In our column documenting the ups and downs of family life, local mum Harassed Harriet tackles her husband’s growing pile of stuff
I cannot take it anymore! My new year’s resolution is to tackle my husband's ever increasing hoard of belongings. He hates throwing anything away and accumulates more on a regular basis, often from skips or ebay.
He is building a gigantic 'man shed' in the garden for his various 'collections' of retro telephones, empty drink cans, sci-fi comics, air sick bags and toy robots, not to mention the illuminated fish and chip shop sign, the swivelling chair he pulled from the river, the wooden box he brought back from the dump and the lamp rescued from a former vet's. But, four years on, the shed is only half built and his stuff remains in the house.
We make a start on the tower of boxes stacked up in the office which make it tricky to open the door. Like a gigantic time capsule, they contain what appear to be the entire contents of my husband’s childhood bedroom! I would gladly plonk the whole lot in a skip but, after a lot of resistance, hubby starts making piles - one for the dump, one for charity and one to keep. He looks so sad as he throws away the handwritten name badge he wore on his first day at school, that I find myself saying, "Oh, why don’t you keep it?” And then I want to kick myself!
By the end of the day, we have one bag for Oxfam and a car load for the dump. I decide that this is the moment to try a bit of self-help therapy, and sit my husband in front of one of the numerous hoarding programmes on TV. I am hoping he will be aghast at the huge piles of junk ruining people’s lives.
But it doesn't work. Hubby says that he feels sorry for the hoarders and thinks everyone is giving them a hard time! I call it a day and go to bed, leaving him sorting through yet another box.
Next day, sitting by the toaster, I find a set of orthodontic plaster cast impressions of my husband’s wonky pre-brace teeth. I don't have the heart to bin them, so I pop them in the charity bag and set off for Oxfam.
When I get home, I am racked with guilt and make an urgent call: "I just dropped off some jumble but seem to have slipped in my daughter's dental impressions by mistake. Would you mind fishing them out for me?"
“Oh, I'm terribly sorry, dear," says the lady on the other end of the phone, "We’ve just this minute sold them."
