out of room

You mention your home, so; where does he live?

ok, a bit more info for you all..
it is our home, edcopp, not my home, an innocent slip of the tongue....lol
Husband goes nuts if I try to throw anything out even true trash. He also gets very upset if it goes to Goodwill or recycle. That includes anything of mine. That's where I feel its gone too far. What does he care if I send my old clothes to Goodwill?

He is a procrastinator for sure but it's more than that. He saves so much that he can't find it when he needs it. For example, paper bags. They are in the basement in a clear tote on the shelf (I did that) and he knew where I had put them and it still took him 2 hours to find them.

Pics.....I will try to get some posted soon.

We have a grainary, barn, milk room and several sheds that he has put up and they are full. He has another shed yet to be put up. The attic is full and the basement has a path and maybe a bit more to the washer and dryer.

The vehicles I referred to are not running vehicles. That is in addition to the 4 running vehicles and a camper and a trailer.

I know it is a mental illness but he shuts down every time I ask him to explain why he needs all this stuff. Right now we are arguing over a baby crib he pulled out of the attic for our daughter who is pregnant. She told him she already has one. I think it was really the idea of a green/orange/yellow crib that threw her! We have several more (or parts of them in the attic) and also a ratty old playpen that I tried to throw out once. He pulled it out of the garbage and stored it in the shed. I am asking him to explain to me why he wants to keep these things. I am trying to get some insight but he, in turn, just gives me silence.

I don't want to waste money on a renting a storage place. I think I just get frustrated and then I try to find a way out of all this.

I don't mind cleaning our home. It is a big old farm house so it takes a lot to keep it up. I do mind decluttering first so that I can clean. I do have the main rooms decent but it is a constant effort. Any clean surface seems to bug him and he has a need to put "stuff" on it.

I'm just weary.

I feel for you. He sounds like my sis-in-law. I refuse to go to their home when we are back in CO. That is sad because it used to be my home. We sold it to them(my hubby's brother) when we moved here and it hurts to see that in less than one year she has turned it into a mess, inside and out.

My brother-in-law doesn't know what to do either. We've all tried to help, she acknowledges that she is a hoarder, but she literally sucks the life out of all us when we tried to help. We've had to wash our hands of her or lose our minds!!

<<hugs>>

lady, he CAN"T explain why he hoards, so quit asking him, it's a mental illness and asking for an explanation is like asking a 5-year-old to do advanced calculus - it just does not compute. You either learn to live with it or leave, cause a horder rarely can change how it is for them.

Good books about hoarding:

http://www.amazon.com/Stuff-Compulsi...ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Com.../dp/157224349X

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Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Hmmm! every one here seems to have a puter. Why don't ya organize this stuff with a data base program. What is it? and where is it? Yeah I'm a procrastinator with a docroate degree.

I pressed him to explain why he wants to keep the crib. Last night he was silent. I asked again this morning. He kept saying "I don't know" but eventually he said because he grew up with very little and also we had very little in our early years. It's a start. Sigh. I told him to think about what he thought would happen if he let the item go. I will ask him tonight what he came up with.

In the meantime, I am going to declutter all my stuff. I have done it as I go but now I am motivated to let it go in spite of his objections. My irrational fear is that his stuff is more important than me. If that is true, then I need to know that too.

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

p.s. Alice, I have the second book but not the first one. It was helpful to me but then again I am not the one with the problem.

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

this is what i think it was with Andrew too. he grew up very poor. almost having to fight for a bit of food. course he wasn't like the ones i've seen on tv with dead cats,rats,rotten food etc. those are what i call hoarders. he saved wire, radios etc. boxes and boxes. and tools. stuff from over 60 years ago and things from his father.the water can his father had in ww1 and the helmet. i gave it to my son. i still have lots of stuff. all the tools. as Texican said. no telling when you will need a certain tool.

i can't really say too much. people would probably think i'm a hoarder too. i have 2 freezers full also and cans of food everywhere even in under the sofas. my craft room is so full at this moment there is hardly room to move. both sheds are full of tools etc. a few from my father and grandfather. out in the country i have a barn and 3 sheds full. i think it's all stuff i might need someday. ~Georgia.

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Georgians

This is hard for me to do, but here are a few pics of just the basement clutter. Am I crazy to be upset by this?

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

No you are not crazy. I still see floor there!! With my sis-in-law you cannot even see the floor. You literally cannot walk in the house, there is no room anywhere. Not even to sit. I don't know where she cooks because you can't see the counters or stove top. Same for the carport, it looks like she just tosses and where it lands it stays and the cycle continues. It is slowly creeping past and into the driveway. I don't even want to know what the 1000 sq ft garage that we built looks like now.

