a hoarder.

[Crowbob]

If I bring something home (groceries excluded) something goes away. However, my daughter did point out to me more than once that the shirt I was wearing was older than she was.

I do have a complete walk-in closet full of brand new clothes I've never worn. Another closet is full of suits that I haven't touched since I permanently fired all the bosses I've ever had more than 5 years ago. I've got a stack of Levi's neatly folded with the tags still attached and numerous pairs of various types of gloves still connected to each other by that little plastic strap thing.

A couple of cupboards in my kitchen are completely empty.

I still have the boxes my very first stereo came in (molded styrofoam included) that I bought in 1972.

Am I sick?

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

He said he could make and awl out of it.

I wonder if stashing stuff fosters comfort with respect to mortality?

Your Dad has been doing this a long time so it muddies the hypotheses.

ADD is one thing. I can't put a tool away to save my life AND I have a spot for most of them.

But, why the fixation on stuff? I can picture your father spraying the throw rug with the hose. Can't let this baby go. No way. Maybe there is not even a decision made. Makes you smile and also makes you pull your hair out.

My Dad is 80. Buys used motorcycles. Three to five in his garage at a time. Car outside - no room. Each bike has a shelf life of about nine months. Buys, dumps pro repair money into each and discards for a song. Big build up of next buy or sell via e-mails to my siblings and me. Like 10 e-mails per bike. Don't think it's hoarding, just a passage like you say. Odd it seems, but I ain't 80 so maybe not?

Wonderfully written post, BTW.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

Am I sick?

I need a nickle first for the answer.

Let's just say you exploit utility to the maximum.

[VincentVega]

Too many interests, never enough space.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by foxpaws

He hoarded Porsches and Porsche parts too...

You say "hoarded" like it's some kind of a bad thing...
(Not an investment in wealth and/or community)

It's probably time to reset the definitions of that pejorative.

[Scuba Steve]

Grandma was a hoarder - she managed a couple of apartment complexes for 35 years total with a heavy college student population and kept EVERYTHING left behind. Sometimes good, sometimes crap. It took three years to go through everything on the initial sort. The final one just ended this last month.

Dad is retired from teaching at the local university and as all professors have, he has way too many books. Lots of them haven't been touched in over a decade. He's going through them, but we're keeping the small binder of early computer information. It has things like correspondence with people at Apple from early 1977.

It would take the braintrust to answer whether I'm hoarding or not, but there are a bunch of building materials in the garage and den left over from our kitchen/family/living room renovation project. The thing is that lots of them are being used in the current master bedroom/bathroom rebuild I'm working on right now and there's only been about an 18 month gap between projects. There is also a bathtub and two toilets set aside for the other two bathrooms in the house that I'll redo next year. I don't consider it hoarding because the stuff has specific, dedicated purposes and what they're set aside for is actually happening instead of "soon..."

On the other hand there's a Pioneer SX 82 tube receiver and a huge 1930s radio that need a little love after all this house stuff is done.

[Rot 911]

I love throwing stuff away. Get the crap gone and just keep things around that get used.

[ckelly78z]

I haven't made a dump run in twenty years. We recycle quite a bit of the cans/plastics/glass, and food stuffs to the local recycling bins. Any burnable trash is taken out once a week to the burn barrel and torched. All of the stove ash from my woodburner goes out to the chickens to peck around in. Big stuff including tree limbs, old couches, and other big stuff gets burned once a year in a big brush pile out back on the 4th of July (30' flames). I guess the argument could be made for whether to burn the trash, or send to a land fill ?....One hour in the burn barrel reduces 4 kitchen bags of trash to about a pound or two of ash when finished, while the landfill keeps growing and will last for 25 years buried underground.

[GH85Carrera]

I have little doubt that my parents never moved out of the their final house because they had the so much stuff. They kept the original box and warranty information to appliances they bought going back to the 70s. The appliance was dead and gone but the box was still there.

My brother came up and we sorted through what we wanted. The quilt that my great grandmother made for her grandmother and the had written letter she wrote and a glove she wore at her wedding is not something I could just dump. I don't have kids so I called one of my cousins that has kids and grand kids. I gave that to her and she was crying like I gave her the Holy Grail.

I still have many large boxes of family photos and old home movies from both my dads side of the family and my moms side of the family going back over 100 years. Pictures of my mom's parents when they were "courting" and pictures and great great grandparents.

I will keep trying to find a family member that wants them and can pass them on to their kids.

I scanned most of them and built a great family tree and posted the photos to Ancestry.com for all to see.

