Hi, I'm BK and I'm a hoarder...

[BK911]

I gots so much sheet.
Some made it to "wall art" in basement and garage.
But most is in boxes in basement and garage.
I know I have a problem, is that good enough?
Or do I actually need to do something about it?
Example; put crate engine in 65 mustang.
Get rid of old parts, or store?
Or hang on a wall somewhere?
I'm running out of mutually agreed walls!
I might need it someday!!!!

[LWJ]

First step, Brother...

[tabs]

Start to convert to cash..ebay Craigs fb market pl let it go ...

Once the cash rolls in..a monster is created..create some open space while making a profit..the object not how much you make but lightening the load. So some things might go cheap.

Ask me how i know

[Bill Douglas]

Surely there is room in the attic to put stuff.

And if you run out of room up there just stack new stuff over the top of old stuff.

[wildthing]

Marie Kondo that *****...

[MMiller]

less is more as the saying goes...

There is a lot of freedom that comes from unloading stuff one no longer needs.

i find it refreshing to lighten ones load, especially if it turns into cash.

Trick is not to replace it with more stuff..

[MMiller]

Originally Posted by wildthing

Marie Kondo that *****...

Agree, read her book a couple years ago...some of it is a bit extreme but overall...excess crap needs to go

Organization is king!

[jyl]

Hoarding is a recognized mental disease.

My aunt filled her place with trash and rotting food. The cops had to arrest her. She was institutionalized soon thereafter.

My dad has three housefuls of stuff, a little bit is cool but mostly it is junk. Boxes of old electrical wire, leftover wood, crap he buys at yard sales, thousands of classical LPs, anything that could conceivably be useful. Like a half used box of my grandmother’s Depends diapers that she didn’t finish before she died. We’ve been trying to get him to move from CA to live with us, he has spent the last 1.5 years “packing”. Since he won’t let anyone help him, and he’s 86 and weak, progress is slow. I rented a 2000 sq ft storage unit in Salem for his stuff. So far he has only got 1 semi load of stuff moved into it. Another container is waiting in a Salem yard for me to hire movers. He has another two containers’ worth of stuff to pack up in CA. I think he packs a box a day, maybe. The situation is impossible but I don’t have a solution. He’s not mentally incompetent, just stubborn, spoiled, irrational, and impossible to reason with.

His 2000 sq ft storage unit is mostly empty. So I’ve been putting my stuff there. Gosh that’s a lot of stuff. I’m thinking it may run in the family.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by jyl

My dad has three housefuls of stuff, a little bit is cool but mostly it is junk.

He sounds like a really good fun, great guy. I'd love to have a drink with him and tell him about the time I got a Canon AE1 camera at the yard sale - $10 and only needed a new battery and perfect almost unused. It's in the attic somewhere...

[Nostril Cheese]

My father was a hoarder of building materials. Also the king of dumpster diving.

He had 20 solid oak doors about 10 feet high. For when he eventually got his land out in the middle of nowhere.
Also about 100 sheets of 3' square limestone.
K rails....
Iron girders....
Railroad ties...


My brothers and I hauled that s*** around for 20 years until he finally got a few acres of land out in the country and built his house.

Then he got a big steel garage. To hold all the the stuff for the addition....

I learned very early on to not get attached to things.

[cstreit]

Put dates on things.

A decade of non use if it’s not historical means trash time,

[ckelly78z]

Trying to downsize my collection of mechanical projects myself...FB marketplace works quickly !

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by cstreit

Put dates on things.

A decade of non use if it’s not historical means trash time,

6 months for me. If it hasn’t been used in 6 months it’s gonzo. The only exception are tools but those get organized and stored. I don’t want my stuff to own me.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by BK911

I gots so much sheet.
Some made it to "wall art" in basement and garage.
But most is in boxes in basement and garage.
I know I have a problem, is that good enough?
Or do I actually need to do something about it?
Example; put crate engine in 65 mustang.
Get rid of old parts, or store?
Or hang on a wall somewhere?
I'm running out of mutually agreed walls!
I might need it someday!!!!

How many bathrooms do you have?

[Bob Kontak]

Hi BK

Pay an unbiased person to clear the stuff out and put it in a dumpster far away. Screw the chicken shiet money it's worth.

I have good shop complex neighbors that do that for me. Unilateral decisions that I don't need something in my shop anymore and they take it away.

[wdfifteen]

We've been unloading stuff right and left. Some I sell on CL, some goes to charity. I don't trash anything that someone else might be able to use.

[1990C4S]

I downsized from a two story four bedroom house to almost nothing (okay, there's a storage unit). I got rid of a LOT.

The hardest part is getting started, but once you get into the groove it feels good. I don't miss anything I tossed, and in hindsight I could toss more away.

I did keep ALL my tools. But I also sold a lot of 'parts'.

[sammyg2]

Every single week, you need to get rid of more than you take in. Doesn't have to be a LOT more, just more.
That will get you headed in the right direction.

Look at it this way: all that stuff is not a collection, it is a burden. it is a weight on your shoulders that you have to take care of. You have to store it, you have to move it, you have to deal with it.
the less crap you have the more freedom you will get back.

I have less than half the crap I had 10 years ago, and I don't miss it at all.

[GH85Carrera]

I have a really hard time throwing out something that might be handy someday. Part of that is I can't count how many times I have used something from the attic or my storage cabinets to finish a project and NOT have to run to the store for more stuff.

Recently I was looking for my bolt cutters in the back of a storage cabinet and found a stash of stuff I remember putting in there, as possible project problem solvers. I did throw out some crap I had kept for the last 30 years. This winter I will drag my trash bin over to the attic stairs and fill it up with crap in the attic I have not used in the 21 years we have lived here. When we moved in I planned to sort it, and I will just sort it into the landfill.

[Tim Hancock]

I have a bunch of stuff and rarely get rid of any. At least once a week I find myself making use of some little scrap of metal or fitting or whatever on my various projects... It feels great to know I made use of something that most would consider junk or scrap.