Do You Know Your Neighbors?

You never know what is behind the doors of your neighbor's house unless you have visited them and been inside. Or if you peeked into windows. But, that's creepy!

In my neighborhood, some of the neighbors stay to themselves, and I often wonder who they are and what they are like. You can tell a lot about people by the "stuff" they have. For example: If you came inside my house after the first time I invited you in, you would see that I have a lot of cat stuff. Therefore, one could assume I like cats and they'd be correct.

Recently two of these neighbors have had yard sales for the last couple weeks in preparation for moving. Every weekend new items were set out. I went over to one neighbor's yard sale. They had tables set out in their driveway. Everything was set on the tables in an orderly manner with price tags on them. I could tell they put a lot of effort into setting up. Upon chatting with them, I realized by their behavior, straightening things as soon as something was sold that they were orderly people. Perhaps a little overly concerned about neatness. But, I wouldn't complain. It was easy for me to see the things they had for sale. Books were all near other books. All kitchenware all placed together. I learned very quickly that the woman was a librarian and her husband was a bookkeeper. It sort of makes sense. Doesn't it?

I hadn't ever met the  wife of the other couple. She stayed to herself. Whenever she drove into her driveway, she limped quickly into her doorway looking neither right nor left. It was always clear to me she was a very private person. Her husband, Frank, on the other hand was friendly and outgoing. I had often seen him out and chatting with other neighbors and met him a couple times informally.

I had heard that Peggy and Frank only had a month in which to move from their house. I went over to see what they had for sale in their driveway. I quickly realized that Peggy was a genuine "hoarder" as I looked into the open door of the garage where Frank was pulling items out. Boxes and boxes of unrelated items were crammed to the ceiling. Women's items. Shoes, clothing, hats, etc.

Things were piled onto a tarp in the middle of the driveway. Frank brought out one box at a time and emptied them out onto the tarp while Georgia sorted through deciding what to sell and what not to sell. For the most part, as she kneeled on the tarp, she put items back into the box. Frank came out with another box to empty. Peggy hand back to him the previous box. "Take this back." she said.

"Honey, you know we have to get rid of this stuff!" Frank said.

"I know, but some of this is good stuff, collectibles and such. They are worth something!" She said. I saw him roll his eyes and shrug his shoulders as he took the box from her. "If they are worth something, put a price on them and let's sell them and get this done and over with!"

She was silent as she began pawing through the purses he had just dumped on the tarp. Peggy then looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "These are real good purses. Good high fashion designer brands." She held one up, "This is a Ralph Lauren. That one is a Gucci."

"I can see that." I said as I picked one up. "Louis Vuitton?"

 She nodded and wiped a tear off her cheek as Frank came over with another box. "Don't dump those here." Peggy said. They go over on the dresser there. Those are knick knacks." She started putting purses back into the purse box. Something caught my eye, a purse with cats on it.

"Oh! How much do you want for this?" I asked as I picked it up.

"That's a Laurel Burch. That cost about fifty dollars when new."

"Five dollars!" said Frank, as he came back to us with another box to dump on the tarp.

"No!" Peggy said.

"Ten?" Frank said with a smile his face. I could see that by interacting with us, he was encouraging his wife to actually let go and sell the items she so desperately wanted to keep. She looked at him, frowning, and turned to me,"Twenty."

I really wanted the purse with the cats on it! I was just about to give in when Frank looked lovingly at his wife and said. "Peggy, honey, we can't overprice these things. We've GOT to sell stuff quickly or we are not going to make the deadline to get out of here. You don't want to pay rent on two houses at once. Do you?" He looked at me. "The new place we're moving to is much smaller and doesn't have a garage. There's no place to put all this stuff."

I said, "I understand." I smiled at Peggy, still holding the purse in my hand. "How about fifteen dollars?" She slowly nodded and put her hand out. I gave her the money. She looked crestfallen. I was so sad that this sweet couple were in such a dilemma.

The following week, they had another yard sale, and another. But it was clear to me that Frank and Peggy were not making much headway. After they moved, and were gone a couple weeks, I ran into Frank at the grocery store. He told me they had put the extra stuff into a storage facility. I felt sad for them. After all, it costs money to do that and I doubted they would ever empty the storage.

After seeing how emotionally difficult it was for Peggy to sell her stuff and learning of their decision to put things in storage, I had a realization. It made me face the fact of just how much junk I have sitting around that I don't really NEED!

