"My name is Charles Richard, and I am a Packrat."
I too am a borderline packrat. I say borderline because I have never gotten as bad as the people you see on those lurid TV shows (and like rp2813's aunt) who hoard so much stuff that they have to burrow through it like -- well, not to bring up a touchy subject haha, -- like rats in a maze. (Btw it does appear that THAT problem has been solved -- have not seen any all week, hallelujah!)
But I have the propensity for becoming that bad if I don't keep a close eye on my tendency to "accumulate."
If I don't watch it, the inclination to "save" things like reusable plastic containers, cool or unusual mailing packaging, etc., can get out of hand. You see, I won't save just a half-dozen Koo-Koo-Roo takeout containers, I'll save them up until there's a hundred of them. Ditto for padded mailers, colored paper, envelopes, computer parts, etc. (I have a large bag full of obsolete 8- 16- and 32-mb RAM chips. I just hate to throw them away, surely I could use them for SOMETHING.)
Then, too, there's the vacuum cleaner stuff of course. That's an area that I reeeeeeeeeeeeeally have to watch. It breaks my heart to throw out a single wand, cord reel, switch, handle, motor housing or old hose because "I may need it someday." Or "someone else may need it someday." Before you know it, I am hoarding so much stuff that I or someone may "need" that I can't even GET TO ANY OF IT because my garage-workshop is piled to the ceiling.
Again, it's a tough call to divide between what I =should= save that's worthwhile and what I =should not= save.
This runs in my family btw. My maternal grandmother was a packrat. Her kitchen was always piled with saved up plastic containers, jars, cans, plastic bags, rubber bands, twist ties etc. Her sewing room, den, bedroom, pantry, workroom, utility room, etc., were all piled high with scraps of gay paper, cloth, ribbons, boxes, sea shells, colored pens and pencils, etc., that she used on her "projects." (e.g., Quaker Oat cylinders covered with crookedly applied, tacky wallpaper and festooned with bits and pieces of glued-on found objects -- she would present these to reluctant recipients who most often hid them from view or tossed them out. Here enters the other aspect of packratting, the compulsion to "help others." (Not that there's anything wrong with helping others -- the point being that the sort of help that packrats wish to tender is not usually helpful or productive. Ohhh, it's a cunning and baffling condition!)
Her RATIONALIZATION for it was that she grew up in the Depression and having to go without so many things made her learn the "value" of reusing reusable things. Well, as I will discuss momentarily, you can draw a line between being frugal and being compulsive.
My mother also saved (her word -- "HOARDED" -- my dad's word) bits and bobbles of stuff for her "artistic projects." And she got into a doll fetish. When Mama and Daddy moved from their large home in Newport News Virginia to a much smaller condo in Yorktown, she had to go through the heart-rending process of going through HUNDREDS of baby dolls deciding which half-dozen or so she could keep. This really tore her up and nearly brought on a nervous breakdown. The only small consolation was that the bulk of them went to a children's hospital to cheer up sick children. But had she not accumulated so many, it would not have been such a chore to then get rid of them when the time came.
The mind can do some amazing gymnastics in rationalizing pack-ratting --- it's good for the environment -- it's less wasteful -- it saves money -- it's being frugal, etc. And yes those arguments are true. Where the disease of hoarding steps in, however, is where so many "recyclables" are saved that there's not a chair to sit in, not a bed to sleep in, not a tub or shower to bathe in, not a kitchen to cook in.
Compulsive, hard-core packrats are like alcoholics -- "One drink is too many and a thousand are never enough."
"One reusable plastic container is too many and a thousand are never enough."
Just as alcoholics in recovery can't take "just one little drink," so too hoarders can't save "just one little magazine." When it gets to the point where one's life, health and safety are in jeopardy, then yes, some hard and perhaps "politically incorrect" choices have to be made in terms of recycling.
That's not as hard a choice today as it was a few years ago, at least not in most urban settings. Nearly all municipal garbage collection services now provide separate bins for recycling, some of them even going so far as to have separate bins for glass, paper and plastic. In L.A.County we have black bins for garbage, blue bins for all recyclables, green bins for organic refuse (mown grass, tree clippings etc.) and the brown bins are provided to ranches and equestrian locations for "horse rubbish."
The advice by Toggleswitch to break down the "uncover, discover, discard" process into small chunks is very good. As you set small clean-up goals (office desk, kitchen drawers, bathroom cupboards) and meet them, the sense of accomplishment and self-esteem will fuel you to take on larger tasks. Before you know it the whole home will be sparkling clean and free of excess materials.
On the other hand, to walk aimlessly around the house looking at all the seemingly insurmountable chores all at once is depressing and counter-productive. What happens? Enough space is shoved aside to sit down, and on goes the TV or the computer.
Another good -- but, granted, hard to follow -- rule is: If you haven't used it in six months, throw it out or give it away. I have probably a dozen boxes of stuff like kitchen gadgets, pots and pans, bits and pieces of various countertop appliances, etc. stuck away in the garage, in the laundry room cupboard, in the storage area under the back stairs, etc. Much of which I have NOT used not in six MONTHS but in six YEARS (or longer), and I surely don't even know most of what is even stuffed away. Yet I just can't seem to bring myself to go through it and get rid of it.
Until, that is, my "Higher Power" throws a BIG incentive my way.
Honeys, you-all have never seen a Cleaning Fiend like the one I became after this Rat Infestation. A couple of friends have dropped by and commented, jaw-dropped, at the glistening kitchen (well, as glistening as a tired 1930s kitchen can get), "WOW! What happened?! Did Martha Stewart move in??!"
I can tell you FIRST-HAND how GOOD it feels to stand there and look at the cleaned-up, spotless kitchen with things arranged orderly and nicely and all the extraneous stuff gone. It's a really, really nice feeling.
Finally, for those who just can't solve this problem on their own -- and there ARE plenty who can't -- there is help. Along with conventional therapy for this issue, there are various 12-step groups for people with obsessive-compulsive disorders including packratters. I have the "Packrats Anonymous Big Book" around here somewhere. It's in one of these boxes of books stacked up in my library, waiting to be gone through, organized and catalogued.................
"And So It Goes."
Sudsy, I do understand and feel for you. And I think most of us do.
