I don't know where to ask for pointers about this. I'm having a bit of a problem with this room. This used to be a bedroom but it's now being used to throw shit in. It has been getting worse for years.
I keep procrastinating instead of sorting shit up there.
How should I go about cleaning all this mess?
There's a lot of shit there, from the top of the pile, a 32" LCD TV, a 20" standard TV, a piano, computers, computer monitor, a complete home stereo system, arcade machine and all kinds of electronic junk.
I was into electronics but life happened and can't spend time messing around with that, that's why there are lots of boards and things to get spare components from like DVD players, power supplies, random circuit boards and stuff.
Now I need to fit my bike in that room to work on it and need to clear as much space as I can.
Hire a skip.
At some point you have to just declare "All this stuff is just broken crap I don't need" and get rid of it.
As soon as the skip is taken away and you look back on that empty room you WILL feel a weight lift from your shoulders.
I might have a hoarding problem.
I'm starting to find brand new stuff I never used and didn't even know I bought in the first place.
Dammit!
Let me 'Reaganize' this for you(bullet point it out):
- You want to change a room fm storage to utility.
- fixing and storing a bicycle.
Things are stored there that haven't been used, some ever.
- Decision time: Keep the stuff, or not?
- If keep, figure out a way to store it.
- If not, sell it or donate it to charity.
> I don't know the word 'skip'.
I hope this at least gets you underway.
When I clean a room, I always leave a flat 1ft x 1ft area near the door. If something is supposed to go out, I put it there. Every time I leave the room, I take it with me.
>>920045
yard sale? yard sale.
The crt needs to be recycled for starters. Next I would start cutting up the unused cardboard boxes and put them in your recycle bin. Bundle up the cables and try to match them with their respective appliances. You will end up with a bunch of outdated equipment that you might be able to craigslist or donate to a school for the tax deduction. If you just do one of these things each day it should be pretty manageable pace
>>920111
This.
Throw away what you don't need or have not used.
Put rest of it in nice, clean, organized set of boxes that aren't a pain in the eye. Use vertical space by stacking boxes on top of each other. Boxes are your friends!
If you can't be stuffed selling it there is a thing called freecycling. Look it up. If you are game you could even offer it to anons.
Other than that hard rubbish collection and or bin some each week.
The quickest solution is this
>>920048
>>920057
I'll tell you exactly where you got that, I hope I'm right for nostalgia's sake.
Back in about 2009 there was an exploit with Microsoft that you could give customer service a code and they would send you a free product such as this keyboard or the mouse, webcam. Anything sidewinder series. Literally thousands of people did it. I got a dozen of them and flipped them on ebay making about a grand before I felt bad. This is the only reason I can think you have a brand new gaymen keyboard in a pile of junk.
Make progress, youve got a problem dude and it aint gonna fix itself overnight. Start small, get a single garbage bag or plastic grocery bag, fill one with rubbish to throw out and one to donate, fill them both with stuff, bin the rubbish one and donate the donate one.
Small progress is still progress man.
>>920045
Story of my life bro.
Stuff that hasn't been used for the last two years have no chance of being used in the upcoming years.
Time you didn't having playing with semi broken stuff in the last two years, you won't have in the upcoming years.
This is the way I see it : my time on earth is counted. All this crap will outlive me, and there are LOTS of things it is more important to spend my time with, than some broken electronics.
When I was a student and I had plenty of time on hand, this was something I loved to do, but there is no way this happens anymore.
>>920111
Skip: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/9/24/1253791275438/Skip-001.jpg Might only be a UK thing. You can hire them pretty cheap in various sizes.
>>920045
Put unused shit in a box. Write today's date on top.
Store away.
Each year throw away box that has a date older than a year (or maybe two) UNOPENED!
You didn't need it in the last two years. You never will.
>>920214
>skip
>pretty cheap
take it to local council recycling centre
A fire.
Get some matches and a can of gas.
You know what to do.
>>920045
Trash it. You just need to realize in your head that you're never going to use it, and for the one thing you might use, you can buy it again. Having a clean, usable room is more valuable than the price of some shit electronics. Especially on your metal health and avoiding the anxiety associated with the room.
Once you realize you don't need all that shit, it feels amazing throwing it all away indiscriminately. I moved into a 640 sq ft condo from a 3000 sq ft house so I had to learn to minimize my crap load and now I only allow myself a few boxes i keep under my bed for that kind of stuff
>>920045
I have had that exact same room in every house I have ever rented or owned!
Being a packrat kinda sucks, but then I go in there and get something useful every week or so.
Pay some kid you know to stack all the boxes Tetris-style and get everything else neat and orderly around the walls.
>>920218
Depends how much of it there is really. A 5t skip might be cheaper than hiring the van to shift it all, or the 20x trips in the hatchback. Skips get emptied at the local recycling center anyway so it all ends up in the same landfill/African village.
