Check out (this link) about a woman in Las Vegas who lives in a condominium that was next to another condo that was in foreclosure.  A company was hired to “trash out” the foreclosed property, which means taking absolutely everything out of the condo and throwing it all away.  In this case the company trashed out the wrong condo and now this woman has an empty home.

Per the article she lost, “My clothes, my wedding dress, baby pictures, wedding photos, my dishes, my towels, my jewelry, anything you could possibly have in your house.” She was ready to go through a dumpster to rescue some of it, but they couldn’t even tell her where it was thrown away.  Just came home one day and it was all gone.

I ran across this story a week ago on the web, but I keep thinking about it.  What a shock that must have been!  How would you or I feel if this was done to us?

She mentioned some “memory clutter” type stuff, which is always the hardest to let go of.  If there is a silver lining in this disaster, perhaps it is that she doesn’t have to decide what to keep and what to discard.  Of course I’m the one who wants to become a minimalist, and not everyone is like me.

There are two people that I am storing things for.  The following two blog posts will attempt to explain why I am doing this.  Not make excuses, but to try and come to terms with how this happened and think about how I might get out of the situation.

I won’t use real names, so they will be called Friend A and Friend B.  Storing all this stuff has been an immense emotional burden, and a substantial financial one as well.  I believe it’s a giant roadblock on the path for me to regain an independent life.  I feel stuck here living in a rented bedroom in someone else’s house because of this.  Lately I’ve been thinking about buying a house, but if I do – would I take all this stuff with me?

The burden has been a motivator for me to purge a great deal of my own unused stuff, most of the year 2008 was spent on that project.  The purging stopped last spring because I was overwhelmed by other people’s things and could not continue.

Looked at the spam folder in this blog for the first time in six months, and found a few actual comments! Apologies to anyone who thought I deleted their comment, they have been approved now. I also had an invitation to talk to someone about being on a TV show, which I am thankful for, but I won’t be doing that.

Had an idea this week about how to get rid of the storage unit this year.  The unit contains stacks of cardboard boxes that belong to a friend.  I am continuing to rent this space after I moved my own things out of there, because I don’t have a place to put the friend’s boxes.  That is, I don’t have a place to put them inside the house where I’m staying.

SO here’s my idea.  There is a large shed (tiny barn) in the back yard, containing lawn mowers, garden tools, picnic table, bicycles, etc.  It’s not a good environment for storing cardboard boxes because small animals and insects get in there, and it can be damp when it rains.  What if I buy some kind of metal or plastic cabinet that can be assembled inside the shed?  Then I can place the friend boxes inside this sealed outdoor closet, and finally get rid of the storage unit!

I’d have to spend money to buy the cabinet, assemble it, and then haul all the boxes over to the house.  The expense would be offset by not having to pay the monthly rent on the storage unit.  Of course this doesn’t get the friend’s boxes back to him, it just delays the real solution to the problem.  Also I’d be buying a large garden storage shed that I’d have to deal with when I move from here.

Last year a small house next to where I live went on the market.  It never sold, but did inspire me to spend lots of time researching real estate.  Owning property would complicate my life, and would also increase my freedom.  I’ve learned a lot about the buying process and have watched the local market for the past year.  Still I am living in a rented bedroom in someone else’s house.  I want to move (someday) but don’t have to.  For sure renting a room is less expensive than buying a house, even a tiny house.  Honestly at this point am kinda sick of all the research time and effort.  Decided that I am fine with shopping for a home next year, passing up on the “first time home buyer” tax credit for 2009.

Now I find out that the small house that got me interested in the subject is going back on the market!  The owner cleared the overgrown yard and brought in a crew to fix up the interior.  Even fixed up it’s not a great house.  Foundation needs work and the outside walls are sagging.  It still needs serious work or maybe even a rebuild from scratch.  The heart is tempted to bid on it just so I can be independent again – but the brain is pretty sure that would be a mistake.

Found a group of books I was willing to let go of.  Some hardcover and newer softcover ones, probably worth $80 total if they were new.  Monday I took them to work and put into the donation box.  Walked by the box on a coffee break and saw they had been taken somewhere and the box was empty.  Had an “OMG THEY’RE GONE” moment.  I was okay with it, although it did feel strange.

Over the next two days I felt inspired to find more to donate.  Books were pulled out of their storage boxes – on my desk, bed, and a card table.  There were four major groups:

1. Reference
2. Want to Read
3. History – personal and family mementos
4. Favorites – mostly fiction

If it’s reference, can I give away the book and look the info up online or in a library when I want it?

If it’s #2, how long have I been keeping it to read?  Some have been in storage for more than ten years.  Would I be terribly disappointed if I never got a chance to read them?

History items should be ranked in order of importance, and then maybe I can toss the bottom two.

Why do I keep a favorite book that has already been read?

• to read again someday
• identify strongly with the characters
• makes me feel comfortable to see it

Is that feeling in the book itself?  Would I stop feeling that way if the book was no longer in my life?

