Hoarding vs saving

Ashley Cottonwood wrote:I feel like after reading "The life-changing magic of tidying up" I came to realize that I've been holding on to a lot of things with the intention of using them later, but in doing so my space has become so cluttered that I'm often reusing things less often because I can't find them/don't remember they exists, don't have time for repairs or mending, in addition to not taking care of or appreciating the items I do have because of the mindset of "oh I have a back-up".

This usually applies to things like clothes, stationary, sewing/knitting supplies, and kitchen items. The tool domain is mostly that of my husbands, I just have to remember to return items to where I found them. Although a lot of my garden tools/supplies I often find I run into the same problem. Instead of having one pair of pruning shears I take good care of, I have several in different states of disarray.

... but maybe this is a "me" problem.

It's not you, it's me, I'm just like you...

I have a few pruning shears as well, some in the truck, at home, in the garden shed, another that spent the summer out in the yard, oh! and one right next to my desk at work waiting for one last step, before it goes back together and home to the other garden shed...
I have at least a dozen tape measures, I try to keep them handy, and I think since they get used so frequently, they tend to be on top...

I think if finding the thing is the problem, then there's two solutions: a.) one tool, one place for it.  b.) many tools. possibly in the many places they get used (or all one place, like a pencil cup)
If you are on a trip to the moon, you have one tool. If it is an expensive tool, you have one tool. If you are a minimalist, neat-freak, you have one tool because you couldn't use two anyways...and where would you put it?
If you need a tool in many places, or for many things, it can be a time-savings to have a dedicated one for each. A 10-in-one screwdriver in the kitchen drawer is way handier than a trip to the basement to get one, no, the other one, then put it away again.
If you set a tool down the last place you used it, rather than "put it away" then multiple tools can save frustration and time. If you are returning to a task, it's easy to leave the tool at hand, but if someone else is expecting/relying on it being returned.

I just managed to repair a toy wheelbarrow with some pallet wood I salvaged (better than new handles now), and am well on my way to a trifecta (but five, a pentafecta?) of a workbench with drawers... The bottom shelf of a cafeteria steam table with wheels, strengthened with some pallet wood, with four 3 drawer file cabinets side-by-side on it topped with a Formica countertop, all to be joined together with some salvaged plywood. All free. most of it within past 4 months, except the Formica which I've had for? five years? So, that's nice. I don't have a space in the garage to put it!!! (except for a Formica-sized hole) since that is full of other materials and projects... and things that got stuffed there over the years.

I'm in the "expert sooper dooper hoarder edition" of the "tile puzzle", the one with tiles that slide to make a picture... it's usually a 4x4,maybe 5x5, grid with one empty square. I think mine is dialed up to 25 or 30, or it might be the 3-D chess version, with one empty square on each tier...

Kenneth Elwell wrote:

I'm in the "expert sooper dooper hoarder edition" of the "tile puzzle", the one with tiles that slide to make a picture... it's usually a 4x4,maybe 5x5, grid with one empty square. I think mine is dialed up to 25 or 30, or it might be the 3-D chess version, with one empty square on each tier...

I can add another dimension. The people who always think the next job is more important than cleaning up after the last one. This is one big reason that on my farm we need multiple copies of the same tool - someone never puts them away. I've created a couple of storage spots - the back well shed, a kitchen cupboard, and a bucket in the garage where some of the tools are even engraved with my name, so if one of the "someones" swipes a tool from one of those locations and are caught with it abandoned at one of their unfinished project locations, they have only themselves to blame for the consequences.

I have to agree with the logic of multiple,  identical tools (tape measures, multi bit ratchet screw drivers etc.) to live where they are frequently used.

I keep a tape measure, vice grips, socket/adjustable wrench, flashlight/work light and ratcheting screw driver in each vehicle,  the kitchen,  the shop,  and the project "zone", aka the covered deck.  In addition,  I  got several "kits" of battery operated tools by the same company; this means extra batteries,  extra drills and saws (most used items).  These were standard in each kit, along with the "perk" tool; cutoff saw, flashlight,  impact driver...original goal was extra batteries,  but it seems having a drill and saw with spare batteries stashed in multiple locations has been super helpful.