I had forgotten about the council recycling center, desu, those places trigger me bigtime.
>>920709
why do local recycling centers trigger you -
all the wasted electronics that could be saved|?
>honest question
OP Here.
>>920162
I'm organizing the shit I find so I can sell most of it.
>>920187
Nope, I actually paid for it. I thought at the time that backlit keys were actually useful. Found myself never looking at the keyboard while typing, also found that the keys tend to blank after prolonged use so I boxed it again after 2 weeks of use. Also the gaming part of the keyboard sucks so bad.
>>920195
That is exactly what happened. I'll just trash most of the electronics stuff since it hasn't been put to use in like 4 years. When I need something like that I'll probably try to buy it again.
>>920217
Too late to do that. Shit hasn't been used or looked into for years. I'll ID most of the stuff and throw away.
>>920246
Trying to do that.
>>920707
>Being a packrat kinda sucks, but then I go in there and get something useful every week or so.
Hahaha, instead of throwing shit away, I always find something to do with it in the future. That needs to change.
My family is like that too so, that shit is deep inside me.
Also, I tend to buy MANY of the same stuff I like.
> Liked a cellphone? Why not have a spare?
I have a new in box spare of my current android.
> Liked that TV? Why not buy 2 of them just in case?
I have the same 32" Samsung TV, borrowed one to my parents.
I also keep the boxes of the shit I own so I can sell it later. I have the two boxes of the 32" TV.
Update: I keep finding stuff.
>>920170
I second this
Blast from the past.
>>921048
Don't know about that one but old GPS12s sometimes go for more than current etrexs on ebay.
>>920968
I feel your pain bro. Old electronics are easy to hoard, and I don't even have a lot of electronics experience. But hey! That tv could have some useful parts for a future project! No, no it won't . The biggest thing to realize is that you won't even need to buy some of the hoarded electronics back. There is always someone throwing away their old tv or electronics, or giving it away for next to nothing. Remember that.
>>920968
Oh and if you're organizing shit to sell, here's a huge tip.
You are not going to be able to organize a huge amount of shit. No amount of moving things around makes it a smaller pile of shit. Moving things into another room or the garage only clutters up another area. The hardest thing is to force yourself to do shit one at a time. When you have a lot of shit it seems over-whelming, and that one little thing wont make a big difference.
Start with one thing. That old box tv that's close to worthless. Put it on the free section of craiglist or a similar website where you live. Or set it by the street and see if another hoarder will snatch it up. Get the ball rolling and it gets easier and easier. I got rid of a few things today and now have $40 in my pocket. Whoop whoop!
>>921060
*and it seems like getting rid of one little thing wont make a big difference
>>921052
I used to have a Garmin GPS38. I used it on trips hooked to a laptop. At the time (circa 1997) there wasn't any map of my area so it tracked my route on an empty background. It felt awesome having that realtime trip data on screen.
Now most phones can do the same from the factory. Funny thing is, the Garmin used to last close to the whole day on 4 AA's, phones nowadays can't be used for more than 8 hours.
I found the old 386 laptop I used at the time. The screen warped from, I suppose was heat, so not worth a dime, I smashed it for fun and threw it in the trash box.
>>921052
For some reason the Magellan won't start so I took it apart some years ago, never found a fix so it's being trashed now. It has the cool helicoidal antenna, I don't know if it can be fitted to a new unit for better reception. I thought at the time I'll keep it to use the receiver circuit on another project but cheap GPS modules that do not require any hacking and reversing are readily available so, to the trash it goes.
I have several hoarders in my family. it is important to asses what you need and what to get rid of. If it is broken get rid of it.
Next get shelving and labels. Heavy shit on the bottom lighter shit at the top
I'm measuring the amount of success by the amount of shit I'm piling up in my backyard to throw away. If the amount of stuff inside is bigger than outside, there is still junk that needs to be gone.
I can't trash the CRT TV though because
>My old game consoles.
Playing spyro in an LCD screen is crap. I enjoy my realtime scanning screen from time to time.
I found 4 VHS recorders. One has a broken PSU, it's going to the trash, the others may go into an online auction and I may keep one. I still have a lot of VHS tapes.
>>920045
Sell your shit, anon. Toss whatever doesn't sell after a couple of discounts.
>>920718
Yep. I literally saw a cassette deck - similar model and appearance to Peter Quills shipboard one from Guardians of the Galaxy, get thrown into the compactor before i could leap from the car and rescue it from the moron tossing it.
So many flatscreens and amps and laptops... augh why did i go into electronics repair as a career. Evry time i see something with a minor fault...
Mother in law paid £170 to have her washing machine repaired. Instead of, you know, asking the family member who works with electronics. I told her the real cost of the part - motor brushes - and how easy it is to replace the part, she's at least promised to phone me first next time.
I used to have 3 rooms like that.
