When your spouse is a pack-rat...

[athena1277]

So I was reading the recent thread about decluttering and I really, really want to finally declutter our tons of excess stuff. I actually got the kid's rooms pretty well under control - everything has a place, even if it's not always there.:glare: I have a bit of stuff to go through, but the vast majority belongs to dh. He is one who thinks "I'll need it one day". Of course that day could be 10 years away. He has complained that I don't keep the house very clean, but when there is so much stuff everywhere, how can I keep up with it? Don't suggest i go through his stuff when he's at work. He would notice and be very upset. I know he would love a clean, organized house as much as I would, but how can we get there?

[coffeegal]

:grouphug: Do you have a storage area in your house? An attic, basement, garage, or shed? I've found the best solution is to put things neatly away in storage where they can still be found, but they are away from our living area.

[Heather in OK]

I'm married to one of those too!! His dad is the same way!!

 

He has complained that I don't keep the house very clean, but when there is so much stuff everywhere, how can I keep up with it?

Have you brought that up to him??

 

Ditto the storage suggestion. My FIL has a secret (lol..MIL doesn't know about it) storage unit that he keeps stuff in.

[Annie]

If someone has figured it out, please share. My husband has pretty much every piece of clothing he's owned since 11th grade, but he only actually wears four shirts to work every week. :glare: ;)

 

We took an inventory of all of his clothes once because I thought it would help him to realize that he didn't really need 20 different short sleeved weekend shirts, but it didn't work out that way.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Annie

[Crafty Mathy Mom]

:bigear: You have my sympathies, and I hope that you find an answer. It's the story of my life and the source of many arguments. I can't get rid of anything that's his. My dh has filled the attic, garage, and a storage shed, and his stuff still spills over into the living areas. I try to make sure to watch "Hoarders" when he's around.

[kewb]

Are we married to the same man? It is a daily struggle here. I toss things when he is not around. Not meaningful things. Stuff like his fraternity sweatshirt are off limits. We have a closet in the basement that I put stuff in. If he does not go into that closet to get the items for one year they are tossed.

 

I got caught leaving one of his shirts behind when we were on vacation back in the early days of our marriage. The shirt was "Good for fishing." I told him he was the only person I knew with 20 good for fishing shirts and he wears the same 4. He left the shirt behind.

[DarlaS]

Are we married to the same man? It is a daily struggle here. I toss things when he is not around. Not meaningful things. Stuff like his fraternity sweatshirt are off limits. We have a closet in the basement that I put stuff in. If he does not go into that closet to get the items for one year they are tossed.

 

I got caught leaving one of his shirts behind when we were on vacation back in the early days of our marriage. The shirt was "Good for fishing." I told him he was the only person I knew with 20 good for fishing shirts and he wears the same 4. He left the shirt behind.

 

Mine has a good sized pile of "good for gardening" clothes.

 

He has been working 12 hr days. Think he's gardening much? Overtime like this happens every summer by the way. It usually starts after the garden is planted--not this year (In Michigan, gardening season is finally in full swing.).

[athena1277]

:grouphug: Do you have a storage area in your house? An attic, basement, garage, or shed? I've found the best solution is to put things neatly away in storage where they can still be found, but they are away from our living area.

 

We have a storage unit. It's big. And full. Of course part of it is stuff that we don't want to get rid of because when we moved last year, it was to a temporarily smaller place with no garage. It has stuff like our big upright freezer (that I miss) and dh's workbench in it. So even if I box up stuff to store, I have nowhere to put it. We need to go through some of the stuff in storage too, but have no room to do that.

[Scuff]

When I was decluttering, I took all his boxes and made a nice stack of them in his corner of the basement. (workshop area) I let him know that was his pile of stuff to go through and eventually he did. Took a few years longer than I would hve prefered. But it gave me a place to stack his junk and I just ignore his corner. Now his sectionlooks great and the rest of the basement needs another decluttering spree.

[lionfamily1999]

I was watching Hoarders with my dad this weekend and realized that half of my dh's problem is that he's has perfectionist tendencies. He can't get rid of broken things, because eventually he will have everything perfectly ready to use it :glare:

 

I tell him I'm going through whichever room the day before. If he wants something out of that room, then he has to put it away (the kids get the same speach). Every once in awhile he'll realize I threw away something "important" and I just point out it was -- months ago that I got rid of it and if he didn't notice it for that long... then it wasn't that important.

[Rosie_0801]

I wonder if you can compromise and have him agree to throw out things that are actually broken. My dh moved house four times (that I know of) with a bag of grit filled cassette tapes of Christian music that he wouldn't have been listening to even if they weren't full of grit. :glare: I finally got him to toss them last year...

 

Rosie

[Food4Thought]

I declutter my own stuff. I tell my husband all the things I got rid of and what a *relief* it was to have it out of my way! I've been doing this for several years - just taking care of my own stuff, talking about how good I feel without that stuff dragging me down, how now I can do the things I want to do.

 

This past weekend, he finally threw away his basketball shoes from high school (15 years ago). He really had to talk himself through it, but I heard him say so many of the things I've told him before about letting things go. Just the last year or two, he's really started tossing stuff. So I think there's hope!

 

Just keep decluttering your stuff, talk about how great it makes you feel not to have to take care of so much *stuff* and see if it rubs off on him. I've found that asking nicely and asking not-so-nicely won't do a thing. He has to have a new mindset about the value of objects in his life.

[mktkcb]

Have him watch some episodes of Hoarders. Seriously. Might wake him up a little.

