Hoarding

[citizen_erased]

I have roughly 14 square meters in which I live. Bed, desk, bookcase, clothes, food, everything is put in this one room. So really, I have no space for hoarding, I barely have enough space (and money, sadly) for necessary things. And yes, I do consider books as absolutely necessary. I`m still upset that I had to bring away a whole bunch of books and one of my bookcases because they couldn`t fit in this room.

I`ll probably have to go through 2 out of 3 bed drawers again soon to throw out stuff I haven`t used in ages - need a proper place to store my tools (right now, my hammer and nails are in the same place as my origami paper and my packs of udon, while my screw drivers are in a completely different drawer XD)

[Mahogany]

I have roughly 14 square meters in which I live. Bed, desk, bookcase, clothes, food, everything is put in this one room. So really, I have no space for hoarding, I barely have enough space (and money, sadly) for necessary things. And yes, I do consider books as absolutely necessary. I`m still upset that I had to bring away a whole bunch of books and one of my bookcases because they couldn`t fit in this room.

I`ll probably have to go through 2 out of 3 bed drawers again soon to throw out stuff I haven`t used in ages - need a proper place to store my tools (right now, my hammer and nails are in the same place as my origami paper and my packs of udon, while my screw drivers are in a completely different drawer XD)

   You're me of the Netherlands!  That's my problem right now, too!  My dresser top's is stacked high with books, while the rest are on the floor.  I'm slowly running out of livable space . . . which will upset my roommate, probably, considering I'm in the living room.

[Archie Nimrod Barman]

I have bookshelves and closets full of stuff that is only important to me. My garage is full of old tools, some of which were my grandfathers, several projects that need finishing, and a car that I swear will fix someday.

[Aki Van-Wyke]

I've always had this problem. 

I'm one who isn't particularly fond of beds (I haven't slept in one since I was a little kid), so my room is a giant empty void with nothing but a desk and a closet.
I have lots of rooms for stuff to pile up.

I used to obsessively collect keyboard and typewriter keys, so I have about 8 boxes of those in one corner, and the rest of my room in filled with piles of other interesting things...

you usually can't see the floor.

the rest of my house isn't that bad, but the smaller rooms really are...

[Aleister Crow]

I used to have this problem. Recently I started going through boxes, and if I couldn't remember exactly why I was keeping something, and didn't see an immediate use for it- out it went.

I'm happy to say my apartment is now only a minor fire hazard.  

[Xenos]

I used to have this problem. Recently I started going through boxes, and if I couldn't remember exactly why I was keeping something, and didn't see an immediate use for it- out it went.

I'm happy to say my apartment is now only a minor fire hazard.  

Because of my stock of reloading powder, several thousand rounds of ammunition, spray paint, fertilizers, and fuel kept under the edges of my house (the fuel, not the others), in the event my house DOES catch fire, it is HIGHLY advised that rather than put it out, the fire department evacuate the surrounding blocks...

[rovingjack]

I used to have this problem. Recently I started going through boxes, and if I couldn't remember exactly why I was keeping something, and didn't see an immediate use for it- out it went.

I'm happy to say my apartment is now only a minor fire hazard. 

Must be nice. I can go through a box of things and encounter a slip of paper on which is printed a hex Grid layout with pole in the center and remember that twelve years ago this was the prototype playing feild for a game on an alien world I was going to write a novel in. I could then remember there were three other sheets of paper, one with single sentence descriptions of most common encountered plants and animals, planetary system details, character and plot basics.

I remember the year we each got high end professional yoyos for holiday gifts, complete with leather holsters and tricks booklets.

The chess boards in the closet where from mid highschool when I had a moderate obsession and even came up with variant games (try to loose all your peices first when you have to take a peice that is in the line of attack) and a three dimensional version with two new peices.

I almost never forget why something was kept. My only recourse is to ask myself on as scale of 1-10 how important is getting to do that thing? and then I aske of all the things I have, how much time do I have in the next three years? Then start filling those slots with the 10s and work down.

anything that doesn't fix needs a new home. And fast before I find a way to incorperate the old project into something current, or come up with a new use.