A local cat rescue group, Project Purr, is going to hold a giant Rummage sale next month. I'm cleaning out my closets, drawers and garage, putting things in boxes. I am donating it all directly to Project Purr. I have already taken three carloads of boxes over to them this last two weeks. And now the car is right half packed with another load.

Thank you Frank and Peggy for opening my eyes to my own tendency to hoard.

It's a Lovely Day in the Neighborhood

Yikes, I just accidentally came across a site that has "offenders" listed for my city.

Directly across the street is one. I had no idea.

Now I wonder what the crime was. How long ago was it committed? Is the perpetrator rehabilitated?

Perhaps that explains the arrest I saw going down last spring in the middle of the street right near where the "offender" is mapped out to be residing.

No more to say about that. I've got to let it go. Be aware, be alert, but let it go.

Two of my neighbors have had yard sales for the last couple weeks in preparation for moving.

One of the neighbors is a genuine Hoarder, and had a garage full to the ceiling of "stuff". Seriously! No kidding!

I saw how emotionally difficult it was for her to let go of her years worth of collections. Her husband had to keep reminding her that they had no choice. They had to move. They had just a few weeks left to get out. I gave her a hug when she started to cry after someone bought up her collection of Mr. Rogers books. I wonder what causes people to hoard. I wonder what's the difference between my too many things, and a hoarder's way to much overabundance of stuff.

It was my understanding that they had already been living in a trailer because there was no more room in their house to get around safely. Now they were moving to another house, smaller than the one they are in.

It made me realize just how much junk I have sitting around that I don't really NEED!

My local Project Purr is holding a giant Rummage sale this month.

I've managed to clear all this stuff off the dresser!
Except for the cats. They are permanent fixtures!

I'm donating directly to them. They use the funds they raise from their twice a year sale in order to rescue feral cats. Some they can tame and place for home adoptions. Some they can place with people who can maintain them without expecting them to be tame.

I love the fact that I can help cats this way. I already took one carload over to them last week.

My car is half packed right now with another load. When I feel better, I hope to finish and take more extraneous belongings away.

It's nice to have reminders from the examples of others how I can improve my lifestyle.

Disposophobia

Definition of Disposophobia:

"Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding or disposophobia) is the excessive acquisition of possessions  (and failure to use or discard them), even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. Compulsive hoarding impairs mobility and interferes with basic activities..."

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Note: 

Digital Art by Elizabeth Munroz

What' in your Garage?

Coincidental to my decision to "come out of the closet" with my plan to become a Minimalist, an Oprah episode was shown on TV this week, a re-run about hoarders.

Thank heavens I'm not a hoarder. Really. I'm not. I can get through my doorway and walk from room to room without needing to move anything out of the way.

Choosing to hone down my belongings didn't just begin out of the blue. When the father of a friend died a few years back, I helped him clean out the three car garage which had accumulated an impressive floor to ceiling collection of "stuff" crammed in tight to the door. That was when I realized his father had been a hoarder by the true definition of the word. Maybe not on the scale of ten, like the woman on the Oprah show; but a hoarder, nonetheless. I knew the house had been badly cluttered, with some items stacked up behind the sofa, and the dining room table piled up with miscellaneous things. But I hadn't given much thought to it. I just considered it the result of the old man's inability to get around much in those last few years of poor health.

Our first inclination, when opening the garage door, was to call in a truck and have it all hauled away. But, we started poking around a bit, and opened boxes, some of them holding papers dated from fifty years before. We realized there were things of a personal value to family members. Military keepsakes, family photos and movies, rolls and rolls of undeveloped film! This would not be a simple matter of tossing things! It took us more than a month to clean it out.

It was a challenging job and revealed much about my friend's family life. He reminisced as we encountered his boxed up memories. We found bags of clothing from when the grandchildren were little, a cache of his mother's purses, some still containing make up. We discovered a complete set of antique imported china ware carefully wrapped in crumbling tissue paper that must have been worth a thousand dollars. We were mystified as we opened boxes tightly packed of carefully washed plastic margarine tubs and lids. It gave me pause to consider the extra plastic storage containers cluttering my bottom kitchen cupboard. Just thinking about that bothered me enough to make me reassess my own growing collection of goodies.

Since that time, I have made a conscious effort to not squirrel away a mountain of stuff in my garage. Unfortunately, it has often been a molehill.