Warehousing, even in a small flat

Us hoarders just love it when we can "save" somebody by providing some otherwise unobtainable bit.

and the box of string carefully labelled "String - too short to be any use."

I thought I was being a lot better in the past few years by throwing out anything I hadn't used for 5 years and furthermore not keeping things in the first place to clutter up the house.

Over the new year period I helped friends move house. The bulk of the physical moving from one house to another was undertaken by 3 men in 2 vans but everything had to be packed first. In addition a lot of stuff was moved by car in bags and boxes. They were hoarders. At the end of the move, to a smaller house, they had managed to hire a 20ft container at a storage facility and fill it as well as filling the new house to an extent that were only narrow walk ways left. Their intention now is to start selling, gifting or junking all their unnecessary possessions, especially as the storage facility is nearly £1.4K a year. They are not considering moving again in the foreseeable future so the storage is effectively just being used to store "junk".

This exercise got me to thinking about how much crap I've still got after 30+ years in my current house and I will probably want to move to a smaller property within a couple of years. In the past 3 weeks I've managed 4 full car loads to the local tip as well as putting out 4 to 6 extra general purpose rubbish bags for the bin men each week. 2 car loads were from the garden sheds where items had been dumped and forgotten about. It's amazing how much crap you can store in a small space let alone in the whole of your house!

Just today I managed to make use of a pair of gate hinges that have been sitting in a bucket of assorted ironmongery in my garage for 20 years.

This hasn't unfortunately impressed my wife enough who still thinks I have too much junk. ;-)

Tim

But where to put it?

Bill

But not necessarily on your own property. I should have added not only is the container full but two sheds in the new property are also full

Add to this the cost of transportation and possibly rent for somewhere acceptable to keep it.

In message <q2soq7$s7l$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org>, Bill Wright snipped-for-privacy@f2s.com writes

That's where I've been going wrong.

I have a large selection of heavy mooring chain, many decent ropes and even bags of the too short or too iffy carefully coiled and taped rope that might come in useful one day.

But it is not catalogued.

I am a failure.

Hoarders don't normally know where things are, and thus can't produce them when needed/wanted.

NT

Yes, for those with small rooms, I suppose.

Bill

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com explained :

The point is only to know you have the item needed somewhere. The fun is in finding it. I can usually lay my hand on what I know I have somewhere in the garage workshop within an hour or so, but finding smaller items in the electronics workshop can sometimes take days, because some components can be so tiny.

The problem is with the 10 minute DIY job which turns into hours when you cannot find the stored item. I live 5 minutes walk from an old fashioned independent hardware store and I found it quicker to buy again rather than search endlessly for the item which may come in handy one day.

I Ah, I will remember that next time my friends into bondage have a problem then...... Brian

alan_m expressed precisely :

I try to avoid dashing into fixes which require parts, which I know I have in stock somewhere - unless it is an emergency fix. The delay allows me time to think about where items might be, or even find a better solution than the first one I imagined.

It's really difficult to declutter.

Inside the 25ft container you brought last week.

If I built a 10x6 shed we might be able to use the dining room for its intended purpose. :-)

This morning, my son sent me a photo of his new shed - two storey, insulated, with a proper staircase, loads of windows, just under 1100 sq ft. I'm rather envious.

How much is it to buy a 20ft container?