Unhoarding: I feel sad, guilty and relieved!

[nctnico]

Time for a fellow hoarder share:
The past couple of weeks I went through the pile of electronics I have been hoarding since before being a teenager. I found some useful stuff (like things I bought again because I didn't knew I already had them), really old stuff but mostly stuff I hadn't touched in decades. After a lot of soul searching I decided that most of it had to go. I ended up with quite a few boxes. Since the hoarder in me didn't want to take it to the dump I decided to put an ad on a local website. Totally unexpected I got more than one reaction from people who where very happy to take it from my hands. This brings me back to the title:

- I feel sad to see all the stuff go. Projects I made, things I brought with me on the back of my moped or even paid for to take from a scrap yard.

- I feel relieved to have more space in my home and organise what is left in a way I can actually find & use stuff.

- I feel guilty for enabling another hoarder  .

[Ampera]

The test of if it's the right decision is if you don't feel guilty a few months later.

I've gotten rid of very sentimental, but very large things in my past, and it sucked to have to toss them out, but I don't think of them that often today.

[NivagSwerdna]

Poorer

I have had to throw out vintage computing stuff, that had I kept it would have good value now.  e.g. Magnetic Tape reels, punched cards, paper tape...

(I'm not sad about it.. life is too short)

[Bud]

Those people are not new hoarders, they recycling collectors, your stuff will end up in a country in Africa or East where it will be burned to exract valuable metals.

[Ampera]

That is one point. If I cared about what I own and find is useful or collectible, but just something I don't have the time and space to keep, I would try to find it a good home with someone who can make more use of it than I.

[rhb]

Not only do I have my hoard, I have my Dad's.  He traded in surplus electronics gear in NYC in the 50's as a hobby.  I am in, and have been for sometime,  the process of finding good homes for things.

I have a considerable number of NOS tubes which, if tested and matched, would bring $500 each.  I also have thousands of nuts, bolts and screws and an unfathomable assortment of other stuff.   I *am* making most of it go away, but it's a lot of work.  And that doesn't count the detritus of my other  ancestors going back almost 400 years.  That stuff is probably the most problematic as some of them were rather important personages.  So the artifacts belong in a museum.

I  inherited about four 40' trailer loads of stuff spread out over several thousand square feet.  Before he died I used to joke, "You've heard of the sword of Damocles?  Well, Ive got the anvil of Conrad.  It's not fatal but it's really going to hurt."   After he died it damn near killed me until I decided to mostly just ignore it all.  But I am finally making significant progress.