Decluttering your house

[1piano4joe]

Hi all,

I just can't seem to bring myself to throwing out perfectly good things. In mint condition, like brand new and still working strong.

I have an old Zenith TV floor console cabinet model. I'm supposed to throw this out, right?
 
What about old phones, computers, records, books, 8 tracks, vcr tapes, cassettes, cd's, cars? These items I am told are "obsolete, dated, old technology", etc. I don't even own a turntable anymore. Last one I had was maybe 30 years ago but I am still saving those  vinyl LP's.

I am questioned, "what do you need all those books for"? Everything is online now. I have sets of encyclopedias. I have a 15 pound dictionary for looking up words. Should I throw this out?

Am I a hoarder? I don't think I am but I do have a hard time throwing things away.

I'm supposed to have the latest, biggest, newest items? That seems kind of wasteful to me.

I have been reading books and online about decluttering.

I have read:

1. Donate it
2. Sell it
3. Throw it out
4. Relocate it

What about furniture? This I found is worth (like old TV's) practically nothing. It seems you can't even give it away. Some charities are very particular in the items they are willing to accept for free!

What has been your experience with decluttering/moving? Some of my friends have had storage units for over 10 years! The stuff they have isn't even worth that much. That's what they told me. $150 per month is $1800 a year for a storage unit. In ten years, that's $18,000 dollars.

I'm thinking about throwing out, an entire large room's worth of perfectly good stuff because I could easily rent that room out and bring in some much needed cash. Anybody ever do this? One idea I had was to get a storage unit. The math, on paper, seems to justify this. If I spend $150 for the unit but get $1500 for a room rental then it pays in a way. I just don't know. I've never been a "landlord" before.

What about my parents and grandparents items stored in my attic? I have old photographs of people I never met and have no idea who they are.

Any books/links/advice on decluttering your life that you found helpful?

Thanks, Joe.

[timothy42b]

I don't know if this book will help, but it opened my eyes to how secondhand items travel:

https://www.amazon.com/Secondhand-Travels-Global-Garage-Sale/dp/1635570107

One comment was that third world countries fix our junk in ways we couldn't have dreamed.

But more to the point, the author notes that generations save stuff they know their children will want.  As soon as they die their kids throw it all away.  Their generation doesn't use or value antiques, Corningware, you name it.  They don't want it and never did, but my generation is still saving toys the grandkids will never play with. 

[brogers70]

In the Navy, I was stationed overseas for 11 years. We could only take a limited weight of household good, so most went into storage. When I retired back in the U.S. and had the stored goods delivered, my most common reaction on opening a box was "Why on earth did we think we needed to keep that?" The only exceptions were books and some photo albums. The rest I'd never even thought about for 11 years and when I saw it, didn't care about it.

[ranjit]

I wouldn't throw away books. People who think that PDFs replace physical books are idiots and probably haven't read a book in the past five years.

[timothy42b]

I wouldn't throw away books. People who think that PDFs replace physical books are idiots and probably haven't read a book in the past five years.

I googled it:

If the answer is not very many, you’re not alone. According to Pew Research Center, about 25 percent of American adults said they haven’t read a book in the last year in any form. So no print books, no eBooks, not even an audiobook in the car. And it seems the older generation is more affected than the younger one: 28 percent of adults over 50 said they hadn’t read a book in the past year, while only 20 percent of adults under 50 could say the same.

I like a physical book, but I average just over 100 books a year, according to Shelfari and now Goodreads, and when the libraries closed due to pandemic I depended on the Kindle, the Overdrive, and the PDF.

[j_tour]

I googled it:
I like a physical book, but I average just over 100 books a year, according to Shelfari and now Goodreads, and when the libraries closed due to pandemic I depended on the Kindle, the Overdrive, and the PDF.

Yeah.  I have a modest private library of books which aren't available in electronic format.

However, I admit that lying in bed getting to sleep, there is a good argument to be made for a backlight screen.

