My house is full of crap

Just chuck stuff out. I'm terrible for keeping clutter just in case it's useful for something but sometimes you have to bite the bullet and bin, charity shop or ebay/car boot stuff and try to train other people in the house to do the same.

Easier said than done sometimes though I know.

My old teacher wrote an (online) book on clutter clearing which I bought but never read.

Hence I know exactly how you feel!

Little and often I think is the way to do it. Pick one area - a table top or a drawer - and go through it. Chuck the rubbish (bin, charity shop, freecycle, whatever) and find a home for things you want to keep. Things having homes I find a good thing - they can be put away then. Are your children old enough to join in? Oh, and a Flylady tip - set a timer for 15 minutes (or 10 or 5). Amazing what you can get done and it doesn't feel like its your entire life.

Alternatively, I'll come and have a go!

I have spent the last 6 months ebaying, freecycling, throwing away, green metropolising my hoards of crap. Does it show? Does it hell. I am just slightly bitter about this. I am making some headway but I keep finding more stuff ?.

personally, I blame the children (husband comes in second... I am, of course, blamelesss [whoamIkiddingiconneeded]?).

Sorry, probably not very helpful am I.

I find moving house is the best incentive to declutter. After that, just make it law that any item which enters your home that you do not unequivocally welcome will be binned immediately.

Thanks, all. Am currently struggling with children's "art", of which I have many piles. Some of it is fab- that stuff's on the wall already- but some of it is, frankly, pretty rubbish. I must just bin it. I'm struggling over the decision about whether to bin for longer than the various pictures took to draw ?

bit expensive though ?

hire a skip. then you'll have to chuck stuff away

Sophie, we still have stuff in boxes from when we moved in 2004 ?? It's all come to Brussels with us and will, no doubt, come back to London again ?

And fast, before your neighbours fill it for you! ?

Seriously though, I second the setting a timer for a short burst and clearing as much as possible advice. It really focuses your attention!

I'm always reluctant to throw out my kids artwork too - so I bought a ring binder and any paintings and drawings which dont go on the wall go in the ring binder - that way I dont have the guilt of throwing out their art stuff.

When it comes to toys - I chuck! Probably not as much/often as I should - but anything crappy from the magazines gets chucked after the novelty has gone from them. I'm actually just planning on going through the toys - anything suitable for new baby will be put to one side - anything broken will get chucked, anything that does my head in and is not particularly loved will go in the charity bag and then I'll put all sticklebrick/lego etc back in the boxes - hoping to relaly cut down on the amount they have in time for Christmas - plus when baby comes I'm sure they'll get a few little things then.

You are beyond hope ?

Well, if you're going, I'm coming with you ? I'm always chucking away tat like that - we'd have 350 incomplete jigsaws in the house otherwise, next to the crappy spinning top, 20p cheap toy you get with comics, alongisde countless felt tip pens without lids ? And don't get me started on the McDonalds toys - I don't actually take them there that often but I seem to have amassed various cheap bits of Star Wars, TMNT, Igor, Sugar Babes (honestly) tat that I love chucking away after its 3 minutes of playtime.

I have days where I'll swoosh through the house without sentiment, binning anything that gets in my way - its quite therapeutic - I thoroughly recommend it ?

I have the 'art' dilemma too, not least because smallest child does actually seem to remember random masterpieces that she's produced ?

I have a folder(s) that I collect all 'art' into, and after a suitable time lapse I weed it for the less memorable pieces.

I still have loads of random stuff too though, I DO NOT KNOW how people with small children manage to keep 'show home' style houses.

They don't - they have large cupboards/sheds that they shove stuff in and when you open the doors it all comes tumbling out onto their pristine white carpets and newly polished wooden floors ?

I've found that since having the kids I've been more inclined to just throw stuff away, probably something to do with the HUGE amount of stuff they have and how we have no room left for ourselves anymore ?

I do sometimes ebay and sell stuff but I also fill most charity bags that come my way and drop stuff off at charity shops and also put stuff in the dustbin and those of my neighbours (once they are out for the binmen you understand!) ?

How about going through it with your children and deciding which of their doting grandparents are going to receive it? Put a stack of the art work into big envelopes and post/give it to them.

I post art to loving grandparents, don't keep birthday cards, chuck incomplete or broken stuff while they're asleep, have a quarterly cull of unplayed with toys, as well as a pre birthday cull to make room for new stuff. Don't buy things, ask for "experiences" as presents (eg legoland pass etc) or things that will get used up eg paints etc rather than plastic stuff. I Freecycle stuff, charity shop, or sell things most weeks.

I also fill 70% of incoming paperwork in the bin (once i've read it), don't get magazines or catalogues, get bills sent online, have a big filing cabinet and do paperwork weekly. Shop online so less temptation to buy rubbish. go to recycling bank weekly. Try to have house perfectly tidy with no clutter once a week. (well I try!)

Can't stop buying books, though, I havepiles all over the house andnot enough bookcases.

I want to be Rache! ?

I am also drowning. I'm going to make my mum help me go through the tupperware and other plastic tubs tomorrow. I plan to bin half.

We store jigsaws in plastic wallets if the box is broken. We have some that are ancient as we always make sure all the bits are put away. It is the one thing we are anal about.

