Cleaning out your House

because of what my folks left to clean up....I try to keep things simple....I am always purging one thing or the other...I don't want my sons to have to deal with my ""stuff""....when I am gone....

good reminder to others who read your post....

when we retired and moved to Florida we made a daily trip to Goodwill every day for weeks plus we had so much trash every week we had to beg the neighbors to let us put some at their houses.(we were only allowed 6 bags/week).It is wonderful to get through it all and release yourself from the stress of living with "stuff" that is actually just junk. Like the OP , we didn't have a lot extra in our living space but the attic and basement were gosh awful. Now we don't have a basement and the attic is only the space above the garage so only the Christmas stuff is up there.

nantucket, I HEAR YOU! I just went through the exact same thing.

Sometimes having a big house is a PITA, because over time, it becomes the go-to place to 'store' stuff until (if ever), the stuff's owner decides to claim it.

I'm bad enough on my own , but my attic, garage, cellar and closets were packed to the gills w/ other people's stuff, & it was exhausting and bone wearying to drag it all up, down, & out. Half went to the thrift shop & the other half, right into a dumpster.

The biggest problem, believe it or not, was p-a-i-n-t. From the previous owners, I'd inherited well over 150 cans of old paint, that I never got around to dealing with, because I didn't even know where to start. It just sat along a basement wall, collecting dust, and I kept putting it off. Add to that mess, even more paint cans that stemmed from my 20 years of ownership. Awful!

For anyone else in a similar discarded paint nightmare, kitty litter is the solution! Pry open every can, pour in the kitty litter & let it dry out. Then, dump it,...the sooner, the better.

ETA: Another huge problem was BIG, old tube TVs that people had stored here, and that no one wants anymore. There were 7 to get rid of! It cost me $195 to have them hauled away. Those things weighed a ton.

I lived in the same place for 15 years. When I moved in January, I made first passes to take clothing, books, games, etc to Goodwill and made several trips there. After I got most of the stuff worthy of donating out, I designated a space for all the other unwanted things - broken items, torn clothing, furniture I didn't want that wasn't in shape to donate, etc. I put all my unwanted things in that corner and told the movers not to worry about any of it. I scheduled a junk hauler to come by after the movers cleared out all my furniture boxes and they took everything else.

It cost money, but not having to stress out about it all was priceless. I would have had to haul all of it to the dumpster on my own and it would have taken me days. It took the team of junk haulers one hour. They even swept my back patio after they took away broken old pots that leaked dirt all over. Worth. Every. Penny.

I was just going to start another thread about how everyone was doing with their decluttering, and this is so timely.

I think when fall arrives (for me at least) the "pack ratting" begins. There are all the outside things that need to be brought in like planters, lawn furniture, flags etc. Then out comes the fall decor inside, followed by Christmas decor that is packed up all year and "out of sight out of mind" that displaces regular decor that now is taking up space to be stored somewhere. It is no wonder that by January, I'm fit to be tied and wanting to throw everything away.

My combat procedure this year it to make sure that 5 things leave this house every day (at least Monday through Friday). Some I am giving away, like a nice Temp-tations pedestal serving piece I took to an anniversary party this past weekend and left for the couple. Some I take to the thrift store, I try for one box per week. And somethings just to the trash, like totally worn out work clothes that aren't even fit for the rag bag. Some is listed on Craig's List, but not moving.

I will say, that one great aspect of saving things for decades (nice things, not trash and junk) comes when someone passes, and the attic holds such treasures that most of the family didn't know existed. This happened to me recently when my great aunt passed. We found (and I got to keep!!!!) my great grandmother's wedding outfit, that she wore in 1905, some school books with names penned inside from two different generations of my family in the mid 1800's, diaries written by grandmothers and farther back, hand made quilts, needlepoint etc by women from my past. Truly priceless things, that many who get so anxious to declutter would have gotten rid of long ago. So while I totally get the "lets unload stuff we don't use" mindset, I'd just caution others to think before they toss. What might seem like junk or unwanted by you, could be a family treasure to someone else, so please offer them up before you dispose of them.

On 10/9/2014 Sabatini2 said:

nantucket, I HEAR YOU! I just went through the exact same thing.

Sometimes having a big house is a PITA, because over time, it becomes the go-to place to 'store' stuff until (if ever), the stuff's owner decides to claim it.

I'm bad enough on my own , but my attic, garage, cellar and closets were packed to the gills w/ other people's stuff, & it was exhausting and bone wearying to drag it all up, down, & out. Half went to the thrift shop & the other half, right into a dumpster.

The biggest problem, believe it or not, was p-a-i-n-t. From the previous owners, I'd inherited well over 150 cans of old paint, that I never got around to dealing with, because I didn't even know where to start. It just sat along a basement wall, collecting dust, and I kept putting it off. Add to that mess, even more paint cans that stemmed from my 20 years of ownership. Awful!

For anyone else in a similar discarded paint nightmare, kitty litter is the solution! Pry open every can, pour in the kitty litter & let it dry out. Then, dump it,...the sooner, the better.

ETA: Another huge problem was BIG, old tube TVs that people had stored here, and that no one wants anymore. There were 7 to get rid of! It cost me $195 to have them hauled away. Those things weighed a ton.

I did not know this! Thank you so very much, I'm down in the basement now just looking at all these cans and wondering what in the heck I can do with them.......

TV's? I have 3 plus all electronics stuff from a siblings room to dump...that's another issue.

Oh my, I should of posted this earlier, I could of gotten a lot of good tips from experienced individuals that have been through this.

Thank you...I'm glad I have a few minutes to go back and read through the responses.

This problem is almost universal, and it's a huge PITA. Our family went through a massive clean-up when my late Mom moved out of her big old house, and we've been through a whole series of downsizings/clean-outs with DH's mother, who is now in a nursing home. Now a lot of her junk is stacked in a vacant bedroom in our upstairs. Sadly, DH and I have the same challenges in our place. He's a packrat (although I don't allow him to let it overflow into our living areas), and just about every one of us has the problem of storing things for family members, seasonal things, need-to-be-fixed things, things too good to throw away, and all of the accumulation of years of living and collecting. DH and I say we're going to get busy and clean out, but I'm not sure when........ The process is daunting, and we do love our stuff. That's why we collected it in the first place.