Honestly UL, you would be great at that. I have a friend in zoning enforcement, and he hates his job.
you should probably be aware that at some point you will be shot at.
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Honestly UL, you would be great at that. I have a friend in zoning enforcement, and he hates his job.
you should probably be aware that at some point you will be shot at.
Shot at?Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicken lady
This is southern Ohio. If you tell enough people they have to leave their house (move their rusty dead car, get rid of their 27 dogs....) at least one of them is going to shoot at you.
or were you going to move?
I live in Columbus. We're a more dignified people here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicken lady
Southern Indiana has that reputation also. Of course, there are neighborhoods in Indianapolis that are really no go. Most everyone knows where they are.
do you have to be a SW to be a code enforcer?
Not in the no mans land between Cincinnati and Columbus - but you do get shot at here....
No, but it would be good to expand the usefulness of social workers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
I am not going to kick people out of their dang homes. hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Chicken lady
I was just being a jerk.
I think social workers have enough to do. My sil used to be one. I think they would be more useful if they had more resources.
I take what Teacher Terry says to heart. Your last paragraph really shows your insight into how you got into this mess and show's a real desire to get out of it. And job well done today.
I ventured down to the basement today and it was even worse. It's so dark and depressing, I just can't get motivated to tackle it. But there are things of mine I want so I am going to have to at least partially face the mess. I have one disorganized corner of my room left to organize and then things are more or less set up here and I have no more excuses. Well, except for cleaning out DD's room. She left behind tons of clothes to consign and lots of make-up, perfume and jewelry I actually like. So she has a few days to come claim what she wants and then I'm going in.
Freshstart's, how is the basement worse? You said your mom can't go down there. Is anyone adding items to the basement? Also, who gets the money from the consigning?
if DD comes over and helps get the consignment stuff ready, she can have the money. If she leaves her whole room up to me, she's not getting it. So I would think this would motivate her.
the cleaning lady gets sent down to find stuff for my mom and she doesn't stack the boxes back up neatly. instead they are in the narrow (very narrow) walk ways. Then the basement goes around a corner and I never really looked in there, Omg what a mess. I think it's mostly my 43 yr old married brother's old stuff. If I were my parents, I would give a date that that stuff has to be out of here. It looks like junk.
Keep all the money!
Yeah, I would say if she does all the work, sh gets the money. If you do the work, you get the money. Then decide if it's worth the money. Maybe you'd rather ignore it and start finding your stuff in the basement?
FS: once your Mom is gone do you think your Dad will be open to cleaning up the basement? If so then maybe you can enlist someone to help you since you can't physically do it. I would be careful down there so you don't hurt yourself.
my dad borders on hoarding but I think if she was gone he would give the ok to clean it out
I want to focus on DD's room because i need to sell a piece of her BR set to fit the treadmill in there. So I have to at least empty that out. The treadmill is in the dark recesses of the basement and I will never use it down there.
That makes sense. Why not sell it as a set unless you or her need some of the pieces.
the room is used as a guest room, one dresser holds a tv and the other dresser makes the room look furnished. Eventually, when her clothes are gone, I will use the pieces for storage.
This is a particularly interesting article about the difficulty of recovery.
Hoarding negatively affects all aspects of life
http://www.tctimes.com/living/hoardi...190a7f528.html
"He held a perpetual yard sale in his yard, for which he was regularly in trouble with the township. His yard sale was far from organized. There were several stacks of “stuff” piled 3 to 4 feet high in most cases. Other items were spread across the grass."
"Lynn lived in the small travel trailer — at least that’s where he slept and kept out of the rain. The house itself was packed so full, every room, top to bottom, that there was no pathway through any door."
Apparently the township stepped in and cleaned the place for $25,000.
When dude passed away his son was able to sell it for $50,000.
Actually, the article doesn't have anything at all to do with the difficulty of recovery. There is no indication in the article that the man ever had or sought treatment or assistance or that recovery was ever something he was interested in.
i wouldn't say my grandfather had difficulty recovering from alchoholism, I'd say he made a deliberate decision to drink himself to death. And he did a damn good job of it.
Yesterday when I was working in the studio, I confronted the styrofoam pile.
this is a large pile of styrofoam packaging pieces that protected our windows and dh new tools in their shipping boxes. There used to be a place an hour from here that would recycle them, but it closed.
the idea of throwing them in the landfill makes me feel shaky and sick, but where else are they going to go? I can't keep them indefinitely hoping for recycling services, it's a big pile. And Sandy, I hope you don't take this badly, but I thought about you and how your need for a consignment shop is blocking you from cleaning out your closet. Continuing to search may be the best option for you, but it wouldn't be for me in your place, and perhaps you wouldn't give the styrofoam a second thought....
i took a ok a deep breath and I filled three trash cans with styrofoam (I had to break up some of the pieces to get them in, which was messy and made me angry) and took them up to the curb. I wish I could have taken it all and gotten it over with, but one trash can was full of trash, and dh is using two others to store small, potentially usable pieces of aluminum flashing and siding until we finish this job (then the flashing can gets recycled and the siding can gets burned)
i was was worn out and emotionally exhausted last night, and when I tried to explain to dh why my day was so hard, I cried. He was baffled but sympathetic. Instead of saying something like "it's just styrofoam!" Which he might have before, he gave me a hug and said "I'm really sorry that styrofoam is so hard for you."
