Hoarding: Classic or dud?

(sorry...)

Other stuff... Kinder Surprise toys (I never play with them, yet I keep buying the overpriced chocolate because assembling is something to do in the car), spoons for McDonald's McFlurry (I keep thinking I might make a similar dessert at home one day and this exact spoon type will be mandatory for eating), "ambient" mp3s I keep in my drive to feel cool but never ever ever EVER *EVER* listen to.

(That couple were soooo nice. Having too many books and cds and board games and comics = having your priorities right! I felt PAIN when he sold his father's old camera for half what he expected and when he chucked that computer keyboard into the crusher. At least he didn't crush any cds or I would have been heartbroken. I wish I'd been at the jumble sale, I bet there was some great stuff there. Mmm, more clutter to buy! Er. Anyway.)

Does anyone want some rubbish scratched cds? No, thought not.

I'm not nearly as bad as most of my friends, though.

BUT.

When I'm called upon to perform an emergency tracheoctomy, I'll *know* that I have just the right tools for the job!

erm... somewhere!

I have 3 friends who are world-class hoarders - books, records, videos, comics, magazines, newspapers....When I see all their *stuff* it begins to make me uneasy after a while. I start converting it into cash, which is a bit crap really, isn't it?

I am a hoarder by nature, but recently i got rid of a couple of hundred books just to give me some more space. I asked myself over each one, 'will I ever read this again?' and the answer came back yes or no. Keep the yes former, ditch the latter. This can be applied to everything, even sentimental trinkets like the beermat where some lover from years gone by wrote her phone number in eyeliner.

It's kind of sexy, throwing out loads of your shit. Like a step into the unknown. Even if that unknown is merely what your flat looks like without a load of crap in every available space

to which i replied "HAH you'd know all about that, RECENT BUFFY CONVERT!"

which duly sent him scampering off into his little DEN to read up on C++ or something.

Reason for PURPLE WALLS = TV interior designers are goffs.

However purple walls are not a good idea.

Hoard records obviously but beyond that very good at getting rid of other shit. I always keep old letters people sent to me though, I like shit like that. But no baby teeth, old magazines, books or videos....

But, you see I got rid of this old broken toy battery powered saxopone that I bought ages ago, it was out in the yard. For the past couple of days I would hear a mournful tune, and couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from, it was the saxophone on autoplay, obviously trying to get my attention so that it would be saved. It's back under my bed. *sigh*

If only I had sorted stuff out in 2002 or 2005 :(

Hoarding is a massive massive dud, because one day you'll actually need something and you won't be able to find it coz it's in a pile of tat or under a mountain of stuff. I might even buy an external hard drive and put all my CDs on it, and get rid of the majority, and all single issue comics!

I strongly encourage you to do so. Past a certain point collecting possessions turns into mania and drudgery.

Do it. I am in the process and it's seriously liberating. So much STUFF.

It's already begun! I am going to return my friend's ancient Nintendo and games to him tomorrow! And I'll pick a load of books for the charity shop too!

i've been working on my bf - he's quite the hoarder, and i'm slowly encouraging him to throw stuff out. i LOVE getting rid of stuff. it's such a weight off the shoulders. i went from owning a big-sized room full of stuff to just 2 suitcases and about 3 boxes before i moved to the US. very liberating. also, it makes moving so much easier. i dread having to pack up all my bf's stuff next time we move house, which is why i'm slowly clearing out now. i don't mind stuff like books etc, because that stuff is easy is box and sort, it's general clutter that i despise.

Hoarding is one of the few traits that really just MADDEN me. I don't mean like collecting a type or types of things. I mean people who fucking save EVERYTHING. "This juice box reminds me of eighth grade. I can't get rid of this interesting looking pebble! I know I haven't LOOKED at this stuff for two years but I know I don't want to get rid of it!" Like my grandma has BOXES and BOXES of sewing patterns she never, ever uses/used/will use and it just drives me fucking nuts!

The WORST was this old Santa Claus-looking bear who I worked with at Kinko's. Basically any time someone brought in a document (or such) to be copied that had a bear on it, he'd make a few copies for himself. Whatever, okay. Then after a while he told me he couldn't sit on his COUCH because he's stacked so many of these images of bears on it over the years. He told me about when he first moved to town how overloaded he was with stuff. He sorted through about 1/3rd of his stuff for a few days and just gave up & called a garbage co. (or someone) to pick it up, and they picked up, literally, FIVE TONS of shit he had stacked up in his house. I have never seen his house but I felt almost nauseous hearing about his hoarding.

