Why do little old ladies horde things?

[Argabarga]

My Grandma on my Dad's side is atrocious when it comes to hoarding things

She keeps everything, and I mean everything. When she moved into a new house some 20 years ago, even though she had a brand new kitchen installed, she brought along her old one, range, fridge (all 1950's models to boot!) and all the cabinets with her and installed them in the basement. She has a fully functioning but never used kitchen, in the basement.

She also keeps all of her old furniture, and refuses to throw any of it away. Her house has 5 bedrooms in it, just because she needed a place for the 5 beds she bought over the years........

In the garage is every car she's ever bought, when she buys a new one she just tarps the old one, the only one she doesn't have is her 70' Plymouth wagon because it caught fire .... I'm surprised she didn't keep the charred frame.

[Dreamstalker]

My grandmother has a drawer in the upstairs room overflowing with shoulder pads from blouses. I have not the slightest clue why she would keep something like that.

When we were going through my grandfather's things after he died, we found boxes of stuff from his Secret Service days: presidential trip menus, diaries, photos, badges, ID cards, packs of ciggs with the Presidential Seal on them, et al. One of these days we plan to donate most of it to the Secret Service museum in DC.

We also found various memorabilia from defunct institutions: Pan Am, TWA, Eastern Airlines, Old Stone Bank, Hospital Trust Bank, etc.

In the basement, there's a fallout shelter guide from the 50s when the house was built. I should really get a waterproof pouch for that...

[protege]

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.

I'm not one of those--I hold onto my vehicles. They're usually beat to hell by the time I finally unload them.

Some of you know that I have several old wagons that I use to move things around. The first one (that is now gone) was bought for my paper route. After who knows how many thousands of miles, it literally fell apart. The steel floor had holes in it, and the underframe was shot. I wasn't too thrilled when my father made the wheels, brackets, and other bits "disappear" one afternoon.

That got replaced by a new wooden wagon in '88...which is now in bits awaiting "restoration." Quality-wise, it wasn't up to par with the older one--the paint flaked off in about 6 months, and the underframe cracked in less than a year! Had it repainted, and repaired the frame. Until '96 or so when it was wrecked, it gave great service.

Next up is my '78 Radio-Flyer. This was found in someone's trash one afternoon. Nothing wrong with it, except for some surface rust, and a missing stake bracket or two. Nothing a little sanding and new paint wouldn't fix. I so could have used the parts my father threw out, but I ended up making new stake brackets from scratch.

Last of the "classics" is the 1959 version someone was tossing out last year. I couldn't resist it, and added it to the fleet. Even though the paint is horribly rusted, it's still solid underneath so I can't believe someone would just toss it. Plus, the tires still have good tread on the impossible-to-get-now spoked wheels. Eventually, I plan on restoring it, but for now it serves as my main workhorse.

All too often, people would throw things out like this...when in reality, all they need are usually minor repairs. Missing parts can usually be ordered. If not, sometimes you can make them from scratch, or adapt what you *can* get. For example, large pipe brackets make excellent stake brackets--my '78 R-F currently sports a pair on the rear panel

I try to reuse as many things as I can. It doesn't stop with the wagons either--last year someone was throwing out a crude model train layout. No buildings, just a loop of brass track. Now, brass track sucks. It's a bitch to keep clean...so I grabbed it anyway, and cut it to fit some gondola cars. These cars are used in my railroad's "Maintenance of Way" train. Since the rail isn't going to be used for running, just as a "load" why not?

[Jack7957]

I see this at just about every old folks community I work at. There's always one resident that if we are installing emergency devices in the rooms, we'll have to climb over piles to get to the walls to install the pullcords.

[powerboy]

Yeah, we save margerine and butter containers too. It's much better than buying containers to put leftovers in, and you don't feel guilty about throwing them out when they're nasty or you don't want to bring it home, because hey, you've got a ton more there. For no extra cost.

My mom used to have us wash out the ziploc bags to reuse=

We do the same exact thing. I also will grab a good jar, and keep my change in, or my writing utensils in. We have 1/2 the garage with junk in it

[Gurndigarn]

I'm not one of those--I hold onto my vehicles. They're usually beat to hell by the time I finally unload them.

there's a difference between holding onto something that you use and repair, and holding onto junk. The practical question is: "Will the cost (in money, time, and aggrivation) of keeping/repairing this be less than the cost (money/time/aggrivation) of replacing it, bearing in mind the liklihood of actually being able to find it amongst all my other junk when it actually becomes needed?"

[protege]

I hear ya on that one. There are some "junk" items still sitting around. Most of them have been made to "disappear" already though. There's still a rusty steel-bodied wagon that's currently keeping bags of rock salt off the garage floor. Its days of hauling things are over--the floor is rusting out, and I can't see a need to fix it. I've already removed the handle (not broken, just in the way), and kicked a couple of bricks under the wheels so it won't roll. Quite handy for holding bags of salt until I need them in the winter. Except for that, I don't really have much junk lying around.

...except in my parts box though. Like most model builders, I have a rather large stash of spare parts. All of these items were left over from kits, or things that I've taken apart, or bits left over, such as small scraps of stripwood or styrene (plastic). Wheels, seats, engine parts, I'm sure I'll use it one time or another. For example, one of the kits I was working on was a 1964 Ford Thunderbolt (basically a Fairlane with a 427 V8 in it). The kit tires were crap. They weren't even round, so into the trash they went...and replaced with a set from the scrap box. Why buy new, when I know that I'll have something that'll fit

BTW, those self-tapping screws used in most electronic devices...work great for securing plastic buildings to model railroad tables

I only keep around what I can use. If it's truly scrap, into the trash (or recycling container) it goes. Computers aren't immune to this either. When one fails, I scrap it. I reuse the screws, floppy and hard drives. Most of the metal stuff goes into the recycling. I'm sure that gives many of reclaimer a "WTF" moment