Am I a Hoarder?

Am I a Hoarder?

 I don’t think so, though despite the boxes and bags of clothes, kitchen items, and other paraphernalia I’ve donated multiple times, my house still overflows with stuff, to the point where I’m embarrassed to ask people over. I’m holding on to the notion that since I’m willing to get rid of things I no longer use—and yes, I have also surreptitiously donated items of others in my house without telling them—that means I am not a hoarder.

The people I live with—I won’t name names—are definitely a cross between hoarders and pigs. I haven’t decided which characteristic dominates. My house is small and we have no garage. We have a basement but more than half of it is taken up as bedrooms and a laundry room. We can still walk through, generally without incident, and I know where the things are that I use on a regular basis. Other things I need once in a while? No guarantees I’ll remember in which safe place I stored them.

Anyway, here is my argument that it’s not me but the people I live with:

#1

I begged—okay, I ordered—my husband not to put a mattress and box spring we were replacing, as well as a recliner, out on the front lawn. He did anyway and they sat there for two years before our neighbor took pity (or just couldn’t stand seeing the blight on the neighborhood anymore) and got rid of them for us. We don’t have a truck, asked relatives who do to help but for one reason or another it never came together, and didn’t have the funds to pay a removal service.

#2

My oldest moved back a year or so ago and keeps spreading. He has taken over the couch and surrounding floor, the kitchen buffet, and the rest of the basement. I have picked up after him and charged him for the service, thrown stuff back into his bedroom, and of course nagged. I need a new strategy. My husband’s armchair and surrounding area in the living room and man cave are no neater, nor is my youngest son’s bedroom. I can’t remember the last time I was able to vacuum any of their floors.

#3

I generally have no luck in getting my husband to mow our fairly large lawn more than twice a year, and when I had to spend two summers in Georgia to help my parents, neither he nor my sons took care of my vegetable garden, which is now a bed of crabgrass. Bushes, even saplings, have been allowed to take over the yard—oh, I digress. That really doesn’t have anything to do with hoarding, I suppose.

In that case, I will rename the post. This is a bitch fest. The question is what do I do besides bitch? We are in the second day of a heatwave, so nothing for the moment. The temperature will go back to the seventies midweek, however, so I think I’ll take the next week and a half and be ruthless. Anything not used on a regular basis is going.

That doesn’t address the yardwork or how to keep stuff from accumulating again. Maybe by next week’s post I’ll have some strategies to share.