Yeah, I know they say "blue light bad" (or whatever).

And then there are musical scores.

Unfortunately I have nothing good to say about decluttering, other than that it is a problem for me.

Not like I live in filth, exactly, but it's really difficult once it gets a bit out of hand.

For me, yeah, there is too much stuff:  it all fits in my place, but if I ever had to move?  That would be ridiculous.  Thousand of books, LPs, all kinds of musical and amplification equipment....it would just be a mean scene, man.  Clothing.  Computer sh*t.  Tens of thousands of pieces of paper in file cabinets.

Life?  It gets complicated.

And then there's the kicthen:  I have a good batterie de cuisine, and while I've trimmed down some things like the stand mixer and so forth, I'm not going to toss out my quality pots and pans.

Whew. 

[lostinidlewonder]

I used to be a pretty bad hoarder since I would gather a lot of items for free and sell them. I won't go through the entire story of it will be pages long but I've always enjoyed picking up items for free and selling them and in my earlier years it was out of control with an entire house filled up and a shed 3x bigger than the house completely filled all in a matter of 2 years. It is very easy to come across free items in my area which are of good value. Nowadays I am a lot more picky about what items I collect and more importantly do not hold onto things just because it might help me in the distant future. Too many items brings a lot of stress, your home feels so much better when it is decluttered and that to me at least has a lot of value.

The problem is if you have a lot of items many can go on this "get rid of" list and stay there for a long time. I hate the idea of simply throwing things away, such a waste. Search for places who are in need and give many things away. I gave away music books to schools who run a book lending program. I simply scanned pages I wanted from certain books and made pdf files of them, it was pretty easy to set up using a mobile device. That really reduced the size of my library for the better, books take up so much space and are heavy. Now I make it a rule that if I add any book to my shelf I need to get rid of one that is already on there.

There are people out there who could use a lot of the good items we have and no longer need. I don't donate to big commercial charities (I'm not donating to support their advertising) and always look out for the little struggling charities to donate to, they really need it more. I also run several social media groups and can reach some 200+k people in my area, often there are people/groups/organizations in need of assistance and it makes it easier to work out how to get rid of your unwanted items that might benefit others.

I always collect up all my household goods that I no longer use and keep them aside. It is not too infrequent I come across some young adult who is moving away from home and I know often they will be in need of kitchen gear, a tv, some chairs etc etc. Anyone who has moved out for the first time will remember that any support is welcome especially free support! There have been people who had their entire homes burn down in my area that I read about on social media and they are always good to donate whatever household items they might need.

Keep the stuff you enjoy having. I wouldn't mind your old TV even if it was just in working condition . Actually to have one in mint condition is exceptionally rare I would think. I remember selling an old record player cabinet for a couple hundred dollars a few years ago. If it is in good condition and works there is certainly a market for people who are right into retro stuff. I don't want to start talking about the items I hold onto and why but I've made the criteria to keep them much higher these days.

[ranjit]

I like a physical book, but I average just over 100 books a year, according to Shelfari and now Goodreads, and when the libraries closed due to pandemic I depended on the Kindle, the Overdrive, and the PDF.

I actually read books pretty rarely, it feels like a waste of time once I've gotten really busy lol. Can't recall the last time I read a full book.

[Bob]

Also interested. 

And amused that the first comment is to buy a book, to add more clutter.

Throwing things away gets an immediate effect, but.... The items still have some value.

I tried selling some stuff but only sold one thing I think.   I was thinking about trying ebay but with some catch that it's not a priority to deliver the item right away.  It sounds like a pain to ship vs. handing it off to someone locally.  There needs to be a website that's "stuff I don't want, will take an amount of money that's less than it was/less than retail or whatever just so it's something in return, and I'll get it shipped whenever but I'll just go a shipper and have them box it up and send it, and yeah, hopefully I don't get ripped off since it's not local."  That would be a long URL though.

