"Senior move managers exist for good reason: Without help, we may find that moving simply falls into the too-hard category, especially in later older age.... All of us live in many homes throughout our lives, but for many of us, the home of greatest significance is the one in which we spend our midlives, cultivating marriages, paying off mortgages, accumulating memories, raising children, progressing in our careers, and amassing possessions. Many, if not most, older adults have lived in the same residence for decades. After so much time spent in the same place, our memories are transferred onto the objects and environment around us. The architecture of our homes becomes part of the architecture of our minds. If we find ourselves restless at night, we can put ourselves to sleep just by performing a slow mental survey of every room in the house (try it, if you’re ever feeling insomniac). For those in later older age, in their 80s and 90s, a sudden unexpected move out of a long-lived residence can have a devastating effect on mental and physical health. Those of us with stronger constitutions might not crumble to dust, but still the experience is serious, natural doubts at the prospect of moving on from our longtime home. 'Am I really doing this? Am I really giving up my castle?'"
From "Want To Downsize In Retirement? Problem One, Millennials Don't Want Your Stuff" (Forbes).
What if all your memories could be saved? You've filled your head with that stuff. It's so important to you. But if, as you must leave this world, it could all be saved, would anyone want it? What are your favorite memories? What you could give them away, lodge them in someone else's head, where that other person could look upon them as if they were memories they acquired naturally — see "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick (AKA "Total Recall") — would anyone want them?
No, there are some things of yours that are great to you only because they are yours. Without you, they are worse than nothing, so it's best to let them go entirely. Let them become nothing, and not junky clutter for other people to hate.
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Artist Ben Freeman works with 'ephemera', making collages of this stuff of memories that nobody wants. Cancelled postcards, 20th century headshots from talent agencies, old class photos are the base of some haunting collages...
I had a bachelor uncle who died in 1990. I had to go through his house, to make sure we found any valuables, papers, deeds, etc. before selling off the stuff and selling the house. He had just stopped throwing stuff out in 1970 (the bottom thing on his coffee table was a 1970 Cotton Bowl program. I never want to make my kids do that.
This is my stuff over here.
That is your shit over there.
George Carlin
Maybe we should start a James Lileks memorial warehouse of stuff.
Mrs. sw and i are contemplating downsizing from our home of 20 years. Place is bigger than we need. There is a lot of stuff but it's the volume and the fact we have to discard a bunch rather than some sentimental attachment to it that we find daunting. The familiarity of the place is a factor too. A good friend suggested that we make a list of must haves in a new place as a way to get past the discomfort of relocating. I think that can help.
-sw
You succeed in retirement by (1) having no debt and (2) doing for yourself whenever possible instead of hiring people.
I’ve succeeded on both counts, and I sold my house and moved into an in-law unit with my daughter.
Retired people aren’t good sales prospects. Particularly for trendy stuff featured in the press.
Moving is a great motivation to cull unnecessary stuff. I had to move to another state six years ago for employment reasons. My wife and I had lived in our last Colorado home for almost 13 years. We'd lived in Colorado for 27 years. My new employer was willing to pay for some of our moving expenses but, as with anything, there were limits. We worked like crazy to sort through stuff and get rid of as much as we could. I found old records that had sensitive (e.g. SSN) info that had to be shredded. It broke my heart but I sold most of the books I'd been collecting for more than 40 years. We sold furniture and just about everything else we could. When we settled into our new home, we realized we still have too much stuff. Unfortunately, stuff breeds if given the opportunity. We need to actively keep culling no longer needed records and other things. Both of us were raised by parents who grew up in the Depression, so we inherited strong pack rat tendencies.
We did this -- hired someone -- when Dad moved out of his house, 3 years after Mom died. He'd been there 60 years.
When my brother died, I had the task of emptying his apartment.
Hiring someone to do it is the way to go. The only complaint I have is that the sterling service for 12 didn't make it out 100% intact -- the long-handled knives were misplaced.
I will be spending next week cleaning crap out of the basement, and out of the upstairs closets. Family papers seem to have accumulated in our house -- things like my Dad's Uncle's will from 1953. Who needs that kind of thing? Why are people in my family packrats.
I hope to spare my kids the burden of throwing crap out.
I'm 65 years old and rather poor, but I have a great collection of books.
