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Old 06-10-2009, 02:04 PM
 
467 posts, read 979,640 times
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Why do pack rats look for stuff within a few days of your having gotten rid of it after 1-2 years of total disuse?! And they look all over for the things in question?

Isn't there an unwritten rule about how long we should just hold onto things? We're not talking family heirlooms, we're talking about old magazines, newpapers, old gift bags, even old toys.

They totally seem to forget these things exist, but sure enough you get rid of it and they suddenly think about it and want it.

What I usually do is hide the thing for awhile. If it isn't called for after a certain period of time, I get rid of it. That determines its importance.

As far as talking to them about it first? That doesn't work, as a pack rat will just want to keep everything even though its clear from their expressions that they completely forgot about it and wouldn't have likely missed it 19 out of 20 times.
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Old 06-10-2009, 02:11 PM
 
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You are either born a pack rat, or you are not. I was, unfortunately. I had grandparents who were. My grandfather (On my father's side.) kept EVERYTHING and had a specific place for each item. My grandmother(On my mother's side.) kept even more. My mother inherited it and so did I. I have a sister and brother who were spared, but my other sister, brother and myself were born with it.

I always think I will be needing whatever it is that I should toss, but never take it out again. My daughter is the only one of my offspring to have the pack rat syndrome.
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Old 06-10-2009, 02:14 PM
 
467 posts, read 979,640 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stormy night View Post
You are either born a pack rat, or you are not. I was, unfortunately. I had grandparents who were. My grandfather (On my father's side.) kept EVERYTHING and had a specific place for each item. My grandmother(On my mother's side.) kept even more. My mother inherited it and so did I. I have a sister and brother who were spared, but my other sister, brother and myself were born with it.

I always think I will be needing whatever it is that I should toss, but never take it out again. My daughter is the only one of my offspring to have the pack rat syndrome.
ah man lol. Well I got rid of some old gift bags that my wife was hanging onto. They were just in the way and we never ended up using them again (which was the intent), so I tossed em, as they were just "there" and seemingly forgotten about. They'd been there about 2 years. I tossed em about 3 months ago and sure enough she's combing the place looking for em. erg!
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Old 06-10-2009, 02:26 PM
 
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That's funny. Pack Rat Syndrome is incurable so you have your work cut out for you. Good luck.
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Old 06-10-2009, 03:58 PM
 
Location: Sacramento
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My dh and I are both pack rats but somehow he can throw away my stuff very easily. My 4yo is better at throwing stuff away than we are.
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Old 06-10-2009, 04:08 PM
 
Location: NE Oklahoma
1,036 posts, read 3,056,061 times
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*Stands up and looks around the circle* Hi my name is Karen and I am a Pack Rat. I keep butter bowls, mayonnaise jars, to go containers from KFC (but only if they come with a lid), last years school crayons, old bills, anything I think I might be able to reuse OR I might need.
It is a sickness.
I need help.
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Old 06-10-2009, 04:43 PM
 
3,422 posts, read 10,868,733 times
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Having kids who are pack rats cured me of it. My husband accuses me of having no sentimentality at all.

When my mom died and we were cleaning out her apartment, her friends wanted me to keep shopping bags from places like Macys and Nordstrom. The woman had a pile of shopping bags 6 ft X 2ft X 2 ft stuffed in the back of a closet and I was tossing them if we were not bagging clothes for donation in them and her friends were like "don't you want this bag??" Holy cow. My mom had a 1700 sq ft apartment just full of stuff and I have an 1800 sq ft house just full of stuff and her friends could not understand why I did not want to transfer the entire contents of her apartment to my home.

Whatever pack rat tendencies I had developed over the years have been eroding since having kids and that experience gave the erosion quite a boost.
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Old 06-10-2009, 05:26 PM
 
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I'm a bit of a pack rat myself. I think it came by way of my grandmother. She grew up during the depression (well her mid to late teens anyways) and her family had to scrimp and scrounge for everything they got including food so it was a waste not want not time in their lives. Her father kept everything from old screws and nails to doorknobs and hinges. The practicle things that could be reused and one never knew when the need for one would come in handy. Her mother saved every scrap of fabric, old clothes, old towles, linens, containers and such that again could be reused and possibly turned into something else like a quilt or a sugar bowl. The best was when they would keep old catalogs that were used in the outhouse. Grandma said they all fought over the slick pages.