[Steamspirit]

i do hoard, but i just dont have piles because all the stuff is in different drawers. for some odd reason i could never get rid of empty containers, and empty notebooks. i keep thinking "wow this box would be great to hold some stuff in, i dont know what yet but i will someday" also about the notebooks, i collect them yes, but do i fill them? no. i will have an idea to use one as a journal, and the other to keep notes on, but then i change my mind and never use them for anything because i cant make up my mind  i also hoard anything else, like scaps of paper, buttons, beads, drawer knobs, and a bunch of other stuff. personally im ok with this because i have specific places to put these things until i figure out what to do with them, and some of these things came very useful in the end.

[celephicus]

Here in the Inventory we have a simple rule. If it hasn't been used for 3 years, then it goes out, unless it is an item worth displaying, or is small enough to be concealed from She Who Must Be Obeyed. We cultivate a loose network of "associates", such as the Terrible Old Man, who builds analogue music synthesisers and runs antique kerosene engines, the Duke of Dodgy Park, who can swap an engine between two trucks in 24 hours, the elusive Prof. M. H., who was investigated by ASIO (the Australian version of MI5, who the good Prof refers to as "the Comic Opera Mounted Police") for building a high power IR laser, and the enigmatic R.J, whose homemade solar heating plant is prone to producing jets of live steam on hot summer days. All these are glad to receive offers of junk, which then they either use or hoard or give away, thus relieving you of the problem.

Besides, if you have ever seen that seminal 80's movie whose name I forget (blame absinthe and high voltage) about a sculptor in a post-apocalyptic world whose creation comes to life and rebuilds itself to murderous effect using the junk around it, you would think twice about the junk around it. Igor saw the movie and thought it was a documentary, he still wants to go there for his annual holiday!

[Flightless Phoenix]

I'm a hoarder. Every single piece of academic work I have ever done- since I was 4 until 21 is in my room or the attic because I can't bear to part with things I put effort into- and I always threw my heart and soul into school work. I have boxes and boxes of art supplies and fabric etc for crafting- a walk in cupboard full plus all of the room under my double bed- because I fully intend to use all of it at some point...

I'm currently redecorating my room after returning from 3 years in student accomodation and realising that I really don't have room for all of my furniture- let alone all of my books (500+ and growing). I'm going to have to find some pretty ingenious storage solutions because I cannot bear to part with any more of my things.

[Aeryn Halley]

I do not believe I have a hoarding problem. My quarters may be messy, but one could clearly see the floor. My mother however, keeps everything, including inherited items from my grandparents. I understand why she does not want to part with them. However, it hurts my heart to see items sitting around unused, when it could be put to better use by someone else.

[Wormster]

Besides, if you have ever seen that seminal 80's movie whose name I forget (blame absinthe and high voltage) about a sculptor in a post-apocalyptic world whose creation comes to life and rebuilds itself to murderous effect using the junk around it, you would think twice about the junk around it. Igor saw the movie and thought it was a documentary, he still wants to go there for his annual holiday!

AHHHHH!! Hardware! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_%28film%29) I remember going to see that flick in Melbourne about 20 odd years ago, 'Twas brill, I can understand why Igor thought it was a documentary!!

As for hoarding - wellllllll I'd love to hoard stuff, but apart from my caving kit (ooohhh! nicey shiny bits of metal turned dull - the collection keeps growing) comix - kept handily by the throne - what a way to pass the morning movement chuckling to the Freak Bros and my sadly diminished kite collection (lost a few to the winds over the years and suchlike) I don't have the space, 4 moves in 3 years each time to smaller dwellings has meant that I have paired things back to the bare minimum!! - T'owd man now that's different he's the hoarder of the family!

[Tito Alba]

Hoarder - never.  Collector - absolutely.

I actually don't really 'collect' that much and don't really hold onto possessions that obsessively at all but in my years on this planet I have acquired quite a significant library that refuses to be pruned due to its large number of factual books on obscure subjects that may need to be referenced at some future time.

I've also developed quite a collection of hats that could be considered a touch obsessive by some, but they are such specific objects and England has such fickle weather that you really need at least a straw one for the sun, a felt one for the winter, a dress one for special occasions, and even then I found myself on many days saying "its too hot for the felt but too likely to rain for the straw so I need another that is both light and waterproof". Not to mention the aviator for days when I have to catch that pigeon and a pith helmet or two for exploring.

And then there's the waistcoats that are growing in number with every good charity shop or ebay find I make.

