Packing and moving stuff out of what is now somebody else' house. Where did all this stuff come from?

Clothes I haven't worn in years, coffee mugs by the dozen received as gifts that I never use, articles in folders that were important for some now-lost reason, knicknacks that seemed interesting or cute but not enough to pack or move, ball caps from events by the dozen in a pile on a closet shelf, recepts and tax records more than a decade old carefully filed away, old computer software and diskettes that could only run on museum piece equipment if at all, cheap lamps and appliances that I could probably rewire someday except even fixed they are junk, good parts from otherwise broken stuff, etcetera.

Am I the only member of the it-might-come-in-handy-someday club?

I think most of us here are pack rats to one degree or another.

Are you sure you weren't rummaging through my house? Houses, garages and attics all across the country are filled with the stuff that you speak of.

I suspect that becoming a boat bum is gonna be just about like being trailer trash, you suddenly don't have as much storage space, so you will stop saving/buying stuff you don't actually need, and use, you just don't have the space for it. This has saved us a fortune, since we now just zip right on past antique shops and garage sales. You will find that very soon every available storage space will be filled up; to acquire something new, you have to decide what to get rid of...

I say buy a bigger house with a shed or two on the property. No sence in giving up junk when you can take out a new morgage!

And being a pack-rat has paid off for many of us at one point or another.

I'm thinking of my box in the shop that I named after my father-in-law.

He has a stash of plastic widgets, hoses, wires, metal pieces (basically junk) that has proved invaluable in "southern engineering" some repair or project around the house.

I've dove into my junk box many a time to rig up shims, braces, whatever. My wife was not too thrilled when I fished the ancient cookie sheet out of the garbage, but it ended up making a humdinger of a wind screen / stand for my beer can stove

All things in moderation.

Looking at what you're hanging on to with an eye towards versatility. (The broken elephant lamp itself might not be useful, but the guts could be).

Oh thanks, samhain.
On this quiet Sunday afternoon I was considering... thinking about... just maybe... going through the you-never-know boxes... and actually throwing some of that stuff out.
But your eloquent and articulate post has carried the day.
The stuff stays!
(For the moment).

Nurit

He who dies with the most junk wins…

The only problem I've had with the "might come in handy one day" stuff is that the "one day" never seems to come...whereas the stuff just keeps growing.

At the rate I accumulate stuff for that one day, I'll need a couple hundred of those "one days" to use up the stuff.

Gotta go buy some more stuff...

John E

I live to serve.

"One day", in that sense, means one normal day. If you happen to hit on an abnormally busy "one day", you could burn through that stuff in no time.

I'm still ticked off that when the wife and I moved from apartment life to buying a house...I threw away my boxed "stuff" just so I wouldn't have to load/unload it...case in point: I threw away about fifteen thousand dollars in electronic parts, and now I have to spend thirty bucks to order five dollars worth of parts to fix my TV...because I threw them away.

Now, as a home-owner with a "man-room" AND a garage...I'm in serious trouble and have already run out of space, in less than three years. Didn't Scarlett O'Hara say "I'll never be poor again" or somesuch?

I'm there!

On a side note, women hoard different things than men. Try throwing out some baby clothes, sometime. Or clothes she hasn't worn since she was 15:)

Hello, my name is Tom, and I'm a p... hey, are you throwing that out? Can I have it? Thanks, I might be able to use it for something, someday.

Its a terrible disease.

+ 1 on the addiction...
And whenever I "do" something about it, i.e. throw away some junk I have kept for many years, I generally "need" it within a month !!

While some of our priceless collections are pure junk to others and probably need to go in the trash, some of the things like those listed above can have a value to others.

DW takes a dim view of excessive collections of 'might-be-handy-someday items".

From time to time DW gives me the "either-that-junk-goes-or-I-go" speech. I have thought hard about the two options on occasion, but have always gone for plan A, since I probably have more invested in DW.

If you itemize on your taxes, the items above can have some value even when you have to get rid of them. Donations to Salvation Army, GoodWill or such places are deductable (within reason).

First make a detailed list of the stuff that is actually worth giving away as you pack it into boxes like:

6 pairs mens jeans
8 mens t-shirts
1 black velvet painting Elvis
43 baseball caps


Next, take the stuff to Salvation Army (or other organization of your choice).