Some may view this as wasteful,  but for me time/steps are more valuable than needing a tool and it being half an acre away.   PLUS, it means spare parts (drivers/sockets) when something, inevitably, breaks or goes missing.

I have never regretted NOT having a tool handy, and countless times rolled my eyes,  knowing I could have saved minutes if not hours for lack of a cleverly placed piece of equipment.  

Vehicle tools:  Just how are you supposed to know if that cool "thing" in the thrift store, dumpster or at the curb will "fit", and how do you take it apart to get it in the vehicle???  Oh, or if you break down,  of course!

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Vehicle tools:  Just how are you supposed to know if that cool "thing" in the thrift store, dumpster or at the curb will "fit", and how do you take it apart to get it in the vehicle???  Oh, or if you break down,  of course!

Two opposable thumbs up!!

Gonna quote myself from much earlier in the thread:

Dan Boone wrote:
If you knew that the $5 or the $10 object would be a trivial expense when it came time to buy another one, the problem is easy.  But how do you know?  Who can see the future?

Today I found this 1965 cartoon from Mad Magazine.  Who can see the future, indeed?

Valerie naiman wrote:Guess I’m a hoarder but I’m also artistic. Broken tools, if I’m not able to repair them, go in a pile outside ready for a sculpture. I have 7 broken shovels in that pile and know I’ll get to the sculpture next summer. Making stuff from “trash” thrills me. During this Covid pandemic I’ve been grateful to have stuff I can make something out of.

I'm the same- I'm not into chaos but I really love the creative aspects of repurposing things.
I remember thinking about how everyone had "Marie Kondo-ed" right before the pandemic and how some of that "junk" would be sparking joy right about then when everyone was stuck home with nothing to do.
I also realize that a lot of insecurity in my early life affects my impulses to make sure all my needs are met by keeping things for future purposes. I have a spouse that is kind of the opposite and keeping a balance between our needs (creativity, inspiration, and security with order, calm, and simplicity) helps keep the negative aspects of both of our proclivities in check.

That said, I probably have an excess of glass jars and bottles.

Mercy Pergande wrote:

That said, I probably have an excess of glass jars and bottles.

Every time I go to make jam, dang it if all my 500ml canning jars are full! Yes, I *know* I've got an excess, right up until when I need them!

Interesting.   For some reason, this year I am able to part with many more things that I could last year. On the flip side, bottles appear to be breeding in my basement.

John F Dean wrote:Interesting.   For some reason, this year I am able to part with many more things that I could last year. On the flip side, bottles appear to be breeding in my basement.

Mine are doing it on the kitchen table. I thinned out the community just before the heat wave (by local standards - it almost got to 30C) by filling them with plum jam. Keeping them full seems to be the trick for population control - maybe it's just that full jars don't seem as easy to define as "clutter".

True, in my universe, full jars are not clutter unless the contents are highly questionable.

Kelly Craig wrote:Ha. I've thought about it, but I am destined to be limited to just bragging about making it to one side of my shop and back in under and hour, for the amazing accomplishment it is.  

Is there a covet emoji???

Kelly Craig wrote:Problem is, I get way distracted from the shiny thing of doing, rather than promoting (you should see the drawers of inventions and designs).

Can we please???

Add to ALL this a scary fact:  There are many ignorant people out there who have no business cleaning and arranging someone else's life. For example, my rent a sister (I guess they call them sisters-in-law) knows ZERO about tools and equipment. Before I met my wife, her sister-in-law hauled many a valuable tool to the dump, to get rid of it, in the course of clearing the house of my wife's father's estate.

Let's use my table saw as an example. I paid fifteen hundred for it about seventeen years ago. Then I added:  (1) a Merlin splitter (to keep the wood from clamping the back of the blade and causing the three horse driven blade to kick the wood back; (2) a kick down outfeed table; another quick disconnect fence for the Unifence, for jigs; (3) an Excalibur over-arm dust collector-guard; (4) a tenon jig; (5) an Incra box joint jig; (6) a Freud dado blade; (7) anti-kick-back hold-downs; ( a large sled; (9) a host of blades; (10) . . . .