Honestly, that looks good compared to my sis-in-law. I mean that sincerely.

I hope you get some answers from your hubby and are able to declutter some for you. It does seem to be irrational and while you can't ignore it I can since I don't live with the sis-in-law!

It would be more logical to hoard *money.*

What I mean is, with a very few exceptions (antiques, heirlooms, photos, etc.) you can replace everything you own if you find the need. And if you sell or donate these items, you'll have extra cash or a tax deduction.

Clutter is expensive. I understand this, because I fight it all the time with myself - and my mom was a packrat too. She was the kind of person who would buy items she already owned because she couldn't find them when she wanted them. Or if one would be good, she thought two was better.

Do you know what she did when she began to realize this was a problem?

She began to collect BOOKS ABOUT ORGANIZING AND DECLUTTERING. I kid you not. Oh, the irony!

When we were moving her out of the family house into a condo, I would toss things, haul them out to the curb and after we left she would bring them back in. Grrr. The worst, I think, was all the stuff she saved from my childhood. I think she saved every single paper I ever brought home from school. Good thing there was only one kid.

Finally I had to teach her a lesson I'm trying to apply to my house and my stuff too. If you have, say, 10 boxes of childhood mementos, what are the chances you're going to open them up and enjoy them? Probably they'll just sit in your basement, weighing on your mind. But if you only have one box of the best things, it's easy to bring it out every now and then and look it over for fun. Or you can take things you love and frame them so you can enjoy them all the time. If some treasure is buried under 7 boxes of similar junk, will you even remember it's there?

Same could be said for all the stuff your hubby collects. Eventually you have so much stuff you don't know where it is, you don't have any room to do anything with it even if you wanted to, and you can't keep it all clean - so getting any use out of it entails a huge effort of locating, moving other things out of the way, and washing it - and then it all kind of gets the same grayish dusty hue so it all blends together . . . blah. In my mom's case, it all got sticky-dusty with cigarette smoke.

Back to the money. If you can sell an item, or take a tax deduction (go to itsdeductible.com to keep track of donation values for free) take that money and put it in a box, jar, etc. So he can see what he's getting in exchange for the items he previously wanted to hoard.

Well, it's just an idea.

In my house, if you keep something long enough, the cats pee on it. Then it HAS to go.

Thanks Peacock,

DH often drags things out of the garbage! That's when you know it's a problem.

I'll check out the tax deduction site.

Yesterday I loaded Hoarders (tv show) to Netflix. I watched 1 episode. Oh my.....Last night I ran the second episode and watched it with hubby. He made few comments. Not surprisingly he thought the son was wrong to throw out his mom's vase without asking her and also he said that yes, that old bike is worth something! Ok...it's a start.

Basement is one thing (unless you live down there!). Not to get too personal but let's see the living area...

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

The laundry room is in the basement, such that it is.

Here are pics of the living room. I actually had posted these a few weeks ago in the decorating section, asking for some help. The living room is my area and I work hard to keep it decluttered.

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

We don't live in the basement. The laundry room is down there so I do have to look at the clutter on a regular basis.

Here are living room pics. I had actually posted these a few weeks ago in the decorating forum looking for some advice. I work hard to keep it clutter-free but it is not easy.

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

I would do my best to get him to convert the clutter into cash.... and let him hoard gold and silver coins. They take up lots less space.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

My husband and I were just talking about this after watching a new show called "Consumed". We both agreed that we would not tolerate this behaviour by the other. There is a huge difference between hoarding and saving or stocking up and normal clutter. If you have actual garbage in your home and are unable to use a room as it was intended because you cannot move anywhere in the room because of the mess then that is a serious mental health problem.

I have my own area in the house and my husband has his where we do as we wish. The common areas are kept neat and clean out of respect for each other and our family and friends.

I suggest you negotiate an area (spare room, part of basement or garage) for your husband to keep his most important collections and then mercilessly start getting rid of anything that is outside that area. It would be great if he participated and actually sold things to make money but if not - tough. It is your home too and if he has so little respect for you then perhaps it is time to look at what else is wrong.

Wow! Looks great IMO. With 2 small kids our place only stays that tidy for a few hours at a time! Maybe stay after him to get his shed built then assist in moving the basement stuff to the new shed.

If his stuff makes him happy why not? After all these years, it isn't likely he'll change (much), and if he does, he probably won't be happy. I would feel terrible if I came across some usuable stuff on its way to the landfill and I couldn't salvage it. Seems so wasteful.

Do you work outside the home? If not, spending large amounts of time at the house can make one more sensitive to extra "inventory". When my wife started working from home, I noticed my stuff bothered her much more than when she had a workplace away from home.

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

I was expecting something more like this (not mine, just something off of google images)

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/