But they all serve good purpose and never lie fallow for more than 6 months at a time so are definitely active 'collections' not 'hoards'

[Nikola Tesla]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your future:

I have recently cleared out a 12ft x 12ft storage unit.  I did keep some of the better stuff, but within those eldritch aluminum walls I found the Ark of the Covenant a box about a foot and a half on a side, full of wire, nothing but wire (kept the best); the Holy Grail a stack of pay stubs from the first job I ever had (in 1984!); a live tyrannosaur a box of clothing I did not recognize, some of which was underwear; the Spear of Destiny several hundred unused, bent wire hangers (I think in a previous incarnation I had some kind of superstition about throwing away anything metal); lost Mayan codices a typewriter, not old enough to be steamy, more from the '80s when work was all about briefcases! - and shoulder pads!...but not that much actual work; one of the squids from "Sphere" a box of rocks, not the interesting kind but the type you pick up in the garden, which I'd inexplicably moved a thousand miles from another state.  None of this was in any particular order.

The remainder was the usual storage-unit detritus (you know it's bad when you unpack a bunch of vinyl records of the very music they are playing over the storage facility PA system), but the upshot is that I got rid of at least nine-tenths of these assembled molecules and I don't miss them in the least.

And to think I was paying rent on that stuff.  That's where it's headed if you don't sort and toss regularly, folks.

[TVC15]

The remainder was the usual storage-unit detritus (you know it's bad when you unpack a bunch of vinyl records of the very music they are playing over the storage facility PA system), but the upshot is that I got rid of at least nine-tenths of these assembled molecules and I don't miss them in the least.

Nicola, please tell me that you didn't get rid of the vinyl? If you still have them, pm me and we can discuss 'arrangements'. If you did, a rather large air kraken will excrete on your primary boiler...

[Nikola Tesla]

Good news and bad news...I kept the vinyl, but it is not for sale.

I should have been clearer...it's bad when they're playing the music you're unpacking, even worse when it's music you're still planning to keep for a while...

[celephicus]

My wife & I think the same thing. We can go a a DVD shop and get a swag of excellent movies from the $5 bargain bin, totally ignoring the latest blockbuster epics. Some of our $5 movies become perennial favourites.

[Nikola Tesla]

Since in my case the ol' video collection (actually the various ages video collection) is an excellent example for the Hoarding topic, I might as well mention mine, which takes up effectively all of the space in my apartment that would be devoted to winter coats if I still lived in Minnesota.  Plenty of bargain-bin specials in there, along with other low-funds finds like those collections of 50 sci-fi B-movies or drive-in hits or cult horror flicks or whatever someone felt belonged in a 50-movie collection you can get for under ten dollars.  And like for you, some of these have become faves.

The Hoarding label in my case better describes those which did not.  I'm especially florid with this in the horror genre.  My excuse?  "But I might want to watch this again some day!"  Really?  Does that apply to The Fog, in either its 1980 version (a classic to some, but really sort of slow) or its 21st-century remake?  To Stephen King's The Mist (is there a theme here?)?  To Sleepy Hollow?  To the later Poltergeist movies?  The later Hellraiser ones?  To Legion? Really?!  Not to mention that if it's a "jolts" show (as in The Grudge in its various versions and sequels), the effect is pretty much nonexistent after one has seen it in the double digits of times.

OK, video parties.  Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, anyone?  *cue crickets*

(Full disclosure:  I do still actually watch Legion, but just for laughs.  [Is it just me or does Paul Bettany have some kind of problem with traditional religion?].  And the way they did the angels in there has some visual appeal, they might even look a little steampunk, though not enough, and it doesn't in any way save the show.  I haven't even been able to work out a drinking game for it that doesn't either not have enough drinks or leave everyone under the table.  Sigh.)

Admittedly, since I mostly use videos these days to have something on while I exercise, high story quality isn't really all that important.

Lately when I add to my collection I've been gravitating toward things like a season of a television show on disc or like that, because they're packaged in such a way as to take up less room on the shelf.  Why have I not just gone to streaming video or download, a rational person might ask.  To which I reply that when internet is unreliable or gets slow, there isn't much opportunity to watch videos...though that's usually when the electricity is completely out, which means videos aren't really an option at all...no, reason is not a part of this.  It's hoarding, fair and simple.