Today, all these years later, the saw will still bring the price I paid for it. Significantly more with all the extras that go with it.  However, if that sister-in-law were allowed to stick her ignorant (bordering stupid) nose in my wife's affairs, she'd give the saw away for $150.00, or have it hauled off. Too, she wouldn't even know the box joint and tenon jigs went with it.

Now figure in the 17" Grizzly and the 14" Powermatic bandsaws, the over-arm pin router, the 4' x 6' carving machine, eleven routers, a router table, drum disk sander, spindle sander, flat bed sander, sandblast station, 60 gallon compressor, sanding station, Hegner jig saw, copper plating station, electronics equipment, polishing station, lathe, and on and on.  Used these things could be sold to pay for a vacation of a lifetime, a remodel, or a very nice car or truck.



To help, in event of my demise, I'm putting a loose leaf together with the tools categorized (sanding, carving, drilling, cutting, polishing, etc.).  With the help of a glue stick, photos of things like the Festool hand sanders can been seen, along with an explanation that they run around $600.00 new and, used, can still bring $500.00, if they are in good shape and come with their goofy Systainers (carry boxes), and include the roughly two hundred dollars in hook-and-loop ceramic sanding pads.

The photo of the set of calipers, which doesn't look much different than the $30.00 Harbor Freight calipers, will inform it cost $130.00 and, unlike that HF one, the battery is good for five or more years, so the guy offering $5.00 should be told to go to hell and to leave the sale for trying to con an old lady      .

Then there is that "hunting rifle." Yep, it was only $600.00 in its day, but not seen is, the custom trigger assembly and so on. Then there is the 50,000 hour red dot, making the used price value of the toy, uh, tool, along with the "couple of boxes of ammo," worth a site more than was paid for just the initial gun.

Of course, these things could be very useful to an insurance company too, in event of theft, flood or fire.

I don't have answers, I  only have questions to ask.


1)   How long will I live?     ( sets a end date for when it will be your responsibility and someone else's)

      How long will I live here?     ( do I want to take this with me when I move, or will someone take it?    this also sets a boundary for moving day)


2)    How much space does this take up?       (saying yes to keeping this object, means I am saying no to other things that can fit in that space.     Sometimes  you have to pass up deals because you don't have the storage space to grab that item that is cheap or free.

3)     In $ value how much is this item worth?          ( placing an add on craigslist with X  amount for $   can help determine what it is worth )     I came to the conclusion that storing firewood in my shipping container is a bad use of space as compared to other items I could store which have greater value to me.

4)    Do you have goals?       ( If you do not have goals then you will often do things without placing a value on items in terms of what you want to get out of life.        Yes I can collect for free 2,000 plastic bottles in my shipping container space,  but then what?     Do these bottles need to be converted into something useful?        How much time does it take to convert those bottles to plant containers?         Do I need that many plant containers?      What is the saturation point for 2,000 plant containers that have been recycled?   Perhaps 30?       )        Being able to say, my life's mission is to have a clean orderly home that I do not trip over anything, and I can find what I need within 1 hours time.            If having 2,000 free plastic bottles gets in the way of that, then changes need to be made.         Going back to #1   our funeral day is coming,    "Is this the best way to use the allotted time that I have?"

Early on, wifey kept asking why I needed all the tools I had.  Years in, she likes her new kitchen with lower drawers, instead of shelves. And that we don't have to spend a fortune every time a project or problem comes into our lives.

I think one of the best examples of "not hoarding, but storing" is, paint and sheet rock equipment.  I, several times, pointed out I only need some items every five or ten years, but, when I do, I need them bad and they can be expensive to buy or rent.  

We just painted the shop. We will be painting the house too.  The only thing it cost us to paint the shop was, painter's plastic, tape, caulk, a couple paint roller rolls and paint.  

Having the equipment, storing it for the last twenty years and doing it all ourselves allowed us to save at least twenty-five hundred dollars on JUST ONE job. Probably more, since I put a lot of effort into caulking what didn't get caulked when the shop was built, and everything got back  brushed and rolled.  Anyway, it would cost a two hour round trip, twice and a hundred dollars a day for rental of the pressure washer (a commercial, 12 horse 4,000 PSI one) and, then again, for the airless.

