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Am I a hoarder?

Perry said:
My name is Perry. I am a hoarder. Admitting to the problem is the start of recovery.
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There are some very major flaws in that argument.

Nobody is a hoarder unless what they hoard has zero value. Keeping milk after its gone bad is hoarding. Keeping something that might have value is NOT hoarding. Its a valuable habit that might save humanity some day. Hoarding is a designation invented by people who have no idea how to fix anything in order to justify their uselessness vs others around them. The word should be removed from the dictionary.

That said,..... I'd prolly pitch those cheap batteries lest they corrode inside something valuable....... LOL!

I only ever buy or keep Eveready Swoosh Batteries. They are supposedly corrosion proof but I've had a few go bad out of hundreds.

And yes, I keep old wire - both short and long - not always in bins. Sometimes in coils, sometimes in trays. Sometimes on hooks.
 
One of the first things I did when I created my "shop" was to organize my hoard of random small stuff into small cans in a bank of homemade drawers. This did wonders to my efficiency finding what I'm looking for. I check this hoard all the time and frequently find just what I want for a project.

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Canadium said:
One of the first things I did when I created my "shop" was to organize my hoard of random small stuff into small cans in a bank of homemade drawers. This did wonders to my efficiency finding what I'm looking for. I check this hoard all the time and frequently find just what I want for a project.

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I marked your post with a love but really that sort of organization should get you banned. ;-)
 
Susquatch said:
Nobody is a hoarder unless what they hoard has zero value. Keeping milk after its gone bad is hoarding. Keeping something that might have value is NOT hoarding. Its a valuable habit that might save humanity some day. Hoarding is a designation invented by people who have no idea how to fix anything in order to justify their uselessness vs others around them. The word should be removed from the dictionary.
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If anyone wants a grim reality check on the real mental illness of hoarding their are numerous YouTube videos showing the very real problem and the despair and difficulties it causes people. It's sad and bizarre to see but it does make me feel better that I am nowhere near the true sickness level, and maybe makes me a little bit more cautious/wary about saving stuff.
 
The million dollar question is where do you draw the line. I've been confronted with opinions in the past that declared that any form or kind of collecting is an illness. In my opinion that is just plain wrong. But it seems there is a vast grey zone between behaviour that is reasonable and behaviour that is not.
 
Canadium said:
But it seems there is a vast grey zone between behaviour that is reasonable and behaviour that is not.
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I agree. I think it's the same as extreme neatness and chaos. Those that are neat freaks think the chaos guys are sick and vice versa. That's not the same as the difference between pilers and filers.

I knew an old fellow at my corporation who was an expert in emissions. This was before the internet as we know it today. His office was pure chaos. Anything and everything ever written on the subject was in a pile somewhere in there. But he could find it in a heart beat. He was absolutely amazing. Everyone loved him despite his mess.

The real problem in my view is our human tendency to judge others who are not the same as we are. Extremes will always exist. But that gray zone you speak of has to cover 99.9% of the rest of us. Where the line is, if there even is a line, is not for me to say. I try hard not to judge people who are not the same as I am. Sometimes that isn't easy. But I still think it's a worthy goal that makes the world a better place.
 
Hoarding can be a serious mental illness but if done solo is generally only harmful to yourself when you slip and fall into a bathtub full of stainless steel hand pump springs.
I had several customers that were hoarders but still took exceptional care of their dogs.
When I returned a dog to one of them she said she would write me a cheque. The living room was hip deep in clutter but when I asked her if she could even find the chequebook she replied "Just because I'm a hoarder doesn't mean I don't know where everything is."
The worst hoarders are the animal hoarders that have hundreds of cats, dogs, turtles or whatever and can't possibly take care of them.
 
Johnwa said:
I just had a “hoarder’s worst nightmare” moment. I was going to test to see If my pic programmer would download from a pic. I’ve been saving my last pic project from 25 years ago for just this moment. Unfortunately, in a moment of weakness, I trashed it about a month ago.
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A while back @jcdammeyer showed some photos of his old s100 system. I cried looking at those photos. When we moved 12 years ago, I put mine out at the curb. I never thought I'd ever use it again. I want it back again in the worst way, but it's gone forever and I'll never find another one.
 
Maybe I do have a problem, but I don't think so, nope, no chance of it!
S100 system? A pic program down loading from a pic??
It seems there are some double standards, people with lots of money ( not hobby machinists, LOL) are they hoarders??
 
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Susquatch said:
A while back @jcdammeyer showed some photos of his old s100 system. I cried looking at those photos. When we moved 12 years ago, I put mine out at the curb. I never thought I'd ever use it again. I want it back again in the worst way, but it's gone forever and I'll never find another one.
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I'm actually kind glad that I didn't throw out that stuff. Not only was it fund diving back into the 'good ol days' but I managed to do two things with the M68000 S100 system.
First was to read enough from the hard drive to recover 95% of the software using a BeagleBone Black (Running Linux) and an add on cape board that replicated an ST-506 20MB (yes 20 Megabyte, not GigaByte) hard drive.
Second was to finish writing the software to boot from either a floppy or hard drive and completing something I stopped when we had our first kid and other things were now more important.

And @Susquatch, your posting about the old S100 systems gave me that "AHA!" moment when I remembered where my 3rd BeagleBone Black was hiding. I must have spent an hour looking for it in various boxes finally thinking I probably toasted it and threw it away. Nope. Inside the M68000 OS9-68K system

So thank you.
 
Doggggboy said:
Hoarding can be a serious mental illness but if done solo is generally only harmful to yourself when you slip and fall into a bathtub full of stainless steel hand pump springs.
I had several customers that were hoarders but still took exceptional care of their dogs.
When I returned a dog to one of them she said she would write me a cheque. The living room was hip deep in clutter but when I asked her if she could even find the chequebook she replied "Just because I'm a hoarder doesn't mean I don't know where everything is."
The worst hoarders are the animal hoarders that have hundreds of cats, dogs, turtles or whatever and can't possibly take care of them.
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In this day and age of environmental crises when the land fills are full and there is no more room for waste it seems to me reuse and repurposing is not just frugal and genius its essential. In this context I think we could argue that to some extent hoarding junk for reuse is wise and NOT an illness!
 
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