IL, I am not allowed to either but if I don’t make it to neat he never notices. A few years ago I got rid of 2/3 what was in his huge shed. About 15 years ago we bought a house with a q/2 garage yet couldn’t put a car in it. 2 of my grown kids returned to finish college. My step son moved in and was 13. My husband was the leader of a youth group so they were gone many weekends. So I would fill my trunk with junk and take to my work dumpster. When I started the boxes were up to my chest and when it got to knee level my kids thought he would notice. I made sure to leave it messy and he never did. I wanted more room around my laundry area and now I have it. Occasionally I can get him to purge so maybe this spring I will volunteer to help him and we can do it together. I have to be careful out there because I don’t want to throw away a part to a expensive tool. The shed was easier because so much was plain junk.
You “made sure to leave it messy” is the key. That is what I call stealth decluttering. Getting rid of stuff, but filling in those empty spaces with other stuff. I do it in our kitchen and in our closets. It works! But I wouldnt touch the garage, he would notice.
i feel sorry for my DH because he is gonna have to clean out our tiny house that we use as a storage shed. What a sad waste of his life energy. But then, maybe I dont feel sorry for him because it is mostly all his stuff. I volunteered to transport all of the black plastic plant containers to the special place that takes them, but he couldnt let go of those. Ok, whatever, his loss.
Last edited by iris lilies; 1-28-19 at 8:51pm.
Actually when I did the shed it was so obvious that I had to confess that I got rid of some stuff. What I threw away was truly garbage like junk wood, stuff that was broken. I also paid a guy I know that works under the table to help me organize and sort so it made sense to a man. I presented it as a gift. It is much better . He saves stupid stuff. He will take mail or receipts to his office and a decade later it’s still there if I don’t take care of it. When our printer broke he put it in his office and was going to fix it. A year later it was still there. It’s gone now ). He will never fix it.
Dude, we have a computer circa 1990’s stored in the garage. Yeah, that is relevant.
At least he is not renting stealth storage units. Our friend with hoarder husband ran across a bill from one of the U-Store-It place and discovered a decitful trail of storage secrecy! Haha, but not so haha.
How is a secret storage unit ethically different from secret decluttering?
If I didn’t declutter our garage and shed would be unusable and my laundry is in the garage. A secret storage unit is bizarre. Lots of people stealth declutter. Another retirement forum people do it a lot. Then people debate the ethics. Those people probably have a neat partner.
Lots of people have stealth storage.
or mistresses.
are you actually saying it’s ethically different because you think it’s more common?
or because it makes life easier and more functional for you without having to have an arguement/discussion/negotiation with your partner? - same could be said for the storage unit. Or the mistress.
I can’t see that making it right. But you know which partner I am.
and I was/am really asking.
No, these are similar if not the same, generally speaking with all things being equal.
But for my household, a regular secretive financial obligation—like a secret storage shed— , one committed by my uber financially conservative DH would be worrisome indeed because he doesnt like to spend money. I would wonder what the hell is IN that shed. Body parts? Fancy double bed for asignations with women? That old Dodge Charger he told me he got rid of?
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