Then there are the little things. Those LED computer monitors have some pretty handy plastic for their screens. Nice thick stuff that can actually be used for router bases, or what have you.  

The other day, my wife wanted to get her little outdoor table fountain going. She lamented the fact she had to dump so many rocks in it to get the pretty rocks on the surface.  I went out to the shop, pulled a 15" x 15" piece of plastic, cut it into a circle, drilled a hole for the fountain hose, a notch on the edge for a power cord, and some drainage holes.  Now, her little fountain is, mostly, hollow, with three supports holding the plastic near the top, where all her petrified wood sits and the whole thing no longer weights twenty-five pounds, but works as she planned.

We're an hour from a real town. Having An entire bay of the shop set aside for storage makes life far more comfortable.  It just makes sense to take advantage of the space because I can.

There is an area dedicated to storing things like plastics, plumbing supplies (gaskets for lawn hoses, new toilet "wax rings," etc.), wood, more wood, then a whole bunch more. There too can there be found  yard sale scores on small pumps, power supplies, and all manner of computer, video and sound cords. There are all sorts of other electronics things, like rectifiers, diodes, resistors gauges and caps. They may be found near things electrical, like single and double duplex boxes and various gauges of house wiring so, when I discover I need four things plugged in, or a new exterior outlet, I can fix the problem without much thought on acquiring what I need to do it.

In the end, I operate my tiny, more city than urban home more like a farm or ranch than a city slicker dwelling.  That is, I have all manner of things stored for anticipated and unanticipated wants and needs.  Whether that is wise or not might be said to depend on if I make myself handy enough to take advantage of what I've stored.

Meanwhile, the shop is eighteen hundred square feet and it's going to be a sad looking thing when all that is in it is gone and it's just a big, empty place to collect real junk.

We recently moved a couple hundred miles to virgin ground.  My wife was always on me about getting rid of my "stuff" that I accumulated over the years.
When we moved it took an extra trip with a 25 foot U-Haul to move that stuff.
While building our new home I used almost all of my "stuff".
Savings was around $7,000 - $10,000.

Ashley Cottonwood wrote:Instead of having one pair of pruning shears I take good care of, I have several in different states of disarray.
... but maybe this is a "me" problem.

Also a 'me' issue

Well I've discovered the solution to sorting out our junk: get another project!

Just bought the cutest little utility truck - a Jiffy, which is a kitcar based on an Austin mini, it's in the barn, but can't stay there, so we have to make room in the workshop for it. The workshop was filled with junk stuff, including a fair amount of wood, which should be in the Byre. The Byre is full of junk stuff.
So in order to complete the chinese puzzle, I spent yesterday riffle-sorting the workshop and organising my garden shed (removing a shelf unit from the workshop), and much of today moving roof tiles (which hopefully will go on our projected house extension in time) from the Byre outside onto a pallet. That meant we could get into the corner of the Byre, which magically, because it had been blocked off by the roof tiles, actually had a fair amount of space. We found some light units and other stuff that had been lost, some roof sealant and other stuff we had forgotten we had. Tomorrow we are hopefully going to sort the wood from the workshop and clear it out to prepare for moving the Jiffy in!

Jordan Holland wrote:I'm currently wondering how many empty milk jugs is too many🤔.

By mid summer, plastic milk jugs I didn't use to pot up annual seedlings before transplanting,
get rounded up and recycled,
... unless they are clean enough to be used for livestock watering,
.

But by fall, all the broken open plastic jugs are rinsed with rainwater and in the recycler, among with almost all the water jugs, before freezing starts.

Late winter, I will begin anew, save a few, rinse them for water jugs / planters, along with the preferred 2 litre cardboard cartons that are better for potting up perennials.

Of course if they are nice glass milk jugs, I consider the $2 deposit a deal, and they get used for storing dry foods in the kitchen !

