Decluttering

[Icehaven]

I highly recommend burning things. We moved from a 2 bed semi on to a 54ft narrowboat 6 months ago and we do have a storage unit but it's just for valuable/sentimental stuff so everything else, furniture, clothes, went up in flames in the back garden before we moved. It was brilliant.

[canadagoose]

I highly recommend burning things. We moved from a 2 bed semi on to a 54ft narrowboat 6 months ago and we do have a storage unit but it's just for valuable/sentimental stuff so everything else, furniture, clothes, went up in flames in the back garden before we moved. It was brilliant.

I meant to ask, do you have 4G/5G Internet on a narrowboat, or is there some sort of cable coming in somewhere? Sounds interesting anyway. Is it a nice place to live in?

We did a huge declutter when we moved last year. The amount of guff that we assumed we'd need, or that we forgot about, was just ridiculous. So many mouse-chewed items and hidden mouse traps with long-dead mice (yeah, horrible I know, but they were legitimately hidden behind things). I still have too much rubbish but it's hard to get rid of things without a car. My Dad is happy to drive up to help out, but a 100-mile round trip seems like a long way.

[Icehaven]

I meant to ask, do you have 4G/5G Internet on a narrowboat, or is there some sort of cable coming in somewhere? Sounds interesting anyway. Is it a nice place to live in?

I absolutely love it, but I can imagine it's not for everyone and it does have it's downsides, lack of space being one of them, however it's the 9th place I've lived in the last 20 years and it's the best by such a huge margin. It's only been 6 months after 40+ years living in flats and houses but I wouldn't ever go back, barring being physically unable to we'll hopefully live on a boat forever. Also we're very lucky with where we've got a mooring, it's very small (about 8 boats) and there's only 1 other person that actually lives here, so it's extremely quiet and we've pretty much got the facilities to ourselves.
For the internet we use a mobile router with a SIM card in with unlimited data (Voxi, which uses the Vodafone network as they've got the best coverage in the area) and pay monthly. It works fine, which is good considering the steel hull of boats can apparently mess with wifi but it doesn't seem to affect ours, we often have two phones, the TV and a tablet all connected to it at the same time and it works OK. We're in a built up area though so I daresay if we moved about more or were somewhere more rural it might not work so well. There is a phone socket on the mooring post where we plug in the electricity supply but we've not used it, doesn't seem much point, particularly as we'd then not have the internet if we went anywhere.

[Ray Travez]

That's really interesting :)

I often thought about boat-life when I was single, but never made the jump. Went to look at a couple of boats... wish I'd done it now.

[tookish]

I was astonished by the extent to which I had kept broken/useless items. And even more astonished by the fact that I'd had so many no-food no-gas no-electric times, when I had about £6000 of equity on my bookshelves, from charity shop finds.

Selling stuff is a pain in the arse but jeez, I got myself out of the debt hole with decluttering.

[LurkMcGee]

I keep hold of too much shite, stuff I think I'll use or think of displaying etc (old camera gear). At my current place, it's just in the way more or less.

If selling wasn't such a faff I'd have sold most of it.

[Clownbaby]

I have a couple hundred DVDs I've never watched, don't have the space to display them, no point selling them to CEX or similar because I'd get like 5p per DVD, and a some of the stuff is inappropriate for charity shops.

I have thousands of DVDs, so I got some of those disc binders and put the majority of them in there, and it doesn't half condense em down.  And now they visually look a lot less overwhelming because there's a just a smallish portion of my shelf that has a few black rectangles on (the binders side by side), rather than DVD spine after DVD spine. I'm never going to get rid of my DVDs, because even though I'm on about 7 different streaming services, you never know when something's gonna just be unavailable.

My unpractical collection, though, is shoes. I finally figured out that if I dusted the shoes that are just sitting there not getting worn, and put them in a secure large plastic box, they won't get dusty, my room will look neater, and the shoes will be neat for wearing if I want to get them out.