[group911@aol.co]

Odd how we look down on hoarders yet get pissed when Porsche can't supply us with every detail about every car they've built since the beginning. Archives are really just hoarders at work.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

But, why the fixation on stuff?

Good question- I think he just sees the opportunity/potential in an object, but can't weigh that in relation as to the maintenance and effort needed to keep it working and findable, nor could he realistically prioritize his projects and capability for completing them.

With my stuff, and based on his experience with stuff, I ask myself several questions when I come across something.
1. Will I ever use it?
2. How much space does it take?
3. Could I even find it if I needed it?
4. Would it even work if I could find it?

My dad wouldn't do that. He would throw a tarp on anything, and within several years it would rusted and inoperative. To me, those tarps were like death veils.

[Charles Freeborn]

After helping both of our mothers downsize in the last few years my wife and I are on a methodical path to reduce our footprint. I should add that neither of our mothers were in any way hoarders, just owners of houses that they'd been in for 30+ years.
So, here are my two tips / methods:
1. The 6 month rule. If you haven't used it in 6 months you probably don't need it.
2. The "top down" sorting rule. Establish the storage space, for example the closet. Next empty same said closet. Everything out. While it's empty, clean, paint put in shelves, etc. Make it a nice organized space. Then re-load starting with the absolute best / favorite things and work your way down the "quality" list. When the space is full, which means in an orderly fashion, not crammed, you're done. What remains should be your least favorite / needed objects. They all go to goodwill. Be ruthless.
As a furnituremaker a big part of my career has been making things for people to put their stuff in. What's been of real interest to me is how the office has evolved. In years past I'd build a desk with drawers, credenza with file drawers, computer pedestal with storage areas, etc. All of that is obsolete now. The modern office is a table with a laptop and internet to cloud file storage. Needless to say my design ethic has changed....

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by Charles Freeborn

As a furnituremaker a big part of my career has been making things for people to put their stuff in. What's been of real interest to me is how the office has evolved. In years past I'd build a desk with drawers, credenza with file drawers, computer pedestal with storage areas, etc. All of that is obsolete now. The modern office is a table with a laptop and internet to cloud file storage. Needless to say my design ethic has changed....

Ooohh... Here's a question for you- How do you handle/keep/store/toss your exotic scrap woods?
For example a chunk of unused cocobolo or maple burl that could be used in another project down the line as a inlay or something. That tortures me because I don't want to waste a single bit of it, but it adds up quick.

[Charles Freeborn]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Ooohh... Here's a question for you- How do you handle/keep/store/toss your exotic scrap woods?
For example a chunk of unused cocobolo or maple burl that could be used in another project down the line as a inlay or something. That tortures me because I don't want to waste a single bit of it, but it adds up quick.

I filter by usability. Yes, shorts are usable for smaller projects such as inlay, etc. I also build guitars so the really high end scraps go to that pile. Then, I have a sculptor friend who I give lots of interesting pieces to use as bases for her sculptures. -Sculptures by Karen Croner- . We have a couple of arts organizations here that take donations of usable materials. If I have a bunch of interesting shapes or pieces I'll box them up and donate. As for small pieces of exotics like cocobolo or ebony, there is probably a woodworkers guild or group in your area with some turners ( people who use lathe's) that would love them for pen barrels or small turned parts. I don't have a wood lathe so I don't save for that. The rest goes in my woodstove in the winter... As for plywood and non-burnable scraps, as well as shavings, we've got a re-cycler that takes all form of wood debris. Plywood goes in with the contractor demolition stuff, shavings from the dust collector goes in the pile from gardening services that's composted.

[Deschodt]

We bought our house from a deceased hoarder ! mega discount !! You would not believe some of the crap that was in there. Was clean though, just full of docs. And the estate administrator had removed 95% of it before we got to see it (the Hipaa violating stuff)... Still had to trash about 200 tomato can cardboard boxes full of folders from the attic (mega fire hazard), and everytime we dig in the yard we strike gold, generally in the form of plastic fedex envelopes with more junk docs inside... He buried stuff when he got out of room!!!!! ;-) The other day I found one of those envelopes behind old drywall I was tearing up when redoing the garage - it's never cash or a declaration of independance though ;-(

[glewis80SC]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Seems like there was a similar thread to this a while back.
Okay-I'll share:

My father is a hoarder and it has been incredibly destructive.
He filled a house up with stuff. Numerous storage facilities (I don't know how many).
He used the equity in his house to finance a second house which has since filled up with stuff.
About 5 years ago the neighbors called the city on him (for good reason) and I spent a week just to get to the front door. The article Sugarwood quoted describes the situation to a tee.