However I store 20 5 gallon water jugs because of power outages

Nancy Reading wrote:Well I've discovered the solution to sorting out our junk: get another project!
img="Mini Jiffy pick up truck barn find on trailer"

Just bought the cutest little utility truck - a Jiffy, which is a kitcar based on an Austin mini

😂 Isn't that the truth!!!

I absolutely love your Jiffy!!!

My best new project was to switch out a seized scrap car with a free 14-1/2 foot long wooden boat -- delivered by a local scrap guy with trailer on trade for trailering and drop off in exchange for the car

Dennis Barrow wrote:
While building our new home I used almost all of my "stuff".
Savings was around $7,000 - $10,000.

And there we have it: Dennis another hoarder's hero who proves that hoarding can pay 🤣

I struggle a bit with keeping certain items, while others I don't mind throwing out.

I have recently come to the realization that I like to keep hobby equipment that I have lost interest in. Recognizing that, I'm doing some soul searching and deciding what hobbies I still enjoy. If it is just going to collect dust, and I do not enjoy dusting, better to get it out of the house!

I call myself a "recovering" hoarder. Most of my hoard was books. But the same issues apply:

(too much stuff) + (not enough room/organization to fit the stuff in) + (lack of time/ambition to do this/overwhelm) = chaos

Recently, I've manage to "let go" of many things, some of which I'd kept my entire life. I got mad at how much of my life the mess has taken.

I do have a few ideas that have worked though. 1) If you're not sure you want to get rid of something/will use it, try putting it in a box or crate, in the next room, with a lid on it, so you can't see the stuff, but can see the label. Write the date the box should be donated/recycled on the box. If you don't dig the bit out before that? Out if goes. 2) Don't let yourself look at, remember why you got it, the great stash it came from, the interesting dude who sold it to you, whateva the story is. You can keep the story without the stuff, but with the story, at least for me, it's WAY harder to let the stuff go. 3)Do a "space budget" figure out that screws go in that cabinet there. Be generous give yourself a LOT of room. Put screws away. You'll find good ones and bad. Pitch the bad and keep pitching until the entire collection will fit in the designated space. 4) Determine you are going to take back  x by y square feet (or inches or meters or ?) of your space. Look at the stuff and figure the easiest way to do that. Do it. Make the x by y easy to accomplish. This one can snowball. You'll do one, then the other, and then maybe a third...

All of these have worked for me at least somewhat.

I'm a book hoarder. My supplier for Giant Runt pigeons is as well. His hoard was much much worse: his upper floor was starting to give way to the weight, so he had to commit the winter to reducing his hoard. He marked all his books with colored dots designating subject matter. Once he had a subject organized and removed the books he absolutely couldn't part with, he brought them to a local used bookstore. He said if he ever needs that book again, he can look for it at the store, because the books don't sell quickly. He has bought a few back, but the majority are now effectively at a library.
He can quickly identify his books because of the dots which were too hard to remove and small enough that the store owner left all the stickers. They are fixed in place with clear packing tape.

I am a hoarder for sure.  For example, I saved all the heavy springs from my kids old trampoline, they surely could have another use.  I saved poles from an old canopy that no longer had a canopy. One day I used a spring to connect 2 of the poles and I discovered I could bend them into any angle I needed. The joy I got in discovering the springs fit perfectly into the poles and could connect them into any shape gave me a lot of joy imagining their potential. I still don't know exactly how I will use them but something else will catch my eye one day to make the poles + springs all make sense. This is the true joy of hoarding for me, the stored potential.

I find now that I have more time as our nest has emptied, my supply of random stuff is actually getting used at a more rapid pace. But I have to keep it all in my storage area and not in the house. My husband does not hoard, he prefers to buy parts as he needs them it but I am always running to the storage shed to show him we already have something on hand that would do the job.  

There is a phycological aspect to my hoarding, not sure where it comes from. It's more than just being creative, I do have some serious attachments to a few large projects I just cannot part with. They are part of my identity, my dreams for my retirement, part of who I may finally be in the end. But in an odd way, if they were gone tomorrow I know I would get over it in a day or two and simply move on. It's such an odd thing our relationship with things!

