Pack rat vs hoarder

saracelica

saracelica

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saracelica
As I posted my father in law passed two weeks ago. Mother in law appears to be handling it well. She started cleaning out his stuff. Whoa flame throwers she's not in denial. Community garage sale in may and wants to be ready and have a reason for my husband to go over and "help" never realized he was a pack rat. So much stuff in drawers and closets. We got some of the stuff... A really nice looking box she said was for jewelry and a dozen sweatshirts.

Brought it home and realized we needed to clean up our house.

I guess there should be a question not just a big paragraph. You have stuff your spouse world farther you not have? My mother in law couldn't get rid of the THOUSANDS of sci Fi books he had... The funny part is they moved into this new house 6 years ago so my father in law purged alot of stuff but the agreement he could have what he wanted in his mancave.
 
It is a hassle. When it is my time I want to have as little trinkety crap as possible. Guess the wife will have to go first for that to work out.:lol::mad2:
 
Moved into two condos on retirement,no more clutter or junk . Just gave,or junked most of what I thought I couldn't live without.
 
Timely post. I sold my business and retired in September. We just bought a house on the river, but it is a few hundred sq ft small than our old one and we are not going to have room for all of our stuff. So we are sorting through it all and trying to decide what to give away. First pass wasn't too successful because we felt we couldn't part with a lot of it. So we are on our second pass and being much more "ruthless" and giving away more stuff.

Anybody want a case of really cool old cassette tapes?
(actually, they are already boxed up and loaded to take to Goodwill).
 
We face the same dilimma, my parents died, my Sister died, and my wife's Father passed away all within 5 years of each other and we inherited all their stuff.

Top that off with all the stuff we've accumulated throughout fifty years and it's a lot of junk we'll never use or need.

Right now, WE are the pack rats.
 
The spouse retired at the beginning of December and closed his auto glass shop. It was always nice to have an 'extra' place to put stuff. Now that he no longer has the shop, everything from there had to be moved. Some stuff got sold, some given away, some into the trash. But what came home....I can barely make it into our 60x40 garage. More purging to be done when we get back from vacation.

I've been slowly cleaning out my house of excess clutter. Everything that is usable get cleaned up and taken to the Salvation Army. Clothes, book, household items.

I do have a fabric hoarding problem though. And now that we are visiting SE Asia, I have to restrain myself. I did buy several yards of silk that I couldn't resist. hehehe
 
A pack rat collects things he knows he'll use eventually. A hoarder just collects.
.
Eventually is defined as sometime this millennium.
 
Sci fi books, fairly innocuous. Cats, not so much.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Sci fi books, fairly innocuous. Cats, not so much.
Click to expand...

Trip over one dead cat and you're a pack rat. More than one and you're a hoarder. Bonus points if you use a broken fridge to store unopened mail.
 
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