Does anyone know when the clutter ends?

I try to ‘thin the herd’ on a regular basis. Infact, just the other day I took a bag of old towels, about 5 animal feeding bowls, pans, and 3 big rubbermaid watering tubs for livestock to my local thrift store.

I could stand to go through a few others drawers and closets, but, mostly it’s in control.

I am not a hoarding type at all. Out with the old and I try to follow the ‘rule’ of getting rid of one thing for every new thing that comes in.

My house is nicely decorated but not cluttered.

Too much ‘stuff’ is burdensome for me.

Just keep on thinning the herd as you find time to do so.

I think my own clutter will only end when I breathe my last, and my husband gets rid of all my stuff!

I have not conquered this demon in my own life, Hypo, so if you learn any new tricks on keeping a tidy house be sure to let me know :)

About three months after death.

The trick is to never let it build up. Discipline, and don’t bring in anything unnecessary into your house. It’s really difficult to avoid some clutter in my opinion. There is a saying, something like if a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind, then what does an empty desk mean?

It’s all about inter-dimensional physics. When you put something in a “safe place” a vortex opens into the safeplace dimension and swallows the item. When you clean up your house and get rid of a lot of stuff it creates an imbalance, and the safeplace dimension tries to compensate by spewing out a lot of its contents (not just your own stuff, you may find things you swear you’ve never seen before). Inertia then ensures that the more you clean up, the more inter-dimensional stuff will flow into your home, it’s a never-ending process.
And I want my electric blanket back, please, sounds like it’s at your house, now.

I keep having to move everything from one room to another as I work on each room so my house always feels cluttered right now. Normally, when I am de-cluttering, I do one room at a time only keeping what belongs in that room. If it does not belong in another room, it gets trashed or donated. I do a complete clutter removal about every three years when we are scheduled to move. I think the moving helps because if I do not want to have to unpack it at the next house, pay for the extra weight when moving, or if nobody has used it in at least one year, it goes.

I blame my husband and the kids for all the clutter because, of course, I never bring anything into the house which is not useful:)

My brother is great at uncluttering. And he says he always needs something the day after he culled it. I try to avoid this problem by never culling, heheheh. No not really, I provide much stock for the local Salvation Army store!

That’s a good idea @Coloma to get rid of something every time you bring in something new. The big question is at what point in your acquisition campaign does this begin? That has great bearing on the situation, hehehe.

We had the same problem, but we found a cure.

Check to see when the shredding truck will be in your area.

Buy a big box of plastic bags and stuff them to the brim with paper items.

Pay $5 bucks and have all your paper shredded at one time.

Stuff your plastic bags with items for Goodwill Stores. Load your vehicle and give to Goodwill.

Its not hard, Try it.

@JilltheTooth Your answer scared me. Other people’s stuff is coming to my house?

Clutter is a byproduct of mental illness. Clean up your head and you’ll clean up your house. Or desk. Whatever needs cleaning.

@wundayatta That statement is a little extreme as a blanket stement, don’t you think? Clutter in its extreme I agree can signify mental illness, but some clutter can also mean someine is overworked and overburdened. It reallybjits me hard what you said because I have a relative right jow running herself ragged to make sure everything is pin neat and organized, because the healthcare workers around her have that same judgment. She never was horribly messy or disorganized to begin with. I see her worry about what other people think, and her driving herself into such stress that she medicates herself, more mentally than if she cut herself a little slack,

Yeah, I was a little too broad on that one. I was also being somewhat tongue in cheek.

I was really thinking about what happened to me when I was sick. I couldn’t life a finger to clean anything up. I would look at it looked like it would take a river to clean it up. When I got better, I could do it. It wasn’t such a problem.

I dont think it’ll ever end. I have a problem with catalogs. I find it next to impossible to throw out a catalog that might have things in it that I’d want. So here they are in a beach straw purse, a vintage one, and it’s full but I never look at them.
My next problem is vitamins. I have been ordering them for years. I have a shelf in my closet full of vitamins then on my desk is a hutch with glass doors with one shelf reserved for vitamins. But they’re not all that visible. I do take some everyday.
The biggest collection I have is of photos and photograph albums. To throw out a picture of a family member would feel like a big loss to me. I don’t know why. ;/

@JilltheTooth And I want my electric blanket back, please, sounds like it’s at your house, now. Strangely I did come by an electric blanket that I can’t place how it got there. Creepy…

@john65pennington Load your vehicle and give to Goodwill.
Its not hard, Try it. Goodwill has to want to take it. I tried to donate a sofa and chair years ago and got the riot act from them; is it ripped anywhere, got any stains, was from a per free or non-smoking household, any checks in the wood, etc? It was like they only wanted it if it was in consignment sore quality. Any little stuff that was good working and had life left in it they didn’t care to bother with.

@Hypocrisy_Central Depending upon your neighborhood, a couch in almost any condition will be taken sometime between when you put it out and the next morning. It is really helpful to have college students in the area.