# How long do you keep "stuff"



## JP1234 (30 Jun 2011)

I am very much of the opinion that once something is no longer needed, get rid of it.

My husband on the other hand is turning into Mr Trebus from A Life Of Grime.

I understand keeping bills, bank statements, tax, wage slips etc for a certain length of time but while I was trying to dig out my son's passport from the masses of boxes and drawers full of things in the garage I managed to topple some boxes. With everything all over the place I started looking through. he has bills from when he was a student ( over 20 years ago) he even has stuff from when he lived at home - 25 years ago, wage slips going back almost as long, bank statements from long closed accounts. 

If something breaks, it rarely gets thrown away (just in case..of what?) At one point we had something like 4 old broken TV sets, there's a dismantled wardrobe and  2 beds that would be unusable in there as well. I have lost count of how many toasters/kettles/radios etc that I have had to sneakily chuck in the bin.

How long do you think is reasonable to hold onto stuff like this..anyone else a hoarder?


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## Mpsox (30 Jun 2011)

depends, I have football programmes going back to the 70s that will never be thrown out and my wife cannot understand why. Then again, she probably has receipts going back to the 90s that will never be thrown out and I can't understand why


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## Vanilla (30 Jun 2011)

Are we married to the same man?

My husband would keep everything he ever came in contact with his whole life if he could.

I cannot bear clutter.


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## micmclo (30 Jun 2011)

Toss it, I hate clutter.

My mother though, she has clothes going back to the 70's up in the attic.
Hundreds of Readers Digest, incredibly right wing and pro Thatcher if you read the monthly booklets from the 80's and more.
It's a fire hazard the amount of paper up and clothes that are up in the attic

State of those platform shoes, people actually considered these fashionable???
The 1970's, the decade that fashion forget

One of these days, I'm going to clear out, take binbags down the farm and start a bonfire

But not until the hay and straw are finished with


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## JP1234 (30 Jun 2011)

Vanilla said:


> Are we married to the same man?
> 
> My husband would keep everything he ever came in contact with his whole life if he could.
> 
> I cannot bear clutter.




I think we are! What with this and the whole gadget/tv/dvd/bluray/xbox/playstation set up business


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## shopgirl (30 Jun 2011)

I often have to go into houses of older people & sometimes there isn't room to move, in one house the wasn't enough clear space on the floor for my feet. I had to stand on tippy toes (before you ask I have small feet!) If someone keeps gathering useless clutter they are just creating a problem for the person who has to deal with their possessions when they leave this world! If something is of sentimental value - programmes etc then get a nice storage box for them but get rid of the rest. The plus side for me when I visit a very cluttered house is that I always come home & decide to chuck something else I can live without


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## Betsy Og (30 Jun 2011)

JP1234 said:


> I think we are! What with this and the whole gadget/tv/dvd/bluray/xbox/playstation set up business


 
Is your joint husband a pilot, and are one of you really named Deirdre??


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## Vanilla (30 Jun 2011)

Betsy Og said:


> Is your joint husband a pilot, and are one of you really named Deirdre??


 

I'm guessing this is some kind of cultural reference here but haven't a clue what!

JP1234- my husband keeps every kind of electrical/electronic equip too, broken or not and I always want to throw them out but every now and then he is able to use a piece of equipment for something which he thinks justifies keeping everything...


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## Marion (30 Jun 2011)

"Keep a thing, its use will come" - I heard this all my years growing up. It was one of my mother's favourite saying.

But, I don't subscribe to it. I firmly believe at this stage that one will hoard in direct correlation to the amount of space available. 

I try to be ruthless. But it is difficult at times. 

I always seem to have thrown out/recycled the one item that I currently need! 

Sigh!

Marion

Ps: I never realised, until doing a search now,  that it is a quote from Alfred Lloyd Tennyson's " The Epic".


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## Betsy Og (30 Jun 2011)

Vanilla said:


> I'm guessing this is some kind of cultural reference here but haven't a clue what!


 
Surely you've heard of Deir-dre from Coronation Street, she of huge glasses, bulging neck veins and unlikely 'siren like' qualities (thats siren in the nautical sense)


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## horusd (1 Jul 2011)

I'm a bit of a hoarder. I did a kitchen press clear-out a few weeks ago (eventually) and the amount of out of date bottles of this and that, was scary. Bottled stuff takes yrs to go "off" for god's sake! Part of my kitchen press was a culinary museum. 

Tho I do like to keep some old books, and certain mags (and the answer is "No", before ye ask).  I kept a copy of the Economist from September 2001 headline " The Day the World Changed" with a picture of the twin towers burning over New York.


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## Vanilla (1 Jul 2011)

Betsy Og said:


> Surely you've heard of Deir-dre from Coronation Street, she of huge glasses, bulging neck veins and unlikely 'siren like' qualities (thats siren in the nautical sense)


 
Haven't seen Corrie street since it went off RTE onto TV3...I remember her though- she's still on it? Wow.


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## Bubbly Scot (1 Jul 2011)

This morning I asked myself the same question as I cleared out my wardrobe for the second time in as many months. I was more ruthless today and now have a boot full of clothes and shoes for the recycling collection point  I still don't seem to have enough room for yesterdays ironing tho!

