Last weekend the remnants of Hurricane Isaiah came through my area and dumped a ton of rain, causing my drainage system to overflow. In my panic to get things out of the way of water, I found a funny metal box underneath my dad's metal toolbench

I opened it up, and found checks...from 1984.

You mean to tell me that we hauled these from Maryland to Germany back to Maryland and then to our current home in a different part of Maryland. Are you KIDDING ME?!?!

For those old enough not to remember, back in ye olden times after currency was invented and banks were established, we either got our original checks back after they were run through a machine at the store, or I believe the banks would send them back (am I remembering that correctly?) to the customer after they cleared the bank. Now of course I am probably the last remaining person that writes checks (infrequently, but I do!), and I never expect to see them again except online.

Fortunately, I am preparing for a shred event in November, and these will be going to it. 😁

I want to help keep someone accountable while they work on their mess for a couple hours.

Tl;dr; AuDHD/anxious/depressed boomer needs a book or podcast or something to help approach packing up her home. Anybody got any ideas?

Long version:

My parents are moving house after having retired. My mother despises moving thanks to a childhood spent moving different places. She's also a bit of a packrat and feels very attached to things and has a hard time throwing them away. She is wildly overwhelmed by the task in front of her now: packing up 30 years. She can't talk about it without crying.

Time is not an issue. They already moved into their house close to me, 3 hours north. Money is not an issue, except inasmuch as my mother is embarrassed to spend it.

I have offered to summon my brothers from the four winds so we can help, but we have small children and my mother is overwhelmed at the idea of someone having to manage small children just so she can get help.

My father is not bothered by this task, but does need mom's input for some of these choices.

My mother is in and out of therapy, on and off of antidepressants, has a lot of boomer guilt about having mental health issues, and is currently grieving the one-year anniversary of the death of her father. Obviously, now is not the time to push this issue, but it's been pushed off time and again for six years, so clearly something needs to change.

A book or podcast about this would help immensely. I'm thinking something like "How to keep house while drowning," but for packing up a home. Any ideas? Or other advice?

Okay. Yeah… I realize how gross this sounds. But TRUST ME. I have struggled to manage my space for so long. I hold onto things I do not need. I tell myself “what if I need this for an incredibly specific thing that I just made up?” From there, my space becomes more and more chaotic and messy and overwhelming. I’m not sure where exactly I first saw this method, but I owe whoever came up with it my life.

Basically, when you are cleaning, organizing, unfucking, whatever it is you’re doing, ask yourself this question: If this thing were covered in sh*t, would I willingly clean it and save it? Or would I toss it?

I know it may seem silly to have to ask such a question, but sometimes our brains need an alternative way of looking at things. Personally, I’ve found this to be the most helpful. As I’m unfucking my space today, I thought I’d share this. I hope this weird little hack helps someone else out!

Good luck everyone :)

Please dont be too harsh, I’m already sitting on my floor crying and nobody in my real life knows I live like this.

After three months of heavy burnout and a nasty depressive slump, my apartment has basically turned into a landfill. It started with just leaving delivery boxes by the front door, but now my sink has dishes that have been sitting for weeks, there are mountains of laundry covering every piece of furniture, and I’m literally stepping over trash just to get to teh bathroom. I’ve been sleeping on a sliver of my mattress because the rest is buried under clean clothes I never had the energy to fold.

Today the brain fog finally cleared enough for me to realize how bad it is, and the wave of shame is so heavy I can barely breathe. Every time I stand up to grab a trash bag, I just freeze because looking at all of it at once makes me physically exhausted.

how do you guys break the paralysis when everything feels contaminated and hopeless? Do I just start with one single corner or what? Feel so pathetic being an adult who cant even keep a living room clean.

Moved in here three months ago and it’s my first solo apartment…and I’m learning how to adult again!

(Also, my grandpa and my cat both died this summer after I moved…I guess I’m riding the grief waves, or doing my best to 🥲🙂)

Getting the couch unpacked today (it’s in that big ass brown box in front of the TV), wish me luck!!!

That chair. The one you pile the clothes on that have been worn, but not ready for the wash. Actually I don't have this issue as I live in the deep south and don't wear clothes that need dry cleaning, but I get that isn't everyone. So today, let's go through that chair, and plan on wearing those clothes next week so they can either be used, or washed which ever the need so the chair can be used as a chair (or the treadmill can be a treadmill).

I moved in 2020 and never really got anything properly put away. That's what the main mess was. nothing had a place and disorganized stuff takes up so much space that I had no place to put them so I moved the mess around.

