Giant Dwarf vs Packratitis

In 2009, I started this blog at the urging of my friend C., who, upon learning that I took a week-long staycation to purge my apartment of superfluous "stuff," encouraged me to write about the experience.  Five years later, here's what I have to show for it:  sporadic blog entries and the continuing saga of apartment purging.  Just like a hoarder's passion, it never ends.

It's been two years since I moved in with the Spazz and we are chock full of THINGS despite the fact that we have a three-bedroom apartment.  Yes, three bedrooms.  It's shocking when I think about it too.  So let me introduce my mother:

My mother is a well-known hoarder.  It spills out a bit in guest areas, but, in general, the hoarding is confined to rooms where a run-of-the-mill dinner guest can't see the disease.  That means that all three of our childhood bedrooms are crammed with stuff, including things we don't want to get rid of and know are safe on the mothership.  There are two more bedrooms, by the way.  They are also storage areas, and one of those bedrooms my parents actually sleep in.

So last June my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (don't worry, this is germane to the story).  My parents planned a grand trip to Berlin and Amsterdam and off they went.  A few days after their departure, I get a call from the Golden Child (our middle brother and the one my parents deemed to be the most responsible....and I'm good with that).

"Hey, you are not going to believe this," says GC.

"What?"

"You know how Mom and Dad left for Europe on Friday?"

"Yes."  Okay, I'm getting bit nervous because I can't tell from my brother's voice if something really bad happened.

"I got a call from mom's friend on Sunday.  She went to check on the cat (aka The Beast) and she walked in to ankle deep water."

"Holy shit.  What happened?"

"Apparently the reservoir on the toilet in the hall bathroom has a crack and the water kept slowly draining for a day and a half.  The reservoir self-fills, so the water kept filling and leaking."

Golden Child proceeds to explain to me how he contacted the insurance company and the disaster is no-fault so they'll pay for all the damage (famous last words in regards to an insurance company).  Then he says:

"THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER!"

And he was right.  Because almost half of the house was flooded, many items were destroyed.  Items my parents never needed and actually probably didn't know they had.  A few weeks later, the Spazz and I and the Golden Child and his very devoted girlfriend convened at my parents house to clean up what my mother considers "our stuff."

And there was a lot.  We filled a small dumpster and made countless trips to Goodwill.  And we barely made a dent.

So the Spazz and I drove home with two small shopping bags of keepers that I just couldn't part with and my beloved woven chair from my parents' living room that I've coveted for 40 years (and that's a whole other post.)  On the way, we started talking about our own hoarding issues.  Of our three bedrooms, ours is relatively junk-free and we use a second room as a guest bedroom and tend to have that one under control (for the most part).  But the third room, aka "the office"......well, that's a disaster area.  And we vowed to clean it up.  Two months ago.

Two weeks ago we started.  The room now looks worse than when we started.  But I have found some treasures so far.....so stay tuned for the next post.  I'll be enumerating the ridiculous crap I've kept for so many years.  It's truly staggering.