Cl, I see your frustration. We've never had a place for styrofoam so I always put it in the trash but keep thinking there must be someone who would LOVE these huge big pieces of sturdy stuff for something. Glad your husband is seeing you now.
more progress. I'm glad your husband supported you
I HATE styrofoam.. In addition to my environmental concerns about it, for some reason I'm really, really sensitive to the sound of it squeaking. I will not permit DH to buy styrofoam coolers or eggs in styrofoam cartons, and if something we buy comes packed in molded styrofoam, I cover my ears or leave the room while DH gets the thing out of the box. I could never have done what you did in terms of breaking up pieces!!
And there IS no better way to dispose of it, so I think it's great you got it out of your house. There are bans on it in some places. I don't know what on earth it could be recycled for. It's evil!! Be glad you've rid yourself of that cursed material!!
I am also happy your husband was supportive. You've done good!
Well, recycling styrofoam--my garden club lady friends make floral designs with styrofoam towers. The trick with styrofoam is that it melts with regular spray paint, so you've got to get special paint.
But even then these are one time uses and then the styrofoam goes into to the garbage.
No one will pay me for pieces of styrofoam but they will pay money for perfectly good clothes.
If it is worthless and has no memories, it won't bother me to get rid of it.
We don't have any recycling centers here so everything is dumped in the trash.
My closets aren't packed tight either and less so since the massive purge.
Clothing in good condition (even if it doesn't fit) is the only thing that I hang onto.
My weight goes up and down and I have pulled things out of a box 3 years later to wear it.
I buy classic stuff so it doesn't go out of style
If I do move, I wouldn't want to move all of the clothing though.
My furniture is mostly worthless so it isn't worth moving that either.
The clothing thing is probably from childhood when I had one outfit to wear everyday to school and was bullied for it.
Those skinny clothes are in inspiration to lose weight too.
My home is looking really bare and when the time comes, I can live in a smaller place too - just haven't found an affordable place yet.
I donate my clothing to thrift stores. It is not worth the time/$ to take to a consignment shop.
Sandy, I do get the clothing, it's a ymmv issue. When I was making $6 an hour and not paying taxes because I didn't work enough - I took clothes to a consignment shop. Since most of my clothes were hand me down or cheap yard sale, I could often make several dollars on an item, and it made a big difference in my budget. Now, given a choice between (random numbers) making an appointment, driving to the shop, waiting around, taking back the refused items, coming back for my check and making $20, vs donating the whole lot and saving $8 on my taxes, it's not worth the $12 difference. For the same reason I am going to stop taking cans to the recycling center after the next load and just put them in curbside. (The next load will probably be when dh is ready for me to take the can of aluminum flashing pieces.)
if you have very nice clothes or a budget where $12 is a big deal, you choose the consignment shop.
also, I am not one to be critical of anyone saving a non hazardous anything they have room for (moldy, broken and sharp, rusty, flammable, etc I might argue with.)
the parallel was that someone, somewhere, would probably like to buy the clothes, but you can't find an accessible venue to make that happen right now. And someone, somewhere is recycling styrofoam, but how long a I wiling to wait/how much time and effort am I willing to expend to find them?
I tried unsuccessfully to find a place to recycle the Styrofoam too. It feels bad to throw it away but in the end we did. For me selling or donating also depends on my mood. Sometimes I sell and sometimes I just put it in the front yard with a free sign on it. I usually give it away if I want it gone fast. When we remodeled our home we gave away all the fixtures in the bathrooms, 3 rooms of pergo, doors, etc. It went within hours. The previous owners put pergo over hardwood floors so we removed it carefully so someone else could use it. The floors were in beautiful shape and we just had to sand and seal. No clue why they put pergo over them.
This is one reason I dislike Amazon and online shopping in general. So much packaging! The other is the fact that if I shop locally I support local businesses who provide local jobs. The trade-off is that I usually end up paying slightly more than if I bought on Amazon. But we need local jobs, so I do my part. As a teen, part-time jobs were easy to come by and I want to support businesses who provide them now. This is also why I like supporting Costco. I don't mind paying a membership fee if I think of it in terms of providing good benefits and working conditions for the employees who work there and live in my community. Costco closes their stores and gas stations on most holidays so their employees can have the day off. That's pretty cool.