After I die, nobody in my family will not want any of my books. All the books will go straight to a landfill unless I help them to survive somehow.
I think of myself as the Oscar Schindler of my book collection -- saving my books from extermination.
During the last couple of weeks, I have filled five grocery bags with books that will go to a library book sale. And I have filled five boxes with books that I will put into my son-in-law's garage.
It's just a small reduction of my collection, but it's some progress.
My wife and I just helped her pushing-90 parents to move out of their home of 20 years into assisted living. Dealing with all of their stuff was overwhelming even for us and put us under intense stress -- they were utterly incapable of dealing with it.
My parents (Mom's still left, and is 73) downsized out of their 40-year family home in 2014. Mom spent 18 months sorting through and getting rid of stuff and it about broke her.
I had a messy divorce in 2004-06 that caused me to lose most everything I owned. I had been a guy who kept everything. Once I grieved the loss I realized what freedom it gave me: it was super easy to move to my next home. So now I try to own only things I frequently use or genuinely love. So when I need to downsize in my older age it should not be anywhere near as big of a deal.
My wife and I (both 65) are in the process of moving, but we have moved repeatedly over the past 32 years, and we do purging each time. The biggest purge was 4 years ago, when we moved from Colorado (where we had lived in the same house for 9 years) to Utah. I set a moving "budget" of three large (8' x 16') pods: anything that didn't fit was gone. We set up folding tables in our large garage and gave away stuff to friends and neighbors for weeks.
Maybe it's because of the magical milestone of "65", but with this move, I find myself looking at things and say, "No, I probably never will use that again" and am getting rid of stuff that I've dragged around for years (including out here from Colorado). Purged stuff is going to one of three places: to our adult kids, to the local equivalent of Goodwill, or to the dump.
As much as moving is a pain, I think there's something to be said for regular moves as a means of pruning away stuff.
We don’t know if we’re moving when my wife retires next year or not, but I have started cleaning clutter in preparation. What’s the harm if we don’t move?
Ironically, one reason to move is to get a bigger, not smaller, house. We are two people living in the small house I bought as a bachelor and it’s a tight squeeze. A bigger house with less stuff in it would be great.
Giving away memories is a fine idea. We do it with our grandchildren by recounting different life experiences and lessons learned. We are fortunate that we have a lot of interaction with them and the giving away can me frequent.
Concentrate your efforts on that which will outlive you, whether it's children, art, music, etc.
Memento mori.
A couple time sin my life, I have had to part with nearly everything due to reduced space (ex., moving from suburban Ohio to Brooklyn, New York). It was painful the first time, less painful the second even though the culling was more ruthless.
The reason? During the second cull, I had the experience of the first to fall back on. And that experience was that no matter how important the stuff was to me when I had it, I missed very little of it when it was gone.
We are trying to get my mother-in-law to move into an assisted living facility. She doesn't want to leave because all her memories are in the house. We keep telling her it's just what she's used to. She'll get used to the new surroundings within weeks. What we have proposed, is to get her into the facility, but keep her house just the way it is and she can go back to it any time she wants. My expectation is that within months she will stop going back.
How to downsize.
We built a house 18 years ago and at that time also sold our house we were living in. As a result we put almost everything in a big storage locker for the 6 months that we were, literally, camping out on the construction site.
Now we had a brand new and twice the size house as we were living in before.
Upon beginning to retrieve the stuff (shit) that we had stored in the locker, it dawned on us.
1. We didn't miss most of the items. In fact,forgot we even owned it at all.
2. We didn't really need most of the stuff
3. Do we really want to bring this crappola into our brand new house.
3. If we didn't miss it or need it....WHY do we even own it??
So ...we trashed the items of no value and had a great big yard sale. We made enough money to buy ourselves a new living room sofa set and custom wooden blinds for the windows.
We kept the most sentimental family heirlooms and some collectible art items that we both liked. Some clothing. Offered items to family members who either said yes or no. Then we sold the rest. There are only two things that I regretted selling out of the huge pile of 'stuff'.
Now...it is time to purge again. We are sorting down for another yard sale and selling valuable items on Ebay.
It is LIBERATING. Purge your stuff!!!
"Without you, they are worse than nothing."
True, except if you make the memories interesting. Some memories can become part of the collective record, useful for future historians.