For donating (and the same with giving things to someone else), you never know what they're going to do with it.  I have heard the idea that if you donate something you might be giving it to someone else to throw out for you.

There definitely is a negative to stuff taking up too much space or something like paying for space to store stuff you never use again.

There's also an advantage to having things immediately on hand, to have your own library of stuff.

[lostinidlewonder]

For donating (and the same with giving things to someone else), you never know what they're going to do with it.  I have heard the idea that if you donate something you might be giving it to someone else to throw out for you.

When I give something away it's no longer mine so I don't think about what they are doing with it. The act of giving doesn't come with conditions, "So what will you do with these gifts I give you??" Heck I've given stuff to people who gave a huge sob story and the next minute I see them selling the items online lol! Now that's a bit rude but in any case it's their item to do what they want. You always end up helping more people in legitimate need.

[1piano4joe]

Hi all,

So, I found in my house two typewriters. A vintage Smith-Corona and an electric Citizen S4. These take ribbons! Does anyone use typewriters anymore. I do vaguely remember typing term papers in college. I probably should toss them out too, along with notebooks and old exams from over 35 years ago.

I have three mountain bicycles in my garage that haven't been ridden in over 25 years. When exactly did I turn into Fred Sanford?

I took out two books from the library which seem to be helpful. Both are by the author, "Marie Kondo". They are, "The life-changing magic of tidying up" and "Spark Joy".

I've been clinging onto old hobby stuff, sports equipment and toys. For what purpose exactly? I don't know.

I don't go bowling anymore and yet still have ten bowling balls. I have four sets of skis, boots and poles for some reason. Golf clubs, check. Slot cars, radio control stuff, karate equipment. It just goes on and on and on.

I have a closet full of board games. Scrabble, Stratego, Clue, Headache, Trouble, Etc. I need these? What for?

Mainly, I use my piano, pool table and some dumbbells. Mostly, I use the T.V. and computer.

Then there is the "Old Eyeglasses Graveyard". I might need a screw or a temple you know. Or more importantly, I may need an old pair to find the new ones which are around here somewhere I'm sure. Oh wait. they're on my head again.

I sometimes try to take off my eyeglasses that I'm not wearing or look for my eyeglasses that I am wearing. What the heck happened to me? The other day a note starting crawling across my score. No wonder that passage didn't sound right. I was playing the bug!

I had ten TV's, and six stereos. Well, not anymore. It's now six TV's and three stereos, not counting the boomboxes.

There are fishing poles in the garage. They are maybe 50 years old. I think they belonged to my older brother and father. I don't seem to touch stuff that wasn't mine, only now it is.

I still sleep in my small 10 by 10 bedroom. My parents have been gone over 20 years. I still refer to the master bedroom as my mom and dad's room. Why don't I use it? Well, it's just not my room, only it is.

I think maybe I'm living in the present but my house is living in the past if that makes any sense.

I just threw out over 100 books. Donations are restricted now due to COVID. But do I really need to hold onto 12 calculus textbooks? At one point, I had several thousand books. For some reason, which I can't remember, I wanted a library in my house.

That's all for now, Joe. 

[j_tour]

Hi all,

So, I found in my house two typewriters. A vintage Smith-Corona and an electric Citizen S4. These take ribbons! Does anyone use typewriters anymore.

I'd toss the electric, but keep the manual.

What if the power goes out?

I'm down to one Olivetti portable nowadays, and it needs a cleaning/oiling, but they can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Pro-tip:  you can re-spool the ribbon by hand using any type of ribbon, using the correct spool.   So you don't have to find the exact replacement spools, just wind it up by hand using any inked ribbon.

And, yes, I'm very pissed off my mother tossed out the soft carrying case for my Olivetti....oh, it's only been almost 30 years, but an elephant never forgets! 

Plus, it makes an effective weapon:  heavy, made of mostly metal.  And good for filling out official documents and such.

Also, just plain fun!

