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Hoarding

I’m pretty ruthless about getting rid of things only to make room for more. :p I enjoy a bit of retro gaming, a few years back my collection of systems, monitors started to grow, so I had a purge not too long ago and dont regret. I stick with one hobby now.

Most of the time I can’t be bothered with eBay, so I usually donate to charity shops. I do sometimes wonder if the nicer items ever make it to the shelves or if the staff snag a bargain. Must give Members Market a go to get rid of some bits.

My dad, on the other hand, has developed a bit of a hoarding habit, not in the house, but in the garden. Garden pots! If it’s not a ceramic pot, he’ll use a substitute like an old paint pot with a twig or something growing in it, which looks ridiculous and drives me nuts.
 
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This is one of those things that can slowly spiral into loads of junk everywhere.

I have a strict rule that I can't acquire another item for something I intend to do without first doing something associated with the other item.

Example: I levelled up our front door to the hallway, removing a small porch. I purchased the timber for the frame and floorboards. I'm not going to buy the whole floor until we have ripped up the old floor and are ready to lay it.

If you buy the timber, floorboards, new floor, new skirting, new architrave in one go - that all needs storing and then it starts to look like a massive job. We now have a levelled front door and hallway with nothing lying around until the next stage of the job is underway.
 
If I haven't used or worn it in six months, it gets sold if it's worth more than £20, if it's not, it gets taken to charity or recycled. Barring a few obvious things like suits and winter jackets, it's made my life so much nicer and easier.

Moving to Australia in the near future too, so will essentially do a further cull to the extent if I haven't used it in three months, then it's gone.
 
I was terrible and spent so much money hoarding but slowly I've weaned myself off stuff.
Here's some highlights:

By 1990 I had over 3000 vinyl albums, all now given away except for about 5 still up the attic.
I used to have 1000s of 'Home Taping is Killing Music' cassette tapes - all gone.
I had an obsession with recording and copying Music Concert films to video, I can't imagine how many I had.
Magazines:
I used to spend £1000s on magazines from the 80s onwards and store every one like Guitarist, What HiFi, What Video, just loads of different stuff.
When I had my three snakes one friend said "How did you choose them, with What Snake?" :)
In the days of ATARI I used to collect and swop every pirated floppy disk, there used to be 'Groups' like Automation and I had to have every one, I never played with them, just collected.
It was then the same with PCs when CD's came out, I once had to have every Groups CD's and again never messed with them.
I had drawers and boxes full of CDs with MP3s on never to be used.
All this stuff ended up down the Incinerator when my wife's protests got louder.
There are a couple of things I still hoard but they don't take any physical space up (well very small space) and one day I will stop because it's pointless.
 
Ninco! said:
I’m pretty ruthless about getting rid of things only to make room for more. :p I enjoy a bit of retro gaming, a few years back my collection of systems, monitors started to grow, so I had a purge not too long ago and dont regret. I stick with one hobby now.

Most of the time I can’t be bothered with eBay, so I usually donate to charity shops. I do sometimes wonder if the nicer items ever make it to the shelves or if the staff snag a bargain. Must give Members Market a go to get rid of some bits.

My dad, on the other hand, has developed a bit of a hoarding habit, not in the house, but in the garden. Garden pots! If it’s not a ceramic pot, he’ll use a substitute like an old paint pot with a twig or something growing in it, which looks ridiculous and drives me nuts.
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I often see notices in charity shops saying they can't accept anymore donations because of there ridiculously high prices, they are not getting stuff sold and there nice items tend to be kept on the back room that either go walkies or there listed on ebay auction.
 
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Having gone through the results of my mums "collecting" when she passed away a couple of years ago (7+ skips of stuff, multiple trips to the charity shops, very little was actually kept by me/my sister apart from keepsakes and photo's), it's not just the impact on the collector/hoarder, it's such a big impact on your children/legacy/family when you aren't here any more, most of your stuff will end up in the skip and it's a pretty painful experience to go through, so if you do have a chance to rethink, it could make things easier later in life/death.
 
The worst case of hoarding I saw was next door but one.
I've put some pictures at the bottom and the back garden was nothing compared to inside the house.
My brother in law was an EON meter reader at the houses where it was hard to get money off them and that house was on his list, he used to turn around because he couldn't get at the meter.
When she was kicked out and the house was being renovated we'd hear noises from around 6am and she'd be standing in skips removing stuff.
She was taking bits of wood and cabinet doors that had been pulled off their hinges - she was strange.
Apparently the house she went to was no different with neighbours moaning about the state of her front lawn.

I took the pictures because the dog in the last picture was left for over a week and the RSPCA weren't bothered :(

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robj20 said:
My wife is terrible she won't bin anything. We still have all the baby stuff (youngest now 5)
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Mate, my youngest is 8 and a half, same boat as you.

She went out of bought suncream, I said, there maybe 25 suncreams under the sink.

So I got them out and counted them, there were 37 bottles of suncream in there....

Ive binned a few now, but at one point we had, hmmmm, about 8 chipping boards, wouldn't let me get rid of any, and the joke of it is, I basically do all the cooking!
 
BUDFORCE said:
Mate, my youngest is 8 and a half, same boat as you.

She went out of bought suncream, I said, there maybe 25 suncreams under the sink.

So I got them out and counted them, there were 37 bottles of suncream in there....

Ive binned a few now, but at one point we had, hmmmm, about 8 chipping boards, wouldn't let me get rid of any, and the joke of it is, I basically do all the cooking!
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I'm glad I'm not alone, I'll have to sneakily just take it slowly to the tip.
 
Trips to IKEA are the worst.

She goes go IKEA and comes back with tons of stuff like that, chopping boards, cheese graters etc

But she won't let me bin the existing one "oh there's nothing wrong with it".

Then why the **** did you buy another one!!!!!!!

And I can't really stealth bin stuff either she's got like an insanely good memory for stuff, even if it's it the back of some cupboard never to have seen daylight for 10 years, you bin it, another few years later she be asking where it is.

It's just not worth the aggro.
 
happy_2008 said:
I still hoard cables and wires in the garage! Have a little giggle when i can finally use one of them :D
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I still have every IDE HDD ribbon cable I have ever had. All rolled up with a bit of tape. They all fit in a carrier bag though, along with all the floppy drive ribbon cables, so not seriously taking up space. One day I will do a retro build, but still have too many.
 
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