Selfsufficientish.com

Where is the line between reducing, reusing, recycling and hoarding?

So I was given a toilet seat for a Christmas present to liven up the shower room because it was too white! However I managed to break it and two years later have managed to get someone to replace the missing plastic fitting (one of those cheap as chips things from places that stock widgets) and to re-install the old white one. I now have a toilet seat that works (might have had to buy one but didn't throw out the good one) but how often do we keep things and discover 15 years later that we have never used them again?

OK so I've just thrown out a router for t'internet that I had kept as a spare after ten years when it blew up. But this sort of thing makes me wonder if I should have a space for spares - not easy in a one bedroom social bungalow for older folks of course. And what I should keep as spares.

What does the audience think?

How many cats do you own?

None - in our over crowded road you can adoptacat if you need one

I have a houseful, Flo. We decided some months ago to start getting rid of some of it as part of our major fix-up of the house and shop (and encouraging our gal to do the same) with a little bit of success. But we always seem to find uses for things, after we've got rid of them.
Sometimes keeping things pays off. We're nearly finished on the kitchen refurbishment and I've been able to use many things that we've hoarded for years because "they might come in at some point". For example, a neighbour gave us a couple of banister spindles (I'm sure they've got a proper name) when we were doing up the bakery, three maybe four years ago. They were of no use but I couldn't bring myself to throw them away or burn them. They've been given a lick of paint and are now supporting my tiny ferments shelf. Probably half my "new" kitchen is re-used stuff we already had or got from Ebay and charity shops. I think it's absolutely wonderful, the kitchen of my dreams (and I have waited many, many years for it), it's unique and cost a fraction others pay.

And I have four cats, doofa. Yes, I probably am that woman you're thinking of.

Doofa is probably thinking "crazy old cat woman", but I wouldn't dare comment

'Old' Tony?

Never

Well saved, doofa.

Green Aura wrote:Well saved, doofa.

doofaloofa wrote:'Old' Tony?

Never

Crawler

Thanks

Mmmhhh....

I also live in a one bedroom council house - with one cat, and every available space taken up with stuff that might come in useful one day...

And it does often come in useful. And when (or if) I'll ever get round to decorating my living room, so I can put up shelves and sort out my thousands of books, I'll actually be able to use the remaining space as well. Or I'll have to do what neighbours have done - they have a camper van and a trailer outside the house which function as storage space. Mind you, they live in the same kind of house as I do, and there's two of them, plus two dogs.

And if I do feel a cull coming on, I tend to ask a friend if she can use the stuff I'm thinking of getting rid of. Unfortunately, she does the same, so it's not so much a diminishing of heaps of goods as an exchange...

A good clear out is cathartic

And you find the stuff you forgot you had

My dad has kept stuff for years and years. When we bought an old motorhome a few years ago, we needed to replace a bit of the carpeted area and used carpet tiles from a house my parents and I moved out of in 1975. He took great pleasure in telling my mum 'I told you they would come in useful one day'.

He has space to store everything he keeps without it encroaching on living space and he knows where everything is. I think the line between keeping useful stuff to reuse and hoarding comes down to whether you know what you have kept and can find it when you need to reuse it.

Uller wrote:I think the line between keeping useful stuff to reuse and hoarding comes down to whether you know what you have kept and can find it when you need to reuse it.

You're right, Uller. Unfortunately as to the last couple of points - we don't and we can't.

I live in hope that all this work we're doing will enable us to sort through, and use, some of it, shift more of it and store the rest in some intelligible fashion.

Don't hold your breath.

I think I went off keeping in case it might be useful when faced with a double wardrobe full of neatly folded tissue paper for future presents when clearing a relative's house. At least the wardrobe was useful as we didn't have one at the time (having moved from a place with fitted stuff). The house also had a garage to clear with stuff collected from when Noah was doing his joinery apprenticeship. Husband of time would have taken it all but it was emptied before he got there (phew, relief).