Most of the beautiful deadstock and unworn vintage items I've scored at thrift stores and ebay over the past 10 years have been thanks to the insanity of now-deceased hoarders, and the frustration of their descendants who just put the whole she-bang up for sale/auction. THANKIN U, CRAZIES!

A good way to curb hoarding AS much stuff: live in the smallest quarters possible.

The problem is my husband is a hoarder. I'll sometimes get rid of shirts and stuff he hasn't worn once in the four years I've known him. Other things, too. The only time he noticed was when I threw away his iRiver charger, but that was bcz it was full of a box of shit peripherals like a bunch of 12 volt AC adapters and USB to PS2 converters that no one would ever use, esp. us.

Ha, mine has a massiiiiive box full of random cables and stuff. Srsly it takes up like half our storage space. I keep threatening to chuck them but last week we actually found one that was useful so I am not allowed now.

http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php

wow wow wow that is a site to get sucked into.

I really do have a morbid fascination with this thing that pisses me off so much.

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

http://plonkmedia.info/crazymum/

I remember seeing this second one some years ago and thinking how odd it was that most of it was 'collections' - but all mixed up with other crap, too.

haha i feel yr pain abbott! i politely asked my bf to clean out his desk drawers, with the excuse that i need space for all my bookbinding stuff, and he did stuff - there were a few things he wanted to hold onto, but i'll get rid of them eventually (lol he still has his first 'laptop' from like 10yrs ago). i probably got him to chuck about 2 large garbage bags of paper out (he was hoarding all his grad school notes).

tbh, clutter actually causes me some serious anxiety. when we were doing a big clean out last weekend, i was feeling super anxious being surrounded by all this stuff just piled everywhere, as we rearranged/put things away/threw stuff out.

xpost

dirty/dirty.html is more complete emotional collapse -- just completely having given up. that's not really what hoarding is.

crazymum/ is classic hoarding. everything haphazardly organized and stored in spots that used to serve social functions -- chairs, couches, guest rooms, dining rooms all inaccessible due to encroachment. but more suspended than abandoned, just temporarily crowded. these people still function at high levels even though family can't come over & their front door doesn't open all the way, it's a level of sustained bad faith within someone you love that seems to slowly be tipping the line over into madness, but never quite.

I live close to it, so I will just simply say that if your partners have a box of old power supplies they won't let you throw out, you are making light of the term 'hoarders' by applying it to them, and count your blessings

Draw next to me:

Tons of CD-Roms, Darth Maul action figure, bauble, notebook from 1991, Pan-Am playing cards (from circa 1984), Bumblebee transformer (headless), plastic scraper thing I made in craft class, a stack of Xmas and birthday cards, Empire Strikes Back postcard from my sister dated 1997, compass, a conker, bunch of keyrings, Pokemon Sapphire instruction booklet, sew-on patches from the Lego club, Transformers skectch pad (from circa 1986), fruit mahine game, large paper clip with St.Bernard on it, Earache Sampler cassette (might listen to this), load of photographs, stuff from Xmas crackers...

I am screwed :(

I'm thinking the Lego club sew-on patches might be worth something!

Should I just hire a skip? But the thing is I'll feel bad if I don't try and recycle this junk/sell it/give it away.

what about sorting your stuff into 'levels'? like, stuff you know you can definitely part with (bin it), stuff you're not sure about (box it up for a few months, revisit it and then bin it), stuff you're really not sure about (same deal as previous)?

and yes, putting stuff up on ebay/similar is a great idea - as long as you know you'll actually get round to posting stuff out to buyers

n.b. i am a total slob, so minimising clutter in my life means minimising the amount of carnage i live in on a day-to-day basis (and the same applies to my bf)

Yep, that's what I shall try and do! Thanks!

Lego club patch = £4.95 on ebay, I have three of them...oh and Lego Yoda mini-figure going for £12! (with 13 bids)

I live close to it, so I will just simply say that if your partners have a box of old power supplies they won't let you throw out, you are making light of the term 'hoarders' by applying it to them, and count your blessings

Oh no for REAL. I don't have it bad at all. I am just afraid of anything that looks like a tiny step toward hoarding behavior (my grandmas on both sides were pretty bad hoarders, I guess, so it was just drilled into my head as a kid that you don't keep around things you won't use).