GET A RECEIPT (much easier to do if you have the itemized list in hand).

There is some cheap software (I use H&R Block's Deduction Pro) that will give you dollar values that IRS will find reasonable for your donations.

Last, KEEP THE RECEIPT.

I have found that this approach beats keeping all that great stuff for several reasons:

1> Your donations are used to raise money to help people
2> You are recycling
3> You are clearing space for even greater stuff
4> You are giving someone else the chance to buy your stuff and add it to their might-come-in-handy stash
5> You are keeping Uncle Sam's grubby paws off of a few dollar of your money
6> It is cheaper than a divorce lawyer

Disclaimer: I am not a tax advisor or marriage councilor.

Threads like this one make me very introspective. Time to cut back and tighten up my spending habits. So much stuff I buy on a whim simply because it "might-come-in-handy-someday".

In answer to the question, "Yes, you can have too many guns and knives", and the guy who has the most when he dies wins the right to contribute more to the folks who buy up estates at pennies on the dollar and then auction it off to folks who don't have a clue what they just bought.

I am going to attempt to shift to buying stuff I actually need today, and not because it's neat, but because it really does have a use in the near term.

Keep all that stuff for a hundred years and the antiques dealers will be fighting over it as valuable merchandise. After all, look what they're selling today.

Unfortunately, renting a storage unit for a (rent-controlled) $100 a month would add up to........ $120,000. And only your heirs are likely to benefit.

Sue

I keep stuff I`ll most likely use or have a need for like most people here

I`ve started accumulating a lot of steel over the years and it's a PAIN to move but the value keeps going up and there's always a use for it

Same holds true for things around the house that are broken or have no usage right now in the future they probably will.

I just tossed a treadmill I got for $50 on CL because it stopped working PERFECTLY but the motors still ran... moving again, no time to take it apart, tossed it

My ex once decided that Mrs Butterworths bottles would be worth a fortune some day, so she filled the garage with them. Did I mention that she was nuts???

Charter member of Accumulators Anonymous. It's a twelve step program: it's only twelve steps to the dumpster. Twelve hardest steps I'll ever take....

She’s a woman, they all are nuts, but then they say the same thing about us guys.


Were right and they are wrong…

Ah yes....to be one of those diagnosed with the 'dreaded' "Packus ratus' disease......fortunately the cure is simple....though somewhat 'troublesome' for some people......

The diagnosed person is simply allowed, within reason (based upon individual needs, available space, previous need of supplies...etc), to maintain a their 'cache' of 'needed' 'supplies'. The diagnosed person's redemption comes from those (often few, though sometimes frequent) situations where 'something' they 'saved' comes in indisputably handy/necessary.

Fortunately it is not a terminal disease......it may be really annoying to some.....but it's better than many other things......

You might be a diagnosee rather than a diagnoser because that solution has a couple of deficiencies.

(I have a distant relative whose house had to be burned after my father and uncle removed many dumpster loads of stuff - including the obligatory dead cat - from this lady's house. And my spouse seems to have tendencies this way so it's a real issue for me.)

The problem with that approach is that the "needed stuff" grows without bound until it fills the house, the garage, two or more storage units and spills across the property boundary into the neighbor's yard and forces purchase of another house to live in because this one is full.

It CAN be fatal when a pile of stuff falls on the pack rat. (not common but it happens - typically to an elderly packrat who doesn't have much physical strength anymore and succumbs to the wall of 1950's newspapers collapsing on them.)

If someone else lives with the pack rat there is always a war over the boundaries. It's best to fight that never-ending war to hold the boundaries when the territory at stake is small. Expect a guerilla style war.

And from my observations - the pack rat is not redeemed when she cannot actually FIND the item needed after searching for a week among the piles but instead has to go to the store and buy another. "Piles" are not an effective warehousing system for item retrieval.

And when they die, their executors hate them instead of mourn them. :-(

Don't enable this behavior if you have a choice.

It CAN be fatal when a pile of stuff falls on the pack rat. (not common but it happens - typically to an elderly packrat who doesn't have much physical strength anymore and succumbs to the wall of 1950's newspapers collapsing on them.)

