Help! I'm a hoarder!

[Not that Bob 739]

Well, not exactly, but I have more stuff than I can store. Both my brother-in-law and my father died in 2021 and I "inherited" all their stuff, this is in addition to decades of my own crap. My conundrum is that it's too good to throw away, but in quantities to small to make it worth trying to sell it. For example, three packages of steel wool. Many boxes of nails and screws. Boxes of bed clothing in like new condition. Outdoor temporary lighting on stakes. Dozens of extension cords. Numerous duplicate tools. My mother's books she  used in elementary school 100 years ago. On and on. Goodwill wouldn't take the 100's of books so I recycled them. Habitat for Humanity doesn't want three boxes of nails. 

I don't want to spend the rest of my life driving to various charity organizations "begging" them to take this stuff. Charities may start accepting more stuff when covid settles down, but at present they won't take many things because of the supposed risk of infection. I don't have the patience to open an ebay account and that wouldn't be cost effective. 

What can I do with the accumulated crap from three guys? 

[Jerry Callo 8862]

Have a garage sale give away. What ever doesn't get taken by noon, toss in the trash.

[Sbbruin 21943]

Nextdoor is your friend.  We post “free” shit all the time, tell them it’s on the curb, and bam, gone in 60 seconds.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Sbbruin

[Your Mom 4886]

I make a monthly trip to goodwill. Sometimes I just start noticing a little more clutter and I just start boxing shit up. If I haven’t worn it or used it in the last year I get rid of it. If it costs me a little money by having to buy something later on that I otherwise would’ve still had, oh well… it’s money well spent. 
 

My dad is a lifelong collector. In his later years he’s trying to cull all his crap and is constantly trying to unload stuff on me. I don’t even spare his feelings anymore because I hate having a bunch of shit. I just tell him “that’s cool dad but if you give it to me I’m throwing it away.”

[TKthunder2 5040]

1 hour ago, Jerry Callo said:

Have a garage sale give away. What ever doesn't get taken by noon, toss in the trash.

Yep this is the best you’ll do.  Make a few hundred bucks before 10am and by noon you just start giving shit away to anyone who wants it for stupid low prices.

[bernorange 8377]

If you have any items of value that you don't want to give away in a garage sale, you can use craigslist instead of ebay.

[52-80 19291]

4 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Nextdoor is your friend.  We post “free” shit all the time, tell them it’s on the curb, and bam, gone in 60 seconds.

also, if you have a neighbor you hate, dump it on their lawn and spam their address on nextdoor

[Nice Guy Eddie 13569]

For items like your moms old school books, perhaps those were sentimental to her. It reminded her of those days and old friends so it made sense that she wanted to keep them. For you, they don’t have that meaning. Toss them in the trash. It’s not disrespectful to do this. Or maybe take a few minutes to look through each one to decide if it means anything to you.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

10 hours ago, Not that Bob said:

Well, not exactly, but I have more stuff than I can store. Both my brother-in-law and my father died in 2021 and I "inherited" all their stuff, this is in addition to decades of my own crap. My conundrum is that it's too good to throw away, but in quantities to small to make it worth trying to sell it. For example, three packages of steel wool. Many boxes of nails and screws. Boxes of bed clothing in like new condition. Outdoor temporary lighting on stakes. Dozens of extension cords. Numerous duplicate tools. My mother's books she  used in elementary school 100 years ago. On and on. Goodwill wouldn't take the 100's of books so I recycled them. Habitat for Humanity doesn't want three boxes of nails. 

I don't want to spend the rest of my life driving to various charity organizations "begging" them to take this stuff. Charities may start accepting more stuff when covid settles down, but at present they won't take many things because of the supposed risk of infection. I don't have the patience to open an ebay account and that wouldn't be cost effective. 

What can I do with the accumulated crap from three guys? 

Our family has faced this and it's hard and frankly exhausting. But here is a summary of some things we did. A lot will depend upon your location or at the least, the location of the majority of the stuff.

Plan ahead and commit to a decision. For example, is your intent to get rid of all of the items regardless of whether you make a little cash? If so, hold a garage sale. With a garage sale you're the boss. It doesn't have to be an all day affair. Best clear out we ever had was taking large boxes and chucking in the small stuff and writing $1 or $2 (or some other amount) on the side. Have to buy the whole box. Large things had one of two colored stickers--red was five bucks, blue was ten. No dickering. We told people if they wanted to dicker, they were free to return at 3:00 to see if anything was at the curb (free) and set out for the bulky pickup by the city trucks. The children and my husband walked up to the major intersections and placed cardboard garage sale signs with the address in large letters at the top and enclosed in an arrow, followed by SALE and CHEAP. There were people following them back to the house, lol. We opened at 8:00 w/o placing an ad and shut it down at 11:00 so we could make lunch. Three hours and our children got the proceeds because we had them doing all of the work except a little oversight. There was about a box worth of stuff left. It disappeared in the afternoon.

Other things we have done:

1. Half-Price books, if you have one, will appraise your CDs, mags, and books and make an offer. Or, our library takes all books and then puts them in the book sale held a couple of times a year to make extra money. I took a literal pick up truckbed  full of books to our library (we called ahead to talk to the main office so they could direct us to the best branch with space to hold them).

2. Some schools like tools, etc depending upon condition, for their CTE classes (think old school shop for the modern era).

3. The DAV (disabled American veterans) have always been pretty good about sending a truck for our larger items. We have not used them since the pandemic started since the last time we needed to handle an estate was prior to that. Their link is:    https://www.dav.org/ they would schedule an appt and send out a couple of people who loaded up the truck and gave us a tax receipt.

After that, it does get to be much more work if you are attempting to find 'homes' for everything. It is emotionally draining to sort through loved ones' belongings and that is regardless of whether you, yourself, are sentimental about any of the items. Just handling all of it, moving it, etc is tiring. I still have the most sentimental boxes from my parents in a closet and I am putting that one off because I cannot handle it right now.

Lastly, you can just toss it all. You weren't missing it previously, and likely won't in the future, so if you want it gone, you can make it so.

Good luck to you.

 

 

 

[Celery Man 21038]

there was "why does craigslist suck" thread in... 6th street (for some reason) recently and people talked about "Buy Nothing" groups on Facebook. I've since used these to get rid of stuff that I don't want to throw in the garbage but I also don't need to get value out of (and don't want to deal with Craigslist jawas). If you have a facebook, look for one for your area. I've still mostly used it to get rid of stuff that has *some* value but it's fucking all day on there with used baby shit, nearly expired food, lightbulbs, etc.

[52-80 19291]

3 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

(and don't want to deal with Craigslist jawas)

very racist

[ChickenSandwich 9861]

 

Table 5 table 5

[gyroprotagonist 2595]

two words:  bulk trash

the 'jawas' as referred to above will roll up in their sandcrawler and pick through all the stuff they want.  the rest is picked up as trash and it's no longer your problem.

[zman13 180]

Join the local "Buy Nothing Sell Nothing" group on Facebook. People will line up for crap that most people would throw in the trash. They'll come to your place to pick it up.