We have two rooms in our house full of stuff we're hanging on to. I've gone through one (the one that will eventually become the only ORGANISED!) storage room in the house as we don't have an attic. Next week I tackle the other, we plan to put our gym equipment in there...how long til that disappears under a pile of junk I ask myself!

We were terrible hoarders but we're getting better now. We've vowed we will never have another cat, so why does hubby feel the need to hang onto the scratch post?

Someone said to me if you haven't used it in a year, you don't need it. I'm trying to follow that but it's hard.


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## JP1234 (1 Jul 2011)

Bubbly Scot said:


> Someone said to me if you haven't used it in a year, you don't need it. I'm trying to follow that but it's hard.



I would agree with that!

I think my OH gets it from his mother, her house is crammed full of useless things. In her kitchen every cupboard and surface is overflowing with pans, kettles, gadgets.  Rather than clear out she had more cupboards put in which quickly filled up. We have started throwing something away each time we visit, last time it was a broken kettle and a burnt pan with no handle..


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## beffers (1 Jul 2011)

Great topic. Was discussing this very same thing with my sister in law earlier today, and her plans to clear out her house of over 30 years worth of stuff. 

I am a hoarder by nature. I tend to keep things forever, not for their practical use, but for sentimental reasons. I moved recently. Prior to doing so, I had an iron fast rule that I did not deviate from, when it came to everything that I owned... be it clothes, old family momentoes, books, etc When going thru all my stuff, my rule was that if I had not worn it, used it, hung it a wall, watched it, picked it up and looked at it with affection, read it etc in the last 6 months, it got tossed out. The only exceptions to the rule were seasonal stuff such as winter & summer clothes, shoes & accessories, Christmas decorations, summer picnic stuff & beach and out door garden & BBQ things. With those, I applied the rule was that if wasn't used or worn during the _previous_ summer/winter/Christmas, then they got tossed out. I didn't let myself use the reasoning that it might come in handy for a future summer BBQ or Christmas. It it hadn't been used the previous summer/winter, then out it went. 

Fast forward 4 months, and there is not one thing that I can think of that I miss, or regret tossing out. In my case, I have found that I form a big attachment to things when I have them, but once they are gone and out of sight and out of mind, I don't really miss them.


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## horusd (2 Jul 2011)

JP1234 said:


> ... a burnt pan with *no handle..[/*QUOTE]
> 
> This reminded me of a knife my mother refused to throw out. It was bent every which way, and had lost it's handle, but it peeled potatoes in a jiffy. No dinner could be made if the "bandy" knife went walkies, and I fondly remember the shouts from the kitchen; " has anyone seen the bandy knife?"


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## JP1234 (2 Jul 2011)

horusd said:


> and I fondly remember the shouts from the kitchen; " has anyone seen the bandy knife?"



But at least she was making use of it!  About 6 years ago we bought my MiL a Prestige pressure cooker set after she kept talking about needing one. Never saw it again until this Easter when I found it under a pile of stuff in one of her spare bedrooms, still boxed, never used....


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## Complainer (2 Jul 2011)

JP1234 said:


> How long do you think is reasonable to hold onto stuff like this



The more relevant question is 'how long do you think is reasonable to hold onto a husband like this?'.


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## Vanilla (2 Jul 2011)

complainer said:


> the more relevant question is 'how long do you think is reasonable to hold onto a husband like this?'.


 
lol.


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## SoylentGreen (3 Jul 2011)

I came across some old school drawings from my children from when they were circa 6 or 7 years old. I resurrected them and showed them to my son, the owner of some of them and his daughter who is now 7. We had great fun placing them side by side and commenting on them.
I find that most of the things that I keep are belonging to my children rather than myself.


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## Marion (3 Jul 2011)

That reminds me. My niece, 30, recently sent me an essay that she had written in pencil at school when she was 7,  "My favourite person". Seemingly she loved me because I used to bring her shopping and take her for trips in my car when she came on holiday. She knew that I loved her because I thought she was nice. Aw! 

Ma


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## bullbars (3 Jul 2011)

I confess. I am a serial hoarder. If something breaks, its taken apart and anything that _might_ be useful is kept. Can't think of how many washing machine/lawn mower motors and parts etc I've stored over the years. Off cuts of steel/pipes or timber are always kept because they maybe useful for (insert completely ridiculous situation here).

Magazines and newspapers are kept even though I could just cut out the article I wanted.


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## Betsy Og (4 Jul 2011)

they're a saying/point of view that "you never see an empty shelf", so the more storage solutions you acquire the more junk you hold onto. My pet hate is using unlabeled boxes where stuff dissappears, particularly where every box is a random jumble. At the least I try to put stuff of a type in a box, so you end up with a box of CD's, a box of books etc., so you know where to find things a bit easier/quicker.

I tend to be generally lazy and occasionally ruthless whereby my "home office" accumulates junk for 6 months at a time, then I clear it and thin it out to pristine condition, and the cycle starts again. Everything is relative, my folks house could do with a "desparate houses" type declutter where they put a marquee up and really sort it out. As it is rooms get tidied in series where the junk generally gets shunted around but never diminshes much (like those games where there's one free square and you have to move the others to move anything).


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