I threw a lot away and re-organised the remainder. If I just re-organised I would have just ended up with a solid room of boxes.
So whatever I did need after I threw it, it was easier for me to run 5 mins up the store to buy a $2 part rather than dig through years of junk for an hour and spend 10-20 mins disassembling the thing.
>>920968
> Liked a cellphone? Why not have a spare?
>I have a new in box spare of my current android.
Jesus, The only thing I have ever bought a spare for is glasses. Because if they break, I am almost blind and cannot do without them. But anything else? lord no
>>920045
you know what you need to do, motherfucker
>>921589
>Having a spare $600 phone depreciating every day in a drawer
Fuck, must be nice to have so much money you don't know what to do with.
>>920045
Throw it all the fuck away except for collectible things/memories. (e.g. photo albums)
Sell it all. You can clearly live without it.
>>920045
Put that shit on craigslist and if nobody buys it, throw it away. And vertical is your friend.
Recycle, faggot.
>>921683
Lol, Recycling is for fags
>>920045
go back to the 1990's it would be awesome stuff!
>>920045
I used to horde shit but I recognized my hording behavior from video games. I thought to myself, "Holy shit I just horde shit just like in real life. Time to use/throw away all this shit!" If you haven't even looked at it for 2 years just remove it. Seriously. Just let it go. It's fun! Just go in with the mentality, "This random shit is ruining this perfectly awesome room."
I made some progress.
Now at least I can see the floor.
Most of the empty boxes are gone, a lot of electronic crap is trashed.
I too have a room like this, but it's maybe 2/3 boxes of books and 1/3 electronics junk. I definitely need to get rid of some it.
>>923479
>..im still seeing SHIT HERE, anon.
Fellow hoarder, congrats on the first step. I could throw away other peoples shit in 10 flat, no problem (and to the practised eye, a fair bit of that there is, desu) - just, with my own crap, its a different story. It gets complicated.
>>923479
Keep going OP. We believe in you.
>>923488
>It gets complicated.
I know that feel. I just got a super high standard on things to keep so most junk gets trashed.
I do it at a slow pace, just a few hours here and there as not to get overwhelmed. It is hard enough to just walk into that room. It gets shittier when you open a box and has thousands of different items to sort/trash/keep.
I even found the CPU of the arcade machine that's right there. When I clean up everything I'll move the cabinet so I can access the back door and hook it up to see if it works. I think I saw the amplifier of the machine there somewhere too.
>>923491
Thanks!, I will keep working on this.
I wish I had a bigger house for my hoard, at the moment I have to pack everything away after use because it takes up too much space.
>>923479
Well done. If you're having trouble throwing some stuff out just take a photo of it and hoard it digitally instead.
>>920045
>Two projectors
SPECS NIGGA
WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR ONE?
>>921426
>Evry time i see something with a minor fault...
Same. Knowing how things work and doing this sort of thing as a hobby breeds hoarders, but on the other hand think of the perfectly good components inside...
>>920045
Yard sale nigga.
Failing that,
CRAIGSLIST FUCKING EVERYTHING
>>923534
I want to have a huge depot, with a size where you can park 9 cars inside. With sound and temperature insulation. I'll drywall an office inside, a small kitchen, a hoarding storage room, mechanic work room, electronics development room/hackspace and 2 big video sets. I'll love to make howtos and videos for the tubes but the lack of space at home makes it a challenge. Also the price of the depot, like $215.000. I don't have that kind of money.
>>923536
Infocus X2. DLP, 800x600. Has digital input.
You saw 2, I got 4 of those. I was planning on making a 360° projection room.
I got them because my university decided to replace them. Someone checked 'em and marked all as non-repairable.
2 had a minor optical fault, a collapsed light pipe that made the picture fade to black at one side, super easy fix since all pieces of the pipe were inside. Other 2 were breaking the bulbs because the fans never got to speed, sometimes they stalled during the whole run. The fan control MOSFETs kicked the bucket, I replaced the chips and now they all work properly.
The DLP light path is extremely simple and if the DMD chip is working, all that is left to fix is accessed under one cover. It might be the color wheel (the adhesive gets old and the filters fall from the hub, it happened as I touched one of the wheels), the light pipe, the weird plastic focusing lens getting old and cracked...
And the projectors have been online for a good year, no one wants them it seems. They work perfectly fine but 3 are missing the bulb.
>>923541
I normally fix and if I don't wanna keep the whole product, I sell it online. Doing that brought me a good amount of money.
>>923544
Can't do a yard sale here, third world, they'll steal everything.
>>923713
>they would steal everything
Lucky bastard
>>923535
Just keep one screw from each item, individually bagged and labled. Fill up boxes full of screws. Be forced to make paths through all the boxes of screws. One day a tunnel through the boxes collapse. Your kids find you a week later.
4. Profit???
