A Place for My Stuff

Stuff: the Book!

No, I haven't written my own book about "Stuff" (though maybe I should at this point).  I did however finally get around to reading Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by professors Gail Steketee and Randy Frost.

Whereas Don Aslett's books like Clutter's Last Stand and For Packrats Only are excellent books on where your clutter comes from and how to approach getting rid of it, the Stuff book takes a look at the psychology behind being a compulsive hoarder.  I guess this makes sense when you consider that Don Aslett is a professional cleaner, and Steketee & Frost are psychologists.  So far I'm finding Stuff to be very insightful.  It dispells a lot of the myths that I've mentioned before on where the behavior comes from and how NOT to try to help hoarders, while getting deeper into the different reasons for different hoarders' problems and what worked.

Right now I'm a little over half way finished, and so far I'm loving the book.  I've been marking it up with a hi-lighter as I read.  I'm sure I'll be quoting this book a LOT in future posts.  But just mentioning the book itself is worthy of its own blog entry here.

A Thanksgiving Quote

Huffington Post has a list of 19 Thanksgiving Quotes by Comedians.  Sure enough, George Carlin made the list, but not the quote I was expecting.

The one I was thinking of, was the following.  It shows up on his "A Place for My Stuff" album, appropriately enough.

"Hey have you noticed that you don't seem to get laid much on Thanksgiving?  I think it's because all of the coats are on the bed."

VHS Bootleg Graveyard

When I went on my first truly major eBay selling spree a couple of years ago, one of the really harsh realities I had to often face was having something that I originally paid a lot of money for, and having to sell it for next to nothing. 

And I'm not talking about things like clothing or furniture which naturally wears away after a while.  I'm mainly talking about things that were especially sought after at the time for being collectible items.  It seemed that the longer you'd hold on to these, the more its rarity and value would go up.  The popularity of the internet of course changed all of this.

Brace yourself for a bitter old man rant:

Do kids today make the effort to hunt down bootlegs and rarities of their favorite bands?  Do they even KNOW what a bootleg is?  A bootleg is, in the loosest sense of the term, a recording of a band that you can't find for purchase anywhere.  If you were a really big fan of a band, then you wanted to get whatever you could from that band.  You couldn't just hop on the internet for that, because first of all your home probably didn't have access, and second of all even if you did, the connection speeds and computers weren't fast enough to get much of anything.  The effort you had to exert to get a band's entire catalog and beyond is what separated the casual fans from the true die-hard fans.

It didn't matter if it was a low-quality, muddy cassette recording of a demo session, or a concert video recorded by one guy holding up a shaky camcorder.  (And how the hell DID these people sneak those in?)  If that band you loved did it, then you had to have it.  Used record shops would sometimes carry bootlegs.  Other times, you had to find somebody to trade (which you could do in the earlier days of the internet, but again you still had to find the person who had what you wanted, set up a mailing arrangement, etc.)

There was a time when VHS concert bootlegs like this would sell anywhere from $20 to $50.  This past summer, I managed to find an old used music store that sold them.  I can't remember what they were asking for, but I know it wasn't more than 5 bucks a tape.  So I bought some, brought them home, and transferred them to DVD-R.  Great stuff. 

So...what to do with the tapes now?  Well there's really nothing to do.  I could try selling them, but I doubt anybody these days would take them.  Even if you were lucky and managed to sell them on eBay (without having your ad being taken down for legal reasons), you'd just be going through the hassle of shipping them.  I wouldn't be surprised if all of these shows have been uploaded to YouTube by now, albeit of poorer quality. 

Of course, the nagging feeling in the back of my mind said that I shouldn't be throwing away things that I would have paid $20 to $50 bucks each for.  But then the more rational part of my mind has to say, "Bill, those prices were what you'd see if this was still 1994.  But it's not.  It's 2011.  And you have digital copies of these now.  If you were ever going to trade copies with other fans -- and you probably won't end up doing that -- you'd be making copies from the DVD-Rs you made."  Thus, into the trash they went.

A Word on Safety When Selling Your Stuff

Here is some advice you've heard a million times before, but it's worth mentioning at least once in this blog.

I've talked a lot in this blog about sources like FreeCycle and Craigslist.  They're great ways of getting rid of your extra stuff (so long as you're strong enough to not use them to GET more stuff when you already have too much stuff).  Often though, these transactions will include meeting up with total strangers.  This could mean giving out your cell phone number to a stranger, giving out your email address to a stranger, and having this stranger in your very home.

Frankly I've never had any problem with harrassed, or robbed, or beaten, and the same goes with well over 99.9% of the people who do transactions through want ad lists.  Boy, am I proud to be male.  Still, it pays to be cautious.

So here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

• If possible, meet in a public place.  I've had plenty of people come to my home to respond to ads and pick up stuff.  Again, no problems.  Besides, if I could pack up and drive a huge item like a file cabinet somewhere, then I probably wouldn't be selling it out of my home in the first place.  If you're moving out of a place anyway and don't have much of anything left, then again it's probably no big deal if a stranger comes by to pick up your old turntable.  But if you live in the middle of the sticks (that means a rural area, folks),
• Be friendly, but keep it quick.  Sure, you may meet a potential friend who shares your interest in something.  If a sincerely interesting conversation strikes up on a common passion, great.  But more than likely you're just never going to see this person again.  Cheerfully make the transaction and be on your merry way.
• Keep your on-line guard up.  Since you're dealing with people on-line first, you need to keep your computer defenses up too.  There are some people just looking to harvest email addresses or other information for spamming, or worse.  There's no need to give out your work email to somebody, or use your ISP's email address for posting ads.  Craigslist in particular has a nice anonymous service that hides your email address if you want to.  Here's an article with some specific tips that you should have in place anyway.
• Cash only.  Do I even have to explain this?

