearing some bits of wood out of it and had made a pile of rotten rubbish outside. Before I'd got it in the car a 4ft length of twisted roofing lat had made it's way back into the garage! Amazing. It's not all bad though, there was a 10ft oak mantelpiece in there that turned out to be a Mousey Thompson and ended up being auctioned for £250! Currently the security devices on the door are worth more than the contents of the garage though. I keep saying that it all needs binning and a door adding form the Kitchen so it can be used as a large pantry and the kitchen can be decluttered, but there's no chance of that happening.
I get rid of everything I've not used and and can't see a use for, just make a pile in the workshop and when it starts getting in the way it all goes on Gumtree. If I ever need any of it again, I pick something up on Gumtree, though that's never happened. No point having money and space tied up in stuff you'll never use.
My in-laws had their house rewired and new bathrooms so there was a skip to take stuff away and a need to move lots of stuff. One day I was there while one told the other off for not wanting to throw any of the crap away from the loft and the other told the other off for not wanting to throw any of the crap out of the garage. In both cases it's absolute rubbish that hasn't seen the light of day in decades and never will. Nothing made it into the skip.
The garage is a very useful space too, except that you can't get in there at all. I ended up clearing some bits of wood out of it and had made a pile of rotten rubbish outside. Before I'd got it in the car a 4ft length of twisted roofing lat had made it's way back into the garage! Amazing. It's not all bad though, there was a 10ft oak mantelpiece in there that turned out to be a Mousey Thompson and ended up being auctioned for £250! Currently the security devices on the door are worth more than the contents of the garage though. I keep saying that it all needs binning and a door adding form the Kitchen so it can be used as a large pantry and the kitchen can be decluttered, but there's no chance of that happening.
I get rid of everything I've not used and and can't see a use for, just make a pile in the workshop and when it starts getting in the way it all goes on Gumtree. If I ever need any of it again, I pick something up on Gumtree, though that's never happened. No point having money and space tied up in stuff you'll never use.
I'm not as bad as the kind you see on the TV, but I do have too much stuff. I've been trying to sort out the shed recently as I've got to a point where my project car is now running and needs to get outside, but as it's been there for more than eight years there's a lot of stuff to move. Of course, I've ended up throwing stuff out but, more than that, I've ended up trying to think of ways to re-arrange the stuff so I can keep it and get access to the door. Someone has chucked out a perfectly good kitchen cupboard nearby, and it's been a struggle to not retrieve it.
In the next few days I hope to psych myself up enough to throw out the old B&D jigsaw that I bought from the car boot sale a few years back that never actually worked. I removed the main plug last year, now I just need to go around it taking off any easily-accessible screws in case they're ever any use.
I do find myself trying to justify keeping things, and I don't really subscribe to the idea that if it turns out I needed something I've thrown out, I can just buy it again. I pay regular visits to the local "antique / craft market" because I always come away with a bit of inspiration to tidy stuff up and throw out some clutter - it's one of those big arrays of sheds divided into 8' x 4' "units", and you don't have to walk far before you come across one where someone has just dumped a pile of old tat in there, on the off-chance someone else wants to buy it. The risk, though, with going there for tidying inspiration is that I'll see a book that looks good and have to buy it.
I am a little affected by the idea that I might be the only person who has a copy of something, a TV programme or perhaps a magazine. I very much doubt that's the case - I know the BBC junked a load of stuff and every now and again there's a miraculous "find" from some far-flung place, but I don't think anything I've recorded off the TV comes under that heading.
In the next few days I hope to psych myself up enough to throw out the old B&D jigsaw that I bought from the car boot sale a few years back that never actually worked. I removed the main plug last year, now I just need to go around it taking off any easily-accessible screws in case they're ever any use.
I do find myself trying to justify keeping things, and I don't really subscribe to the idea that if it turns out I needed something I've thrown out, I can just buy it again. I pay regular visits to the local "antique / craft market" because I always come away with a bit of inspiration to tidy stuff up and throw out some clutter - it's one of those big arrays of sheds divided into 8' x 4' "units", and you don't have to walk far before you come across one where someone has just dumped a pile of old tat in there, on the off-chance someone else wants to buy it. The risk, though, with going there for tidying inspiration is that I'll see a book that looks good and have to buy it.
I am a little affected by the idea that I might be the only person who has a copy of something, a TV programme or perhaps a magazine. I very much doubt that's the case - I know the BBC junked a load of stuff and every now and again there's a miraculous "find" from some far-flung place, but I don't think anything I've recorded off the TV comes under that heading.
