I'm really not guilty of hoarding anything. However, I DID clean out my hall closet today and found a bunch of stupid stuff. ( A spool of lace, my 4th grade report card, used paint can stirrer, a panel of sheer curtain) I don't know why I have kept any of these things. To make it worse, other than the paint stick, I put them back in the closet. Why do we keep all that stuff?
Because we might need them someday. You never know when you might need a good used paint stirrer. Wait!!!! You didn't throw away a perfectly good used paint stirrer, did you????? You might want to use the lace curtains to make yourself some pretty undies, then trim them with the lace. The report card? Well, let me think about that one for a while.
When you come up with something, be sure to let me know. I still have most of mine and the only use I can think of for them would be as a bad example for the grandkids.
@Bess Barber I am SOO tempted to post a pic of a drawer in our kitchen cabinets, ANY drawer, to reveal the incredible conglomeration of stuff carefully placed therein in strewn fashion, almost to the point of indicating hoarding behavior....... But, if I got caught at it, OUCH! Frank
My experience is that whatever object or tool I need (desperately) to find is totally gone or at least invisible. However, items that I needed 6 months ago, and are no longer relevant, are ALWAYS right there in the top of the drawer, and have come back from being invisible.
Back to the report card; you need to save it for historical value. @Bess Barber , someday someone will come across it and have a look back at what report cards were like in ancient times. My son was working in an old house and came across a letter that was written way back in WWII. It had somehow slipped down inside a wall. He was removing the kitchen sink and found it. It has no actual value but it gives a glimpse into the past for me.
@Shirley Martin It would be my luck for it to end up in some museum in 2050 with the teacher constantly stating I had potential, but I never stopped talking.
We have a bigger house than we need, so we tend to keep a lot of things. While I am often tempted to cart a whole bunch of stuff off to the transfer station and have done that a couple of times, invariably I will find a need for something that I discarded, or I'll learn that I could have sold it on eBay. For example, we had about a dozen old flip phones and cellphones lying around and were able to sell even the oldest ones on eBay, sometimes for a fair amount of money. Maybe one day, one of my old cellphones will be used to detonate a bomb somewhere.
I honestly probably would be called a Hoarder! Not in the same way as those you see on those TV shows who can't get into their house for crap, but I I keep lots of cupboards full of stuff, and also boxed stuff in the attic!! I grew up dirt poor, and I'm terrified of ever being poor again, so instead of throwing away and old item..(which might be still serviceable) when I upgrade, I put the older one (eg an Iron) in the loft...in case my new iron stops working, and then I don't have to buy a new one.. Ridiculous really because I have never actually had to do that, so I have clear outs of the attic every couple of years but the fear remains with me that I'll have nothing again, if I don't save stuff!!
Don't worry, @Holly Saunders . I stayed with someone who has got 5 (five!) electric shavers four of which he keeps charging each day just in case...