Paper seems to multiply in this house.

I was a terrible hoarder (still have my schoolbooks in the garage, from 30 years ago and have every one of my sons schoolbooks in the loft!)

I have thrown a lot of art away but kept loads in a box box in the loft.

I do have major blitz's fromtime to time - small toys (freebies from mags, mcdonalds etc, pen sets crayons etc go to MIL who takes themfor the children in a village in Milawi) - bigger toys are either freecycled, or car booted) anything that can be recycled, is.

Old or unplayed with any more computer games are taken to Game to be "cashed in" for other games.

I tend to find that a lot of my "tidying" migrates to the garage, then I have a huge garage clear out once a year!

House is still overcrowded with "stuff" though!

No you don't I promise. I am a slovenly houseiwfe and the only reason I can aim to have a tidy house once a week is because a cleaner comes in and I tidy before and once after. The rest of the time it's a pigsty. There are a few hitchers who've been to my house and they'll vouch for the fact that my house is anything but a showhome. We have a colony of slugs for a start and our last cleaner stopped working for us as she'd devloped a phobia of spiders because we have so many of them....

For the artwork, could you maybe give the kids a scrapbook or a portfolio-type thing each and get them to put what they want to keep in those, and throw the rest away? FWIW, my parents only kept my good artwork and chucked the rest (my Dad is an artist and so has always been highly critical even of primary school work ?) and it never bothered me.

For extra storage, I bought a couple of nice wooden trunks that are now filled with crap but look like nice pieces of furniture, which also serve as extra seating when we have more people round than can fit on the sofa.

I'm also very ruthless with everything and freecycle/charity shop/eBay anything we don't use. We have a 2-bed flat so not much space at all.

Having said that, we're about to have our first child and all the de-cluttering I've done is slowly being undone with all the crap we're buying (and I'm being really careful to buy only stuff I know we'll definitely need) so I don't know where we're going to put toys and all that jazz. Suppose we'll have to move at some point but I don't want to!

I'm also drowning in stuff! Trouble is that when I clear I find that 95% of the stuff I actually want ?

I am blaming the majority of my problem on lack of storage, and what storage I do have isn't well labled. In my study I got Mr G and my dad to put up cubby holes that I can fit a lidded or fold down box in, then everything was supposed to go in there. I've even got a sheet saying what should go in each hole...but it's mostly been ignored ?

I hate throwing things away so I'm trying to get around it by having more children so things can get passed down until they're broken so I can throw them ?

It's very slowly coming together here with lots of labled shelves and drawers so mostly things have a home to go to ?

I also moved 5 years ago and still have packed boxes, when I unpacked some I realised I'd moved rubbish as well in my mad packing rush ?

??

So many spiders.......... how do you cope????? ?

I'm only slightly scared of them; plus MrRache is very tolerant and good at picking tem up and throwing them into the garden if they get too cocky and saunter across the living room floor.

I am completely sympathetic to your situation! I am in the process of moving house and although we've only lived here 5 yrs, it's a complete junkyard.

I am so determined not to move all my tonnes of crap to the new house so i am spending this week going through the lot with a brutal eye.

I am sorting things out bit by bit and usually have 3 containers on the go + a bin bag. 1 container for stuff to keep, one for stuff for that car boot sale that i SO have to get round to, one container for charity. In some cases i have another box of stuff to store - like baby clothes, out grown toys etc, which can go in to the attic.

Moving house is a fab excuse to HAVE to do this, but if you're determined on having a sort out while staying put, then i would ay do it in manageable chunks. Ie - sort out the paperwork / filing / binning in one bout and clothes etc in another session.

Investing in some great storage solutions - be it a nice filing cabinet, or some vacuum pack bags, etc is always a good incentive to start a declutter session, and make sure you've got a few hours to spend on it - you'll always make more mess to start with and there's nothing worse than taking 2 steps back - and then having to leave it at that!!!!

Good luck. Happy undrowning.... i feel your pain!

You need to hire lowkey from BT as a "sort out your life" lady. Her children's toys are in labelled Trofast drawers - she's amazing!

Hubble makes a good point - only take out as much as you can do in one session. I quite often just do a drawer at a time, rather than spending days at a time decluttering a whole room. Given an hour you can declutter three or four cupboards - do that a couple of times a month and you'll make a huge impact. I need to be constantly vigilant about clutter accumulating - it's a battle with children, certainly - but good storage and doing little bits at a time really helps. And the old adage "a place for everything" really works. The paper clutter was a big problem - now I keep a small lidded basket on the kitchen table - everything including post, bills, receipts, correspondence from preschool etc etc - and once a week I try to go through it and do what I can. My filing cabinet got decluttered a couple of weeks back - but also quite often I take out one or two folders and just do a quick chuck.

I got some brilliant tips from this book: for example keeping things where you use them - near my basket of ongoing household paperwork is my shredder, paper recycling bin, and normal bin, and a basket for used stamps (they go to charity). It makes going through the paperwork much more efficient and quick.

I have a messy house so can sympathise, although not offer much constructive advice. One tip is to take photos of your kids artwork with a digital camera. Not quite the same as the original but a heck of a lot easier to store.