Why do little old ladies horde things?

[tollbaby]

That's probably why my grandmother was such a packrat. Mom started cleaning Grandma's house shortly after she died, and threw out THREE large garbage bags full of margarine tubs and coffee cans, and that was just the beginning!

threw out? as in didn't recycle? *cries*

[Catwoman2965]

My grandmother used to keep the rubber band that came around her daily newspaper, and then the plastic bags they came in...every handle of every drawer in her kitchen had a bunch of rubber bands wrapped around it! and more in the drawers...some were so old they were rotting!

and when my parents moved, i helped them clean out 30 years of crap from the house...my mom was bad; i was helping her in the basement, and i would hold something up, and she would hesitate...i'd say "when was the last time you used it?" and she would say, "well...and her famous phrase - I might have a use for it someday" - i got to the point i finally said, nope, if you haven't used it, you aren't moving it, and trashed it. She actually admitted once they moved and were unpacking there was a lot of stuff she could have thrown out!

She's also one for trying to clean or fix things that are cheap to replace. Those plastic shower curtain liners? that are like $5? she'd always say to me, why don't you just wash it? Um mom, i replace it like 3 times a year, when it gets nasty, if i couldn't afford to, yeah, i'd wash it, but the $15 per year won't break the bank.

[Andara Bledin]

Behavior that should be encouraged, I say. Use it up, wear it out, make it last or do without. Too much is disposable these days. People don't even keep their cars for longer than three years on average.

Quoted for truth.

^-.-^

[novicecrafter]

.

This post brought me out of my perpetual lurker status. I am guilty of both sides of this! I always keep things because they "look useful" for "something." I don't usually even have a specific use in mind ... they just look useful!! I love to make things so stuff just accumulates in the craft closet. I go through it every once and awhile and toss out things I haven't touched in a year or so. It still pains me to see it go but with my bf and I being packrats in a small apartment it has to after a while. I reuse shopping bags, boxes (I have pet rats), various containers if they can be washed. *But* I am guilty of tossing things out of shear laziness. "It was only *** dollars " and Id rather buy another one then fix up this one. I feel pretty guilty right about now. I have now gotten into the habit of putting things I don't want out on the sidewalk with a big free sign. It always gets picked up within one hour! I think I am part of a big problem-everything is so cheap and cheaply made now that it has become "disposable" but we are paying for it. I'm not going to get into that topic because we all know fully well what the consequences are. Next time I see someone who is a hoarder and resuses things till they fall apart I'm going to shake their hand

[XCashier]

threw out? as in didn't recycle? *cries*

I think she did recycle what could be recycled, but she needed the bags to hold them in...

[FenigDurak]

I'm fairly similar to NoviceCrafter on this one. I'm a costume design student who was raised by a med student, so I keep nearly everything. I have scraps of fabric from sewing projects from 5 years ago purely because it still has some substance to it. I still have computer parts, software, etc from when I was a kid (think monotone screens and angry beeps). My vacuum is older than I am, but I keep it running with a little ingenuity and some TLC. I have the same dresser that my Dad built (read put together from a box) for me when I was still learning to walk. I just bought a new pair of shoes yesterday because the ones I was wearing had holes large enough for 2 fingers in the soles.

I won't, however, keep margarine tubs. This has ALWAYS grossed me out. Even as a kid. I hate eating out of plastic. Hate it.

[Sofar]

I won't, however, keep margarine tubs. This has ALWAYS grossed me out. Even as a kid. I hate eating out of plastic. Hate it.

That always bothered me for some reason, too.

[Dawnchaser]

I also go both ways on this. I tend to hoard certain things...anything electronics related for one. After all, if I save parts I can build another computer! (Note - we have, I believe, 5 working ones - some ancient, some new - I truly have no use for another one) I don't even like to give them away, although I do from time to time.

I am fairly wasteful though - I tend to throw away pennies, soap bits, jars, and the like.

I think this also comes from being homeless/very poor. For awhile I lived in a home for pregnant teens (I wasn't pregnant but they had space that no one was using.) We had to reuse garbage bags over and over and over and had to really pinch the pennies since pretty much I had food stamps and whatever I could scrounge up.

Now I make a decent living and don't like to reuse hardly anything because of that, I think. Even if a garbage bag didn't have much in it it's still not being reused in my house!

I guess people react differently to different situations. My mother-in-law used to be poor and oh the stories I could tell of her hoarding. She saves dryer lint for campfires (hasn't been camping in probably 20 years I'd guess), has Avon samples from the 70s, and almost threw me out once for throwing away an opened bottle of BBQ sauce that was 5 years old. She was in tears over it...

[tollbaby]

by the way, folks.... if anybody's purging or if you have stuff that's just been sitting around for years, decades, whatever....

Consider http://www.freecycle.org. You may not have a use for it, but it may be just the thing someone else has been looking for I've gotten rid of tons of stuff through Freecycle, and I've acquired a ridiculous number of books in the last few years for my online database project Caveats being, no buying or selling and no posting live animals (i.e. if your cat has a litter of 73, you can't post the kittens on Freecycle).

[ContraCorriente]

My grandma saves everything. She saves old envelopes, paper towels, and lint. I'm serious about the lint. She gets it out of the dryer and puts it in a shoebox.

[SuperDan]

I'm serious about the lint. She gets it out of the dryer and puts it in a shoebox.

And you'll thank her for that if you ever need to start a bonfire or light a fire in a non-gas fireplace. Lint is actually quite useful.

[ParkingWitch]

My Grandmother died in 1988 and I inherited the house from my uncle in 1994. Cleaning out the attic we found bank records of her father's (my great grandfather) from 1916 and ORIGINAL 1920's Flapper dress paterns. OMG the family had moved at least twice and she kept this stuff.

[Broomjockey]

And you'll thank her for that if you ever need to start a bonfire or light a fire in a non-gas fireplace. Lint is actually quite useful.

I know! I saved dryer lint for about a year, and my collection got too big during the winter, so I took it out back to burn in a snow drift. That stuff burns well and long. Eventually I got too cold watching it burn, so I piled snow on top to put it out. The next morning, I noticed a small hole in the pile, poked it, and found the lint had kept burning, making a little igloo for itself. Very awesome, and not dangerous as all the snow around it kept it safe.

[XCashier]

Cleaning out the attic we found bank records of her father's (my great grandfather) from 1916 and ORIGINAL 1920's Flapper dress paterns.

Ooh! I'd be so tempted to try sewing those patterns!

[Mighty Girl]

I'll be another one to attribute this to the depression. My grandma was dirt poor growing up and lived through the depression- and she actually does pretty well, she doesn't horde a ton of stuff, but she does horde money. When the stock market crashed, people's bank account numbers were useless. That's also why a lot of old people don't trust banks and pay their utility bills at the neighborhood pharmacy with cash.