HELP! I need to clean up! Advice needed!

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Hello WP, Rob here.

Yes still substituting caffeine for sleep....

Here is my dilemma:
I am 3rd generation in this house, my mother no longer lives here. She is a serious hoarder and left behind a huge mess to start off with.
I then contributed to the clutter due to getting lost in my obsessions to the exclusion of anything else. Then looking up after a week or two to find the dishes stacked everywhere, trash and laundry covering the floor in every room and all the trash cans overflowing....

I WANT to clean it up, I TRY to clean it, I get the kids to help.. but I get overwhelmed, with stress and anxiety.. I'm unable to force myself in there to get it done...

Irony is I bought a book called "Sink Reflections" (I'm pretty sure that's the title). A book about house cleaning and it's lost in the clutter here somewhere...

Any tips would be helpful, I tried making lists, scheduling(spelling?) time to do bits at a time and it hasn't worked.. I need to know how to get past being overwhelmed.

Thanks
Rob

Hey Rob,

I had to do the exact same thing about a month or two ago!

To start with, clear a room if you haven't got a clear space already. Chuck stuff in other rooms if necessary.

Then for every room make piles of stuff under labels of keep, sell, charity shop, garbage, not sure. Put these piles in the clear room and empty them after each room is done.

For the not sure pile, go back to it after every room and try and get rid of five things, look at the stuff and ask yourself if you have used it within the last six months, is it sentimental, and do you really need it. Some things may be sentimental, eg, they may have been given to you by a friend but if you have ten things given to by the same friend then only keep one or two.

Hope this helps, I know this is easier said than done. Get someone to help you who is up for the job, not your family as they will pick through things, and the 'I remember this..' will come out and the job will founder.

Good luck, keep me updated!

Bonafan

Just do a small amount at a time. Know that you will get it done, eventually, but don't push yourself to finish it now.

My plan of action has always been this:

First, clean up all trash that you can reach. Just bring a bag or trashcan and start throwing it away. If there's a lot of it, you can do 1 trash bag a day until it's gone.

Then, work on laundry. Get it all together, in MARKED trash bags if need be. Start washing it while you're doing other things.

Next, dishes. If you have a dishwasher you can do one full load a day, until the piles are gone. After that, just make sure to always put your dishes in the sink. Then it will b easier to handle.

Then pick a type of item to start with. If you have a lot of books, get boxes and start getting those. If toys are the problem, you can get boxes as well. I always start with one item, so I can ignore the other stuff that's there. When you're done with the first item, choose another, and so on.

If the clutter fills up more than one room, keep yourself working on only one room at a time until it's done. Then you won't be overwhelmed by the enormity of the work that's ahead.

I think planning it out day to day - as in, I will collect 1 trash bag per day until it's done - is a good start. You can get the kids to do the same, ask them to get 10 dishes per day or something like that. It's a small amount, and it won't take long, but they will really be helping.


I have a bit of an obsession with organization and cleaning so if you need help I might have more ideas for you

get about 15 larger boxes from the grocery or even the local U-Haul store and use three at a time so you can move them with you as you progress. Label one box "Garbage" one box "Maybe" and one box "Keep". Start right where you put the boxes, ( no need to 'decide' where to start first, if it is everywhere, then just start where you are) and either throw it away, (garbage) put it in the Maybe box to think about, or put it in the Keep box. When the boxes get full, take the garbage box and throw it all in the dumpster. Then tape up the 'Keep' box and put it in a place you are going to start storage of the Keep boxes.

Arrange the empty Garbage box and a new Maybe box with a new Keep box and just do it over and over again until that room has been de cluttered. Then start on the furniture, with a garbage pile, a Maybe pile and a Keep pile.

Oh, and by the way, when you have all the "Maybe' boxes from one room, take them to the Goodwill or Salvation Army drop sites or if you are more ambitious, have your own yard sale. You really don't need it, now do you?

The trick is DON'T OVERTHINK ANYTHING! It is either garbage, maybe or Keep. You will find your values will change over time. If it is an 'heirloom' or of sentimental value, consider taking pictures of the object and keeping them in a nice photo album you can treasure, rather than have the actual objects strewn around the place. (I love the objects, as I can 'feel' the time, places, etc of those I remember, however, I found I got the same sensation from the photos as well. . .)

be as ruthless as possible at the start, you will find it gets mentally easier as you go along. Just remember, don't get too bogged down trying to 'decide' because you know where it is all eventually going (hopefully OUT!) Just concentrate on the item in your hand and put it in one of the boxes. There are NO RIGHT ANSWERS as for what goes where.

as you can tell, I have done this before! Good luck!~

Merle

I've just been through a similar process as well, taking one room at a time was helpful. Cleared out the box room first then used that as a buffer to dump things in while I sort the other rooms out in turn. I'm not done yet but have managed to get at least a couple of rooms nice which gives a good sense of progress and stops me getting bogged down with the totality of what still needs to be done.

