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Have we all met the Marie Kondo tidying up phenomenon? She has this advice that if it doesn't give you joy then you should not keep it in your tidy house. I suppose that it helps with hoarders but ....

But where does this leave the reduce, reuse and recycle idea? How many people complete the tidy up.

I'm sure that many people come to think about recycling but never complete the tidying up (gets to door, garage, car - gets thrown because it's too much effort to go to the charity shop, tip with rubbish, sold on internet, put on freecycle).

And where does that leave those of us who keep things to reuse?

I'm firmly in the camp of "it will come in useful one day", and so I keep nearly everything that could have a use, or could be used to repair something else.
Last year we had a skip in and I foolishly threw a lot of stuff, just so my wife could get her car in the garage, and at least twice since I have regretted it.
Mind you, I may have just what I need, but my brain is so far gone I can't remember where it is, or if I threw it on the skip, or if I just imagined that I used to have whatever it was I was looking for in the first place.

Odsox wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:51 pm I'm firmly in the camp of "it will come in useful one day", and so I keep nearly everything that could have a use, or could be used to repair something else.

So am I. But the amount of stuff kept for those reasons is, from my experience, linked to the amount of space you have to keep things in... Friends of mine,with a very large house (only half of it used to live in) and a farm around that house, keep a lot more than I do, in my little council house with tiny garden...

tidy up the house by all means but keep out of my kitchen cupboards, shed and study; I know precisely what's in there and where everything is!

Odsox wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:51 pm I'm firmly in the camp of "it will come in useful one day", and so I keep nearly everything that could have a use, or could be used to repair something else.

Great minds and all that ? Just what I do.
I was recently preparing an area between a couple of sheds for slabbing and the soil I was lifting I was putting through a metal mesh. That was giving me sieved topsoil falling through and I was picking stones from the top and putting them into a bag and leaving only weed roots and a bit of rubbish left. We had a plasterer working at the time and as I was riddling the soil he came out to see me. His first words were " you don't throw anything away do you?"
I've several friends who have thrown stuff away ( or had stufff thrown away for them) who have later on complained that it was a bad idea when they've had to go and rebuy things they formally had "in store" .

Yeah and some of us have been left with stuff that should really have been put in a skip as no one using a double bed can use another 20 sides to middle single sheets and worn thin ones which are always going to be more than enough cleaning rags for a couple of lifetimes in a small flat - even doing military standard cleaning.

Flo - always make sure to buy 100% cotton sheets - they can be composted. ;)

When my parents were older they started sleeping in seperate beds. I went round one day and my mother showed me the flannelette sheet off my father's bed. At some point he had managed to rip it , blamed on his toenails by my mother but it wasn't the rip my mother wanted to show me , it was the repair. Father had used gaffer tape and was still sleeping on it . That probably trumps my own not throwing anything away claims.

Skippy wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:59 pm Father had used gaffer tape and was still sleeping on it .

Brilliant!

Ours were cut down the middle and then sown together again inside out. I've still got one of them, from 40 years ago or so... The one I'm lying on at the moment is worn so thin you can see the mattress through. I think that'll be for - er - the box with cleaning rags...

But I think this conversation highlights the fact that today we have so much "stuff" in our lives. Sure some "stuff" might come in useful who knows when . Other "stuff" we get so attached to that even when it is so battered to be almost useless we still cannot stomach the idea of recycling or cannibalizing it in some way... We are very much prisoners and slaves to "stuff" (I am too) but we really do need to take a fresh look at what "stuff" we have and ask ourselves what "stuff" do we really need and find others who need the stuff we don't need and pass it on. My guess is that all the "stuff" we store and keep but never use simply is a weight on our shoulders...

I don't know. I admit I have quite a few things that are "useless" - but that I have a strong emotional attachment to. Mostly stuff I got when my parents died, when our family home was sold - nobody else in my family wanted those things that are strong reminders of my childhood, of the only family I ever had, and that I didn't have the heart to chuck out. I kind of blame it on the fact that the rest of my family have more to do with their lives, they have families of their own and many friends, whereas all my links to that are in the past. So I've got an ancient rain coat hanging on my wardrobe door, for example, that belonged to my mother. I remember her getting on the bike in that when I was a very small child... It's too small for me, and even if I ever lost that much weight it still woulnd't be much good, because the material is a little worn. (Things then were made to last! The coat is around 60 years old.) And I have an even older dress of hers - she wore it when she was pregnant with me, and I wore it myself around 20 years later. I know I'll probably only chuck items like that when I finally have to go into a care home. Not looking forward to that.

ina you aren't the only one who does keep or has kept things like that. But we only have 2 weeks to clear out this social housing bungalow if I leave for a home or am deceased. As all my family work and many live the distance away, I try to keep on top of the clutter.

I'd not like the full Marie Kondo but then having been to 12 schools by the time I was 12 I had a bit of a travelling childhood, left to join the forces for 4 years and so didn't start with collect it mindset. That's not to say that it wouldn't take many hands to empty this place if it had to be cleared starting tomorrow and ending in 2 weeks. The allotment shed luckily is not in that 2 weeks as this is full of useful stuff as are all garden sheds.

But it would be what to do with the useful stuff as there's not much that would require a skip.

Some time ago we had to clear my wife's nan's house. Only a small terrace house but on the west coast of Scotland while we live in Staffordshire . We went up in my van and her brother in law hired a van and came too. Some things were given away to nan's friends , a fair bit was dumped ( old worn out and that sort of thing) or went to the charity shop and we brought back a van load of furniture . Biggest proportion of that went as a job lot to the local auction house and got a price which didn't even cover my diesel. My wife did want to keep a China cabinet . Probably 1960's and unfortunately we managed to break one of the doors on the way back. So that had to be replaced and I had to paint the birds and trees in black and gold on it to match the original. The two back legs were showing signs of worm so they were replaced and then my wife had an accident and broke the glass panel in the side. Not a huge cost in glass but getting it out damaged the top of the cabinet and I ended up having to re veneer the top. All in all that's quite a bit of time , effort and cost to get us a china cabinet that's probably worth very little moneywise but is of great sentimental value to my wife.

Your tale reminds me of the vacant property team that was recently sent in to clear a downstairs flat round the corner from me vacated by an older lady who had gone into a care home. The nearest parking space was not close so all the furniture was pulled out and stacked at the garden gate so that the trolley could easily move the load. I looked at the pile and the blokes doing the clearing looked at the pile. As they said, there was nothing there worth renovating or trading with them for. Had anything been of any use they would have sorted it and made a few coppers out of it one way or another. Says a thing when not even the furniture selling charity shops can use a house or flat clearing.

I think that this flat was well below the Marie Kondo area of tidying. Much below her standards.

Having just had a period of enforced idleness, I watched half an episode of her TV series. I only managed half an episode because, despite finding the idea of "only keeping that which gives you joy" enchanting, it is totally unrealistic and made me want to chuck my tablet out of the window - the programme definitely didn't bring me joy.
It sort of reminded me of those cookery shows where each ingredient is placed in a separate dish, never emptied fully and the ensuing mixture moves through several other receptacles before the finished product emerges - entire unrealistic and you know they don't do their own washing up!
I admit to being a bit of a hoarder, but I've so regularly discovered the need for that thing I threw or gave away or donated not long before.
I did see a meme on FB, related to this, that made me laugh out loud. To paraphrase - "She said to throw out anything which didn't give me joy. So far I binned the electricity bill, my bras and the bathroom scales".