Preventing the Accumulation of Crap

[SoloAJ]

And also, that house is filthy. That would drive me nuts.

[Squattage]

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Our living room




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My God. How is such a thing even possible? Are you guys even able to move around in there?

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As you can see, there is a nice little pathway to the phone.
Other than that, no.

[Squattage]

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The books in the bookcase seem very well ordered. What is the deal there?

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Me and my brother started cleaning the living room, and started with the bookcase. At about that time we went through a couple of the stuff boxes, and my dad proceeded to throw a guilt trip saying he wants to be the one to go through all of this stuff.

[nath]

Two years ago I basically went around getting together everything in Houston I didn't need and packing it in a U-Haul and driving it to my parents' house and unloading it there. I came back to Houston with one bag of clothes.

Friends and family have kind of encouraged me to accumulate more crap over the last year, and I have, but I try to keep it limited to stuff I will use (i.e. my crap collection right now is largely a laptop, DVDs, guitars, books, and clothes).

It is really liberating to own less. No attachments, nothing weighing you down. You become obligated to your things once you have them, so you're basically paying for the privilege of hauling them around and maintaining them.

[mason55]

Oh yeah, another good way to get rid of your crap:

Throw away most of your stuff until you can finally fit everything in your car. Move across the country. Get your car broken into and have the few things that you decided were worth saving stolen.

Worked for me at least

[esad]

About 10-12 years ago I came up with a great system. I call it the 2-year system

Stuff that I'm not really using I put in boxes and mark what it is and store it in a closet somewhere. I put the date on it. Every once in a while I look at the boxes and the dates. If the date is older then 2 years then I throw the box out. I figure if I've had no reason to even open the box in 2 years I don't need what's in it When I just throw it away without opening it, then I don't have the urge to keep a few things.

This works great with clothes, and other useless crap too.

[z28dreams]

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Me and my brother started cleaning the living room, and started with the bookcase. At about that time we went through a couple of the stuff boxes, and my dad proceeded to throw a guilt trip saying he wants to be the one to go through all of this stuff.

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I've found that when you live with parents who are pack rats, it's pretty much impossible to clean up the mess in the house. Whenever I tried to organize my parents would flip out that I was either "throwing away valuable things" or they "woudln't be able to find what they are looking for."

Our house was never as bad as the ones in these pics, but it sure reminds me how absolutely insane I went living in that house.

[vbm]

Just moved after living in the same place for 7 years, with two friends.It took 2 days to clear out all the crap. I actually thought I ran quite a tight ship about clutter.

I will never keep useless [censored] ever again. I couldnt dump my electrical goods

I went down the charity shop and dumped, 2 N64s, 3 original play stations, 1 PS2, 1 xbox, a game gear, GB advance, 4 tv's, 3 massive CRT monitors, and computer. PLus about a million games for all the consoles.

Moving is sometimes the only way to clear your crap

[miajag]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

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Really interesting link!