hello advmy room is my safe space, and its grown into a hoard of things. I dont know how to keep it clean, let alone start the process of cleaning it. I grew up in a hoarder home my whole life and never see clean, idk what to do. I do this every couple of months but my laziness gets ahead of me and it just reverts back to how it always is. Im wayyyy too sentimental about things and im very autistic with the things i love. I collect a lot of anime goodies and its just a bunch more shit. I think i have no space for my hobbies and collectibles, but i dont want to throw them away.ive taken out almost all the trash but as for the clothes and stuff and dirty corners and floor and justt all the SHIT everywhere i dont know where else to start. Please help im tired of living like this. I feel very gross next to my other female peers knowing im this trashy degenerate at home in hiding. I want to have people over without feeling disgusted and just feel normal and clean. i have no idea where to start.Thank yew.
>>34396144here is the room in question
>>34396144Organise things vertically, harder to clean things higher up (think figures). Starts from the top with dusting, work way down. Vacuum then clean surfaces. If a small room with lots of stuff you may have to go section by section around the room.
>>34396154yeah im gonna try and go section by section, just everything stacks up so much. I find stuff and I dont even know where to put it. Just makes the mess bigger but im sure if i commit ot throwing things out maybe itll get better
First off, having autism, ADHD, or certain other conditions commonly leads to this behavior. So does growing up with a hoarder. You might need professional help.Second, the biggest two pieces of advice I can give: Own less things and find homes for what you do own. I'm not suggesting you go full minimalism, but owning less will help you keep things neat, have the space to store it all, and keep track of what you have. Finding homes for things will make it easier to put stuff away.The first thing you need to do is stop acquiring new things for a while. Not even storage containers, not until you're done decluttering and have identified the types of storage you need. This will come much later in the process. Instead, figure out what you can use for storage from what you have now. Make piles, work by theme (all clothes, then all books, etc.) or by region (dresser, shelf, pathway to desk), or by utility (garbage, irredeemably broken things, somewhat broken things, things that can be donated but are not useful to you, etc.). And take your time. Fixing this is not overnight. Not in terms of unlearning how to do that, and not in terms of identifying what you can get rid of. Even a professional couldn't tackle this in one day, so you shouldn't expect to either. Once you've got the place neat, you need to start establishing systems of organization that work for you. Homes for everything you're keeping that you either want or need. And these homes have to make sense, aim for them to be similar to where those things naturally gather already, or where you want to use them. This will make it the most likely for you to start to put things back how they go. Sketch it out if needed to help visualize where things should go, and work on this little by little.
>>34396226When you've got things in a better spot, work on building the habits you'll need to maintain it: put things away as you use them or whenever you move from room to room and have a brief dedicated time of anywhere from 5-30 minutes once a day/week where you put things that haven't gone home away. This is by no means where your work ends, because it's much easier to fix this once than maintain it if you have certain conditions or grew up that way, but it's a starting point, and the more you do it, the easier it will become to get back to that point. Find tricks to help yourself: gloves for avoiding certain gross tasks, keep a garbage bag in your living room if it'll help you not collect garbage on the floor, whatever you need to work towards recovery. And really, look into professional help for building the skills you need to not continue living like this. It is related to mental illness, and it is manageable.This advice is still really just scratching the surface. There's a lot of information out there for people who have lived like this before. Most never seek it out. That you're trying is already a good sign. Keep seeking out information on this, and you will continue to make headway. Expect setbacks along the way, but so long as the general trend is positive and the mess is less bad each time it comes back you're making good progress.
>>34396144Most people aren't that good at cleaning shit up either. I don't know how to encourage you to clean often though. its got to do with motivation and depression.>ive taken out almost all the trash but as for the clothes and stuff and dirty corners and floor and justt all the SHIT everywhere i dont know where else to start.start by picking up stuff first before you try sweeping or mopping.>>34396151I'd say start by getting rid of any visible trash. like empty food containers and napkins. shit like that.Then proceed to putting the dirty clothes in the dirty clothes basket (or whatever you use).