Moving houses quite a lot in recent years has killed off any tendency to hoard - something I def had when I was younger. I'm moving again in a couple of months and want to be even leaner.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Thursday, November 14, 2019 9:04 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is precisely the opposite of my experience. I moved almost incessantly for the first, what, 35 years of my life? And never accumulated all that much and often tossed out a ton whenever I picked up stakes again. Now I've lived in the same apartment for almost seven years (roughly double the maximum length of time I'd ever previously lived in any one place) and...boy, do I ever have a lot of stuff.

hate having stuff. having an apartment that is < 500 sq feet and living with another person in it helps, but i felt that way when i had more space too

im an anti-hoarder, and it also seems slightly like a mental illness thing tbf

That is not up for debate. Hoarding is not just “has a lot of stuff” or “is messy” or “likes to keep items for nostalgia” — it’s a debilitating life-shitting real problem.

Aside from human relationships, all I require to subsist is access to a good library, a decent computer, an internet connection and a suitably large pair of speakers. Marie Kondo HATES me.

She hates no one. She may pity you. She probably would also be willing to help.

I resisted her show for a long time and now that I’ve watched it, I’ve adopted her T-shirt folding. It’s much better than what I was doing before!

She hates me in the sense that she has nothing to teach me (I'm sure she does, I'm just exaggerating for effect).

Also riffing on those ridiculous 'doctors HATE him' ads in case you haven't come across them.

i've realized it brings me joy to be a slob. i'm not disorganized, i just put things in places based on momentary improvisation and my deep love for doing as little work as possible.

i can NOT watch the hoarding shows. for me it's worse than watching surgery footage.

like, so interesting that you can't stop watching?

haha NO

How does Maria Kondo fold t-shirts?!

Nevermind, I'll Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kZUWkB7eZE

As a side note, I'm not convinced that my natural preference for minimalism sparks joy. Perhaps it keeps a greater misery at bay.

xp Sheldon's shirt-folding board.

I got lucky that my spouse has a mother with excessive clutter AND compulsive disinfecting tendencies so he's fine letting me do my own thing and helps keep stuff clean/organized.

use some of the profit on CD or iTunes.

iTunes a) didn't exist and b) 128kbps files suck, and buying a different CD still means I can't listen to the CD I sold!

so idgi, Marie Kondo's t-shirt folding trick is basically...folding it into as small a rectangle as possible? I've been using this "trick" my entire life. What do other people do?

Good for you! I folded in a square (sometimes) and crammed as many into the drawer as possible. Now I can see them.

and then she also puts them spine up in drawers?

xpost I know a lot of people still lugging cds around for years (despite moving residences regularly) that don't even own a cd player. But if it 'brings you joy' keep them. I worked in two record stores and was a music director at a community radio station. I had a fairly large collection of music. But shit weighed me down and became way too stressful logistically for me. I have two small cubes of vinyl now and that is it.

i also definitely don't tuck socks into each other now because of Kondo. I hate droopy socks.

I've sold and given away at least hundreds and hundreds of CDs in the 21 years since that one came out. The anxiety / pathology trigger about buying second copies to give away is a different matter.

my mom does the same thing with housewares. she gets everything in duplicates thinking it will be for someone's household but I think she's more into it for the thrill of the purchase since they all sit in one bedroom.

xp Sock animism is how they get you

I bought the Marie Kondo book and got as far as the clothes stuff. The t-shirt folding was revolutionary (I have been rolling them up) and I still do it.

I've been in my one-bedroom flat for 12 years now, I've accumulated a lot of stuff and lack space to sort through it. Had considered getting a storage unit for a couple of months help me sort through things.

Storage units are nice until you realize you are paying half a month's rent every month to store useless things that the Goodwill won't take for free

Then all those "omg dollar bin book / CD / record score, whatta deal!" items begins to really look like an albatross

full disclosure: I've had offsite storage units for most of my adult life

That's pretty much why I haven't done it - if I could trust myself to take the stuff up, sort through it, get rid of what's to be gotten rid of and take the rest home then I would.

i am definitely a digital hoarder and spend *way* too much time making my audio/ebook files 'just right'. fortunately digital storage technology has kept up (i haven't switched to flacs . . . yet) and it soothes my ocd tendencies in a way that doesn't make a physical mess

pretty much threw out everything that was in my dad's house when we cleaned it out last year, including magazines/college stuff. felt i should keep the high school yearbooks, not sure why

of all the things i've ever thrown away, i only genuinely regret the loss of two items: a sega with an nhl 94 cartridge (i could probably find this on ebay if i truly cared) and a calendar on which i kept track of all the shows i'd been to. that one still hurts

the experience of cleaning out my dad's house seems to have impressed the scale of her own problem on my mom. she wants to sell her house and move into a senior community with escalating health care options in the next year or so; the time frame may depend on her ability/willingness to get rid of the Stuff

i'm not much of a hoarder but i'm kind of in love with the Collyer brothers.. i have a book about them called Ghosty Men

xp 94 hell yeah. And yes sports games are plentiful and cheap.

