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Nana.
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chaosqueen
Congratulations Nana! I am always excited to read about your progress! I am with you. It is the little steps that make the huge change! And for me, too, reporting here or posting my plans was helpful.
Nana
Well – we seem to have managed to remove the things from the bedroom and are ready for the windows to be fitted tomorrow.
It really does seem strange to have all the front windows accessible – but it has revealed how cold they are, even though they are double glazed it is probably 50 years ago that they were fitted and the distance between the panes of glass has increased a lot for modern windows.
The inner woodwork has rotted in places, so that will need to be sorted out once the new glass is in place.I’d better get to bed – it will be a long day tomorrow.
After all the work, there was a problem with some of the fitting material being the wrong size and so it was not done, but oh the shock of waking up and seeing the bedroom uncluttered – it really is a hard physical shock – and a mental one as well,
I found that the chest of drawers I thought was full of clothes, was in fact empty, so I filled one drawer with gloves and belts during the clearing out and will have to decide what to keep in the other two drawers.
The carpet has been gone over with a vacuum cleaner several times now, and a lot of dust removed, which must be good for our health, plus the curtain rails have been cleaned and polished so the curtains can be opened and closed easily – and the windows are no longer mouldy after being washed several times – plus they dried off very quickly this morning. They are on the North side of the house, and although they are double glazed they are cold to the touch.
Now I just have to sort through all the things removed up into the attic to get them out of the way after the bins were filled. Having been sorted through once it is just a matter of getting things together again – as in pairs of shoes and boots, and either getting rid of them or putting them where they ought to be, in the wardrobe.Oddsocks
I am so impressed- you show us its possible! Well done!
We are still waiting for the windows to be replaced as illness has struck the business doing the work, but with the space around the windows easily accessible my husband has done repairs to the Victorian plasterwork and put up lining paper, painted the parts of the window frames which will remain in place, and the carpet is looking brighter and lighter each time it is gone over with the vacuum cleaner.
It really is like one of those games where there is one space and things are slid into it so the picture emerges, but each space that is opened gives access to a third dimension, so doors and drawers can now be opened, a storage chest can be used as never before, the curtains can be opened and closed easily. The mould which lurked around the windows can be wiped and the glass dried off to reduce the humidity, which must be a good thing for our health.
I keep doing a little more sorting of books and disposing of enough to make a difference, so that when I find a book I want to keep I can put it on the shelves.
My husband found the right sized nylon runners for a chest of drawers and replaced two which had broken and left the drawer difficult to move.It was an effort to open up that space, and there are bags of stuff waiting to be sorted, up in the loft, but although it was done rather erratically at first, now it is all working smoothly and becoming normal.
The dustbin is noticeably more filled up these days, the kitchen sink is still open for business rather than cluttered with washing up not done, but all as something normal in this new order of things.ShedTheShame
This is wonderful to hear, Nana!!! Hats off to you!
Well done! You have been brave and kept going! I’m pleased that you have had positive experiences of the results.
Well – today is my birthday and I celebrated by sorting through some shelves and organizing the books, and there is actually space now.
I think that is what many people would find if they could just get started.
I still have a lot of stuff – but I am finding things and putting them where they should be, opening cupboards and finding space inside, not up against the door, and all the time dribs and drabs of things to throw away are going into the bin, and in addition old projects are being brought out and some are even being completed.I am not a rubbish hoarder like some seen on TV – I just had my old pocket watch repaired, and I have found the original box with the receipt, dated Christmas Eve 1974 and a lock of my hair from the time I was blonde inside it. I doubt that there is any monetary value, but links with those times are perhaps more important now than 20 or 30 years ago.
Somuchstuff
A late Happy Birthday.
1974 does not feel like it was fifty years ago!
I almost wish I was a rubbish hoarder. It would make it easier to let go of things. As you say it is the links to different times that makes things seem important now.
People who hoard rubbish must have their reasons why they find it so difficult to let go of it too.
I have actually cleared out a house for a rubbish hoarder who owned cats – I should have obtained a full hazmat suit with air hose I think, looking back.
I did it with permission. The owner claimed that it was impossible to do anything about the situation as it was too bad, but I just went in and did it.On the Wednesday evening I carried bags of rubbish along the road and filled up all the bins put out to be emptied next morning. It was a lot – but using small bags which could be carried easily really made a difference. There were lots of large black bags with rubbish in them, but they were inside the house ripped open. I really think that there is a psychological advantage to using small white bags for clearing up.
I did sort out all the cutlery and plates left around, unearthed some tins of cat food, rather than just dumping everything.
By the time the owner was coming home I had washed the floors several times and the smell was much less than it had been.I don’t wear socks these days, so as I go through the washing backlog in the conservatory, I am separating out the socks to throw them away.
I am not even looking for pairs, just started with the short black ones and then managed to add the white ones with stripes or patches.
Once I make a start I can continue.That is what I tell myself anyway.
Its so kind of you to do clearing and cleaning of a cluttered home, as well as what you are doing in your home!
It was a while ago now, but strangely easy to do.
I think by then I had learned to view things in stages rather than one whole problem.I’ve sometimes thought that it might be good to get help from someone else who hoards- with an understanding? No risk of shame. I then pointed out to myself that there might be things objectively to be removed, with the helper agreeing with the person that it should be kept!
I was reading something earlier that was a report of a fire brigade (rescue service) senior person about hoarding. They said that although it was now a recognised mental disorder, it was usually a ‘lifestyle choice’!
Reminds me that there is a video about fire prevention written for other people (friends, family….), not people who hoard! (https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/safety/carers-and-support-workers/hoarding-disorder/) I had a home safety visit which was dreadful, because rather being given useful advice, the boss stood really closely to me, clearly angry, once he had looked round! Hopefully they arent all like that!
What I remember most is the relief in her voice when looking through the things I rescued from the heaps, that she’d been looking for them and thought that they were lost.
I think that having been pleased to find things in the heaps I had, I was tuned in to look for things to keep which some people might simply have thrown away.
Hoarding really is not a choice as it is an emotional response to a situation and as such not easily ruled by logic.I think that I realised I had to divorce my first husband when I discovered that he’d thrown away some pieces of the jigsaw I had almost completed after spending quite a bit of money and done many hours of work on it.
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