>>34396226>>34396237this is useful looking information but i think OP should start with the basics.
>>34396347OP already did take care of the garbage, she needs help understanding where to go from here. That's a common problem in this situation. Even if she does her laundry, she likely doesn't have a plan for where to put it. There's a good chance some of those clothes are no longer in good enough condition to wear, others no longer fit, and still others are but don't have a home. She probably also doesn't have a place to put dirty clothes. These kinds of things are built from a lot of different problems intertwining and to get things into a good condition, quite often you first need to focus on decluttering and finding homes for things as a baseline immediately after dealing with literal garbage. It's both visual overwhelm, mental and emotional overwhelm, sometimes physical disability, and always lack of space and too much stuff that leads to these situations. She won't be able to come back from it without at least figuring out some things to get rid of. And it's very likely she'll have too much stuff across most categories.
>>34396378op here, this is 100% true. So far, ive been going through that giant pile in the corner and separating clothes from donating to stuff i wanna keep. The only problem is finding places for clean and dirty clothes, i dont own a dresser i just have a closet thats over flowing with stuff, and my hamper is very very small. IM trying to worth through it though. Thank u so much for the advice, I see my problem in a different light now.
>>34396427No problem. I've been there and gotten through it many times. Although I still frequently backslide myself, it never really gets as bad as it used to. But it's taken me years to get to an 'almost normal' level of mess across most parts of the house, and there's still many parts that are beyond the level you could fairly call normal. Would you by chance like someone to talk to while you're cleaning? Could use some motivation to work on my house myself and I don't mind sharing some more resources.
>>34396151Looks kinda comfy to be honest. I'd just remove all the actual trash. Then probably throw all the clothes in one corner, just so you can walk freely. Even if you fold your clothes and stuff, you'll quickly realize you won't have space to put them anywhere, so you're better off just making one big stack in a corner.
>>34396455sure id like that, do u have dis?
>>34396461I do, yeah. I'd prefer if you drop yours (use a throwaway) as even my throwaway has led to some unwanted attention before. If not I can figure something out.
>>34396461Don't give him your discord. He's a predator.
>>34396467I am a girl as well anon. I've just been harassed as all people, and especially women, who post regularly on 4chan have.
>>34396470Lesbians can be predators too. You are taking advantage of a girl who is clearly very young based on her typing style and her room.
>>34396466beatsinmyheaadthere ya go
>>34396473I can assure you the only thing I plan to use her for is company while I clean my equally fucked up rooms.
>>34396475How old are you OP? Be honest.
>>34396144I get what you mean like there's enough stuff to fill every shelf in a whole house but only one room's worth of shelf space.Something I've been doing is putting things away for a long time. If I open up a tote after 3 years and completely forgot the things in there existed I probably don't need them any more. After a few months if I think of something and I want it I'll take it out but that has to be a rare exception or this wouldn't work.
>>34396144mmmh, write down what you want to keep off the top of your head. Anything you forget you must get rid of.
>>34396144You can hire professional organizers to do it for you
>>34396144It's best to be quite brutal about this. For each object in the room, ask yourself when was the last thing you actually used it or interacted with it in any way. If it's been more than two years, then you have lived without it for two years; and if you've lived without it for two years, you can live without it indefinitely, and you can throw it out. Don't try and do everything in the room at once. Start sorting through one small part of the room, spend 30 minutes on it, then stop. Do another 30 minutes the next day, but unless you're actually sick, don't let a day go by without doing those 30 minutes. It won't take you more than a month or two to sort through everything.
>>34397281Hoarding services costs thousands of dollars for just one room. Professional organizers cost less, but most will not clean for you and instead guide you through the process of decluttering over zoom and only then will they come in and organize for you, and still cost quite a bit. And most regular house cleaners will not touch a room like this. While it's true that it's a problem money fixes, most people with sufficient money to fix the problem will have had sufficient money to not let it get like this in the first place.
