How much CRAP do you have?

[prolesunited]

I keep a fairly tidy house, but will admit to packrat ways in certain areas of my house, like the basement, garage and closet.

I'm in the process of cleaning it all up and I'm nearly overwhelmed by the challenge. I've only been living in my house for seven years and divested myself of a ton of junk when I moved, but I've found it's all back.

I'm doing pretty good so far. I took like nine garbage bags of stuff to Goodwill and threw out even more. Some things make sense that I kept, like some of my mom's old clothes. I really couldn't part with them, though they were too big for me and I didn't wear them. But, it's been nearly six years since her death, so I was finally able to let go.

Then, there are things like my first computer. I used to be quite poor and getting it represented a lot of hard work and sacrifice and it allowed me to further my career. So, I'm attached to that.

Then, there are the inexplicable things. Computer magazines from 1995?!? Shoeboxes full of receipts?!?! Broken things that I've since replaced and never fixed?!?!?

It's all been quite cathartic and very revealing doing this. This time around I'm even labeling the boxes I have left and grouping like items. Sounds simple, but that's quite revolutionary for me.

So what's your style? How much do you keep? Is it hard for you to let go? How do you keep the clutter down?

[City of Mills]

1. Try living in a smaller place

It's easy to keep up with your stuff when you only have 4 rooms to fill up!

Well, it works for me...because it has to...

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Used to have a TON of crap

...we just went through a major remodel/addition building. I had a dumpster in the driveway for three weeks. In addition to collecting construction debris, it collected various articles that I discovered I no longer had use for. It was quite liberating. Now, I am definitely of the less is more minded.

[prolesunited]

4. Actually, we just tore down the back porch this month

and whatever room was left, I filled up with junk. Anything that is good or usable, I do hall over for charity.

I'm really going to try and be good, but we're combining two households. We both have tossed a ton, though, so I think it should work out, or at least be more organized now.

[Midlodemocrat]

12. I also subscribe to

...some of the flylady.net ideas. She made a very interesting statement which has worked well for me. If you have something in your home that doesn't bring you pleasure, or a nice memory or the like, get rid of it. We all make purchasing mistakes and we shouldn't be held accountable forever. Very cathartic.

[nickgutierrez]

3. I've arrived at the conclusion that I generate crap.

When I came to Chicago a few months ago, it was with a single suitcase and a carry-on bag. Now, my room is a mess. I can never figure out where it comes from.

[prolesunited]

6. LOL!

It multiplies itself when you leave your room. :D

Will you be going home for Christmas?

[nickgutierrez]

8. Yeah, I will be.

My parents would kill me if I didn't. :)

[sui generis]

5. I've gotten a lot better -

Every year I go through my clothes and ruthlessly toss anything I haven't worn more than once in the past year.

I do the same thing with paperbacks now -- and some hardbacks that I wouldn't share with someone I didn't like -- out the door to charity.

I try to keep balance when I shop - if I "get" a new knicknack, I make myself promise to get rid of an old one. My test is, if I wanted to pull up roots and move someplace new, how much of this crap would really matter to me? How much would it impede finding new experiences? How many of these are "real" life event touchstones and how many are just lazy-mind touchpoints.

[LisaLynne]

7. I've been trying my best to keep the clutter down...

I think it can be draining to have a lot of stuff around. If I lived by myself, I would have a TV, a Gamecube, my laptop, and a chair. That's it. Oh, and a bowl for the cat food. :)

[sandnsea]

9. Not anymore

I used to accumulate crap. But after throwing it out numerous times over the years, I stopped accumulating it. I can't be part of the landfill society anymore. Well, for the most part. Of course, there's those damned broken phones. Why the hell do I keep those stupid cordless phones that don't work anymore?

[prolesunited]

14. Haha!

I have one of those too! I'm tossing it. :D

[derby378]

10. What IS crap, anyway?

My "crap" is philosophical journals an' such...it does tend to multiply.

[prolesunited]

15. I don't define that as crap at all

That to me is equivalent to my boxes of photographs. I would keep that forever.

[Ima]

11. How I do it/ not recommended

I fill the place with stuff, till I can't stand it.


Then out of the blue, I get rid of most of it. I donate a lot to a Senior Citizens store (they love me!) Now the place is closed for some reason. Hope open soon.


Then I turn around and the place is full of stuff again.

I get pleasure out of getting rid of stuff, as I never have to deal with it again. S/O want to keep everything, so I have to sneak to get rid of stuff.

It's time for me to weed stuff out again.

