<p>Thanks–it’s endless and scary. My sibs are NOT helping and one of them has made it much worse by offering them the two extra fridges and a freezer that his GF was dumping, which my parents use as a food morgue. There is only the two of them and they mostly eat out. WHY burden them with THREE fridges and a freezer, knowing they tend to hoard? It makes NO sense! It also raises their electric bill and is just DUMB and typically short-sighted and selfish of bro. He and dad act like its a great thing while all the rest of us know it’s just worsening the problems. </p>
<p>JUST say. No. And you can put it into the house of “they don’t need to PAY the electric bills to run old appliances”. </p>
<p>My inlaws moved an extra fridge…it was the dumbest thing they moved.</p>
<p>I have no power to get between dad and bro. They practice law together and have for decades. I try to pick my battles. Am glad they eat most of their meals at restaurants. <sigh></sigh></p>
<p>FWIW, have pointed out to dad that those fridges and freezer are the reason his electric bill remains high, even with all his photovoltaic panels. He just blames not enough sun. .:(</p>
<p>Off topic…they eat out most of the time, but need all those fridges? Ok.</p>
<p>I have my bag all packed for Monday.</p>
<p>Yep, makes no sense to the rest of us (that’s why I consider the ones bro gave food morgue), but have to choose our battles. </p>
<p>Did buy 2 new tablecloths so purged the linen drawers and released another bag. H retires the end of the month (will work part time) and we will really get going then. His attitudes is so different since his visiting his mother last fall. He was shocked at how much she had to still purge to move and had even had an organizer help her. He also thought her place looked junky. I think he is finally pleased to have a minimalist for a wife.
We have also decided that we will put the house on the market in one year so that will push us along.</p>
<p>Oh–and while visiting his mother he found some very sketchy food in the frig. He took her out most meals. </p>
<p>I love the “food morgue.” Sounds like the deep freeze at my parents’ house. Not enough sun in Hawaii, eh? Sounds like a hard battle.</p>
<p>For many reasons, many of us prefer to eat out or have them over to our homes for meals. This just adds to the list and makes everyone nervous. My younger brother was a saint and would periodically purge their home of some of their junk. He finally gave it up after he got pretty ill from his last purge at their house. It’s like trying to keep the ocean from washing down the sand castle–you toss and they save (including old USED styrofoam containers from take out). Whenever I’m there, I will quietly toss what I can, but try not to ruffle them too much (not worth it).</p>
<p>CountingDown, I think that anyone who has a cardiologist is entitled to hire a cleaning lady. No need to feel guilty about it whatsoever.</p>
<p>I counted boxes in our garage the other day, and realized that if I could take care of 27 of them, we could park a second car in the garage. I am looking forward to doing that in time for the next snow fall! (There is still quite a lot to do in the house, too!)</p>
<p>My deceased MIL also had a “food morgue” in her refrigerator. Every time DH and I visited her, we tossed several garbage bags of assorted penicillin. What’s sad, however, is that she lived with DH’s baby brother (in his mid-30s at the time). So it’s not like she was there alone . . . .</p>
<p>As the OP of this thread, you people continue to inspire me! I def need to keep working on this - maybe a bag a month??! Haha. S just moved back home from his student teacher experience - and that means all his stuff came with him ! Him and his stuff will be here probably most of the summer till he gets a job - hopefully! Hoping for a purging “win” next week by telling him to just dump the 4 year futon that is still at his college townhouse - dont want that thing coming back home!!</p>
<p>This thread is very inspiring, had to clean out the cabinets, fridge, and bathrooms because we had our house tented for termites</p>
<p>Now I have a big bag of shoes, box of toys, books and clothes to donate, the packing up is easy for me it’s the getting it out the door I find hard. I will do this this week.</p>
<p>I need to find a place to donate books on cassette tape, I inherited them from my FIL, I don’t even have a cassette player in my car.</p>
<p>Good luck finding a place that takes cassettes. Most places do not.we took all of our cassettes to the landfill.</p>
<p>Today I went through the bedroom closet and some drawers in my room. I actually have some empty drawers now! There’s a huge bag of clothes and shoes to be donated and another huge bag of trash. </p>
<p>I have emptied the equivalent of an entire closet’s worth of clothes this year! The 27 boxes = space for a car just motivated me to quantify what I’ve donated/sent to my sister. Am resisting the temptation to refill said closet…</p>
<p>Thank goodness my sisters live afar and are not the same size as me. They are all minimalists, and would kill me if I gave them the things I should be donating!</p>
<p>Katvis, if your local library doesn’t take your cassette tapes, this
<a href=“GreenDisk”>http://www.greendisk.com/gdsite/Default.aspx</a>
will recycle them/keep them out of landfill…</p>
<p>Agree with a previous poster that the packing up of useless items is the easy part. It is what to do with those packed bags and boxes that paralyzes me. I struggle with items that I know are worth something but that I no longer want or use. I always say I will do a yard sale one day, but it just never happens. So the boxes sit in the garage waiting for some sort of resolution.</p>
<p>I never looked at this thread because i thought it was to do with renting handbags ( there was some deal like that) - then I saw it referenced in the organizing closets thread. So, I’m a bit late to the party but am going to join. I have decided to try and start decluttering the house - no mean task as my husband is a hoarder who hates to part with anything. However I really want to downsize both stuff and house size and at the same time move to the coast. Can’t afford on the beach and house prices will be higher than where we live. I am dreaming of a small cottage type house with no clutter and maybe a few mile drive to the beach (I wouldn’t mind a nice condo/apartment, but I think my husband would really miss gardening). I think I have finally got my husband on board - probably be a couple of years before we can do it as I probably need to work a couple more years.</p>
<p>I actually got started last week before I saw the thread. Went through my text books and notebooks from college( went back to school as an oldie and back to work). Boxed all the text books except the accounting ones and the language ones (Spanish and french - maybe one day I will retry those). I was even able to sell 2 on Amazon ($63 woohoo) but the rest have newer versions so will go to the recycling center. Today after reading this thread, i went through the closet. Probably have at least a bag’s worth piled on the floor - just need to list them for tax deduct. WIll try and do more than a bag a week to catch up.</p>
<p>I am trying to look at things through a “will it fit in a much smaller house and do I want t pay to move this” perspective.</p>
<p>Thanks for the inspritation. </p>
<p>Here is a tip I heard from a friend. If you have a hard time parting with items in your closet: take everything out (ok, for large closets, one rack at a time), put on the bed etc. and imagine that you are in a store, shopping. What would you buy?</p>