Sorry for the tangent! :)
Because people are basically stupid?Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
In my neighborhood it was common to cover the pine floors with linoleum about 1930-- and carpet after that, about 1960--
So that meant that these soft pine floors really only were used bare for about 50 years. All of the junk on top of them helped to preserve them. Then in the 1980's, 100 years after the floors went in, people pulled up the junk and had nice wood floors although many people have covered the old pine with hard oak.
Our houses had custom shutters and many homeowners here tell about prying the old shutters out of their custom made cubbies inside the wall where they had been folded up , hiding for 60-80 years. In the 1920's pull down blinds were popular, so people put away their shutters. same with pocket doors, many houses had the pocket doors pushed into the wall cavity and painted over, so decades later restorationists found them.
I have restored 4 old houses through the years. I love all the original stuff. Our floors are oak. The hallway had a big hole where the old grates must have went. Now the house is heated by electricity. So DH stole wood from the bedroom closets to patch it and even though we know where the hole was you can't tell he did such a good job. This house had new cupboards when we bought it so no clue what was here although if they were metal we would have replaced them. When our friends saw this house they all thought it was a dump and horrible (which it was). We did not move in it for 4 months. I hired DH a full time helper and they restored the whole house. People who saw the before were shocked at the after. They thought we had made a big mistake. This house had an addition in the back end which is a dining room and master bedroom. That was built in 1970 so no hardwood so we did pergo that. However the DR was huge-more like a dining hall so used that extra room to make a master bath. The houses in our neighborhood have been selling like hotcakes and it is so nice to see people fixing them up. I think people are tired of being in the burbs and like being in town.
What is ymmv?
Your mileage may vary - I understand that our experiences of things can be completely different and equally valid.
teacher terry and I for example, have many ironic parallels in our lives - when we bought this house it was pretty much a tear down. Since we couldn't afford to tear it down, we lived in the barn from February until August while making it habitable. - but we often don't respond to our experiences the same way.
That is true - two people see a crime scene in a different way or two siblings react differently to trauma.
For instance, Marie Kondo says to go through clothes first - but for me it will be last!
Actually, I bought a few new clothing items because my fall stuff that fits was tattered - okay for lounging at home but not for dressier reasons. That will make it easier to purge stuff.
And I still have plenty of time to find a consignment shop.
I heard that a new one might be opening in Oct., so I will wait to find out.
I have tossed hundreds of videos, books and other stuff but clothes are harder for me to part with.
I am about 8 pounds from fitting in some of those things too.
CL: you and I are very different. I think we both had our 3 kids young. similar professions, huge love for animals, etc. I never was a hoarder but I did have lots of nick-naks and collections. We got our house very cheap -60K because it needed so much work but it was not a tear down. We have now put 70 into it and it is worth 270k. Since my DH is both a civil engineer and very handy we knew what we were getting into. Actually this house had 6 offers on it. The bank wanted it gone so gave everyone 24 hours to make their best cash offer with no conditions, inspections, etc. They lowered the price to 52k after a year of trying to sell it. WE bid 60 because I was sure that others would not go over the psychological barrier of the 50's and was right. The older I get the less I want to have a bunch of crap to clean and the more I am liking having less. I will never be a minimalist because I find that sterile and not homey. I also desire more free time so try to eliminate having too many chores. It was one of the reasons we down sized to a smaller house. I love to vacation and I love to have people over. But I have also down sized the size of my parties. I used to host 30 people for a sit down dinner. Now it is never more then 8. I don't know if everyone changes as they get older but at 62 I am looking for less of everything in my life except vacations:))
my MIL bought her house in the early 50s. It had a built-in china cabinet that she walled over. (??) She had french doors and a Dutch door that she had removed (??). Judging by the front porch (which she had enclosed) and the moulding throughout (which she whitewashed) t looks like it could have originally been Craftsman but you could never tell now.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
I think it's normal for the next generation to want to put their stamp on their homes. Then another generation goes by and "everything old is new again." I thought for sure that when I got rid of our 70s kitchen a couple of years ago it was going to all of a sudden be showing up in Architectural Digest as the latest trend. Thank God it hasn't.
As for the flooring--we took up our avocado shag carpeting in the living room and up the stairs and in the bedrooms and there was oak hardwood underneath. Can you imagine? In the 70s, hardwood was standard, and then people would opt to put wall-to-wall carpeting OVER it. I admit that we recently used a Pergo floating floor to cover up our 70s vinyl tiles in the foyer and family room and it's a huge improvement. Some people will say tacky, but I say better than those old worn tiles. I do like the fact that the floating floors are so easy to remove, so the next people that own the house will no doubt do what you did, Teacher Terry.
OH, I agree that we are very different, that was also the point, and yet, one could very easily write a short life summary that could apply to either of us.
and we also knew what we were getting into, and also had the skills to do the work - although my handy engineer is mechanical, not civil.