Are you a hoarder or a thrower-away? | INFJ Forum

Are you a hoarder or a thrower-away?

Do you tend to collect things, or do you throw or give things away?

  • Collector

    Votes: 22 52.4%
  • Thrower-away

    Votes: 20 47.6%

  • Total voters
    42

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Aug 14, 2009
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I know people who have major hoarding problems, and there was a story on the news recently about an elderly lady who hoarded so much junk, when she died, firefighters had to cut open her roof to get her out. Evidently she had tunnels through all her stuff which the firefighters couldn't find, and they could not even get the front door open.

This can be a serious psychological problem, and it is complicated and sad to see it happen. Of course, there are people who just like collecting and a nice cluttery atmosphere, too, which is not at all pathological.

I'm not a hoarder or a collector type at all. I tend to give or throw things away, and keep things really neat and kind of minimalist. How about you all?
 
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I'm fascinated by hoarders, and I think I have hoarding tendencies, but I make a conscious effort not to indulge them. I don't get very emotionally attached to possessions, its the actual value or cost of replacement that makes me want to keep things I don't really need anymore.

I dislike clutter though, so I end up hiding these things in storage.
 
I am a little bit of a collector, but I wouldn't call myself a hoarder. I place sentimental value on various items, but typically I can let things go if I end up with clutter. I like holding on to things though, I can see how hoarders end up the way they do.
 
I throw everything away. I dislike clutter.
 
hoarder all the way. Just in case....

There's usually time when I will clean the mess, tho. Otherwise..
 
I don't hoard stuff. I tend to be on the wasteful end of things.
 
I'm neither, really. Ever so often, I'll go through my stuff and toss things that tend to accumulate over the months or I haven't used in a while. If I find things I can still use or re-use, I'll just relocate to a more accessible location. I'm not compulsive in having everything 'current,' however.
 
I'm a mixture of the two. All of my stuffed animals from when I was a kid are still in boxes in my parent's basement. My mom wants me to throw them away, but I can't because my little sister and I used to play with them all the time and they all had names and personalities. If it has sentiment to me, I have a hard time parting with it even if I haven't touched it in years. If it's junk (usually electronic stuff, clothes, things like that) I toss or give it away.

I don't have a lot of odds and ends because I don't like material things a whole lot, and thinking of it all sitting in a landfill makes me shudder. If it's something I like but don't use, it's pushed in to a closet for years and years.
 
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I'm a mixture of the two. All of my stuffed animals from when I was a kid are still in boxes in my parent's basement. My mom wants me to throw them away, but I can't because my little sister and I used to play with them all the time and they all had names and personalities. If it has sentiment to me, I have a hard time parting with it even if I haven't touched it in years. If it's junk (usually electronic stuff, clothes, things like that) I toss or give it away.

I don't have a lot of odds and ends because I don't like material things a whole lot, and thinking of it all sitting in a landfill makes me shudder. If it's something I like but don't use, it's pushed in to a closet for years and years.

This is exactly me.

I don't mind throwing away junk like electronics and clothes

but when it comes to certain memories, such as a certain stuffed animal I tend to keep it as it holds much more value than lets say a 500 dollar item.
 
Over the years I have slowly been decreasing my number of possessions. I have a hard time letting go to really important things, of which I have only 1/6th of my stuff as being, but every time I thoroughly clean up my whole room (2-3 times a year) I get rid of a good garbage bag or 2 of stuff. 95%+ of all I own if kept within my own small bedroom with meagre storage capacity. The rest are just cooking tools in the kitchen and a painting in the living room.

Its my goal to get rid of most of my stuff in 1 year. I can't bring most of what I have with me to england and there is a lot of stuff I can't see myself using or needing in this coming year, but it'll still be hard I think. I don't throw away things or keep things without a fair amount of consideration.

Guess I am in balance as far as being a hoarder or throw-away type person.
 
but when it comes to certain memories, such as a certain stuffed animal I tend to keep it as it holds much more value than lets say a 500 dollar item.

