Stuff. Just stuff, everywhere

A period of enforced isolation at home due to coronavirus should provide the perfect opportunity to tidy up around the place and de-clutter. However, the initial premise is based on everyone who resides in the same household having broadly the same understanding of what "tidy" actually means. This is not the case in our house. With two adult children still living at home, and all their detritus from 25 and 23 years on this planet respectively, let alone stuff that my wife and I have accumulated over 27 years of marriage and our own historical baggage, it's somewhat frightening when you stop and realise just how much "stuff" we have in the house.

I don't necessarily want to chuck everything away. But nor do I want to just move it to "sight unseen"  which is my son's preferred mode of operation. He recently tidied up his bedroom (mostly anyway), a long overdue operation that took him most of a weekend. But what he's sneakily done, is move all the stuff he didn't want in his bedroom into the spare room.

Neither is it the case that our house is particularly untidy. I think the phrase is "lived in", which with four adults occupying the place is understandable. The loft (and we have a large one) is always a good bet for stowing stuff, but again, all that's doing is moving the problem. I've frequently threatened to just chuck stuff away and see who'll miss it, and how long it takes for them to do so, but I've never quite had the nerve.

And then of course there's the emotional attachment of things. We've got more soft toys lying around than you can shake a stick at, despite the fact the youngest occupant of the house is almost 23. Children's book's that evoke memories of bedtime stories and might one day be suitable for grandchildren. Old school and university workbooks, that will never ever get looked at again are in boxes in the loft. Personally, as a gadget/tech "enthusiast" I have to own up to being reluctant to discard anything that has a plug of some description on it, or an old phone/camera/laptop as they all might be useful one day *cough*.  I did the other day chuck our all our old VHS-C tapes of various holidays, children's Christmas nativity shows etc, but only once I'd made sure I'd backed everything up to DVD and had a backup of that. Chucking those tapes out is something I've been meaning to do for about five years!

There's also other bits and pieces that we've just accumulated and duplicated over the years. We have at least four thermos flasks for example. As someone who always likes a backup, two would be ok, but four? Let's also not get started on clothes. I'm fairly smug in this area. I believe I probably have the fewest clothes of anyone in the house. Certainly since I've retired I tend to live in jeans, a t shirt and a fleece. I haven't looked at a suit or proper collared shirt for over six months and my footwear tends to consist of walking shoes if I'm out and about, slippers in the house and a pair of old tatty trainers in the garden. Even so, I hang on to shirts that I probably might wear once or twice a year, perhaps on holiday but wouldn't be seen dead in on a day to day basis.

And one further point on decluttering - whilst there's lots I'd like to chuck away, I also don't like the idea of just putting stuff into landfill. Yes there are charity shops, bag collections and e-Bay, but half the time charity shops don't want the stuff you have, and the e-Bay route can be a lot of effort for little reward. Freecycle or Gumtree are viable options though, but not always successful. I've put two or three pairs of decent walking shoes/boots on Gumtree with no response at all.

But sometimes you just have to bit the bullet. I'm not going to get all Marie Kondo about this, I'm not quite that OCD (I think) but that time is now. Right, where's the bin bags.....

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives