Hoarding

[BravoXray]

I have a good friend who's wife is a hoarder. Piles of magazines, catalogs, mail and boxes of "stuff" everywhere. I like them, but really don't visit them often because the house creeps me out.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Scrap metal (especially steel) can be tricky. Sometimes what you get for it barely covers the cost of gas to bring it to the scrap dealer. Our town dump/transfer station doesn't charge to drop off metal.

Scrap dealer is a better option for aluminum, copper/brass or batteries but even still I'll coincide a visit there with times where I was going to be in the area anyway.

As an amateur welder/blacksmith/builder, I rarely part with scrap steel. Not long ago I got a whole truckload of 3x8x3/8 galv channel iron, 10' lengths, with splice plates. I'm going to build a foot bridge with it, but it's so heavy I'll have to rent a crane to set it. Restoring an old 2-bottom trip plow, it had a missing coulter. I picked one up at a junkyard, but the bracket was missing. One piece of nondescript scrap and a couple hours on the anvil and I duplicated the other bracket. I'm sure my scrap pile will last longer than me. I don't care.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Now that I have ample storage I don't mind hanging onto some stuff. Metal, plywood, fencing, cinder blocks, i-beams, pvc, pipes, insulation, barbed wire, etc. When my friends ask if I want anything like that I say, HECK YEAH I WANT THEM! I will be right there.

I am only 47 and hopefully I have plenty more years of building and doing. Why buy it when you can get it for free. I just acquired everything from my dad's garage. One of the things I am stoked about is this drawer organizer FULL of every fastener imaginable. I have more random fasteners than I can use in a lifetime. All super well organized.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg! I have 2 milk crates full of boxes of other fasteners. I am beyond excited to not have to run to Ace the next time i need a bolt or a hose clamp.

And I have just begun. I have a 40' container and a newly built shop to fill up.


Luckily I do have a wife and lots of good friends who will let me know if and when I take it too far.

I know this is not hoarding in the true definition of hoarding, but I have people just with me about the amount of junk I have.

HOARD ON HOARDERS!

 

[scootr]

My wife would say to me " Get rid of all this junk"
No I said, it's all good junk.

 

[California]

Hoarding? Or just collecting stuff that might someday be useful.

Part of the inherited stuff here is in those drawers on the left, in the photo.

One drawer is full of hose clamps, size from fuel line up to AC duct.

One drawer is full of wire brushes, many are scrub-brush shape so limited in application. Over 20 years I've worn out maybe half of what was in that drawer. (And bought several more useful brushes).

In the lower small drawers: more barn hinges and barn-door handles than I'll ever use.

One drawer of used garden faucets. I rebuilt a half dozen with new seals. Now I'm good for a few decades.

One drawer, every kind of garden hose repair coupling.

And chain repair links, clevises, tie-down hooks, wild miscellany. I won't discard what remains after I sorted to save what's useful.

It can take more time to find components, or to sharpen an old tool, than the actual time it takes to do a project. But that's still time saved by not having to go to town for anything.

Another photo of inherited not-hoarded stuff. There's set of drill bits in the pictured stall for my corded or cordless drills, and a second set at my drill press in a different shop room. What's in this photo below is excess, in dead storage. Like I said previously, Dad couldn't pass up buying anything he could get for less than 3 cents on the dollar whether he had a use for or or not.

 

[Jchonline]

Wife is of the mindset if you arent actively using it (say in the next week or so) you dont need it. But my TOOLS!!!!!

 

[Oaktree]

Wife is of the mindset if you arent actively using it (say in the next week or so) you dont need it.

Mine's the same way, before she met me she'd never lived in any one place for more than 6-7 years at the most...her father worked for GE and was always getting transferred and her first husband just had itchy feet. She's still of the mindset that if you haven't used it lately get rid of it, and if you find you need it later buy another.
Fortunately, she's reasonably tolerant of my "collections".

Hoarding? Or just collecting stuff that might someday be useful.

Sometimes there's a fine line, but my "save" stuff is along the same line as yours.

 

[Jstpssng]

Hoarding? I know somebody who has some type of liquid chemical which his grandfather left behind... when he died in 1983. The gentleman raised a family during the Depression and WWII, and never threw anything away.
How do you get rid of an unknown substance, which is in a glass gallon jug not made since before I was born? (1959) I know the answer, but he doesn't want to hear it from me.

 

[GeneV]

Look at them cabinets with stuff nicely stacked in there. Well guys I'll say this, if you got lots of stuff and it's neatly organized...you ain't a hoarder in the pejorative sense.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

We had talked to him about his shoulder-high boxes of old phone bills, ancient computer parts, and etc. to no avail..

That is me. But I have started getting rid of old stuff. Been filling my trash can every week with old stuff. And my shredder has been getting a workout.