"they were utterly incapable of dealing with it"
Happens all the time, of course. For many people, it's a rational decision: let others deal with the mess. Insofar as it is a decision: most people are just clueless about preparing for old age.
My Mom collected art, antiques and odd objects, which she displayed all through our large home, even hanging from the ceiling. The home's decoration was beautiful and amazing.
Both of my parents died of old age within a few months of each other in 2016. All seven of their children (I am the oldest) are still alive. None of us was able to take over the home, so we had to distribute or sell all the contents.
While everything still was in the home, however, we hired a service that came into the home and made a 30-minute video that shows the entire home in great detail. We all are very happy to have this video, because we all were very proud of our home.
BTW, althouse, this article only reinforces my notion that you're close to throwing in the towel on Madison's high taxes. I hope you get a great price on the house.
Unknown, if you're not in any hurry, a good approach is the "drawer a day" program. Pretty much what it sounds like--every day go through one little chunk of your crap. Get rid of everything you haven't touched in years or have no reasonable prospect of using (even the sentimental stuff--if you don't throw it out now, your children will have to later).
Start with the basement and attic, then the rooms you rarely go in, then your dresser and closets, the shelves of books you haven't touched in 20 years, etc. In 6 months you'll have made some serious headway and it will be much more manageable when it is time to downsize.
Re our purge
Obviously, we kept some of the household items required to operate a home. Cookware, dishes, some linens. Even those things were winnowed down to the most useful or used the most items. Big collections of books, pottery, redundant tools, rarely worn clothing etc were mercilessly purged, keeping only the irreplaceable items or those of value.
It was a great feeling. Lighten the load and make some money.
Putting things out of sight (storage locker) made them go out of mind and much easier to get rid of.
Do your kids a favor and get rid of all that stuff before you die. Right now, in fact. Living in a small RV part of the time has taught me just how few things I really need and I regret buying a house which now contains more stuff than I need or want.
My husband and I moved ten times during our forty-year marriage, counting cabins and winter homes. Our dogs came to dread the sound of packing tape being peeled off the roll. We both liked a change of scene and took naturally to boating and RVing.
When that day comes I don't think it's giving up the stuff that will be difficult. It's the whole Next Stop, Death thing that will be hard to come to terms with.
I have a lot of stuff,but I like Christmas. I also have a lot of furniture from relatives. My moms condo sold this morning, but we already moved her to assisted living. We just moved some of her stuff to the basement for my daughter when she moves out. She likes older furniture tho. She also appreciates she won’t have to buy furniture and earlier furniture is better made.
My parents, when they downsized, hired a company to hold an estate auction and they were pleased with the outcome.
Old folks do have a hard time with LOSS. And watching a crowd of Estate Sale looters walk off with your bigger stuff is perceived as a loss.
Then the loss causes anger which can cause depression. Then you spend the money on a Crystal Cruise and move on.
Mockturtle said: Living in a small RV part of the time has taught me just how few things I really need
This is very true. I believe a good part of our willingness and eagerness to get rid of stuff came from the 6 months of minimal living in our camp trailer while our new house was being built. (Owner builder so we needed to be more present).
You don't need all of that "stuff". It isn't that important.
"After I die, nobody in my family will not want any of my books. All the books will go straight to a landfill unless I help them to survive somehow."
If any of your books are valuable or collectible, consider selling them on eBay, or to an antiquarian bookseller, or donating them to a library.
DBQ and I are on the same page with this issue but there are people who really hate to part with anything. Rather than feeling cleansed by the process of thinning out their possessions, they feel an almost visceral sense of loss.
We are just finishing downsizing now (house closes today). Yes, the hard part is realizing that the material things that have such great value to us don't really mean anything to our kids, much less to anyone else. The hardest part is getting rid of things of objective value that are not new. We threw away things because we had no way to get them to others who could use them. Besides the usual thrift stores, we found Restore by Habitat for Humanity. They take items of value that they then resell--great place for furniture, etc.! This article confirms what as I see as a need in the marketplace and has me thinking about going into the business myself!
I read Tidying Up several years ago which helped when I downsized a lot of my stuff in anticipation of moving to a smaller house. We stayed in our house after all, but I loved the freedom I felt from getting rid of things.
