Trailor Trash - Confessions of a Serial Hoarder

I don’t know how many of you have the day-time luxury of tuning into Oprah – I have to confess I am a fan!

A recent episode show featured a “serial hoarder”. This family had 15 tonnes of garbage removed - yes you read correctly, that is equivalent to 15 Toyota Corrolla’s and that was just plain old garbage, they hadn’t even got into the serious stuff yet.

They finally removed enough clutter from the home to fill a 10,000 foot storage unit! (that’s about half of Suncorp Stadium!) This was a very serious case of hording indeed.

Not only did she have her house literally filled to the roof, she had her triple garage completely loaded with more stuff – they hadn’t been able to put their car in the garage for over 10 years!

Whilst I am yet to come across a case of hoarding this serious – they key is to recognize the signs before it becomes this overwhelming!

Are your cupboards bursting with gifts that “might be good for someone”, or memorabilia that “reminds me of the time when …..” , or collections that “I started when I was 15 …” clothes that “I’m going to fit into when I loose these 5kg”. Do all these items end up in cardboard boxes and often shoved in the spare room or garage? …….

This got me thinking – the humble garage (if you are lucky enough to have one), is often a forgotten hide-away for our clutter. Does your garage look more like a storage unit at Millers than a nice little home for your precious car?

Often the lowly garage is used a storage area or “black hole” to house our clutter, just to get it out of the house. We live in hope that by placing it in the garage it will miraculously disappear; it is afterall one step closer to the garbage, or hopefully we can ignore the fact that we may have a problem with hoarding!

Whilst the obvious use for our garage is for our cars, it is an ideal area to convert into a very clever storage area for those lesser used items such as luggage, sporting equipment and of course gardening equipment (if you have a garden). There some fantastic systems available that can be attached to walls and even hung from the ceiling that can create a special home for all your belongings!

You’d be surprised how much can be stored when you introduce often ingenius organising systems. Both your possessions (the ones that remain after you have had a good de-clutter) and you car can live in perfect harmony.

…. Oh so what happened to this family on Oprah. With the help of Australian organizer, Peter Walsh, they held a garage sale to end all garage sales, raised $13,000, then used the money to completely make over their family home – and probably some therapy!