On a positive note it has taken a couple months but my space is sooo unfucked. I would now show anybody my room. I have solved most of the important organising. Like clothing.

Now I have 100 clear pastic bins of varying size and 7 doom boxes of not garbage. AS I put the stuff away I went through most and threw out bullshit and actual garbage now it'll be 99% real stuff. It's all disorganized to the max; my camera it's battery and it's charger are in three different places.

I'm an artist and by artist standards I'm a minimalist. This still means I own just a ton of stuff. I have solvents, pigments, metal pipes, types of clay, and electronics. It's all too expensive to just throw out and buy more in 3 months when I need it. I have no idea how to fix this volume of disorganization. The stuff I organize stays that way but the loose homeless things? I'm at a loss

Ugh we will not even be discussing papers yet. For now every important looking paper goes in the ultra mega doom box

You probably have seen my posts here.

For the past few months, I've been decluttering my home like crazy. Donating things, throwing away papers, letting go of stuff I kept for years without really knowing why. And something is finally clicking.

I started spending less about two years ago, but lately I've been looking at clutter differently. It's not just about having too many things. It's about how much energy it takes to manage everything we accumulate.

And then I started thinking about my job. I got laid off by the way a week ago.

For years, I accumulated emails, tasks, responsibilities, follow-ups, meetings, and things I needed to remember. I kept adding things to my plate, and somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to see everything clearly. I struggled to organize myself, to prioritize, to know where to start.

Things piled up, just like the stuff in my house.
I kept thinking I needed to become better at managing it all. A better system, better organization, more discipline. But maybe I also needed to recognize how much I was trying to manage in the first place.

I lost my job after more than 10 years. It has been painful, and I'm still processing it. But in the middle of all those feelings, I'm also noticing something unexpected: I feel a little lighter.

I'm not saying I'm glad it happened, or that I have everything figured out. I don't. But I wonder if this is an opportunity to learn something I hadn't been able to see while I was busy carrying everything.
Maybe the lesson from decluttering my home is something I can bring into my next job: don't automatically take on every task, don't let every email become an open loop in my head, don't confuse being responsible with having to carry everything myself. Learn to prioritize, delegate, and recognize when enough is enough.
I want my next chapter to look different. I want to build better systems, yes, but I also want a clearer mind and a more manageable life. I want to contribute, do meaningful work, and still have energy left for the people and things I love. Am I asking for too much?

TLDR: For those of you who have struggled with clutter in your home and overwhelm at work, have you noticed a connection between the two? And if you've started a new job or a new chapter after realizing you were carrying too much, what did you do differently the second time around?

Please don't judge me too harshly, the last few months after my breakup completely drained every ounce of life out of me. I know this sounds pathetic to normal functional adults, but I really need to tell someone who gets it.

For five weeks, my bed hasn't been a bed. It was just a dumping ground for clean laundry I couldn't bring myself to fold, Amazon boxes, work papers, and random clutter. It got so bad that every night I was literally wedging my body onto teh far left six inches of mattress just to sleep, curled into a ball like a bracket. Last week I gave up and just slept on my lumpy couch.

today I woke up, felt the usual wave of disgust, but remembered the 20/10 rule someone posted here. I set a timer for twenty minutes.

I didnt even fold the clothes. I just sorted them into two laundry baskets, dragged the empty boxes to the hallway, and washed my actual sheets for the first time since February. It took fifteen minutes. That was it. Fifteen minutes to undo five weeks of misery that had been making me feel like a subhuman failure every single night.

My room still has a long way to go, but tonight I get to stretch my legs out in a clean bed. It feels like breathing for the first time in forever.

There are whole subs on carpet beetles and similar pests and the general advice to get rid of them is to clean and vacuum thoroughly and often.

Deep cleaning might be a feasible solution for some, but I’m not there yet - which is why I’m asking in this sub specifically.

I have been unfucking my habitat for months. I have made lots of progress but my apartment is still far from being in a state where cleaning hidden corners would be a sensible next step.

So does anyone have advice how I could at least somewhat limit their spread until my apartment reaches “deep cleanable state”?

I’d prefer to use methods that don’t slowly kill me if possible ;)

Today's task is easy. Vacuum or dust the head board. This thing lives 6 inches from our noses 8 hours a day and its one place I forget needs cleaning. And it's super easy and super fast to deal with.

No headboard. Dust the wall behind the bed instead.

Throwaway because people in my actual life think I’m super organized and I’d probably die if anyone saw this. I had the flu three weeks ago, got slammed with work right after, and basically let my entire kitchen completely spiral. It started with just a few mugs and pans, but now the sink is overflowing and there are dishes stacked all over the counter.

I’ve literally been eating takeout with plastic spoons for teh past ten days just so I don’t have to step foot in there. Every time I walk in with a sponge, my chest gets tight and I just freeze. My brain treats it like climbing Mount Everest instead of just twenty minutes of washing plates. it sounds so dramatic and pathetic to type out loud, but I’ve been sitting here on the floor for almost an hour just staring at it and feeling like a massive failure.

Where do I even start when everything feels sticky and overwhelming? Do I just throw away the cheap Tupperware and forgive myself or what?

Found this sub and thought it looked helpful. My mom has a lot of stuff and doesn't know what to do with it. She gets really overwhelmed and wants me to help but I'm not around much. Her issues come from not knowing what to do with everything. Some of it is perfectly good and she'll want to sell it but gets overwhelmed with that whole process. She believes that donating clothes is the same as throwing them away because they'll just end up in a landfill anyway and so instead of doing either they just sit in her home and stress her out.

I have my own clutter problems that I've mainly solved by becoming kind of nihilistic and selfish about my clutter. I feel that getting it out of my space is more important than what happens to it afterwards, which may or may not be the right viewpoint but it's where I'm at. There's just so much guilt associated with old clothes and old products that she bought and never touched but doesn't want to get rid of because of that guilt.
I don't know how to help her besides throwing everything away and that's not what she wants

Context: I moved into this house about three years ago. When I moved in, my best friend was severely depressed and grieving and had inherited the house from her (hoarder) father. I won't lie, the state of the house was bad. Dog feces and urine caused the vinyl flooring to separate and bubble. The downstairs was generally inaccessible and frankly, a hazard for multiple reasons. We've done a lot of work, and now the downstairs is livable albeit ... sad.

We've got a leak that has pretty much ripped the roof open in our laundry room. This room was an addition to the (very old) house. I can include photos in the comments (hopefully) since I'm typing this up on my laptop. Due to all the rain we've recently received, we've got a second leak. It went through the roof, the attic, and into the bathroom where plaster is now falling from the ceiling. We had a pipe burst last winter and so the floor in the laundry room is still a little torn up. We don't have heat.

I'm a 29 year old disabled and sick person, but I'm aware of the direness of the situation and so I'm frankly willing to do whatever. My partner, 35 M and roommate/best friend 32 F. I'm trying not to fall into hopelessness and despair, but this house is kicking all of our asses. We just can't catch up and now we need serious help and I've got no idea what to do. We don't have spare metal or roof tiles or even plastic lying around. 32 F is suggesting we buy a short term fix like those cans of spray but I feel like that's a wet bandaid on a big cut.

We've limited money, we're on gov assistance and I'm currently making a list of place to call to inquire about resources but someone, anyone, please help me. I don't want to lose my family and I'm desperate.

We made the decision to not hang curtains in our house and boy am I ever glad. They attract dust and are a pain to take down and wash and put back up.

So we went with just blinds. Todays task is to dust the blinds, and window seals. If you need to and have time, you can wash the windows as well. If your curtains need washing, add that to your list of things to do unless you have time today to take them down, wash and rehang them.

Dust in our bedrooms is the number one reason we get sick with seasonal allergies. Dust is the number one allegen that almost all of us are alergic to and allowing it in the room we sleep in is the number one cause of migraines, allergies and over all feeling like crap.

So lets start Fall and winter with a dust free bedroom, or at least less dusty because let's face it. Dust begets dust.

I'm completely overwhelmed. I'm moving across the country by the end of November. I've set a date to move out by Nov. 10 from my home per agreement with my landlord. I want to get rid of nearly everything. I have been suffering for years with major depressive disorder, life long ADHD, unresolved trauma, etc. I was able to mask everything and be high-functioning but I've lost that coping mechanism the last three years or so for several reasons.

I have a compact car with seats that fold down and can fit about 5 mid or large Rubbermaid tubs. My original plan was to clear my hoard, and keep only very necessary or highly sentimental items. I even made a detailed list. I'm moving in with a family member in another state. She has a complete household so I need very little.

I'm frightened. How am I going to do this? I have no supportive family except for my youngest son. There isn't enough time or vocabulary to explain my family dynamics which are pretty f'ed up. Over the last few weeks I've opened up to him so he knows what I'm really going through. He's been accepting. He is new in his career and doing well since college graduation but is very busy and lives in another city. He was able to come up to help me 6 hours yesterday, 3 hours today and maybe 3 hours tomorrow.

I also opened up to a neighbor about what my life has actually been like for a few years; I wiped away the facade of what looked like being a successful professional. He was quiet and thoughtful as he listened to me. We've known each other for years, not very close but friendly enough to talk in our driveways every week or so. I know he knows a lot of people through his church. I asked him for help. I don't have much money right now but I can compensate a responsible person to help me for a day and he knows plenty of people who are receiving help from the church and could also use some cash.

Other than my son and neighbor, I have no other help. I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've just started on the wind-down, trashing things and it's shocking. Another new low....as my son and I were clearing a room yesterday and today, I discovered I have a mice problem. So that's another thing to deal with. And then this afternoon, I was feeling more motivation after we had filled two trucks full of trash so I started clearing my bedroom. As I was disturbing doom piles, a mouse came running out. I'm finding little shreds in different places and mouse poop. It's so depressing.

I welcome your story, if you have one similar to mine. Tell me how you got through the whole thing.

I welcome some advice but let me share the can-do's and can'ts right off the bat. I have very little money, being on a very tight budget rn. I can't hire hoarding cleaning companies in my area. Trying to appeal to my family for help is comp off the table, apart from the son who lives nearby but with his demanding work schedule he's done what he can already. He has offered to give me $250 for costs related to hiring help. I've already contacted about a half dozen local churches to see if they have volunteers who can support my efforts. Not a thing in my city. All the services I found are in the very high hundreds and thousands of dollars. I have acquaintances but no best or close friends who can help. Also, my renters insurance does not have anything in my policy for the help I need.

I moved into this dormitory a week ago and I can't figure out how to fit all my stuff into the tiny storage spaces that are available.

I need to not only fit my clothes, shoes, uni stuff and art stuff here but also all my cosmetics, cleaning supplies, kitchenware and all of my food.

The main problem are the incredibly narrow shelves in the wardrobes, no drawers anywhere, barely any storage space at all and not even a table..

I seriously have no idea how to start unpacking my stuff and where to put all of it so that it's still easy to access.

Please keep in mind that this is a dormitory, so no drilling into the walls or any major changes can be done. Also that I have like no money lol..

TLDR: How do I fit all of my stuff into the limited storage spaces I have available so that it's still easy to access?

Please be kind, I've been struggling with a major depressive episode and I really need some help..

Back in October I had this intense hyperfixation where I fully convinced myself I was going to get into miniature painting and leathercraft. Naturally, I bought twenty different acrylics, precision knives, cutting mats, tiny brushes, and scrap leather. I worked on exactly two small figures for a week straight, burned out completely, and then just abandoned everything right on the desk. Over the next five months it became an impenetrable doom pile. Every time I had junk mail, an empty soda can, or laundry I was too lazy to put away, it landed on the desk because "the space is already ruined anyway". I spent months working from my cramped sofa with terrible back pain just because looking at that corner made me feel like an utter failure.

Yesterday I had enough of spiraling and forced myself to do a single 20/10 interval. Set a timer for twenty minutes with no ambitious goals, just bagging literal trash. I threw out dried-up wash bottles, crusty napkins, and five half-empty cans. When the timer went off, I actually made myself sit down and take the ten minute rest instead of hyper-focusing and quitting halfway. The momentum was crazy though. For the next round, I brought in two simple plastic bins from the closet: one for gear to keep, and one box to give away to an art teacher friend. No perfectionism, no color-coding bins, just getting things off the flat surface so I could breathe.

It ended up taking three 20/10 rounds and a wet rag. When I wiped down the dust from that last corner, I actually froze because I genuinely forgot this desk had a light oak grain under all the mess. The rest of the apartment still has plenty of chaos to unfuck, but sitting in an actual chair this morning with room to rest both elbows and drink coffee feels unreal. If you are stuck on the couch staring at a doom pile right now, just set a timer for twenty minutes and throw out the obvious trash. You dont have to fix your whole life today, just take back one flat surface.

Tuesdays are bedroom days at our house. We change our sheets and dust really good and we are done. The whole room looks like a hotel in under 10 minutes. So today, we are going to declutter our dressers, bedsides, etc of anything that doesn't belong. And then give everything a good dusting.