This sounds like "My Brother's Keeper" by Marcia Davenport, published in 1954. True story, truly horrifying. I absolutely recommend it.

We just had an unprecedented basement flood (we're on the top of a huge hill, but we didn't plan on a gutter downspot accidentally moved directly into a window-well on a day with 2" of rain in a half hour).

So far, I have I filled 20 large trash bags with the the remains of the walls of my formerly-finished basement as well as ample quantities of stuff I thought I'd need, and as I did so, I felt wonderfully freed and liberated from the endless curating of "Maybes" and have made a firm commitment to limit my "this could be useful one day" collection to three, relatively small, plastic shelves plus a 6' high, 28" wide cabinet.

I was especially glad that the Big Box of Cassette Tapes was totally ruined, and I was even glad that all of the spare computer parts were soaked and ruined. There's a 12 yard dumpster coming this evening, I know I'll only need 6 yards, so I look forward to filling the rest of it with stuff. A friend of mine just told me a great way to de-clutter your life - get the house and yard ready to sell, even if you aren't really going to sell it. If you can trick yourself into thinking you're selling, all of the projects tend to fall into clear perspective.

Pile of rubble by the driveway? GET IT GONE.
Collection of scrap copper pipe? SELL IT NOW.
Small hole in the ceiling? PATCH IT!
Bedroom needs paint? PAINT IT.

We're in that mode now, and now that I MUST clear the basement to the foundation walls, owing to the heavy water damage and immediate mold bloom, I'm taking stock of what's really needed and what's been just crap.

It feels great to let go.

The next door neighbor at the farm got a job working for the village, managing the sanitary land fill. It was nearly his undoing. Initially he started out salvaging building materials, to build himself an office at the land fill. One built, the 10x10 shack needed to be furnished with discarded desk and sofa,heated with 55 gallon drum wood stove and salvaged pallets, decorated with discarded pictures of children with big eyes and black velvet artwork. He found himself spending all his time there, salvaging clothing, food, mechanical items and tools. When his wife complained that she never saw him anymore, he salvaged a trailer and started hauling things back home. Eventually he lined 500 yards of logging road with discarded appliances, small gasoline engines and car parts-the road led to his sawmill, which was powered by a '54 pontiac on blocks, with a drive belt looped around a rear rim...the radio still worked. His wife stopped talking about divorce and started talking about homicide. So he quit. Based upon his experience, I declined the job-I know my limits.

unimogbert, too serious.........

Meant it with a good dose of tongue in cheek humor......I am 'diagnosed' with it.....but like DR, have found myself liberated by clearing out the real junk......

I always had a real problem with this.

My father is a commercial properties land lord, he used to have a bunch of buildings in NJ and California. So, when I was a kid I was always going with him to check out buildings he was going to buy and fix up, or help him clean up buildings tenants moved out of. We always would find a ton of good stuff. It's amazing what people leave behind, either because they didn't care about it or didn't have the room to take it.

To give you an idea, we've got boxes of candles, a Wurlitzer jukebox loaded with 45's, an old generator (belt drive), bullets, engines, lawn mowers, even entire vehicles (a beat up F150 pickup and E-series van). Our shop is still full of stuff we've found. If it's good or we can fix it, we keep it, if not it gets sold for scrap.

Because of that, I hang onto darn near everything that has some sort of sentimental value or scrap value. I've got at least 15 of those big plastic containers full of crap down the basement. It's come in handy quite a few times, but it's getting to that point where I'm going to have to go through it and bring the dumptruck home to get rid of whatever isn't worth saving.

Sorry about that. It's a sore point for me.

Of course I too have my "junk closet" and my preparedness supplies.

Packus Raticus gene surely has survival value so a little is good.

I try to self-liberate periodically. Seems to work best when I'm feeling really grouchy (like when staying away from the TV during so-called Presidential Debates).

Last week I threw away a bunch of scanner (radio) frequency references that were nearly 20 years old and no longer accurate. I can throw stuff away when I'm ticked off then I feel SO much better :-)

Gotta be careful these days about what you put in the dumpster. Many places don't allow electronics in there anymore because of the lead content of the solder used to stick the parts together.

One trick that also works is to put stuff out during the neighborhood garage sale labelled : FREE! (Let the other packrats have it)