Hubby is a hoarder!!

I hate pack rats!!! When I clean I trash everything.. My daughter and hubby keep everything and when I clean daughters room I can fill the trash can outside drives me crazy. Hubbys main thing is he keeps every golf magazine he reads in case he wants to go back to look something up. Well guess what they all just got trashed I hate clutter..

I think some men have an innate love for hoarding things even though they don't work anymore or are not needed.I have seen such men in my extended family and I think,"where do they find all the place to keep all that junk and what do they dow ith it?"I find that most of these items are stashed away in some attic and taken out,adored and cleaned fondly then kept away again until next cleaning time! Maybe you could just tell him to put things on ebay ,it would bring in money olus the thing would be enjoyed by someone else.

My boyfriends room at his house if FULL of rubbish. We are moving in together at the end of this year and he has promised that he will only bring the bare minimum with him. He insists on keeping every magazine he has ever bought and he doesn't bother to clean up after himself, all this will soon change though, or so he says!

You know what I would do? Find out if there's a freecycle group near you, if there is, start picking things out of the mess that you think someone else could use (like the fondue pot), list it and stress how important it is that these people come pick it up as soon as they can. Then you declutter, keep it out of the landfills and someone else gets use out of it. Don't mention it to him, just stick it in a bag, put it on your step (or in your alley or somewhere it's not noticeable to him) and let it go to it's new home. I'll bet he won't even miss it. If you have a garage sale, you might make a few dollars on some of the stuff, but you're still stuck with whatever doesn't sell and it gives hubby a chance to take stuff back again. This way it's quick and painless for him and stressless for you. The stuff that can be trashed, just toss it in and don't mention it. No one needs broken games or alarm clocks.

I have lots of junk I probably shouldn't keep, but not broken items from years ago. I keep letters and containers sometimes and wires, thinking they may come in handy one day (although they have not yet in many years...) I can understand both points of view. I have a problem hoarding myself. Maybe I should see a hypnotist to try to get some help!

You have my sympathy! My husband is also a hoarder and here are a few tricks I have learned over the years. Never attempt to throw things out while hubby is home. Pack up bags and boxes and every time you get the chance take them to the donation bins strategically located near most grocery stores. Never let your trash can go unless it's full throw a few "goodies" on the bottom of the can and cover it with the coffee grinds and banana peels and the like. Remember out of site out of mind. If you keep the boxes and empty the contents you will go unnoticed for a long time. Good luck!

ok now what you can do is quitely throw out stuff you know he wont miss at first glance. hide them from view for a few days and the quitely throw them out. He never needs to know as soon he will forget abt them. If he does ask you where it is, you can always say its with all the other rubbish (but you mean the garbage dump but point towards the room :D) But dont throw away anything his family members have given. he will definetely get upset abt that

Does anyone realize that 'hoarding' is a disease? My mom has it.If you do some online research,it is a real eye opener. If you go and 'clean' everything out,it will become worse.The person will usually hoard more.They have no control and cannot help it.The only way they can 'snap out of it' is to get counseling/therapy that deals with hoarding.It is fixable.This is not an option for my mom anymore.

oh...my god

Are you sure that it is only HIS stuff that is rubbish? Or are you in denial, believing that your stuff is useful?

This sounds like my husband's entire family! I'm the opposite, so I don't know how people can be this way. My husbands sister live in complete clutter!

i think you should not try to get rid of too much at one time but take it a little by little..i throw stuff away or give it away..as some people can use an old bike for their kids or they can fix it up and resell this for a few buck effort and make something...recycle? but my father used to have a big barn and chicken coop and other buildings and when he went to the dump he always seemed to bring something back that he thought he "might" come in handy "someday" and it was usually junk...or he wanted to give it to me..like rug remenats..a saver is a saver..like a hamster?

that sounds just like a description of my son.when we were packing to move here I would throw out duplicates and old elctronical stuff only to have him retrieve it and pack it. ohmy g we now have a number of boxes in our living room that are his stuff that I would have thrown out and no place to store it as here we have no garage only a small overhead cubby hole.most of it is duplicates and stuff that will not work and if I try to do away with it he comes back mom I might be able to repair that. right. after four years? give me a break. if we had thrown out what I had wanted to I doubt that we would have any boxes left.lol a packrat.

My dad is like that It drives my mom nuts. The thing is..he NOTICES when we get rid of things. I live about 10 miles from them and i was going to hve a garage sale this coming weekend...not now cause he's home from work. He gets so upset when any of us get rid of things. He's not as bad as he used to be because he's helped my sisters and i each move once or twice...asked us why we had all that "crap" and we told him he wouldnt let us throw things out so we had to transport them. What i do is i wait til hes gone to work and then i take things away..and hope he doesnt notice the "clear" spot in the shed.

I know what you mean...my boyfriend wants to keep everything too. I keep telling him to throw stuff out. We only have a small apartment and he keeps buying junk and we have no where to put it. Now I tell him when he wants to buy junk that we don't need it and sometimes it works...

Ya some man like doing that.

Oh I know how this is. Both my father and my one brother is like that. My brother is staying with us right now and he has so much junk. He was stuff that needs to be gotten rid of, old computer parts that aren't any good anymore. He has a room full of this stuff and it drives me nuts. I want to go through and throw it all out. To clean out the room and the garage and actually have space for our things.

I'm a hoarder. I always have a feeling that someday my husband will ask for something I threw away and yesterday I went all through my stuff trying to find income tax info and we had to ask the income tax office because I lost it. We just need a bigger house, and a large filing cabinet.

There are a lot of people who hoard things and pets. They showed a woman who has ovef 80 cats. That is way too many cats. But they say it something in their past that won't let me give up these things. Finally admitting it to themselves and getting on with things will finally help them get rid of these things.

If the things you are throwing away aren't fit to give away, try really wrecking some of them so even he won't want them back. Break the clocks that don't work and toss them. Smash up the game with a hammer and toss it. Give the fondue set, the cables and anything halfway usable that you don't want to Goodwill. If he still insists on "rescuing" his stuff, take it to the city dump or trash facility so he can't get it back. I know you don't want to hurt his feelings but if the house gets too cluttered, it's possible somebody could call the police about it. My mother was the same way. I inherited her house full of STUFF and when I sold the place in December I had already spent months throwing out stuff left & right and giving away tons of it as well. I did save some things and put them in storage but will be going thru a lot of that soon and getting rid of more. My mother had the habit of keeping old paperback books that she'd bought at garage sales, flea markets and library book sales. Most were in pretty bad shape. Prolly half of them had the covers ripped off and were all beat up. I tossed hundreds of pounds of books in the garbage and gave nearly as much away in paperbacks that were in decent condition. I could have tried selling them on eBay but would more than likely have not gotten enough out of them to be worth it.