<p>I just want to post as I want the red star to follow along. I thought I had already, but guess not.
About 5 months ago I decided to put 3 things everyday in the charity pile. We started this after S moved out and we found 27 pairs of jeans (not as bad as it looks as he worked at a store and got huge discounts and every pair was about $5)
We take pics and catalog the Goodwill prices for our taxes.
That said! OMG! I am NOT a packrat but there is just so much stuff!! and after 5 months I can still walk around the house and pull 3 things a day without suffering.
Does this stuff procreate in the middle of the night or what??</p>
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<p>Yes, it does. Especially the stuffed animals. I used to think they had orgies every once in a while. Iād get rid of 20 of them and then discover 30 more in some other room. </p>
<p>You need to get down to some manageable number before it stops procreating.</p>
<h1>316 - Wow, congrats QM!!</h1>
<p>It took me about eight months to clean out attic to cellar when the kids left for college. Since then itās about maintenance. Maintenance is relatively easy 
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<p>psychmomma: so sorry you have to do this. We have a hoarder in the family, too. I hope eventually she will live with me.</p>
<p>Every once in a while she becomes overwhelmed and asks me to come help. Last spring we filled the largest dumpster available with milk cartons, egg cartons, yogurt containers, shipping boxes, packing material, etc. All this was in the yard. We didnāt even touch the house. </p>
<p>It is easy (at least for me) to throw to throw away essentially valueless (at least to me) packaging items. The problem is when we get inside. There is literally too much āgood stuffā to sort. I have absolutely no idea how long it would take to sort. Itās a big house. Then there is all the time to haul it off wherever it needs to go ā to find it all a home! When she and I discussed it, I told her to put what she needed to keep on her bed and go stay somewhere else. I could clean out in a month. My plan is to go through and put family heirlooms on another bed. (I am hoping there will still be two beds in the house at that point. I may have to put these things in my car) Then I will call a company to come take all the rest away. We will have several dumpsters on site for them to leave whatever they donāt want. I hope we donāt have to pay to have it all hauled away, but that the company will do it for the re-sale value.</p>
<p>Thanks, alh! Of course, it hasnāt made a dent in overall appearances yet. But I was heartened by one posterās comment (sorry, forgot exactly who) that things suddenly looked better after the third dumpster! </p>
<p>Best of luck with going through your relativeās house! It sounds like you have a good plan.</p>
<p>alh- be careful what you wish forā¦ The hoarder doesnāt change when they live with you . BUTā¦ you do have better control. My mom has already been messing up her bedroom, but I donāt let it flood into other parts of our house. She will visit my sister once every six months so I can empty her room of papers, coupons, bread bags, etc. back to normal. I DO control the mail so the 20-30 pieces of donation pleas and sweepstakes "winning tickets"get recycled. (And that is after writing to 30-40 places to remove her name off mailing lists.)
QM- you will totally get there! In the middle, itās definitely hard to recognize how much youāve done. You will be able to see the difference soon!
ALH- I was thinking once the family keepsakes are removed, I may see if some of momās church friends would help pack up bags and boxes for their annual rummage sale. A dumpster on the driveway is expensive ( quoted about $400 for the size we would need) but useful for old mattresses, broken things and general junk.
Today I am tackling shoes and kitchen cabinets. I apparently never parted with gym shoes when I replaced them. So far I have walked around in 4 pairs that will be donated. Perfectly good for anyone without foot problems. They donāt even look like theyāve been worn.The amount of cushioning i need seems to lose its oomph quicker than the shoes wear out. I should give away all flip flops! That would be 30 pairs. What do people wear if they have plantar fasciitis? All of my flip flops are horrible- flat and no cushioning, but they are so cute!</p>
<p>psychomomma - my sis, so I have lived with her. If she lives in someone elseās space, it is possible to keep the stuff confined to whatever space she has actual ownership ofā¦ usually. We have moved to the country. The plan is that she have a very small house on the property with a lot of woods shielding her from my view. If I own that house - the situation is controllable. If she owns it, Iāll be doing a whole lot more tree planting.</p>
<p>RE. Dumpster costs. Right!! Hoarding becomes so very expensive. She thinks she is saving money. I keep pointing out how expensive the dumpsters are to take the stuff away. She lives too far out in the country to have the sort of garbage service to pick up hundreds of bags a week. Just thinking about the number of truck loads it would take to get it all hauled away to the dump is staggering. How many trips a day times how many days? Pretty much an impossible solution at this point in time, even though she imagines that is how she is going to handle it. Either today or tomorrow. A brother and I tried to do a cost analysis of just dumping everything in the dumpster versus someoneās time sorting it out and sending it off somewhere appropriate. At this point there is no solution that is not very wasteful, of either someoneās time or money.</p>
<p>Iāve told my kids and all the nieces and nephews, if they have to deal with it, they should just dig a huge pit and push the whole house in and cover it up. I think that truly would be the simplest, least expensive way to handle it. Itās a family home but too trashed at this point to be salvaged. Yet another wasteful result of hoarding.</p>
<p>But what can we do? It is what it is. We sure canāt change them. Good luck with your Mom!!! I am impressed you got her out of her house. </p>
<p>ā¦</p>
<p>Today Iām throwing out two years worth of Holiday cards. And straightening out my desk. I think Iāll have a big bag. :)</p>
<p>This week, I had three pieces of furniture in my van ready to take to the thrift store and I decided to give myself 5 minutes to grab and bag items from my closet to donate. I filled 2 bags! </p>
<p>Next stop, the attic to attack the old Christmas decorations!</p>
<p>Gave away a 32" TV to a school yesterday (works perfectly, just too big & bulky and we NEVER watched it; upgrading to a thin, light flatscreen when they go on sale). Today, recycled a small bag of glass jars and tossed lidless containers that had taken root on the counter. Will be filling a bag for the thrift shop out of my closet today. Have been weeding through stuff, slowly but surely. Am impressed with the 25 + trash bags in one week! Thatās awesome and must feel SO great!</p>
<p>OK, thanks to this thread, am FINALLY giving away my in-line skates that I have had since the kids were in grade school! Also giving away the bag and all the pads. Am giving away all our wool vests & shirts because we have switched to machine washable layering instead. We like easy to care for, tho we were well-served by these garments in their time.</p>
<p>Sunning the down sleeping bag and will offer it to S, who enjoys camping and may want it (otherwise may look for a good home for that as well). Finally giving away the hiking boots I have rarely worn and never fit all that well; we are NOT hikers, as well as a pair of sandals and slippers that also donāt get much use. Filled two boxes with all the giveaways and the remaining garments will fit in a MUCH smaller space than it was taking previously! Happy & taking a brief break before tackling a bit more.</p>
<p>For those of you with t-shirts (or your kids t-shirts) that you hate to part with, have you thought of having a t-shirt quilt (or two) made? </p>
<p><a href=āhttps://www.pinterest.com/scrappydoo/t-shirt-quilt/[/url]ā>https://www.pinterest.com/scrappydoo/t-shirt-quilt/</a></p>
<p>I have also heard of people making scarves from themā¦</p>
<p>My son loves t-shirts and so I instituted a new rule last month. For every one new t-shirt that he buys, he must give away three. He had so many, too many, and yet canāt quit buying them occasionally. I am stashing away a few in case he would like a quilt.</p>
<p>I would love for someone to start a thread about photographs. I have thousands of old ones not to mentions bazillions of digital onesā¦ What to do?</p>