This was something that had brewed for a long time. As a college grad, I spent an entire summer fixing the house, and barely made a dent. When his method of fixing the roof became finding bigger buckets to catch the drip.... Man... that just sucked.

As far back as age 19- I realized the only way to clean house was to go behind his back.

I remember going back to my childhood house and digging through about 6 inches of dirt to get to the driveway. It really was like an archeological expedition- sifting through layers of detritus. The leaves had literally fallen over the years and become dirt. When I got to the bottom, I found a rotted throw rug from the 1970's which looked about as good as that dead lady Jack Nicholson found in the Shining's Overlook room 217 bathtub . My dad got out his garden hose, sprayed it down, as if to use it for a party 30 years too late. I found a phillips head screw driver with a broken tip- tossed it behind his back. He found it and put it back in his tool kit. I asked him what purpose it would serve. He said he could make and awl out of it. This was with city officials breathing down his back.

My recent garden tractor project- he really does have about 6-7 laying around. I can't count. None work.

Jesus...

Anyhow- he had a stroke and has advanced dementia. He talks of all his old porsches- and porsches he never owned.

and. yes- he had about 3-4 old longhoods laying around the yard. And a 914. And three mercedes. There 'might' be one 912 chassis that could be restored...I could always use the sunroof clip out of another 66 912, or maybe the entire roof clip somewhere else in the garage... but god- Then I will become him. He had more projects than could be done if he lived to be 200.

When I sit awake at 4:00 in the morning petrified- this is one of the issues that does it.
Tough stuff.
ugghhhh......

I find myself throwing out perfectly valuable stuff just to spite his demons- which I know reside in me.

Anyone want a 951 turbo short block for free?
Please come and get it

The funny thing is when Foxpaws mentioned Grady was doing the same thing, I didn't think of it like some embarrassing revelation like child porn. I thought it was normal. A normal life passage, like getting bad osteoarthritis or something. I just live in denial of this one day at a time until he dies, and then we'll take it from there.

I estimate if I quit my job entirely- it would take a year to sift through it all.
A rational person would just hand it to an auction company. But when it is a pile of crap lined with 1965 porsche parts, spoons, altec lansings, numerous marantz receivers, etc... It's a pile that deserves some care. Who knows.

(edit- Funny story) About 13 years ago- my dad asked me for $ so he could buy a truck to take stuff from house one to house two in the mountains. He said he would pay me back (and he did)...but that not the point. What did he buy? A U-HAUL BOX truck!!!!

+1...I grew up this way too but it was my Mom, she couldn't throw anything away especially printed material it made growing up tough. When we moved her out of the house I grew up in, two falls and couldn't be on her own anymore, it took my sister and I about two weeks to clear it all out. She passed a few years ago we made peace with it all before she died though, the act of unconditional forgiveness is a wonderful thing.

[craigster59]

What about "mobile hoarders"? I've seen more than a few times people driving a ratty, filthy car just packed to the rim with newspapers, recyclables, fast food bags, crap covering their dashboard, etc.

And they aren't on the way to the recycler either, just tooling around town in their trashcan on wheels. I could only imagine what their house looks like.

[tabs]

GODFREY DANIEL....This Thread has made me decide to.pare down my shoe collection by 300 pairs...I will just have to get rid of 30 pairs of Ferragamos, 25 pairs of Ballys, 245 pairs of Magli, Tods, Testoini, Magnanni Santoni, Church's, Prada, DG, Crocket & Jones, Edward Greens, RL, Florsheim Imperial 5 nail long wings, Hanover Cordovan, John Lobb, Brooks Brothers, Footjoy, Gucci, Mephisto, Edmonds and Balchanga.

[motion]

Originally Posted by tabs

GODFREY DANIEL....This Thread has made me decide to.pare down my shoe collection by 300 pairs...I will just have to get rid of 30 pairs of Ferragamos, 25 pairs of Ballys, 245 pairs of Magli, Tods, Testoini, Magnanni Santoni, Church's, Prada, DG, Crocket & Jones, Edward Greens, RL, Florsheim Imperial 5 nail long wings, Hanover Cordovan, John Lobb, Brooks Brothers, Footjoy, Gucci, Mephisto, Edmonds and Balchanga.

Tabs? Is that you?

[tabs]

Then I suppose I could get rid of a few hundred Ties.....Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Brioni, Stefano Ricci, RL Purple Label, Hermes, Zenga, Gucci, Versace, Leonardo of Paris, Lanvin, Pancaldi, Burberry, Ferragamos and Armani among others.