[timothy42b]

Thanks, I did not know that about the ribbons.  My daughter bought an old manual typewrite at a yard sale and we've never found a ribbon for it.

Story about hoarding:  some years back I was cleaning the garage and found a box that hadn't been opened since our first move, about 20 years and several moves prior. It had some old text books that had not been looked at for at least 30 years and had no known value, so I donated them to a thrift store.

The wrong thrift store.

My wife happened to visit that one, and bought them. 

Sigh. 

We still have them. 

[quantum]

The way I see it, the differentiation between hoarding and collecting is organization.  If you think about a library like a public library or university research library or archive - there is a lot of stuff there, but is it considered hoarding?  What about that little mom and pop bookstore that has been on the street corner for over 50 years, with isles overflowing with books that you can't even walk through, is that hoarding?  Maybe, but if someone discovered some lost manuscript by Bach in all those books, many would consider changing their viewpoint on it. 

***

Amazon has typewriter ribbons, reasonable prices too.  That actually gave me the encouragement to fix up my vintage Underwood.   I like to use it for things like labels, or other items where using a modern printer is just too cumbersome.  Plus the vintage type, is actually vintage type, not some font imitating a typewriter. 

[j_tour]

The way I see it, the differentiation between hoarding and collecting is organization.  If you think about a library like a public library or university research library or archive - there is a lot of stuff there, but is it considered hoarding?

Good point, great perspective.

It does seem a bit like hoarding if one builds collections for the mere sake of doing so, but I think most people would find it reasonable to curate a small private library, even if for the efficiency.  /* Which means, if one needs to find a reference for a footnote or even something less grand, one doesn't have to spend an entire day or more hunting down an obscure book.  Rather, one can just forage among one's own shelves.  */

I may have understated the tens of thousands of pages photocopied books, by an order of magnitude or so (no, I'm not going to count or even guesstimate:  that would be a bit depressing!), but back in the day, that was the only way to read things!  You know, one borrows from interlibrary loan or on a junket trip to a research library, and one can't read everything in quick order. 

Ten thousand pages?  That's like ten books!  Maybe fifteen, if they're lightweight volumes!  That's not so much.

Paper is heavy, as well.  I can tell you.  So are LPs.  So is even the most sundry of electro-mechanical accoutrements, like cables, and all that.

And one does wish to refer back to various texts.

A bit less as I get a bit older, but that was the only way before the increasing acessibility of texts in electronic formats.

I don't know how many dozens of hours I spent just standing in front of a photocopier.  Too many hours!  I wouldn't bother if I could have found the materials in electronic form.

Amazon has typewriter ribbons, reasonable prices too.  That actually gave me the encouragement to fix up my vintage Underwood.   I like to use it for things like labels, or other items where using a modern printer is just too cumbersome.

That's probably true:  I think there are really only about four or five basic designs of spools for manual typewriters.  If that.

I think I spent a good entire day calling around on the phone to various shops in whatever town I was in before some dude in the shop was like "Well, why don't you just respool it by hand?"

I think the Olivetti has a peculiarly shaped spool, and this one has the FR AZERTY keyboard, not that that matters, but it remains a good, simple machine.

Despite using IMSLP for various scores, something about the noise and effort of firing up the LaserJet is....just not that good.  It's very good for that purpose, in particular, but it's not an elegant solution.

Yes, you can print little texts on index cards or whatever, but it's kind of fiddly. 

There's very much a purpose behind the manual machines, especially if one wishes to create a more permanent copy than some block-printed text done in handwriting.

[mjames]

I wouldn't throw away books. People who think that PDFs replace physical books are idiots and probably haven't read a book in the past five years.

PDFs have replaced books for me.

I'm sure I've read at least 50~ fiction books within the past 2 years. About 2 dozen textbooks as well.

As a PhD student, books and textbooks are expensive so pirating ebooks/pdfs is a pretty good alternative for me. I'm sure plenty of others feel the same, especially considering the whole pandemic thing.