[demnan]

13. Too much!

And I just moved this year so you know I went through de-CRAPification this past summer.

I swear it breeds in the closet. . .

[Kali]

16. OH MY GOD

In addition to being sentimental and vaguely frugal I live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere and thus we are the repository for all manner of off ranch family "giving": "maybe they can use this (broken________) on the ranch" Yea sure, just throw it in the truck I will keep it until the packrats (the real ones) chew it up and then eventually we will either burn it, take it to the rusty metal graveyard (mandatory rural-living side area of your property) or maybe even haul it off to the county dump.

Then there is all of Mom's stuff I have to keep, and Grandma's and Grandpa's. And all my travel keepsakes. And all the wonderful crap the children have made at school. And then there is the cool rusty pieces of junk hiking visitors always "find" and haul back to the house from the rusty metal graveyard (see above) but NEVER TAKE HOME WITH THEM.

Then we have the dead animal parts the dogs drag home and add to that the various not running right now vehicles, waaaahhhhh I need a tornado or hurricane. Hey Florida, I'll trade you a 20 year drought for a land clearing huricane? (just one though)

[Rjnerd]

17. Packrat is genetic

All the males in my family have it. To make things "worse" I share my small (750 sq ft) house with a fellow book lover, with a mail compulsion. We ran out of wall long ago. There are piles of books on any vaguely flat surface. (The library has something that only looks like a couch, its really a padded shelf...) The only two clear surfaces in the house are the bed and the living room couch.

The basement is my space, home to my shop. No simple workbench with a pegboard, I am a metal worker, that likes large things. The lathe is 3' wide, and 5' long (weighs 3/4 ton) there is a small milling machine (under 1000 lb), two drill presses, and a cutoff bandsaw. Two welders, plus tanks for the torch. 3 workbenches, a grinder, compressor, and a polishing rig. Lots of shelves full of tooling, and like all metal workers, a large stash of bits of metal, motors, and other "stuff"... (oh yea, the basement loses space to two oil tanks, two hulking furnaces, and about 1/3 to the under-house garage space)

[Lady Effingbroke]

18. I live in a very tiny "place" (trailer), so I believe completely that the

less you own, the better off you are. Even the extremely limited space I have tends to get cluttered and disorganized, and I like to do a deep cleaning/decrapification a couple times a year. I show my posessions little mercy - when I get in one of my cleaning moods, not even the kitchen sink is safe!

[AlCzervik]

19. On the surface my house appears very neat and well organzied

just dont open any draws or for God's sake don't get near the closets! We are moving in about 6 months and i know i need to start the gving away and cleaning now but it's seems a tad overwhelming. I'm going to try one room a week and see how that goes.

[Lady Effingbroke]

20. Yes, just break the "cleaning project" down into manageable increments -

focus on one room or closet at a time. Otherwise it will seem too overwhelming and you won't know where to begin!

[Kali]

27. yeah yeay yeah

except that you have to put some of that stuff from the room you are working on into one of those other rooms.....its just too overwhelming anyway. Besides how can I even dust the livingroom when I don't have quite the right wall covering in the bathroom? (mental block that causes the start of some other irrelevant project instead of the one at hand)

[Lady Effingbroke]

32. That's understandable! I bet your house isn't THIS bad...

http://www.randomthink.net/misc/ebay/

[Kali]

39. your link

gives an error and goes to a blog - not sure how to search - seems the guy just moved/changed servers today

[prolesunited]

23. That's how mine is

I've been getting better, but I think it is a process. For me, a lot of it is psychological. My living space often reflects my state of mind.

Also, previous poverty, and fear of going back to that place, and an inability sometimes to let go of the past and move on, play into it as well. <-- Obviously spending too much time in the basement in deep thought.

A room a week sounds reasonable. If you don't start now, the move is going to be horrendous.

[AlCzervik]

24. yup, I'm going to start on the master bedroom tomorrow

actually the closet first which will take an entire day to really do it right after that the bedroom will be a snap. this will be the forth time we are relocating so you'd think I'd have learned by now not to bring anything into the house unless i get rid of an item first.

[Catchawave]

21. What a useful topic.....

...thanks so much for starting it and those who contributed the best de-crappinazation advice ever! I'm one of those with a jammed clothes closet and NOTHING TO WEAR! I'm inspired now :D

[GoddessOfGuinness]

22. My house is a feng shui nightmare

Sometimes we have to soccer-dribble clutter to clear walk through the rooms.

[Rjnerd]

26. If you can kick stuff out of the way...

Its still not bad. Bad is when you have to hop between clear spots to get anywhere. No, we aren't at that point, but I have met people that are.

