packrat/hoarder or tosser | pad patter 11.3.20

I think this explains it all...LOL!

 

I inherited the packrat tendencies from my parents. Mostly my mom but I realized Dad did too when I found some things I never knew were in the basement.

I live in the house they built 55 years ago. The basement is the same square footage as the house (it is a ranch style). No room upstairs... fine, just put it in the basement. When Dad sectioned it off in the late 80's there was one room that I always called the "junk room". It had shelves to store things on and over the years more and more got stuffed into that room. It eventually spilled out into the "family room" that was never used to watch TV anymore. I knew that I needed to clean out the house so that whoever is in charge of it after I pass away doesn't have to do it since I have no children nor a spouse to handle things. Can't ask cousins to do it. I needed to do the hard work and make the decisions myself.

Add in a remodel in 2017 of the kitchen/dining room and boy did I have a lot to do. I did the living area first, donating many items, selling stuff at garage sales and if it was to be junked, adding to the junk it in the basement to be gotten rid of later. In 2018, I needed to empty the basement as I was going to have the rooms taken out and paneling taken down since I suspected there might be black mold. Before it could be torn apart, it needed to be emptied out. Took me about 9 months to get it done. Had to get a dumpster for all that was going to be thrown away. Once that was done I organized the stuff I was keeping and stored neatly. January 2019, the basement was gutted (no black mold!!!). So now I have a wide open basement with very little junk. I can actually find things now.

I have now become tosser. If I'm not going to use it, it doesn't even come into the house. Paper gets digitized then recycled or shredded. These days most mail doesn't even make it into the house since it is mostly junk.

I documented the process with photos and have done some of the layouts. I started documenting in 2015 and what I consider the "end" was late 2018. A lot of hard work and decisions went into it but am I ever relieved that I did it.

 

I still hoard papers for card making ,and envelopes....I love paints and markers,and find it difficult to toss any crafting materials, but I do do it..last time (about a year ago) I gave a really big bag of good craft stuff away,and tossed ...gasp....a large bag to... my hubby loves tools,and never parts with any. But for the rest we try to toss or give to charity what we don't use. We moved house some years back,and that was a big lesson learned,on how little of the stored stuff we keep ever see daylight again,after we close the box. So out it goes.

 

I used to save a lot of stuff, and I still have a lot of things, especially books and clothes, from decades ago. But the books are down in the basement and the clothes are in the back of my closet, out of sight out of mind. Now I don't buy books, have a minimal wardrobe, don't collect anything, and am getting better and better all the time at digitizing my paperwork. So I guess I'm a reformed packrat, becoming a tosser.

 

I'm becoming more and more a tosser. When we cleaned out my parents' house, we couldn't believe what we found. They had lived in the same house forever and they were definitely hoarders, although they hid it well. The funniest thing we found was my sister's cast from when she broke her arm as a very young child. Ewwwwwww.

After that, I went home and decided that I wasn't going to leave that kind of stuff for somebody to go through after I was gone. I honestly have no problems tossing stuff now. If it's worth keeping, I take a picture of is and at least, we have a digital record of it.

One of my mantras is "if I haven't used it, etc. for a year, I probably don't need it".

 

I am such a packrat! I start "cleaning" up and realize that I did throw away almost nothing.

 

A never married lady that had lived in the same house in my neighborhood as long as I can remember passed away when she was in her mid-80's. No children. I believe an only child herself. I saw a dumpster in that driveway 3 times in the couple of months after she died. I later found out that it was a cousin that cleaned out her house. I said then that I could not do that to my cousins... thus began the cleanout!

 

Yep, I’m the same.....I have got better by not bringing unnecessary things home but I’m deep down still a hoarder/packrat.

 

I swear I am trying... of course the things I do get rid of I need to go re-buy a couple months later. I haven't used them for years but suddenly I need it for something. I kid you not!

 

This happens to me all. the. time.

I'm a packrat ... my father is on the edge of being a hoarder. My sisters and I are going to fill multiple dumpsters with his crap when he passes ... he'll be 92 in December and definitely is a "depression kid" as I like to say ... save, save, save ... even when it's stuff you'll never ever need. He recently moved and was somewhat horrified by how much stuff he has, but he was still reluctantly to part with much of it ... even allowing me to take and recycle yellowed "freebie" Christmas card he'd rec'd from various organizations and leftover pre-addressed RSVP envelopes from my sister's wedding (25 years ago) was agony. Actually he only let the envelopes go when I pointed out that they were pre-addressed to his OLD address and therefore completely useless ...

As to me, I have been ever so slowly clearing stuff out, but I have my stuff, some of my kids' stuff, and my live-in grandkids's stuff. I like to "churn" my storage bins on a regular basis ... each time I find stuff that I'm willing to part with.

My basement leaks when it rains hard, so it has become a giant storage area with most everything in storage bins up on shelves. My paper scrap crap is out of control and I really need to donate or toss 90% of it since I'm digital now. And then there's my attic ...

My house is small (912 sq. feet on the main floor), but between the basement (912 s.f.) and the attic I have TONS of storage space ... which isn't always a good thing.

 

I am afraid that will be me. ahhhh!