<p>So, the kitchen. I started on a lower cabinet, wide with two doors. This has been the school cabinet for 12 years. Youngest is a soph in HS so I sorted and pitched tons of stuff. I looked through notebooks, found some poems, other personal writings and sketches that were adorable. Pitched markers, pens, etc. that were dry. Then I tackled a giant bag of Christmas cards and letters. H thought I was brutal for so easily pitching the photo cards. I just looked at them and thought none of the kids are going to care about a photo of their third cousins whom theyāve never met. Eventually they will all get dumped so why not today? 2 black garbage bags full and next up is a catchall cabinet for those kitchen doodads I had to have but never seem to actually useā¦</p>
<p>^^
"For those of you with t-shirts (or your kids t-shirts) that you hate to part with, have you thought of having a t-shirt quilt (or two) made? "</p>
<p>I have loved that idea since I read about it here years ago, but think I should āspread the wealthā, and let someone else do it. Links please!</p>
<p>LMM, I donāt know what to do with the photos either. When I was home with the kids I made one album each year, labeled by date and event. Once we bought a digital camera I stopped printing so have nothing to look at except on the computer via flash drives or discs. Then I have gobs of really old rescued photos from momās house. Those are just boxed and hidden away for now</p>
<p>My kids are out of the house with their own places. They took the tee shirts that really mattered. Iāve been using the rest to work in the yard and clean the house, until they get retired to the rag bag, and then into the garbage when the rag has worn out. Soon they will all be gone and Iāll need some more. I was wondering about picking up some from my sisās house next visit. That would make her very happy. Except if she knew I was using them for cleaning and getting them all stained and ruined.</p>
<p>I used to keep the family Christmas photo cards just in case the familyās house burned down and they lost all their photos, which might generally seem an unnecessary concern, except it did happen to the same relatives (twice!!) during my childhood. The second time a great-aunt asked what everyone else had begun to wonder. These days I assume enough is on-line someplace, so I toss. Photos are one of my last organizational challenges. I am tending towards storing them in photo boxes. One of my sibs is scanning a bunch for me, since I donāt have that skill set and my kids canāt be bothered.</p>
<p>Iām starting to wonder how much we really need to keep with regard to photos and video. There really must be a limit.</p>
<p>ETA: today I got my desk perfectly cleaned out but then the mail arrived :(:(:(</p>
<p>You all are inspirational!</p>
<p>I might have mentioned this on another thread, but: In a science fiction story by Victor Contoski, there is supposed to be a set of chess moves that creates a pattern so awful that it drives the opponent insane, and petrifies onlookers. Itās called āVon Goomās Gambit.ā </p>
<p>I am trying very hard not to fall back on āVon Goomās Inheritance Plan,ā in which we simply turn over the house and contents to QMP, lock, stock, and barrelāpresumably with results that are equally dismal as the results of the chess game.</p>
<p>Our kids got SO MANY tshirts in college and still have them. S brings hardly any clothing when he comes for a visit, even if he will be here weeks because he wears mostly tshirts in his dresser in HI with shorts and more formal (warmer) clothing in DC & elsewhere. He has a few tshirts that he wears when heās not in HI, but he really has many more than he needs. Same with D. Sheās slowly giving away some clothing, especially when people help her move and they fit her clothing better than she does. :)</p>
<p>My rules is as long as their stuff fits in their dresser, they can keep it. When they start exploding out of the dresser, they have to give away some and thin things out. S is excellent at this but D is more of a packrat. Fortunately, she enjoys giving clothing to her younger cousin who worships her, so she looks for things that are suitable out of her belongings and itās a win-win.</p>
<p>What to do with the VHS tapes of Disney movies? Help.</p>
<p>Yea, we have a big collection of those too.</p>
<p>Yeah, me too. H thinks we should keep them since we have 2 working vcrs. I guess they could be a novelty to future grand kids. Itās hard to weed them down to just a few.</p>
<p>All the VHS tapes should go, you will never watch them. They donāt sell well at rummage sales, no one else wants them. Iāll get rid of all of mine as soon as I decide I donāt want to be married any more. Until then, theyāll stay in the basement with the LPs. </p>
<p>I like the idea of telling kids they can have as many clothes as will fit in their closet and dresser, and no more. Thatās the way I live, but DH and DS are ok with piles of stuff. It drives me nuts.</p>