Lynne, your described hoards brought to my mind the swing set a friend was going to have me haul off. The pipes just seemed to have too much potential, to become trash. They sat around for a year or so before I decided to make a pivoting table for a carving machine I'd bought.  One section of the pipe let me store it in about 1/3rd the space it normally would have required, when not in use.

Lynne Cim wrote: ...For example, I saved all the heavy springs from my kids old trampoline, they surely could have another use.  .... It's more than just being creative, I do have some serious attachments to a few large projects I just cannot part with. They are part of my identity, my dreams for my retirement, part of who I may finally be in the end. ...!

I also have salvaged trampoline springs! And have saved some big projects that I am starting to tackle now I've recovered from ankle surgery! They are part of my current and new and important future identity -- all the things I want to accomplish with repurposed items!

It certainly is my identity: if I won a million dollars I would still repurpose 😂

Catie George wrote:I am prone to hoarding, so I like to put space limits on things. I lived in a 400sq ft apartment for 3 years, then a 600 sq ft one, and have lots of hobbies, so this is necessary.

For example - my acrylic paints which I looked at today must fit in a shoe box. This keeps it from expanding like my mother's, to fit three large drawers, with most of them being only half good, picked up at garage sales. I am starting water colouring. My watercolouring supplies will have a similar limit.  I dont buy anything that I "might" need some day, either. My shirts must fit in one drawer. My tools must fit in one dresser drawer. My kitchen appliances must fit on this shelf. My seeds must fit in this box.

Once the space limit has been set, I dont begrudge myself filling it to the max, or whatever is in it. But I dont let the category expand beyond the allotted space, that's when i start to get clutter and hoarding. If it wont fit- then i need to reassess what is in it, and what can be gotten rid of. I have one box of old electronics. It's a lot of stuff I will never use. But - it's just one box, and not expanding, so I figure that's ok.

I like to say that stuff expands to fill the space allotted to it.

(Just like work expands to fill the time allotted to it).

This is a relevant post  for me to see bumped for me right now, as it echoes a conversation i am having in my head, and i'm intetested to see what i thought 4 years ago!

I have a lot of space right now! A ludicrus amount, in fact - a 1200 sq ft house, plus a full basement, and a garage, and a shed, after years in 1/4 that space, or less. I aim to never fill this space.

And my dad died, so i am clearing out his house.

He was a man who was a big believer in purchasing things "just in case", at yard sales, etc, and never threw out anything.

I spent today tossing bags of garbage - cut off bits of pipe and spare plumbing bits, random bits of ROMEX, assorted rusty screws and bolts, plastic parts for things long gone, mouse chewed tarps, and just.... grime. All tossed together willy nilly, so if you actually NEEEDED one of these things, you'd never find it.  I've so far found 4 rolls of teflon tape.

My sisters want none of it. And here i am, forcing myself to throw away things i MIGHT need, useful things,  because i can't handle the organization of it all, and where would i put it anyways?

I struggle, seeing this cautionary tale of hoarding first hand, but also knowing that I have similar tendencies, as i rescue a hose splitter i don't NEED right now, but which maybe might be useful, sometime... Especially as, like him, i live a 20 min drive from a hardware store, in a house that often needs fixing, and am too cheap to hire in help.

And yet - i replaced his shower head, with the nicest of the 6 spares i found, and one of the 4 rolls of teflon tape. Fixed his fence,  with a box of 2" screws, filled in a hole, with some hardware cloth...  Oh! Found the putty knife, i'll need that for the hole in the door... Fixed a hasp with a couple random screws...

I think agree with Catie of 4 years ago - having things is good, but the space they occupy needs to be limited, and things need to be organized so you can find them, and be reasonable about multiples of things. I somewhat disagree with myself, in that i now do buy things in advance of needing them- like screws and nails, and other little parts i'd hate to drive to the hardware store to get.  Probably, no one needs 6 used shower heads! But i'm not going to regret the brand new one i picked up at a garage sale, sitting in my own cupboard, waiting for my own shower head to finish failing...

And i think next on my list of priorities needs to be improving my storage and organization system, to organize like things together, and avoid the situation where i no longer know what i own. And try to get better, and throwing out things I know i will never need, so they don't obscure the things that might truly be useful.

