Neatnik or Clutterbug?

Slob. Except for my kitchen. I can't cope with messes when I'm cooking.

Neatnik, definitely. I look for stuff to get rid of (except books). I hate clutter and hoarding, and keep everything in its place.

scarletpeaches said:

Neatnik, definitely. I look for stuff to get rid of (except books). I hate clutter and hoarding, and keep everything in its place.

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Stay out of my kitchen!

Haggis said:

Stay out of my kitchen!

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At least until I get an anti-rabies shot?

Organized mess? Things can look pretty messy, but for the most part I know where everything is.

I seriously need to get rid of some things. Baby things. It makes sad to get rid of baby things.

scarletpeaches said:

Neatnik, definitely. I look for stuff to get rid of (except books). I hate clutter and hoarding, and keep everything in its place.

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This is me for sure. And my husband is the opposite. I randomly gt a bug up my butt and go through the house collecting things to throw away or donate and he will go behind me picking things out of my piles that he wants to keep. It drives me insane. But at the same time, it drives him nuts that I'm always getting rid of perfectly good stuff.

I also have a collection of books that I'm a bit obsessive about. There are about 700 and they are arranged alphabetically by genre, then author, then title. At one time I actually had a master list of the books I owned, but that was to keep track of what I had/needed when I was collecting my favorite authors. Now I have all of the books they've written and just get the new ones when they come out.

FabricatedParadise said:

This is me for sure. And my husband is the opposite. I randomly gt a bug up my butt and go through the house collecting things to throw away or donate and he will go behind me picking things out of my piles that he wants to keep. It drives me insane. But at the same time, it drives him nuts that I'm always getting rid of perfectly good stuff.

I also have a collection of books that I'm a bit obsessive about. There are about 700 and they are arranged alphabetically by genre, then author, then title. At one time I actually had a master list of the books I owned, but that was to keep track of what I had/needed when I was collecting my favorite authors. Now I have all of the books they've written and just get the new ones when they come out.

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I THINK YOU ARE ME.

Well, I have 250 more books, but...

And I have no-one to stop me when I get that 'bug up my butt' to throw shit out.

Everything's clean but I have far too much and it all takes too much space.

Until a year ago, it was option #3. But, now that the house is on the market and I am actively trying to move far, far away, I've gotten rid of most of my crap unnecessary possessions and plan to get rid of most of the rest once the house sells. It's been a really liberating feeling! I've only missed one or two things, all of which I got along fine without.

And yes, I have taken about 1.5 pickup truck loads of books to the library or the recycler (for the ones clearly of no use, like gas chromatography books from the late 1960s). I now donate books as soon as I am done with them.

scarletpeaches said:

At least until I get an anti-rabies shot?

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you can just call it a "rabies shot" if you want.

scarletpeaches said:

I THINK YOU ARE ME.

Well, I have 250 more books, but...

And I have no-one to stop me when I get that 'bug up my butt' to throw shit out.

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I usually do my throwing away while my husband is deployed or stationed elsewhere

I refer to myself as a material purger.

Yup. It is purging. A friend of mine said I was brave or strong for getting rid of mementos and 'clutter'. I said I'm not strong; I have to or I end up brooding over things. I get shot of anything that reminds me of people who are no longer in my life, and when it comes to personal belongings (clothes and the like), I don't think twice about binning what doesn't serve me any more.

Our house is clean, but it has more clutter than it should. The best thing to happen to us this year is that Mr. Grr discovered the TV show Hoarders. He watches it a lot, and every time he watches it, he cleans out a closet or a corner of the basement. I love it. We have gotten rid of so much stuff that I've been begging to get rid of. He certainly isn't a hoarder, but he's a bit of a packrat, while I'm much more likely to just cut things loose if they don't fit anymore or we don't use it or don't need it. We don't just toss things if we can help it; we donate what we can, but it has to get out of the house.

fact: regardless of size we fill the space we occupy
with stuff.

cray said:

fact: regardless of size we fill the space we occupy
with stuff.

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Not me. I'm a minimalist. What I have is in complete disarray, but I strive to to keep my house free of clutter or nick-naks. I have only items with a specific useful purpose and leave them laying all over the place.

I am a packrat to the bone.

Organized packrat. But my definition of organized doesn't appear organized to neatniks. At all! Clutter doesn't bother me, I'm afraid. Except in certain rooms/areas, if anyone can relate to that.

I'm a little strange when it comes to clutter. Any space having the misfortune to contain me for any extended period of time will invariably turn into a bombsite, but I can't STAND other people's messes. Every so often, I'll get a flash of how hypocritical this is, and I'll end up going on a days-long cleaning spree in which I become utterly heartless to my carefully strewn belongings and fill trash bags with the resultant purge. Elsewhere, far away from public scrutiny, I will lock away boxes of things I don't use. By the end of these purges, I've pretty much committed myself to a month-long period of pristine neatness ... but then it degenerates. It's a cyclical thing.

The only constant thing in all this is the books. They will never be neat or stacked or aligned. They're everywhere, in a million piles, with their dust jackets at indeterminate locations.

jeez, i'm weird. (and so long-winded...) why can't i just be 'neat' or 'messy'?!

Well, I voted 2, but I don't view it as a mess. I find things much better in my "mess" than when my wife puts everything "away" but doesn't inform me where that might be.

I'm also a packrat and have some of my stuff meticulously labeled. Mostly though its in piles. Some people have a filing system, I have a piling system.

*facepalms self for horrible joke*

organized chaos!

Certain things get organized, others do not, and I figure out which is which after it's set a spell. Every three or four weeks I clean everything up--file, box, or trash it. So most of the time it's a mess.

I selected: My affairs are in order and my bed is made, because I'm not having any affairs, and my bed is made - neither of which accurately explain this house.

It is organized, but my problem is that every time I go to put things where they belong... I come up with a new way to organize them. Now if I had a way to organize 'ways to organize' I might just find things. =)