A box full of bootleg CDRs that I haven't listened to in 10 years? Maybe there's a show or ten worth retaining there, plus any tour CDs mixed in, but do I really need the boots with folk talking near the sensitive mic? Toss.

― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca)

what are they bootlegs of? at least they might be worth ripping and tossing (before they go bad).

i'm a little conflicted about being a digital hoarder, which i am - i'm already at the point where i can't find stuff that i know i have, somewhere; i can't commit to the time to organize the useless files i never look at. i recognize intellectually that it's not a super healthy method of coping with my problems, but the thing about all the stuff in the ICD is that for it to be a disorder it has to hurt someone, and my digital hoarding just isn't hurting anybody. the people on that tv show, i relate to them, i do the same thing they do, but i don't think i'll ever be on that tv show, because i have a compact black box, and when i am dead whoever is looking after my estate can just throw out that compact black box, and that will be it. i'm not even worried about somebody finding stuff that would embarrass me, because seriously who's even going to bother looking?

maybe i'm not actually a hoarder. i dreaded going out to the nursing home where my dad lived to pick up his stuff because i know how much crap he used to keep around - turns out he had damn near nothing. don't know if that was by choice or just that, you know, there are plenty of employees who will blatantly just steal all your shit when you're in a home and accuse you of being senile when you confront them on it.

This Marie Kondo t-shirt folding thing is all very well but how do you know which is which without leaving the printed side (if there is one) facing out? Means you have to unfold them all to find the one you're looking for, she didn't think of that did she?

This might actually be from la Kondo's book, but I find that if you have some object you don't really need but can't bear to part with, give it a little blessing. "Thank you for your good work, you are now an inanimate object once again and can be disposed of without guilt," with clasped hands of course (maybe just say it in your head, thinking about it). It's like a little funeral for the meaning it once had in your life, and if you like you can picture its soul rising to heaven with tiny wings on.

Then throw it in the fucking bin.

that ^ is from marie kondo and also Shinto which she says influenced her.

I kind of relate. I don't think things (inanimate objects) are imbued/possessed with spirits but I try to imagine the work that goes into producing something, the work i put into acquiring it and the work that will go into destroying it divided by/my length and degree of pleasure from owning it.

xpost, the way she folds things you should see the middle of the t shirt design, if any, on the spine if you have them filed in a drawer or on a shelf.

Yeah I can tell from what’s showing which shirt it is. Actually not that hard which is why I can manage to do it.

To my shame and bewilderment, I usually spend a couple of hours each weekend organising, correcting the metadata and finding better artwork for the files in my lossless music library - I painstakingly ripped my 3000 disc collection a couple of years back (took about 8 months of a few a day). I call it "track gardening". It is demonstrably true that I have spent more time curating some music than I have listening to it.

oh, I have several external harddrives that have misc ripped music and photos that I will never ever try to open/locate. it happened. I prefer organizing physical things but I can see how some people would find digital organization fulfilling as well.

I want to buy your library, MatthewK

track gardening

my man <3

To my shame and bewilderment, I usually spend a couple of hours each weekend organising, correcting the metadata and finding better artwork for the files in my lossless music library - I painstakingly ripped my 3000 disc collection a couple of years back (took about 8 months of a few a day). I call it "track gardening". It is demonstrably true that I have spent more time curating some music than I have listening to it.

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK)

i try! it's futile, but i try! my years are all wrong (who cares if the record got reissued in 1990, good lord) and it's a struggle to keep my genre list down under 500 (what is some of the crap people put in there, what the fuck why is Cult Leader tagged as "rock", what fucking good does that do anybody). i mean i should just get a spotify account because their files are presumably tagged properly and i know the enormous pile of crap i listen to isn't a "library" in any meaningful sense, there's no curatorial philosophy beyond "oh that sounds nice i think i would want to hear that again". but it's useless because i get lost and start listening to the songs instead of filing them.

i was a really bad library page too, for the record.

The long kon, amirite?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/19/marie-kondo-sparks-consternation-with-online-homeware-store

on the bright side, if my mom gets quarantined/society otherwise collapses, she has enough food to last for months on end

fap at your mom's house???

fap at your mom's house???

― Yerac

not since i moved out

Bloody hell!
https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/07/britains-biggest-hoarder-dies-suddenly-leaving-behind-4000000-treasure-trove-13386396/

(Excuse Metro link, you might want to check your adblocker is on)

Lol at this book clearly shown in one of the photos
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/24/e1/de/24e1de9bd1ffebf49cd754a2ca18fb1e.jpg

" and 12 Rickenbacker guitars from the 1960s and 70s."