How can I mitigate my husband's hoarding tendancies?

I would help him to set up and run a seller eBay account.

What works for me is to watch Horders on Cable or internet. After I watch I start cleaning and tossing “trash”.

You can hire a psychologist that specializes in hording.

The Marketplace on Facebook is a lot better. I could make him an account but I can’t force him to sell.

Maybe you can ask him why it’s so hard for him to part with those things? How it makes him feel specifically.

My husband just sold some of our furniture that wasn’t worth much and still it made me sad. It felt like a “loss.” I felt a little out of control too, and like we are going in the wrong direction. Each thing holds memories of what we were doing at that stage in our life when we bought it or found it.

Plus, I’m fairly frugal, so It’s hard to part with something if I think I might need it in the future.

My father is a bit of a hoarder. He was neglected as a child, and I think his things brought him comfort, and so losing his things is almost as hard as losing a person.

Slowly dump his stuff little by little and don’t tell him. He’ll never know.

@Caravanfan What?! I imagine he would know. Do you know people where that method worked?

@Caravanfan great way for @Dutchess_III to get a divorce. He’ll know and it’s a kind betrayal that undermines marriages.

That said, stuff in the way of living spaces is a symptom of actual hoarding. I would be suspicious of some past trauma here but I’m no shrink.

I save nuts bolts and screws because I always need them so a 1000 square nails would be saved at my house. A kitchen island in the living room? Nope.

Arson

Following, I have the same problem. He has a bedroom full and two sheds. Enough’s enough, I told him. I’m encouraging him by putting an empty trash cart out to fill each week and praising him with every cart full. Haha!

As long as he keeps it in his spaces what’s the big deal? My wife grew up in a cluttered household so she has little tolerance for that sort of thing. My problem is not hoarding, it is lack of workspace. For me to “do my thing” I really need an adjacent metal building that she does not see.

Maybe some of that stuff really is worth some money. Check it out before you chuck something that might have value. You never know.

The outlet covers to goodwill and the square head nails to the Amish people.

I think I could easily fall into becoming a hoarder. There’s a seductive allure to the philosophy of “here is a useful thing that has value to someone; don’t be wasteful by adding it to a landfill.” For me, it’s about the aversion to creating waste. The problem of course is nobody has the time or mental bandwidth to manage all of the thousands of transactions required to maintain that value and utility. A person’s time and mental energy also have an opportunity cost, and things left ignored/neglected in a pile can be slowly destroyed as well.

When I catch myself hoarding, I think the best solution is to approach it like a business. How much are these nails worth? How much “inventory space” are they taking up? How much time/energy is it going to take to get that value out of them? What’s my hourly return on trying to sell them? Is my time worth more than $0.14 per hour?

The other helpful approach for me is to donate things (curb alerts are awesome) that are still useful to someone. I really hate how wasteful people are. It makes me a little sick every time I add to a landfill knowing it’s creating a massive fucking problem for future generations: “You mean in the 2020’s they’d only use a cup once and then throw it away?” Donating to others helps me feel like the utility in that stuff isn’t being destroyed and will continue to serve other people for many more years.

When approaching the process, I’d focus on the biggest payoffs first. He’s only got so much mental energy to deal with this stuff. Take the highest value stuff that takes up the most volume and try to help him get some of the money out of it. It’s not about maximizing the final dollar amount it’s about maximizing the dollar amount for his (and your) time. 85% of the value quickly is much better than 110% of the value over a long period of time trying to find the perfect buyer willing to pay a premium.

^^ Good answer!

I am a digital hoarder… almost like Hunter Biden except without the creepy.

I’ll make one other suggestion: if he is willing to part with some of it, but just isn’t getting around to cleaning up and throwing out, I highly recommend doing the task with him and be patient.

I know a lot of people who don’t like to organize and clean alone (I’m one of those people). My house would be much neater if my husband paid attention to me and talked to me while I was sorting and cleaning, but instead those tasks are very lonely.

I have a similar approach to @gorillapaws. If it has value it goes into keep, sell or donate categories depending on time, return and level of effort.

Let me know if you come up with a good method. I, too, could use some help!
Fortunately or unfortunately I have a lot of space. That is a blessing and a curse.

@LuckyGuy You also have the skills and knowledge for making cool stuff and maximizing the utility of stuff. That’s a dangerous combination. On the plus side, your time is more valuable than most. Try invoicing yourself for your projects—even discount your hourly billing rate for “friends and family.” Obviously you won’t have to pay yourself, but the exercise may be eye opening. It might even be worth hiring some extra hands to maximize your time (e.g. having a college kid help remove rust/paint to prep a piece for welding).

@gorillapaws I occasionally do that internal calculation. I justify some things by including the time it would take to go to the store and buy the thing I need.
As a final square nail in the coffin, anything stored in the basement is thermal mass at a nice cool 58–60F that stabilizes the temperature of the house.

I have a Goodwill basket by the front door that gets filled fairly regularly but mostly by me.
I’ll let some time pass and I’ll ditch some stuff quietly.

Jesus, you guys, @Dutchess_III knows I’m kidding. We know each other really well.

Sorry, you sounded dead serious. Lol.

Well, I do have to be careful about what I ditch!

How about set up consistent criteria e.g. so many years old, so many cubic inches, so many of quantity? He can figure out how many outlet covers he would ever need (not 30). I try to keep only 1 spare of most items.

Well I did my foot down about picking up furniture at auction, Goodwill, garage sale, whatever, was forbidden unless he knew of a specific place in the house for it. (Our house was full with all the furniture we need. No open spots.)