Here's another article of tips.

Disposing the Behemoth of DVD cases

I've blogged before about my relationship with DVD cases.  I own a lot of DVDs.  And I mean a lot.  I've certainly had some friends who've owned twice the amount I have, but most people I see don't have even half the amount I have.  And of course my Bluray collection has already started.

One problem of course is how much room they can take up.  You can buy one DVD rack or another, but eventually you end  up with 5 or 6 different shelving units that don't resemble each other.  CDs can cause the same problem.  One solution is to take the discs out, slip them into sleeves in a binder, and put the cases in storage.  This way you can have, for example 50 to several hundred discs in a single binder.

I rejected doing this for the longest time because I simply like to see my DVD collection out in the open, like a library of books.  It makes it easier for me to browse and select something.  And of course it's more aesthetically appealing than flipping through binders of discs with no artwork, no descriptions, and no other inserts.  That's especially frustrating when you have DVD sets of television series and you want to know what episode of which season of that show had that thing that they did.

Unfortunately, there are only so many places where you can put hundreds and hundreds of DVDs in a 1-bedroom apartment.   So I had to go with the binders.  That doesn't mean that I had to put all of my DVDs into binders, but at least try it with a genre or two of them.

I knew that I didn't want to do this with my enormous Doctor Who collection, nor with TV series, and a few particular DVD sets whose casings and thick booklets I liked too much (the special edition of Slacker is one example).  That still left me with well over 200 DVDs I could feel comfortable putting into binders.  One day I went through those DVDs and extracted the discs, putting them into binders.

Well, that was about a year ago.  I still had a huge box of empty cases, up in storage.  At the very least, I wanted to keep the sleeves.  That way if I get one of those binders that lets you put the sleeve and the disc together, or want to sell a movie at some point, or want to see the tracklisting, etc., then I have it.  So the sleeves were finally extracted and shoved into a folder.  The stack of labels was still thinner than a phone book.

This couldn't be done with all of the cases.  Some were in that old style with the carboard front cover and the black plastic clip on the right.  I put those in a separate box.  Even so, I was still left with about 200 reusable DVD cases:

I sure as hell weren't going to put these on eBay to try to ship them.  I took a look on Craigslist to see if there were other people selling DVD cases and just how much they were getting for them.  Then I said "Screw it.  I just want to get this enormous box out of my house.  I want to be able to walk to my closet again, unobstructed!"  So I made a post to Freecycle for a free set of 200 DVD cases.  Somebody replied the next day.  I met him.  He took them.  We thanked each other.

AND THUS SO, IT IS DONE!  YAY!

Freecycle. Give it away!

No, I don't have a free bicycle I'm giving away.  I'm talking about a website called Freecycle.  Freecycle.org is a site where people can place and respond to want ads, under the restriciton that the item is being given away for free.  Think of it as the "Free Stuff" section of Craigslist. Here's the description from their site:

Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,996 groups with 8,828,922 members around the world. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by local volunteers (them's good people). Membership is free.

When you go to the site, you can then look up your town and go to a separate Freecycle forum just for your town (or thereabouts).  The messageboard format is pretty simple.  If you have something you want to give away, make a post whose headline starts with "OFFER:" followed by a short description of what you're giving away.  Likewise, people who are looking for something will post "WANTED:" followed by what they want.  Once an item has been picked up by somebody and is no longer available, you can post "TAKEN:" and the item.

So why give something away for free if you can sell it on a site like eBay or Craigslist?  I suppose it's charitable and all, but hey, I'm sure as hell not going to give away an item for free if it's something I paid hundreds of dollars for.  Or at least not without trying to sell it first.  Unfortunately, the sad reality is that some things are next to impossible to sell.  I've come to realize this first-hand.  Even if you have an item that you think is rare, sometimes you can see 5 people trying to sell the same exact item on eBay, and get no bids.  Also, if something's simply too big, you typically don't want to put it on eBay and have to deal with trying to ship it.  I can't imagine trying to mail a couch to Canada.

I know that some packrats will hold on to an item with the idea that "I can sell that on eBay".  I did that myself for years, and I'm sure I still have stuff somewhere in my home where I use that same rationization to keep it.  What often happens though is that the packrat never really gets around to selling it, and the item continues to sit there, not being used at all and taking up space.  There is a whole host of other reasons for why hoarders keep items, but that's a whole other subject, and something I've already written many posts about. 

My point here is that you have to eventually make the effort to get on eBay or Craigslist and follow through with getting rid of the item.  Or if that just won't work, try to give it away.

WARNING: Freecycle.org is quite the double-edged sword when it comes to clutter.  Keep in mind that I'm only mentioning Freecycle.org as a recommended way of getting rid of your stuff.  Resist the urge to use to get stuff you really don't need!  I know that presenting a compulsive hoarder with a site of free stuff can potentially backfire here.  But if you're already on your way to clutter recovery and you have those extra pesky things that you really just need to get the hell out of your house, then Freecycle can be a powerful tool.

Andy Rooney and His Stuff

I'm back with my first new post since July.  No, I'm not dead.  Unfortunately, Andy Rooney is.  Too bad; I really liked him.  Even if I didn't agree with all of his rants, I still enjoyed them.

Sure enough, Andy Rooney had a few segments on "Stuff".

 

 

"...And I can't believe how many things I don't need ONE of, that I have TWO of."

Too bad Andy Rooney passed away. Now we have to deal with teenagers who'd never heard of him before last week, searching for his segments on YouTube just to post nasty comments about him.

You'd think that if there's one celebrity that bloggers and compulsive comment-posting people would praise, it's Andy Rooney: the guy who maintained a long running career making short complaints about different things every week. Talk about envy!