[Angst in my Pants]

If you're going to hire a van for this (with/without driver), be sure to check that's allowed at your local refuse centre first. Ours only allows vans that are registered to a resident of the area, which is a ballache for non-drivers like me (and owners of small cars).

[gilbertharding]

I was just going to say that I had to clear out my parent's by no means cluttered house a few years ago (they'd lived there for more than 50 years), and... I don't know, obviously, whether my wife or I will die first, but once we're both gone, there's not going to be anyone to get rid of our stuff. We don't have clutter either, but there's quite a lot of it, and most of it will go straight in a skip.

It's very tempting to do it now, I must say. I already have it in my mind to do it straight away, if I end up being the one left on my own. See out my days with an armchair, a bed, and a TV.

[mippy]

I keep hold of too much shite, stuff I think I'll use or think of displaying etc (old camera gear). At my current place, it's just in the way more or less.

If selling wasn't such a faff I'd have sold most of it.

Some old camera gear I've sold via MPB - they come and collect it from you, so as long as you have packaging materials it's pretty easy.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I highly recommend burning things. We moved from a 2 bed semi on to a 54ft narrowboat 6 months ago and we do have a storage unit but it's just for valuable/sentimental stuff so everything else, furniture, clothes, went up in flames in the back garden before we moved. It was brilliant.

I used to have a pal who had a long garden with a 'burning patch' at the back. We'd often get some wine and go back to it for a drink and smoke after the pub had shut.

The garden had a lane to one side so depending on where people lived, it was often quicker to hop the wall into the alleyway rather than go all the way round the front of the house.

One friend made a beeline for this and walked straight into the pond (swamp). Laugh? I was almost sick.

[Fambo Number Mive]

If you're going to hire a van for this (with/without driver), be sure to check that's allowed at your local refuse centre first. Ours only allows vans that are registered to a resident of the area, which is a ballache for non-drivers like me (and owners of small cars).

I do find it astonishing how inaccessible recycling/refuse centres are for non-drivers. In ours you can't walk in with items, you have to drive in. Then they wonder why there's so much congestion. Surely, given some people are unable to drive for medical reasons, there is a legal requirement to make these centres accessible for non-drivers.

[Hat FM]

i have a big issue (no pun intended) with magazines. just can't throw away those old nme's, melody makers, various football mags, fhms and even beanos. many boxes are in my parents garage but i have smuggled some into our loft when the girlfriend wasn't looking, like to keep certain old clothes also like my carharrt jeans from when i was 16 or various band t-shirts. such nostalgia. tempted to sell my original nirvana t-shirt tbh.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I do find it astonishing how inaccessible recycling/refuse centres are for non-drivers. In ours you can't walk in with items, you have to drive in. Then they wonder why there's so much congestion. Surely, given some people are unable to drive for medical reasons, there is a legal requirement to make these centres accessible for non-drivers.

They're generally assumed to be for bulky waste. Check if your council has a bulk uplift service.

[Angst in my Pants]

I do find it astonishing how inaccessible recycling/refuse centres are for non-drivers. In ours you can't walk in with items, you have to drive in. Then they wonder why there's so much congestion. Surely, given some people are unable to drive for medical reasons, there is a legal requirement to make these centres accessible for non-drivers.

Yes, it's pretty poor - ours don't allow walk-ins either. Although they have stuck with the mandatory pre-booking that they initially implemented as a COVID distancing measure, which is good because it's resolved the congestion issue.

I had to get rid of an irrepairable sofa a few years back which was too big for my husband's Corsa. My father-in-law offered to drive over with his van, but of course he's not from the area so that wasn't allowed. Curbside collection was available, but for a whopping £30. I got my saw out and cut it up into smaller pieces which took the best part of an afternoon... when I think back, an axe would probably have dealt with it a lot more efficiently... I'm not so clever on practical things like that. At least I didn't use a spoon.

[derek stitt]

Two words- fly tipping