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What if all your EXTRA belongings were to suddenly disappear? Let’s say your attic/shed/basement, or where ever you store that extra ‘stuff’, were to just vanish into thin air. Would you REALLY miss it? Well, that’s what has kind of happened to Liz and I and we’re about to find out whether or not we needed to hang onto these things in the first place.
About a month ago we started hearing chewing sounds in our attic. Then a scurry here and a scurry there. At first, I assumed we had a pesky squirrel on the roof and thought nothing of it. But as the noises persisted as well as heightened, I decided to go up and investigate. Unfortunately for us, this squirrel turned out to be a family of rats who decided to make our attic their new home.
Long story short, we’ve finally rid ourselves of this rodent infestation, but now have the aftermath to deal with. Let me tell you, if you’ve never had this kind of thing happen before, you have NO IDEA how disgusting of a footprint these little buggers leave behind.
So I went up with a flash light to assess the damage and found that a good portion of our belongings had been peed on, pooped on and chewed on. Now we are waiting on a cleaning crew to take care of the rest, but it is our job to see what is salvageable.
This got me thinking. This stuff has been up there for over 2 years now and we rarely go up to bring anything down. Barring the seasonal items, do we REALLY even need this junk?
Most of this stuff was completely erased from my mind. It wasn’t until I went up to assess the situation that I remembered their existence. But suddenly I felt this sense that we NEEDED these items. It was as if I had adjusted to not having them and then, after being reminded of their place in my life, I suddenly remembered my need for them. In other words, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ | ‘in sight, in mind, in need’.
So my question to you is this:
What items do you ‘need’ only because they are ‘in sight’? How much of your stuff would you truly stop ‘needing’ if they were to disappear?
For us, other than a few essentials, it became apparent that this new found ‘need’ for the stuff in our attic will, once again, quickly disappear the second we remove them from our lives.
Hi Eric,
Personally, I’d like to go through every room in my house, remove everything and just put back what is needed in each room, then just get rid of everything else (either give to charity, recylcle or throw away) granted some things (e.g. christmas decorations) can go in the attic.
But I live with a hoarder so I have to do this gradually and tactfully (as hoarders tend to attach sentimental value to many things!), if I de-clutter an area too much too quickly DH gets unsettled and asks me to put some stuff back. I’ve found though that if I de-clutter in installments he doesn’t even notice… shhh don’t tell
Man, you should have posted this yesterday. Today is trash day for me and I’m ready to throw a bunch of junk away, now. Just don’t have time to get it all out to the road for pick-up.
I’ve got stuff sitting on stuff sitting on stuff that I’m 95% sure I would never miss. It’s in sight and I still forget it’s there.
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This should be an interesting exercise.
I moved to US last year (originally from India). There is so much stuff I packed into my suitcases thinking I will need it over here; I have two untouched suitcases in my storage room with all of that. We are waiting to go back to India so that we can return everything.
One question – how do I evaluate what I need and what I think I need?
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Hey Eric,
Somehow I believe that if whichever stuff we kept in store or garage and there is no use for it after 3 months time, most likely it should be dumped into the bin.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
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If it’s out of site and out of mind, you probably don’t need it. Though there are exceptions. When I was fourteen, we moved out of my childhood home. All my toys from when I was little – pretty much my entire childhood – was packed into the attic. The house went vacant and some hobos came and lived inside. They took every single thing from the attic (they were worse than rats). BOOM! No more artifacts from my childhood.
I was sad.
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Hi Eric
Before I moved in with my boyfriend I realised just how little I need. I “survived” on just some clothes, washing stuff, PC and current book. That was it.
I would walk into my apartment and think: what do I need all of this stuff for?
Then, when I moved in with him, we both had a huge clean-out. That’s a great opportunity to give to charity.
Juliet
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@Bonnie: That’s similar to Liz and I. I like to just ‘chuck’ things where she’s more the sentimental type and wants to hang onto all kinds of stuff. She’s gotten better about it as she’s seen the benefits of less ‘junk’, but we still have a few more things than I’d like. But that’s OK, I still love her.
@Scott: Don’t you just hate that?! We have trash pickup on Mondays and Thursdays and I can’t stand it when I have some stuff I want to get rid of and the trash has JUST gone out.
@Avani-Mehta: “One question – how do I evaluate what I need and what I think I need?”
That’s a good question. I think it’s a matter of picturing the items in question as completely gone from your life. Think about day to day situations and try and find a point where NOT having the item would be a real disadvantage. If you can’t come up with a concrete scenario, than you probably don’t need it. The key is to not get rid of something and then have to buy it again, a few months later because you realized you really DID need it. But try to be ruthless about it. Lean in the direction of getting rid of stuff, not hanging onto it.
@Vincent: That’s a good policy.
@Sean: That stinks! I could see how that wouldn’t feel like simplicity.
@Juliet: It often takes situations that force us to simplify, to make us realize our lack of ‘need’. Thanks for sharing, Eric.
Hi
Eric, your title caught my eye. Until recently, I had a major freeloader problem. It seems that racoons had gotten under the house and were living in my walls. I could hear them scratching on the pipes while I was bathing and I could here the constant thumpety-thump above my head in the attic. God only knows what it looks like up there! I finally saw them all outside, eating the cat food and was able to run and seal up the crawlspace. So far, so good.I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
@margaret: First, I just wanted to say, hello. It’s great to finally meet you! Sean is such a great guy, so I knew his mother must be to blame for this. It’s an honor to have you on my blog.
As for the racoons, that sounds like the rat situation. We clogged up the crawl space as well. It’s just the aftermath that awful. Our hallway, right below the attic ‘hatch/door’ smells like rat poop all the time. Not a good thing. Eric.
WOW. What an ordeal.
I have absolutely no doubt that my family would be very happy with about 50% of our possessions.
@Vered: I would say that’s the general consensus. It’s funny thought, how most people will say that, but very few do anything about it. I guess it’s the process of actually parting from the items that is too inconvenient to mess with. Oh well.
Eric.
Hi Eric,
I find…
When you go through your old things, it brings back so many great memorie, that it is hard to part with them. They tell the story of your life
When we moved from MI to AZ last year I had to go through everything in our attic and basement. I gave stuff away to neighbors and charity. I had 2 garage sales and because we downsized to a much smaller home we gave more away to Habitat for Humanity because it didn’t fit in when we got here.
Our small home doesn’t have an attic or basement. I don’t miss the stuff or junk or even the good stuff. I even gave away all of our Christmas decorations to my oldest daughter before we left!
I went out to a cotton feild nearby and picked two big branches of cotton and put them in a vase. I bought a small box of tiny ornaments from the grocery store and decorated it. It’s a hoot.
The less stuff I have the better life gets. You can shift your perception to the mice did us a favor, they lightened our load!
Yeah!
It more of a menace at times. I have an interesting visit at my friends place where the rats literally jump at you at times. Some houses are too much hounded I wonder how people just stay in them.
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