My whole house has been a depression house for quite a while now. It's taken me days to get my living room just to this level but we're getting there.

Due to landlord/seller being a stubborn toddler, we have now been put into a position where we are under contract for a different home. The new house is smaller in a lot of ways: gaining an attic, losing partially furnished basement, losing a LOT of closet space, losing a half bath.

We are fully stuffed with stuff right now. Part of the problem is that I used to sell on eBay prior to moving here 8 yrs ago. I sourced a lot of stuff that is now sitting in the basement. We also have 2 kids that are older with lots of outgrown items that never made it out. I have clothes in 3 sizes due to life and medical issues.

My thoughts were to move the big stuff into the new house once we have the keys then work on the other items to ensure they have a place and a use in the new house. I was looking to hire someone to move just the large furniture and appliances while we could deal with boxes of stuff. When done we could organize an estate style sale and sell what we could and gift/donate/trash whatever remains. My fear is that we will end up buried in boxes at the new place and unable to get out from under all the stuff.

Hubby does not want movers moving our stuff and potentially damaging things in the move. (All of our furniture and appliances are thrifted items and not high value or heirloom items. TV's and chest freezer are all black Friday deals.) We are in our 50's and our kids are not "built" for moving furniture and appliances. (We have the skinny gamer cosplay variety of kids. I blame my genes for this, lol!)

He would like to move one room at a time. (We live 10 miles away from the new place.) I get what he is getting at for this if we are not paying someone to move the stuff. But we are in our 50's. We rely on meloxicam and acetaminophen just to get through an average day. Our warranties on our bodies are expired...

He also wants to have a yard sale this weekend. I get the idea. Less to deal with later. But yard sales don't bring the traffic they once did and it is a weird time of year to be having one. (We are in PA.)

I am trying to see things from his point of view but I am finding it hard to get motivated to prep for a yard sale when I am not feeling confident that it will work out for us.

I don't want to sabotage the sale due to lack of effort, but it is hard to get moving when I don't feel it. I need some motivation and encouragement to try to work with my husband now so he may be willing to work with me later.

For context, my mom and I moved in to a house together. It has an extra bedroom and we thought it would be amazing as a quilt room. We both sew.

We moved in about two and a half years ago and NEVER unpacked. The move was exhausting, we both have emotionally and mentally taxing jobs, and after being annoyed having to sit at the dining room table, we did the room. We used to only grab something out of boxes if we needed, but not anymore!!

Hey. This is I think my first post so I’m a bit embarrassed.

One day I had the brilliant idea of buying some bananas at the supermarket and when I got home I put them in the kitchen cabinet along with other stuff (cookies, rice, etc etc most stuff is in its package). The bananas were in that transparent plastic bag for fruits and vegetables.

I forgot about them and one day I opened the cabinet and they were obviously moldy so I threw them away, the thing is even though they were in a plastic bag, it still left a stain on the shelf.

I didn’t have the best reaction then: I panicked and just stopped using the kitchen cabinet altogether because in my mind, everything on every shelf (cabinet has 3 shelves) was contaminated (from food, to utensils like mugs, frying pan etc).

This happened maybe… 2 months ago? Maybe 3 months? Yeah so I need to clean it and start using it again because I’ve been eating out every day and I’ll run out of money.

I guess I’m posting just so seek reassurance that stuff is not contaminated? Because the food itself I think I’ll throw away and buy new, but the utensils I can’t cause they are expensive. Is it possible they are contaminated? If yes, is regular washing enough?

(I have OCD, this is me making an effort and trying to fight my own mind)

I'm so done with living in a mess. This whole spring and summer I've been finding maggots in places I didn't even know they could spawn, and of course the resulting flies. I own 4 fly swatters in my small apartment.

I can't ever seem to keep up, it's like I turn around and a new surface is cluttered with mess. Today I once again found my cast iron dutch oven with maggots.I never even lifted the lid for a fly to get into the pan so I thought I'd be fine. I'm now considering getting rid of it since this keeps happening. It's so nasty.

I'm trying to organize and clean today, and see if I can declutter a bit. Tomorrow I need to move a ton of soil to the soilbank since I'm not allowed to get rid of it anywhere else, so that's going to be sooo much work as well. Hopefully I won't tire myself out and keep up the good work.

I'm so embarrassed of my disgusting home since my neighbours who sometimes will by can look inside (that is normal in my country). I know people keep telling me to not care about what other people are thinking, but I do care, a lot. I try to use that feeling to clean more often, but it's still not great.