[Mom0012]

My husband is like this and basically our garage, shed, his office, the attic and our as well as our newly refinished basement are crammed with his stuff. It makes him mad, but when he brings stuff home and leaves it in one of the main areas of the house, I put it in his office or down in the basement. I can't live surrounded by clutter. I'm not totally happy with this arrangement, but as long as he keeps his things in these designated areas, I can deal with it.

 

Lisa

[Parrothead]

I do the same thing with dh that I do with dd. I get rid of junk, broken things and useless paper (magazines and catalogs in his case). And I'll do it when he is gone and when he is home depending on my schedule.

 

He knew when he married me that I'm a bit anal about this. He comes by his hording tendencies honestly. His grandmother's house drives me insane if I spend too much time there.

 

It helps that we move every 2-3 years. I'll ask him if he really wants to move this or that.

[kalanamak]

I moved him to a smaller house. It was painful, but he has certain limits where he can put stuff: his room, the shop, his closet. That is IT. I know, from the alarm people, he snuck some suitcases full of heavens knows what into the attic, but I then cleverly put something heavy under the opening to the attic. He won't be getting in there, soon.

 

As much as he chafes, I know he is happier with less stuff. Anything really atrocious, I hide for a couple weeks. When he doesn't ask about it (he NEVER does) I give it away. In 10 years of Goodwill chaff and St Vincent De Paul's flotsom, never has he wondered where something is. It is the "getting the deal", not the owning that rings his bell. And yes, he came from a "disadvantaged" background of packrats.

[Guest bamaprincess]

I am the packrat in our house. If you figure this out, maybe you can help me. My husband just deals with it. Sometimes he threatens to throw stuff away but he never does. Every once in a while, I get motivated to get rid of things. It helps when he sits down with me to sort things and says things like, "Do you really need to keep this?" It also helps if it's something I can sell... Makes it easier to get rid of something, if I get something from it.

[Mrs Mungo]

I came by packrat tendencies honestly. Ugh, I hate going to my parents' house. They blame each other, but it's *both* of them.

 

My DH is not a packrat, not at all. He *makes* me go through and get rid of things, especially during moves. I often find that boxes full of important stuff are really fun of old papers and junk. :blush:

 

The times we really clashed on the issue were those like the time he listed our crib, playpen and stroller on craigslist without telling me. :glare:

[m0mmaBuck]

My husband is like this and basically our garage, shed, his office, the attic and our as well as our newly refinished basement are crammed with his stuff. It makes him mad, but when he brings stuff home and leaves it in one of the main areas of the house, I put it in his office or down in the basement. I can't live surrounded by clutter. I'm not totally happy with this arrangement, but as long as he keeps his things in these designated areas, I can deal with it.

 

Lisa

 

This is my life. He actually got mad at me last weekend because after 2 wks of cleaning around the camping gear he had dropped in the middle of the living room floor I moved it to one of his many spaces and he couldn't find it. Apparently I was supposed to leave it in the center of our living space until he needed it next month. Silly me for trying to live here too.

[lllll]

..

[Mom in High Heels]

OMG, I have this problem so badly! Dh is a major packrat. It drives me mad. Our biggest issue is our Re-use it center. It's a recycling center that has a little store inside where people can drop off usable items that can be taken away for free. This is dh's favorite place to go. He's always dragging something home that we don't need, but he gets it because it was free. He goes every Saturday and I hate it. Half the time I refuse to let him bring it in the house.

It has gotten much better recently though. I made him go to the doctor because he was very irritable all the time (along with other things) and I was tired of dealing with it. The doc put him on Wellbutrin and he's so much calmer and focused. He even cleaned out our storage room one day! He still drags crap home, but if we have no use for it, it's much easier to get him to get rid of it. Oh how I love his :chillpill:.

[Sara Mac]

My Dh is a chronic hoarder too but he does confine it all to the 6mx9m shed out the back. I really lost all right to complain when one day I mentioned that I was thinking of taking the kids geocaching but really needed a handheld GPS. I casually/jokingly asked "Don't suppose you've got one in that shed have you?" and his response .... "back in a minute". :lol: Sure enough he had an old, non y2k compliant but perfectly functional GPS!

 

I've never complained about his hoarding since then, as long as he confines it to his shed ;)

[Peela]

My spouse is a pack rat just like many others.

I have spousal junk clear zones. I have my own bedroom- nicest room in the house!. I "own" the kitchen and the main living area which is also the schoolroom. I have a bathroom and I dont let him store stuff in the kids' rooms (he would if he could!). We do have a large house and he has two living areas downstairs, which he also works from, and whenever his clutter builds up too much upstairs where we mainly live, I just shift it downstairs. One of his rooms is useable- the other is a junk storage area. Of course its not junk to him.

It is difficult because I do have a lot of stuff too, but I regularly declutter.

 

I regularly shift furniture and change things around. He is very house proud and domestic, and sometimes I need to put my own stamp on areas.

 

Recently he was away for a few days and I managed to clean out the entranceway of the house and make it really lovely. It really disturbed me that in order to get to the front door, you had to pass so much junk and stuff. Bad Feng Shui! He never said a thing, but he has kept it clear and nice for me.

He still has two cars and a motorbike, plus our motorhome (and i have my own car). What does a man need with 4 vehicles, plus his wife's? I sigh in resignation. Now he wants to buy dd16 a car and I have said not until he lets go of one of his- because where will we put it anyway? Our front yard is full! He has yet to work it out, and I have yet to give in.

 

I try not to sweat the small stuff. I do bag it up and put it in his room regualrly though :)