However, I became the family historian after my dad died last year, and received boxes of family photos, all of his reports and records of a 30-year military career, his letters home during WWII, his many flight log books, etc. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of it. Good thing I have extra room from my own purge.
Robo-email acct now sending Forbes article hourly to wife.
My Dad, still going strong at age 94, was a successful retailer and business owner. But in college--interrupted by WWIi--he majored in fine art/painting, and when he retired, he went back to his first love. Took classes, joined with other artist to hire live models, and he painted and painted and painted. So we've now got dozens of nice large oils, mostly of nude women! Plus his lifetime collection of Playboys, which he insists is worth at least a thousand bucks! And drawings and charcoal sketches (his best work, imo) and some watercolors. All kids and grandkids have received art, but there are still dozens left up at The Home. What the hell do we do with it? Nobody knows.
My wife's stated goal for end of life is to have a toothbrush and a bag of money because that's what our kids and grandkids deserve.
When my son was young, our neighbor gave him his son's train set. His son was killed in an automobile accident and he hung on to it for too long, and my son appreciated the set and enjoyed it. I ran across the set the other day, and I asked my son if he wanted me to bring it to him the next time we visit. He said to get rid of it. My son is not very sentimental - he has a few pictures and items on the wall, but not much from the past. I think it is both a good and bad thing in not being so sentimental. As I grow older, it is becoming more of a good thing than bad. The reason I found the set was I am going through boxes in the garage - my goal is to take two boxes at a time, and get that down to one box each time I do this. It has been working so far. Once I have done this, the goal will be accomplished by doing the same, but by shelf space. Two shelves to one, etc.
A few years ago we had to move my mother into a dementia facility. She is on the younger edge of this issue, at the time of the move seventy-two.
I was left having to go through all of her things. I discovered that when my great-grandmother and grandmother had died no one went through a good chunk of their things. They were boxed up in my mother's garage and in various places inside the house. It took me months to figure out what could immediately be donated or tossed.
One of the strangest finds was a small box of gold fillings. It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were as I was poking through them with my index finger. That squicked me out.
I also found a daguerreotype of my third great-grandfather and I'm still scanning letters from my third great-aunts and uncles to my great-grandmother. They wrote a lot!
I refuse to leave an unorganized mess for my son to deal with.
I've been through this exact thought process for the last three years, first because my Mom went into a nursing home and we had to get rid of most of the stuff in the house, all in preparation for the eventual sale of the house, and second because we've just moved to a different state from a house we'd lived in for 14 years. To be honest, even before Mom's illness I'd been taking stock of My Stuff for a whole raft of reasons.
A lot of things ancillary to Mom and family also had to do with this, kind of a mid-life crisis kind of thing.
Mom was a pack rat, not a hoarder (child of the Depression) so there was a LOT of stuff in the house. Old photos, furniture, our old games, and just about anything "that might come in handy some day" or "that someone could use". Eventually, I was opening drawers, taking a quick look through the material, and then dumping it into a trash bag. I know, someone might want a box of 20-year old paper clips, but . . . . . really?
And it's tough to throw those things away. You're throwing away* their stuff and it feels almost like you're throwing away their life as well. It feels guilty, like you don't care about them by getting rid of it all. It's also hard because what you see as almost family treasure, other people see as junk.
And after a generation or so, nobody else in the family wants these things either. How many grandkids really care about great-grandpa's old non-working pocket watch?
But, you know, I finally realized stuff is just stuff (mostly). Their stuff isn't them and my stuff isn't me. It was saddening at first but eventually freeing.
* Trash or Goodwill or something
The mess my son has to go through will be organized. The four pocket watches I found (from the late 1800's) in a display on the wall. The pocket change dating from the 1860's in a display on the wall. Civil war trunk and sword in my son's room.
I don't want stuff stuck in boxes and tucked around the house and garage.
My parents are going to be moving sometime in the next year or so, and I dread the process because 95% of the stuff they own (mostly my mother) is going to have sent to the dump over my mother's objections. I haven't decided exactly how I am going to go about it.
They do a great job, if you let them. My mom and siblings still spent hours sorting thru crap they kept that will stay in boxes until my nieces toss it in 20 years.
They do a great job, if you let them. My mom and siblings still spent hours sorting thru crap they kept that will stay in boxes until my nieces toss it in 20 years.