My grandmother still to this day keeps every last screw and nail, every old tool, every scrap of fabric and tons of old clothes. She doesn't hang on to old catalogs thank goodness and only holds on to her old bills for 6 months - maybe a year. She also does not hold onto magazines and newspapers.

I too keep and collect every screw, bolt, nut and washer and any possible reusable nail. There have been many a time when I was glad to have that collection as I've needed a certain size screw and lo and behold I had one sitting in an old babyfood jar and I didn't have to go buy one. I collect some fabric, but not all. It has to be at least a 2 and 1/2 square in order for me to keep it. But I do keep gift bags, tissue paper, and greeting cards. I have reused the gift bags and tissue paper and some day I plan on making a collage (sp?) with the greeting cards.

I used to collect more, so did my grandmother, but thanks to her constant moving she has had to get rid of things and down size. Thanks to my DH who hates collections, I have been downsizing my pack rat mess as well. I still need him to help me do the "Spring Cleaning" as he can easily part with things that I might hold onto just in case.

Now my mother-in-law is a full blown pack rat and she holds onto everything. She must have at least a double of every tool known to man as she can never find one in her mess when she needs it so she goes and buys another. Her biggest issue is sales. She can not turn down a sale of any kind. It doesn't matter whether she needs the item or not, if it's on sale she buys it. She has a ton of new stuff still sitting in the shopping bags. She has piles and stacks of newspapers, magazines, bills, even old returned checks from a bank account that was closed out 50 years ago. (she's afraid to throw them away as someone might try and use the bank info on it and steal some money) She has just about every piece of clothing my DH and his brother wore from the day they were born to the day they left the nest. She even still has her husband's clothes who passed away almost 20 years ago. You can hardly move in her house, it is that bad. I know when she passes away it is going to take us a year at least to go through things. As much as we would love to go in and just start hauling things to the dump, she still has some important things mixed in with all of the clutter that we will need to find. Like insurance info., banking info., maybe info. about my DH's adoption as well as some antiques/family heirlooms that we would like to have one day.
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Old 06-10-2009, 06:48 PM
 
Location: Australia
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I agree.

I keep stuff unused for 20 years. Throw it out and then two weeks later I need it.
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Old 06-11-2009, 05:31 AM
 
467 posts, read 979,640 times
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lol funny stories

My wife has things from hobbies she hasn't followed in 15 yrs. The stuff just sits in boxes slowly rotting away. For some of that stuff, even if she tried to use it, they wouldn't work anymore or she'd have to get something new to be more up-to-date. She talks about the stuff and her old hobbies from time-to-time but never gets back into them. In an effort to make room for new junk we keep collecting, I've been slowly peicemeal getting rid of the oldest junk bit by bit (never all at once!...oh no, just a little at a time so its not obvious). I don't think she realizes how much time has passed since she did use it. I know sometimes I'll think its only been a few days since I did something and it turns out it was last month.

One time she was looking all over for a craft set she had bought in the mid-90s. The only person that had touched it since about 1999 was my son who used some of the stuff during a school project. And even that instance was an attempt my ME to make the thing useful. Since then its been in a variety of shelves and closets just being in the way. Finally I tossed it and sure enough she wants it and starts going on and on about how she has in fact used it and how much it had cost her. What she didn't get was that all the stuff in that craft set was useless and dried out now.

But get this (and this is the frustrating part for me), it took her TWO YEARS to notice its absence yet she insists she uses it. Thats either denial, cluelessness or an outright lie. All I was thinking was "Why did it take you that long to think about it if it supposedly that important to you?"

Plus I know she didn't look very hard for it. She's the type that if its not right out in front in her face, then it must not be there, when all she has to do is look behind things or shuffle some stuff around. And she doesn't put things back where she got them. She just leaves stuff out and I'm usually the one putting things away, so I seriously doubt she got it out, used it, and then put it back down in the basement closet underneath all those boxes where I found it the day I tossed it out lol.
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