It is sad to say, but my mother is a hoarder. She's not quite as bad as some of the people you see on that TV show, but I think that is probably because my father would most likely burn the place down before it got that bad. The irony is that she enjoys watching those shows and it doesn't occur to her that she does the same thing. But I digress...
I think that as a result of her hoarding and the general messiness of my parents throughout my childhood, I have "rebelled" in such a way that makes me a bit of a neat freak. I'm not quite the over the top "freak out if anything is out of place" sort of person, but deep, deep down I think there is a part of me that aspires to be that way. I mean, I have the shelves in my linen closet labeled because, God forbid, a fitted sheet end up on the shelf with the flat sheets. Haha! I also have these bursts of de-cluttering where I just will go through and pitch a ton of stuff just because I'm tired of looking at it (usually prompted by watching a marathon of Hoarders). Clutter clearly gives me anxiety. Also I am fortunate in that I don't quite fully understand the paralyzing emotional attachment to items and especially broken useless things. I mean, I seriously love my old cars, and the thought of getting rid of them would just break my heart, but if it breaks beyond the value to repair, it is gone without a second thought. I hold sentimental value to very few items in my home. Most of what does hold emotional value to me is old furniture that I have especially the pieces that belonged to my grandmother.
Now, my DB is a WONDERFUL man by all accounts. He's thoughtful, considerate, helpful and just a fabulous person all around. He is also a bit of a packrat. He's had to move around a lot in his life which resulted in having to get rid of lots of his stuff periodically or stuff getting broken. As a result, the thought of getting rid of something that is his, I have discovered, really upsets him. I did not realize this until this May when we decided that we would move in together.
As you can tell from the blog title, my house is not huge. It is a comfortable modest size brick ranch with a finished basement. I love it, and it is just perfect for me. However, accommodating his full apartment into my full house meant that we needed to get rid of a lot of stuff otherwise we would be living in my nightmare of a cramped cluttered home. I seriously really did have nightmares of coming home and there being boxes stacked up to the ceiling in the living room and I wouldn't be able to get around and I'd wake in a cold sweat. So, I started selling stuff like crazy on sites like Craigslist. Sofas, beds, chairs, dressers, dishes, bedding sets, you name it, I probably sold it. I didn't think twice about getting rid of this stuff including the stuff I just gave away because I needed it out of the house before moving day. By the time we attempted to move his stuff the entire finished portion of my downstairs (family room, bedroom) was completely empty with very little exception, and the kitchen items, etc. was greatly downsized as well thanks to moving that stuff first and then going through all of our stuff together. In the end, I was quite happy sitting in the very empty family room and secretly wished I could have kept it empty.
Poor DB did not embrace downsizing with nearly the same zeal that I did. He was a real trouper though. To his credit he accepted that logically he couldn't keep everything, but it was clear that the entire process was extremely emotionally and psychologically painful for him. I didn't quite understand the necessity of keeping boxes of stuff that hadn't been opened in the three years since he had moved here from New England, or worse the boxes that were still sealed from his prior move. I wanted him to feel at home when he moved, and I really tried to make sure most of his furniture (sofa, recliner, desk, etc.) had a place. I really tried to keep my mouth shut as much as possible when it came to what was coming and what needed to go. I wasn't going to argue when he wanted to get a storage unit so he could keep more stuff. After all, if he wanted it bad enough to pay for it, who was I to say anything? We did have discussions on the necessity of keeping the broken dressers, but it was ok if he wanted to store them. He did send A LOT of stuff to Goodwill and I am very proud of him for making those decisions because I know it was very tough on him. Of course, it helped that we were exhausted and tired of moving stuff. We did survive the move without any bloodshed so that is certainly a success by anyone's standards.
It's been six months so far, and things are well. He's taken over the downstairs, and the upstairs is my domain. There are still some boxes to go through and put away, and here is where it gets tricky again. My philosophy is if it has a home, put it there otherwise get rid of it. Relatedly, if you don't have room for it, and you can't make room for it, then it isn't very important and you don't need it so get rid of it. Again, this is where the spurt organizing comes into play. I'll pick an area and declutter and send stuff to either the trash or to charity, organize what's left and then be happy. He's happy just keeping things piled in boxes forever. This is frustrating to me because I HATE seeing boxes. To make it worse, I can't do anything about it because they aren't mine. To make it even worse than that, the cat doesn't like clutter either and will spray stuff (especially anything smelling of plastic), so his stuff keeps getting peed on making everyone mad. Last night, I finally took some of his stuff and put it on the floor in my closet because it just needed to be out of the way.
SO...to channel my angst about his stuff, I'm going to focus on some of my stuff first. I'm hoping that if I can clear out enough other stuff, we will have room for more of his too and then everyone will be happier. I think I will go through the storage area of the basement and reorganize it first. It was either a year or two ago I put in some shelves, but they've gotten disorganized mainly because things were just left on the shelves or used and not put away properly (thanks Dad!). I'm thinking that I need some containers to put the items in so that they stay, well, contained. I've done this with some other stuff and it is very successful and also protects the items from the dreaded cat issues since their room is also the storage room. I love the clear plastic bins! I don't understand why I ever bought the solid color ones before. Clear plastic is definitely the way to go!
BTW...can anyone explain to me the need to keep three boxes of vinyl records when you don't have a record player hooked up??? I'm still working on that one. LOL!
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