And I have been afraid to ask my parents how many storage lockers, if any, they rent.
And, even worse- my mother still owns her parents' home which was never purged. Egads!
"BTW, althouse, this article only reinforces my notion that you're close to throwing in the towel on Madison's high taxes. I hope you get a great price on the house."
I didn't write the article. Seems to me that the things I wrote point in the opposite direction. The house has a lot of meaning to me (and to Meade, now). But there is a lot of stuff that I don't want to burden someone with having to deal with after I am gone. My biggest problem is all the paintings and drawings. If I had a button that could cause it all to disappear, I would push it.
Just reading this after writing my last comment:
"So we've now got dozens of nice large oils, mostly of nude women!"
But "nice" doesn't mean anyone wants them. Are all the large paintings I did "nice." No one wants this sort of thing, especially with nudes. A lot of my paintings and (especially) drawings are nudes.
"All kids and grandkids have received art, but there are still dozens left up at The Home. What the hell do we do with it? Nobody knows."
Yeah, let me know when you find out. You can't just throw them whole in a dumpster. I need some kind of industrial shredder, like the kind Saddam Hussein used to kill people.
And it's painful too, because each object represents a lot of time. What was the point of it? It would have been better to have used that time to think thoughts that only I would know and then to have forgotten them.
”What was the point of it?”
The joy of doing it was the point.
Re Paintings:
The conundrum is...in fifty to hundred years will some descendant want a one of those paintings?
I found a small sweet little oil painting that a family member painted for my great-grandmother. It's about a hundred years old so I had it cleaned and framed. It is now hanging next to the sampler my third great-grandmother made around 1830.
Our family talks about the people attached to the items I now display. They are gone but not forgotten. Even though they are now generations removed.
You are in charge of curating your paintings for future generations.
I'm pretty sure the number of Althouse readers who would be glad to own one of her paintings or drawings, and willing to pay a reasonable amount for postage and packing, even sight unseen, is in three figures. We're all too polite to ask whether any of the many nudes are self-portraits, but we're all thinking it - all the men anyway.
What if all your memories could be saved?
In the "Black Mirror" episode "The Entire History of You," that is technically possible with a tiny implant behind you ear. It is like a 24x7 video recorder, plus, you can project your previous experiences for others to see and hear. As usual with "Black Mirror," it shows why this may not be a good idea, especially for obsessive individuals.
Conversely in the movie "After Life," the recently deceased are tasked with selecting a single memory to take with them through eternity. Most have difficulty selecting only one, but one man is so relieved that he can forget everything except for one thing.
Some want to remember; others, forget.
I foisted off the huge ancestor portraits on my younger daughter. They look incongruous in her hallway, as they would in any modern home, but she doesn't mind. My great-grandson is terrified of the portrait of my great-grandfather. I don't blame him, as my ggfather was a scary sonofabitch.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"BTW, althouse, this article only reinforces my notion that you're close to throwing in the towel on Madison's high taxes. I hope you get a great price on the house."
"I didn't write the article. Seems to me that the things I wrote point in the opposite direction. The house has a lot of meaning to me (and to Meade, now). But there is a lot of stuff that I don't want to burden someone with having to deal with after I am gone. My biggest problem is all the paintings and drawings. If I had a button that could cause it all to disappear, I would push it."
My youngest daughter, since she's the artist, gets to dispose of all the artworks. There are some very low number wildlife prints. Some fairly costly paintings by not too obscure artists and then there's the accumulation of three generations of family artists. I'd like her to keep those but if they have to go....meh.
The other stuff I'm slowly giving away or selling. There will be a couple of rifles and shotguns left but they are already ermarked. Same goes with my library. The technical books go to the engineers. The first editions will go before I do. I'm giving away a lot of the machine tool stuff to the family. Anything left at the end goes in the dumpsteror on ebay. I won't give a shit. I'll be dead.
It was with great joy that I tossed most of my late step-monster's stuff. Sixteen boxes of wacko self-help books went to the library.
My grandmother said we'd have a big sale after she died. Didn't happen. The large chicken house behind her house is still filled, with chairs hanging from the ceiling. We finally emptied Dad's 30 foot storage unit in December, mostly to Goodwill.