Edited by droopsnoot on Monday 19th June 10:56
I have quite a lot of clutter. Much of it has memories attached - presents from family/friends make up the bulk. Mementos from my late Mother and Grandparents. Lots of art stuff and books ( which I don't have time to read ).
I live alone and find having it all around me comforting as wherever I look I can recall happy moments.
I live alone and find having it all around me comforting as wherever I look I can recall happy moments.
NoIP said:
Hoofy said:
What if you threw something away that you need in 15 months' time?
The chances of that happening are so slim that it's not even worth worrying about. Besides, repurchasing whatever it was you got rid of will now be worth about a tenth of the price so you can be pleased with yourself that you made the right decision 15 months ago and have "made" yourself some cash in the process. Depending on what it is you could borrow/hire/loan one instead.I have to watch myself with hoarding.
I'll immediately think of myself as someone who likes minimalism and would like nothing more than a Scandinavian style living room - all nice wood and a single coffee table with a single book on it. Same as my desk - single laptop on it, with a nice cup of coffee.
That does not happen in practice.
After moving out of my 1 bed apartment, I had to empty a storage unit I'd been renting. It was 25 square metres and I don't think I retained a single thing in it eventually. Everything was sold or charity shopped, and i'd been paying the best part of 400 quid a year to keep it all.
It's so very easy to keep something 'just in case' to the point where it either becomes worthless or you forget about it and worse, end up repurchasing it.
My approach now is to roughly follow the Konmari method - look at your possessions, figure out what you need (or rather cheesily, whats "brings you joy") and get rid of the rest. If anything, it provides good insight and a way for you to start decluttering.
I'll immediately think of myself as someone who likes minimalism and would like nothing more than a Scandinavian style living room - all nice wood and a single coffee table with a single book on it. Same as my desk - single laptop on it, with a nice cup of coffee.
That does not happen in practice.
After moving out of my 1 bed apartment, I had to empty a storage unit I'd been renting. It was 25 square metres and I don't think I retained a single thing in it eventually. Everything was sold or charity shopped, and i'd been paying the best part of 400 quid a year to keep it all.
It's so very easy to keep something 'just in case' to the point where it either becomes worthless or you forget about it and worse, end up repurchasing it.
My approach now is to roughly follow the Konmari method - look at your possessions, figure out what you need (or rather cheesily, whats "brings you joy") and get rid of the rest. If anything, it provides good insight and a way for you to start decluttering.
Contents of the FIL's garden (bear in mind this is a 4-bed semi, decent sized garden but not enormous by any means)
1x mk2 Capri
1x mk3 Capri
1x mk2 Cortina
1x Super Major tractor
1x Dexter tractor
1x Power Major tractor
1x Leyland van thing from the 1960s
1x Mk3 Fiesta
1x twin-axle trailer
1x medium sized caravan
2x "Social Cycle" Chuckle Brother pedal car things
Several canoes
A plough
All of them are beyond economical repair other than the Power Major, which he is currently restoring, and the Fiesta, which did work but which I suspect will join the others fairly soon. This is in addition to his five working cars (83 Granada, 99 Mondeo, 98 Passat, 76 Midget, 89 MX5) which represent every car he has ever owned other than those listed above.
Basically he's never sold anything and never finishes a project. We've tried pointing out the value in some of the items (Cortina and Capris especially) but he's just not interested, which is a shame.
This is just the contents of the garden, without venturing inside the house.
1x mk2 Capri
1x mk3 Capri
1x mk2 Cortina
1x Super Major tractor
1x Dexter tractor
1x Power Major tractor
1x Leyland van thing from the 1960s
1x Mk3 Fiesta
1x twin-axle trailer
1x medium sized caravan
2x "Social Cycle" Chuckle Brother pedal car things
Several canoes
A plough
All of them are beyond economical repair other than the Power Major, which he is currently restoring, and the Fiesta, which did work but which I suspect will join the others fairly soon. This is in addition to his five working cars (83 Granada, 99 Mondeo, 98 Passat, 76 Midget, 89 MX5) which represent every car he has ever owned other than those listed above.
Basically he's never sold anything and never finishes a project. We've tried pointing out the value in some of the items (Cortina and Capris especially) but he's just not interested, which is a shame.
This is just the contents of the garden, without venturing inside the house.
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