I am much further from point of sale including hardware and gasoline, so I would keep those 6 shower heads, together, with the plumbing supplies, and plan on using them for an automated watering system for seedling/greenhouse irrigation. Since I wouldn't be smart enough to do them in series, I would get a manifold, or a biway and two triway then hoses off each one, and figure out what kind of adapters I need.

I guess I get joy from repurposing and saving things from the potential land fill <snort>

I have read and listened to a bunch of books because my organization issue is a problem with different portions of my brain communicating well with each other

But I have been working my solution: forget where this item you want to keep/put away ought to go: where would you look for it? That's your system whether you like it or not, so for now, put it in the location you would look for it. Not enough room? What can you sacrifice in order to keep how many? Or get creative and put shelving over head of doorways and ziplock items exposed to dust.

I am still hoarding books, and have a smashing board to install above the bathroom door, all the way to the shower, about 5 feet. It was salvaged of course. Zip lock bags and my bathroom library just became enormous! I have to get a stud finder... Lol or find a stud .. no not really: I'm old now

... but I have been making great headway with stuff, some of which came with the house 20 years ago so similar situation as the late hoarding father -- I totally get him

... being there are frequent power outages here, in the Gatineau mountains, two Rubbermaid containers full of recovered wax and heat damaged new wax bought dirt cheap, ready for the next time the campfire has coals that are perfect for candle making, and my metal cans, wicks, and hanging places are ready to go, 2 bins is not too much wax really. I just have to make sure they get made this summer. They make great gifts.

PS at one point, I had four Honda Civic Wagons

Ra, if it makes you feel better, anything i think IS useful, just not to me, is being sent to the section of the local dump for people to grab free useful things - the showerheads, the better plumbing bits, random junction boxes, and all! Or specific homes, if I know people who'll use them.

Plus collecting all the random rusted metal bits and bobs and offcuts for scrap metal recycling.

It takes admittedly more time to sort thoughtfully, but i also find sending "good" things to the landfill challenging.

Rented a mini-excavator last weekend to get a bunch of projects started.  (Better on the back than a pick and shovel!  Plus only took 2 days versus a year or so.  Being in my 70's a pick and shovel are considered real work!!)

While moving some dirt next to my pile of scrap wood left over from building my home 5 years ago, I thought about using the mini to get it on my pickup and moving it to the burn pile, (couple hundred feet away).  But promptly forgot about doing it.

Yesterday I was searching through the pile for couple pieces of boards I needed for a small project.  Then I remembered my thoughts of using the mini to move it.

Yup, the pile is gonna stay until it either is gone or rots.   ;-)

Lorinne Anderson wrote:I think you "hit the nail on the head" if it is organized, it is not hoarded; unorganized and/or compromising health or relationships = hoarding.

I have a friend who has been described as an organized hoarder. But you're right, he's probably a saver. Me, I'm way too disorganized, but I don't keep as much as my friend does. Maybe there's a spectrum?

Hoarding is a pejorative term. Judgy. You have issues says the other.

Are you willing to share? If a neighbor needs 1/3 of your rescued stash can you part with it?

Saving stuff that you can maybe use in the future and you are able to move off the path in your house that seems ok to me. Otherwise find a another home for the stuff keep it out of the landfill. If it's useful to someone else don't keep it share.

Catie George wrote:Ra, if it makes you feel better, anything i think IS useful, just not to me, is being sent to the section of the local dump for people to grab free useful things - the showerheads, the better plumbing bits, random junction boxes, and all! Or specific homes, if I know people who'll use them.

Plus collecting all the random rusted metal bits and bobs and offcuts for scrap metal recycling.

It takes admittedly more time to sort thoughtfully, but i also find sending "good" things to the landfill challenging.

It does! I miss the old days of self serve dumps around here in Quebec. Some really remote rural areas in Ontario still have them though. They are a hoarder's paradise

I know a man in a rural Utah town who has dedicated his garage to storing useful things for the town: windows, doors, nails, etc. I understand that people bring him stuff they no longer need, and he lets townsfolk come and browse through what he has. He also buys up books and keeps a lending library in his house. I really like this communal approach to hoarding (or saving).