When my parents moved to a bigger house in 1979, Dad moved 47 boxes of books/magazines and threw away 3 paperbacks. My sister said the only time she heard my parents get angry with each other was after Mom snuck out 10 years of Nat Geo to the library.
The best things in life aren't things.
Yesterday, my neighbor said he's selling his parents' stuff with considerable success on Facebook Marketplace, which I'd never heard of.
My sister has heard the market for antique furniture is drying up because young people don't want old stuff. Will that change as they age?
Having had a very close call a few months ago I began to think about getting things in better order for our kids. A friend recommended a book titled:
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning-How to free yourself and your family from a lifetime of clutter
I just picked it up yesterday. Looking forward to hearing what the Swedes do to make the generational transition more meaningful.
To add to my previous comment there is this quote in the book from Leonard Cohen:
“Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.”
”The best things in life aren't things.”
Must be true. I have a t-shirt that says so.
I am on the younger side of the commentariat here (32) and likely the only grandchild who is interested in family history. I make an effort to catalog items in my relatives' homes by photographing (especially old photos, although it is not the best quality, it does a decent job) and by transcribing stories etc. My (hypothetical, not-yet-existent) children will likely not care about any of the items from my or my parents or grandparent's lives, but they might care about the data. Even if they don't, the advent of genealogy websites means another person out there in my tree might like to see photos or letters. Then they can become part of the historical record, if they are interesting enough. I am doing myself a favor in this respect, because I can have a memory easily accessible via a photo, and am not bringing more Stuff into my house.
I don't know if this is a generational thing, but my spouse and I try very hard not to let ourselves become taken with material stuff, and instead be driven to experience things and places. Its harder to give us gifts (except books), but we have fewer things in the home that have to be cleaned and maintained.
And it's painful too, because each object represents a lot of time. What was the point of it? It would have been better to have used that time to think thoughts that only I would know and then to have forgotten them.
Haha that kind of made my day. I dabble in painting, have gone through periods where I've done a bit more but haven't painted lately. I'm lazy and can't find the motivation, but often feel guilty about it. Maybe I'm choosing the better part by reading and thinking instead.
My wife and I have filled our house with objects of mostly sentimental value.
The framed artwork done by our children work just fine on the walls.
The furniture is comfortable, not fashionable. Some of it came from garage sales while in college, decades ago. None of it has any significant value.
When we move from here, I may just take the photo albums and burn the rest. It would be easier than packing it.
burn the rest
My brother and his wife used to joke about burning down their old house. "Oh, we just happened to have the best furniture and the cat on the lawn."
burn the rest
I helped a friend burn down his house. He lives an hour north of Madison. His house was over a century old and in a pretty dilapidated state. He wanted to build a new house (which he has since done) and needed to get rid of the old one.
Burning down a house is a fair amount of work. It requires tearing a lot of it apart and hauling it away first, but it makes for a hell of a party!
Jim Grey said:
"I had a messy divorce in 2004-06 that caused me to lose most everything I owned. I had been a guy who kept everything. Once I grieved the loss I realized what freedom it gave me: it was super easy to move to my next home. So now I try to own only things I frequently use or genuinely love. So when I need to downsize in my older age it should not be anywhere near as big of a deal."
I was delighted to be able to send this Althouse blog post to my fiancee, as we are in the process of readying her home for sale so we can retire and relocate to a smaller place in FL. I too went through a separation/divorce 8 years ago, and as a result, my belongings now consist of a car, some clothes, a guitar, and 4 guns and some ammo. The tough part for me will be convincing my fiancee to part with the expanse of her clothes, furniture, oriental rugs, paintings, and heirlooms of her now-grown children and her parents.
As I was cleaning out the basement to put the house on the market, my neighbor remarked that he would just fill his with concrete when the time came.
One of the funniest movies my wife and I have recently enjoyed is Sally Field's HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS. It deals beautifully with this problem of an older person's attachement to things. Like one ski. Piles and piles of magazines. Stuff everywhere. Highly recommended movie.
Very interesting discussion. I'm the executor for my dad's estate. Passed away a couple of months ago at 99 and had lived in the same house for 60 years. Another child of the depression, he was also a pack rat.
Clearing out the accumulated debris of decades has encouraged me to start emptying out my own house. My new policy - if I haven't used it in a year, it's goes.
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