This week has been like a staring contest between me and the books.  I sit in a chair and look at the piles.  I sort through them and move books from one pile to another.  I pick up one book and leaf through it, then pace back and forth because I can’t decide and then put it back down.  Who will blink first?  I’m afraid that would be me.

A favorite book is in my collection because I may want to re-read it in the future.  The question is, how much is the storage costing me?  I enjoyed it in the past, and it’s being saved for a potential future that may or may not happen.  I think back to my storage unit, which costs a monthly rental fee that is way more money than the stored things are worth.  Is the peace of mind that I am losing by looking at the book clutter costing me more in the long run than the trouble I’d have to go through to find the book again?

Because of my recent success in sorting through the old audio tapes, this weekend I felt ambitious enough to try to sort my books.

Books are the hardest things to let go of.  I have very few fiction books.  Most of them are collected for a purpose.  For example – at one time I wanted to learn to sail a boat, so I have books on learning to sail, biographies of famous sailors, outfitting a boat for living aboard, how to survey older boats, etc.  These books are research material that I believe will help turn a dream into reality.  Getting rid of these books feels like I am giving up on my dream.

There are philosophy books related to principles that I believe in.  The implication is that getting rid of the books means my values have changed.  I know this isn’t true, of course.  But the feeling that a book is connected to a dream or belief is why I keep all my books.

The approach I started with was to sort them into four groups: To Keep, To Donate, To Sell, Not Sure.  Goal is to reduce them to the most essential books that cannot be replaced at any price, hopefully to fit in one banker’s box.  They had been boxed up for a year and a half.  Looking through them reconnected with the memories, beliefs, feelings, and dreams.  Only found ten I could let go of.

The next day I began to realize that the trouble in letting go is caused by this connection to things that I wanted to do someday in the future.  So I made a list of “dreams” and wrote them on index cards.  Also had cards for fiction, must keep, sentimental value, and other.  I placed the cards around my bed and table, then sorted the books into these categories.  The new goal was to sort them and then pick 2 or 3 books from each category to keep.

Tried to use the OHIO technique (one handle it once) but some were shifted around three times.  At the end of the day the keepers were down to about two boxes full.  Had a nice donation pile and a sell pile.  During the day I created a new pile called “the cusp” – for books that were somewhere between must keep and can go.  I’ll let this pile sit for a week or two, and maybe I’ll be able to sort it again and let most of them go.

A lesson learned: giving away a book does not mean that the knowledge within is being erased from the world.  In fact, passing it on means someone else can read it and share the knowledge.  If I need the information again in the future, I can probably find it.

Just when I think I’m about to run out of things for eBay, I uncover another box of stuff that I’ve been saving to sell.  Like peeling an onion.  Listed 8 things last week and sold 3 of them.

Today I was looking for a CD that I made last year.  It wasn’t in the usual pile of CDs or DVDs.  So I started looking through desk drawers, and sifting through piles of old mail.  Searched the same piles more than 3 times, but still not there.  Then I was moving stacked boxes so I could look inside them to see if I had CDs stored anywhere else.  Had to lean against the wall with one hand at an angle, while moving stuff with the other hand reaching down.  Could not stand next to the boxes because of all the stuff on the floor.

I hate it when I know I have something but can’t find it.

Unfortunately did find a box of glassware that I thought had already made it out of this room.  Ugh – now I need to deal with getting rid of it (again?).

There’s also a VHS tape that I have been looking for in my piles of stuff for a couple of months.  I feel sure it’s still here somewhere because I haven’t sorted through any videos yet.  It was a dubbed copy of another video, so maybe it’s here but I didn’t label it clearly?

Some items do not fit into the KEEP TOSS SELL framework.  I don’t use or love them, so I shouldn’t keep them.  They are not garbage, so I won’t toss them.  Their monetary value is low enough that it’s not worth trying to sell them on eBay or Craigslist.  They are In-Between items.  I had a box of them collecting on my floor.

This past week someone asked me if I had anything that could be donated to a local charity that was doing a garage sale to raise money.  This is an excellent use for the in-betweens!  A few more things were found by rifling through some other boxes.  I also gave her stuff that I had tried to freecycle without success.  There was some hesitation on whether or not to give away some items that I was on the fence about.  A couple of these made it into the box of donations.

I didn’t donate everything though, there were a few things I felt compelled to take back.  One T-shirt that I won’t wear but feel embarassed about donating because of the slogan on it.  A mechanical calendar gadget that used to be on my grandfather’s desk.  A small set of vintage plates that I can’t part with yet.

She was thanking me for donating to the cause, but I felt very thankful as well for a chance to move some things out of here.  Things that I didn’t know what to do with.

The pile of boxes that contain my books has been undisturbed for over a year now. They have been out of sight for long enough that I don’t recall everything that’s in there.

If I open up the boxes and look at the book titles, I will want to keep each and every one. If I were to suddenly lose them all to flood/fire/theft, I might not be able to list everything that I lost.

How would my future life be inpacted if the boxes were just taken away?