[XNASA]

25. We are de-crapping.

Getting ready to redo the basement, so we pulled everything out of the crawlspace and went through it.

Tossed about 20 boxes of stuff in the trash last week. We just started pulling up the carpet.

But we're getting much better about it.

[SmileyBoy]

42. Pulling up the carpet??

Even you're getting rid of your carpet??

[gollygee]

28. I'm working on getting rid of stuff too

I joined freecycle and periodically give a bunch of stuff away there.

I have resolved to change my packrat ways! I decided that the space in my house has a value. Keeping something just because I might need it someday isn't a good enough reason.

[jonnyblitz]

29. I am buried in books and magazines.

I just DON'T like getting rid of books and there is alway one article in each magazine that I have yet to read so I NEVER through those out thinking I will eventually read EVERY article in each one. :crazy: :shrug:

[Ima]

34. Books don't count!

I have six bookcases full. And a few boxes.


Whoops, I forgot....seven bookcases.

[prolesunited]

37. I agree there

Not crap. I have books and magazines in every room in the house and Jason is bringing in even more.

[terrya]

30. I found out exactly how much crap I had when I moved in September.

I moved to another apartment in the same building...to a one bedroom.

The amount of crap I had then was astounding.

And the sad part is: I'm accumulating more.

[cmf]

31. We have boxes of random stuff hanging around.

I'm not much of a packrat, except for books and photographs. My husband, on the other hand, has boxes of random stuff (papers, baubles, etc.) that has been hanging around our house for the 4 years we have been married. He's slowly sorting through it, though. :-)

[GOPisEvil]

33. A lot less than I used to.

I got rid of TONS of crap when I moved into this house. Periodically, I go through the house and toss stuff. When it hasn't been used, it's time to go.

[Liberaltarian]

35. I'm in the process of liquidating it all thru Ebay...

cash for trash.

[miss_kitty]

36. I've lived in the same apartment for 20 years

It is tiny. I quit buying stuff in the early 90s, but I still have too much crap.

Way. too. much. crap.

Getting rid of some of it soon-tomorrow I hope :)

[prolesunited]

38. What happens tomorrow?

:shrug:

[miss_kitty]

40. my neighbour is moving

and he's running a load of crap somewhere. I'm asking him to take mine too. :)

[SmileyBoy]

41. I don't have too much unnecessary things.

Probably more art supplies than I need, though.

[BiggJawn]

43. Send me your old bicycle junk...

Blue-Jay, too. I only have 2 rooms full. Not nearly enough...:evilgrin:

It's not TOO bad. I can still see the floor in most places and get to all the plants to water them without having to lean over TOO far...

[prolesunited]

44. Yeah, you wish!

:D

We both have two and he's already talking about getting another racing bike. I guess I'll have to find a recumbent or perhaps a dirt bike, since that's his other one.

Lucky we have a garage and a basement. My racing bike is on my trainer, not that I won't get out if it's above freezing and not raining. He cleaned out one side for his car and the rest is a mess we'll work on later.

Hey, looks like I have a training partner for spring, that is if he can keep up with me. :P

[Rjnerd]

46. Bikes as a storage problem

This is my back porch.



The recumbent tandem (3 wheeled while we are at it) hangs from the ceiling. I have three single's (two wheeled) that are currently rideable, one more than half done, one "mock up" (to try out a front wheel drive system, but not acutally rideable), Sue has her recumbent single, and in the way back, is the lone, mostly "curb depot" sourced upright that exists to teach "max braking" when I give bike safety classes.


Oh yea: If you worry about dropping a partner, the traditional solution is a tandem.

[BiggJawn]

48. Wow. looks like my living room!

Except all mine are wedgies. The homemade 'bent project is in the "spare" bedroom with the TT bike on the trainer and the project-du-jour on the bench (A Norco)

[BiggJawn]

49. He'll keep up...Or blow a gasket trying...

OR...He'll take you out in the woods and leave you in the dust...:-)

I have my Panasonic clamped into the trainer. It needs to be above 60 before I'll go outside. Need to get those leg warmers.....

Maybe a tandem?

Wish I knew somebody who loved her bike more than her lawnmower....:7

[pmbryant]

45. Too much

Too much. Depressing to even contemplate how much work it will be to go through it all.

[blue neen]

47. Oh, my nerves.

I can't even THINK about decluttering until after the holidays! It will be a full-time, all of January job. Maybe that should be our New Year's resolution, prolesunited...NO MORE CRAP! :)