4 ms·

Hoarded items are in one or more of three categories: 1) tech, 2) aesthetic, 3)trash Everything man-made is tech (books, old SCSI cables) Things you find in n

Hoarded items are in one or more of three categories: 1) tech, 2) aesthetic, 3)trash Everything man-made is tech (books, old SCSI cables) Things you find in nature are aesthetic (shells, rocks, driftwood) The challenge knowing which of the first to should be moved into the third. Everyone fall somewhere on the hoarding spectrum. I am guilty of keeping things that may some day be useful. I have a pretty good track record of being correct. For my tech, I do a purge every few years or when I move. If I've not found something useful in over four years, and it doesn't have great sentimental or historical value, then it goes into the trash. My opinions anyway

NickM 3y ago
Everyone fall somewhere on the hoarding spectrum. I am guilty of keeping things that may some day be useful. I mean, sure, but there's a pretty stark difference between "oops, this didn't turn out to be useful after all" and someone who keeps hundreds of dirty plastic takeout containers "just in case". Maybe to some extent it's a spectrum, but it feels like there's a hard line between someone who keeps things that legitimately might be useful vs someone who is literally delusional.
- intrasight 3y ago
  That's keeping trash, and is a mental disorder with a specific name: "trash hoarder". Not to be confused with rational/healthy hoarding ;)
- solarmist 3y ago
  It is a spectrum and there is a line. When it begins to negatively impact your life or functioning in life. Technically you could have a pile of dirty takeout containers and be healthy, but it is just extremely unlikely because a series of things need to happen to arrive at that outcome and the distinction is almost always in the process not the results.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
solarmist 3y ago
The problem with your description is using a dysfunctional name for a healthy/rational process. It's not “hoarding” until it crosses the dysfunctional line. This is the problem with using technical terms in nontechincal discussions.
- intrasight 3y ago
  What technical term? "hoard" is just a word. It becomes a technical term if you say "compulsive hoarder" or "garbage hoarder". Those are symptoms of a condition such as ADHD or OCD.
- ke88y 3y ago
  Nah, it really is super contextual. My parents own an epic amount of mostly useless junk. But they also have an enormous house with a storage room in their basement the size of my entire condo. Actually, bigger. The useless stuff is all in the storage room. It is neatly organized into bins. None of it is gross or unclean, but most of it is of questionable utility. The storage room has no other possible use; their home is already way bigger than what they need. There's no reason to keep all the crap, but there's also no good reason to throw it out before they die either (they'll pay pros to schlep it all out either way.) If I kept that amount of crap in my condo it would be straight up hoarding, since there wouldn't be space in my condo to move around! But for them, it's roughly proportional to the one closet in my condo that has old cords, some left over paint, sentimental books from grad school that don't fit on my shelf, my wife's wedding dress, etc. If I kept that amount of crap in my cabin it would be a that weird mid-point where it's not quite hoarding but also taking up a slightly unreasonable amount of space. Based on decades of sampling, Manhattan "fucking gross throw your old shit away" very much is midwestern "totally normal amount of stuff in basement storage". The price of storage does matter and we're talking about a range from $1/sqft to $2,000/sqft. Storing extra wrapping paper you got on sale at $2k/sqft is insane. Storing them at $1/sqft saves you a 20 minute drive to the store during holidays for the next few years.

NickM 3y ago

Everyone fall somewhere on the hoarding spectrum. I am guilty of keeping things that may some day be useful. I mean, sure, but there's a pretty stark difference between "oops, this didn't turn out to be useful after all" and someone who keeps hundreds of dirty plastic takeout containers "just in case". Maybe to some extent it's a spectrum, but it feels like there's a hard line between someone who keeps things that legitimately might be useful vs someone who is literally delusional.

intrasight 3y ago
That's keeping trash, and is a mental disorder with a specific name: "trash hoarder". Not to be confused with rational/healthy hoarding ;)
solarmist 3y ago
It is a spectrum and there is a line. When it begins to negatively impact your life or functioning in life. Technically you could have a pile of dirty takeout containers and be healthy, but it is just extremely unlikely because a series of things need to happen to arrive at that outcome and the distinction is almost always in the process not the results.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

solarmist 3y ago

The problem with your description is using a dysfunctional name for a healthy/rational process. It's not “hoarding” until it crosses the dysfunctional line. This is the problem with using technical terms in nontechincal discussions.

intrasight 3y ago
What technical term? "hoard" is just a word. It becomes a technical term if you say "compulsive hoarder" or "garbage hoarder". Those are symptoms of a condition such as ADHD or OCD.
ke88y 3y ago
Nah, it really is super contextual. My parents own an epic amount of mostly useless junk. But they also have an enormous house with a storage room in their basement the size of my entire condo. Actually, bigger. The useless stuff is all in the storage room. It is neatly organized into bins. None of it is gross or unclean, but most of it is of questionable utility. The storage room has no other possible use; their home is already way bigger than what they need. There's no reason to keep all the crap, but there's also no good reason to throw it out before they die either (they'll pay pros to schlep it all out either way.) If I kept that amount of crap in my condo it would be straight up hoarding, since there wouldn't be space in my condo to move around! But for them, it's roughly proportional to the one closet in my condo that has old cords, some left over paint, sentimental books from grad school that don't fit on my shelf, my wife's wedding dress, etc. If I kept that amount of crap in my cabin it would be a that weird mid-point where it's not quite hoarding but also taking up a slightly unreasonable amount of space. Based on decades of sampling, Manhattan "fucking gross throw your old shit away" very much is midwestern "totally normal amount of stuff in basement storage". The price of storage does matter and we're talking about a range from $1/sqft to $2,000/sqft. Storing extra wrapping paper you got on sale at $2k/sqft is insane. Storing them at $1/sqft saves you a 20 minute drive to the store during holidays for the next few years.