Cleaning & Organizing
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Purging DH's stuff?
I'm doing a complete gut and purge of our basement and garage soon. I've bought shelves, set up my piles of 'keep or toss', and set up a floor plan. My problem is that DH has a ton of old crap that he hasn't used in years, but refuses to get rid of. A lot of it is still really good, so we could probably sell it, or donate to charity. But some of it is literally trash, a broken snowboard, old broken pieces of furniture, stuff that I think we should have gotten rid of a long time ago. How would you handle the stubborness? He seems to think that I'm the only one with clutter in the house.
Re: Purging DH's stuff?
ITA. Don't go thowing his stuff away or selling it without telling him first. People get sentimental about strange things sometimes and I'd be afraid that I'd throw away something that is meaningful.
For example, my dad has this old, ratty pair of socks that my step-mom tried to throw away... he never wears them and they just look like old, ratty socks. Turns out, the socks belonged to his brother who passed away in an accident about 5 years ago. Those socks will forever be in his posession.
At my house, we have a 100 lb napalm bomb sitting in the basement. It's about 4 feet tall. H's grandfather brought it back from his tour in Europe during WWII. There's no explosives, it's just a hollow shell, but there it sits... in all it's head-scratch inducing glory. H is sentimentally attached to it since it was his grandfather's, so we'll be toting it around from now on.
Try explaining a WWII bomb to a moving company sometime...
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
I agree with not tossing it for him, especially without his permission. However, maybe you can reason with him by disscussing ways you could use the space better if it wasn't filled up with those items, or specific suggestions about what you might do with the money by selling the ones he doesn't use.
*Admitting to ripping off the idea from that clean sweep show.
Give him a certain amount of shelf space, and tell him "if you add to the shelf, you have to take away from the shelf." That makes it his choice what stays and what goes, but gives him some room to keep things. Or, put all of his things in one "corner" in the back of the closet. If he wants to get to it, he has to go through everything else.
I feel your pain. My H has a few "collections" that I scratch my head over. But they're his, and this is his house too.
I know some people recommend this tactic, but I disagree with the first paragraph. IMO, it's not your (not you personally, but any cleaner) house to "allow" a certain amount of shelf space. How would you (again, not personally) feel if your DH said that you only had X amount of space to store your items. DH and I came to an agreement together as to how much stuff we would keep and how much to toss (we have a large tote that we share, when it's full then we have to get rid of something) but again, I didn't give him an "allowance" of space, we decided together.
I would organize your stuff onto the shelves at one end of the room, and make sure that he knows that you're tossing and donating stuff. Hopefully seeing the difference, or just guilt over his stuff still piled up, will provide some motivation.
And agree w/ pp, talk with him about how the space could be used if it weren't full of stuff.
Basically, you've got to get him to buy into it. Neither of you will be happy if you have to nag him, or sort the stuff yourself.
i would suggest simply splitting up the space 50/50 (or whatever portion you want) for his space, your space, family space etc.
tell him that is ALL the space you each can use for your own things, whatever doesnt fit must go. doesnt matter if there are huge gaps on your shelves and his stuff is tetris-ed in tightly, thats the only fair way to do it.
ditto not tossing his stuff without him knowing.