+1

I can relate, sentimental value out weights monetary value, at least in my opinion.

I would say that I am a bit of a hoarder. I tend to form emotional connections with inanimate objects. For example I am hesitant to discard of old pens. I tend to retain a connection with some of my writings for sometime and I sometimes consider the pens to symbolically represent the work I wrote. Also the pens can symbolise the act of writing to me- the act of copying one's thoughts, feelings, et cetera onto a format to be reviewed by either yourself or others; by discarding pens I sometimes feel as though I am being "disloyal". I also tend to be reluctant to discard of old assignments, books, and many other things I usually associate with being academic in nature. Also stuffed animals and other items similar to them are objects I deeply cherish.

I sometimes annoy people with my emotional attachments to inanimate objects though. Most people do not understand or think that I am being overly sentimental- and perhaps they are sometimes right
 
Mixed. I'll keep things in nice groups/collections - then throw/give them all away.


eg. I had about six old cell phones (mobile phones - in Australian lingo) in a box in a draw... I had just been putting them there each time I updated. When the box was full, I threw them away. The box is still there and will soon have my current phone in it.
 
I don't think I'm exactly a hoarder but I keep things around more than I should. I always think that its wasteful to throw things out or I think that I might use it again in the future. 99 times out of 100 I never use things again! Yet, I save paperwork, old textbooks, notebooks ...etc. I have seen actual hoarders though and its usually quite a bit worse-piles of junk all over their house, attics or storage rooms full of items.
 
I'm neither a hoarder nor a thrower-away. I feel liberated when I throw things away. OTOH, since most of what I keep are papers and books, I scan the papers and keep the books. Thus, I hoard either on cellulose or silicon.
 
I'm a mixture of the two. All of my stuffed animals from when I was a kid are still in boxes in my parent's basement. My mom wants me to throw them away, but I can't because my little sister and I used to play with them all the time and they all had names and personalities. If it has sentiment to me, I have a hard time parting with it even if I haven't touched it in years. If it's junk (usually electronic stuff, clothes, things like that) I toss or give it away.

My little sister and I also have a bunch of stuffed animals in the basement that we can't bring ourselves to get rid of. We had so many special memories as kids with those toys. Only the two of us could understand who they are and what they represented to us. I can't imagine throwing them away (even though it's a bit embarassing that I still have them, since I'm supposed to be all grown up.)

I live in a very cluttered house. It's a bad cycle, since my mom grew up in a messy house that never really stayed clean. My house is old, and a fixer upper, but it's all my parents could afford, so my dad, being the handy man he is, decided to try to fix it up, so he gradually bought various building supplies home like wood, tools, furniture, drywall etc. Unfortunately, he works so often and so hard all day, he doesn't have much time or energy to actually finish any of the projects, so we're left with a lot of stuff that just sits there unused. It's a very stressful environment, and we keep trying to come up with ways to keep the clutter under control, but they eventually fail due to exhaustion and frustration. 6 people in a small house doesn't help either, since we all contribute with our own stuff. It's not really hoarding, but it gives me somewhat of an idea of what that environment might look like.

I like orderly, but not perfect environments. I can't have everything perfectly in line, or it feels too lifeless. I do get rid of anything I don't have a sentimental attachment with, like clothes, electronics, old drawings etc., and throwing those kinds of things out feels so good. I made a promise to myself that I will never live in a cluttered home, and I hope I can shake the 'messy gene'. I'll probably go with a kind of mimimalist lifestyle, where I can still be eclectic, but in a very clean and modest way.
 
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I have accumulated way too much crap. Alot of it is fairly sentimental...some of it I think will be useful at some point in time or another. Seems like whenever I throw something away, I need it not too long after. I'm not a hoarder like some of the examples I've seen on some of the more popular television shows, but I could throw some stuff out. The worst is books, I don't know how many I have exactly...but I have box after box of nothing but books occupying various spaces in storage. I cannot throw books away, ever.