Everything must have a place, and everything in its place - always tidy up after everything you do, it is actually quicker to get what you need the next time if the things were put away, instead of leaving them out ready.

Never leave a room empty-handed - there is an object, no matter how small, that needs to be taken from where you are towards where you are going, and the same coming back.

Move anything that you repeatedly step around, or repeatedly move out of the way - give it a place to live, or get rid of it.

Don't keep anything that isn't useful or beautiful.

I know just how you feel. I am quite tidy as the clutter/mess frustrates me and makes my AS worse but still I just don't seem to be very good at tidying or cleaning and there is always something I'd rather be doing which doesn't help! I find lists help and motivate me a lot. I would say tackle one room at a time and if needed one part of the room at a time to break in down it to smaller easier to manage parts. Try and be strict with what you keep or not. Only keep what you really want or need and give the rest away/take to charity shops or recycle/bin it

How motivated are you? Because this is going to take a heck of a lot of motivation.

If your mom was as much of a hoarder as you say she was, then you need to be throwing away or donating to charity about nine things for everything you keep. If you don't have a mountain of bags taller than you are every trash day for a month, you aren't doing it right.

Speaking of trash bags: Buy the expensive, big tough kind. You want the sort of bag you can drag with you and throw things into without worrying about whether it's going to break. If you can, maybe you can get two kinds of bags in two colors (black and white should do)--one for trash, one for donation.

If you can't do it by yourself, there are "de-clutter" type services that can help you with it.

One room at a time. One piece of furniture at a time. If you don't know whether to keep it, throw it out. If you haven't used it in a year (barring tax and medical records), throw it out. Limit yourself to photo albums as keepsakes; don't keep your kindergarten homework or your Christmas cards from last year.

Buy a lot of big plastic tubs in which to keep your special-interest stuff. Label them with permanent markers and stack them up.

If you can't bring yourself to throw something away, donate it to charity instead. Goodwill is a decent place, generally. They only take things that are in good repair and not dirty.

Hello WP, Rob here.

Thanks for all the tips, many I have tried already, others gave me some ideas:

I get distracted too easily to sort out the stuff, it would literaly take me a week to fill one trash bag. I have no attachment whatsoever to anything in this house and would be just as happy to watch it burn if it wasn't for the fact that we don't have to worry about rent.

This is what I'm going to do and I will let you know how it goes, if anyone is interested in the results(if it works maybe it'll help someone in a similar situation)

1). I bought totes (plastic tubs with lids) two for everyone and labeled them with their names.

2). I put everyone on notice that they had until this weekend to gather any belongings they couldn't live without or couldn't be replaced and place them in their respective totes, except clothes which have a designated spot to await washing.

3). Informed my mother she had totes waiting and anything she could think of specifically she wanted to keep to make a list.(I figure if she doesn't miss it now, she won't miss it later.) items on her list will be placed in her totes.

4). Having the older 2 (Teens) clean the kitchen. The odors from the dirty dishes prevent me from even going in there.(as this task is above and beyond their normal duties, a modest reward will be provided as an incentive)

5). This weekend starting with a barn stacked to the rafters in the back, a large family room also stacked to the rafters, and finally the rest of the house.. everything except furniture we use, good clothing, dishes and the contents of the totes are going to be hauled off.. (I have few friends, but the ones I have are fantastic! Gonna have a truck, trailer, shovels and a few beers!)

also I did discuss this with the family and we agreed drastic measures were needed, options were discussed and since no one else had a better plan or objections.. this is what we are going with. one rule I insisted on was that there will be no sorting grabbing from the piles while I'm there.. (if they want to pick at the pile while I'm not there is fine, they have their totes to put stuff in.)

I don't honestly think I can haul it all off in one weekend, but I will make at least 1 load a day until it's done..

My ideal house is largly sparten open, uncluttered and low maintenence. I want every item in that house to have a purpose and place. I believe once I get the house to that point, I can build routines to maintain it..

The rallying cry for this operation is "NO EXCUSES, DON'T LOOK BACK!" (alternately "When in doubt, throw it out")

Thank you so much, everyone for your replies and tips! Just knowing I have your support here will help me stay on task and motivated!

Rob

Having an uncluttered house is awesome, let me tell you. I went from living with my mom (not a hoarder but messy as hell and never cleaned up or threw away anything), to living with messy/lazy roommates, to staying with the boyfriend - who thinks vacuuming is useless because it will just get dirty again.

Now he and I have our own apartment, and there's nothing extra sitting around, almost nothing (aside from ferret toys) is useless to us personally. It's either pretty or it has a purpose. I love it. It's easy to keep clean and I almost enjoy cleaning it.