Throw away society

[mgread1200 141]

While thinking about my trainspotting days I remembered going to Derby works open day, this would be very late fifties or bang on 60. One of the things I did was simply buy a cup of tea, thing was it came in a plastic cup which I had never seen before. When I had finished my drink I took the cup back and was amazed when told to put it in the bin. I know it sounds daft but I took half a dozen home to me mam, she laughted as well, but I can honestly say that was the first time I experienced the begining of the throw away society. How about you guys! even the early vending machines were bottles not cans.

[Compo 10,328]

I used to collect bottles for the deposit! I still find the odd screw top pop and beer bottles in newly cleaned-out roadside ditches. They are great for my home brewing :o)

In 1988 I was driving behind a police car when all of a sudden out came an empty chip bag from the police car window! Now that's literally 'Throw away' society.

[Ashley 288]

Better that than becoming an "Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder"I Anyone see the programme on the box the other night? Jeez, never seen anything like that! if you didn't see it this bloke's bungalow was full of junk, mainly newspapers, and I mean full, like in parts 18" to tops of door frames, in other parts "tunnels" through it! garden was the same. There was a chap on St Ann's (new bit) heading that way, every room 2 to 3 ft deep with "paths" between it all, Interesting that both were well educated etc? (St Ann's one an ex primary school head teacher)

[Compo 10,328]

The better half is a Mental Health Officer and has had to deal with a number of such cases.

[Beefsteak 305]

It don't make you mental to not want to throw stuff away (Just come and have a look in my loft and outhouses !!) and I get 'ruthless' every now and again and make a couple of trips to the tip !!

[Compo 10,328]

And therein lies the difference - you recognise the problem and clear it every now and then. Hoarders do not recognise the problem.

[Beefsteak 305]

Forgot to mention the plastic cups ! My dad used to collect them from work and use them as 'planters' in his green house !

[Compo 10,328]

Hey! I do that too.

[Beefsteak 305]

Just put the old vacuum cleaner and kettle (As we had new ones at Christmas) in the loft "For emergencies" ....LOL

[mgread1200 141]

I think the main one is food packageing which I refuse to recycle, anything left out that smells of food just gets strewn all over the back garden by animals. As for other consumer goods, if you dont subscribe to sling it and buy a new one then you are usualy labled a "Scratarse" not a hoarder.

[Braddy 160]

I do the same, just in case. And i keep the boxes that they come in for weeks just in case

[Scriv 168]

Forgot to mention the plastic cups ! My dad used to collect them from work and use them as 'planters' in his green house !

Still got some cardboard cups printed with the Hoveringham Gravels logo; my old man bagged stacks of them when Tarmac took the company over, used them for planting kidney beans in!

[Compo 10,328]

Scratarse! I haven't heard that term for many years. My grandmother used to call one of her friends in East Leake "Scratty Taylor" because she was very thrifty. I recall going to the house in the 1950s and she had a paraffin lamp - just the one - sitting on the living room table; no electricity. Cooking ISTR was by fireside range.

[susyshoes 69]

im thrifty in as much as i dont leave lights on etc etc and never have more than 2 tins of the same thing in the cupboard at the same time, but i dont save anything -. sometimes to my detriment. even when my kids were little and they painted me pictures, they went on the fridge for a few days then disappeared in the bin at first opportunity. my other arf is a saver - it causes a few rucks!!

[mick2me 3,033]

I have visited some houses in my time.

Some memorable ones were the man who hoarded flat top milk bottles.

He had a room full of then neatly covering the whole floor, each one full to the top

with urine.

Or the man whose toilet became blocked and he continued to use it till there was

a pointed pile in it, when he could no longer reach to use it he continued on each side.

I did visit a house that was similar to the one in the program. Each room stacked to the ceiling

with just a narrow path through that you had to squeeze through sideways. Much of the stuff was

as it had been delivered over the years, washing machines still shrink wrapped in plastic and polysterene.

[Compo 10,328]

I am opposite to Susyshes in that I always have masses of tins of beans and tomatoes in the cupboard. I buy loads when on offer and save money this way. I have 20 litres of diesel in the shed that i bought for 96p/l a couple of years ago. It's now worth £1.49.9/l at local rates so I'm quids in. If I save it for a few more years it should pay for a holiday abroad!

[Compo 10,328]

I have to go into the loft this weekend and remove several "Just-in-case" vacuum cleaners to make way for a "Just-in-case" settee to make way in turn for a new one in the living room. Of the vacs in the loft I think the only one that is worth saving is the 1960s Hoover Constellation. I also have some 1960s Motor Cycle News magazines and some old Railway mags. I know there are a pair of Wharfedale Speakers, one with a burst bass cone, that I always intended to repair (I now have the spare speaker but it is in a pair that are still working). The best item up there is the original office desk from the railway company. Problem is that it is so long I cannot use it downstairs - it take up an entire wall length. Oh, I must do something with the paper guillotine too. Oh, and the Betamax video recorder and video tapes and the full length mirror and the surplus brew barrels. I must go through the box of singles and albums whilst I'm at it. If the old chiming clock is still ok I think I will bring that out and see if I can get a new mainspring for it. I hope the fishing tackle is still in working order. Crikey I'm a hoarder!

[susyshoes 69]

Ebay!!! lol

[Compo 10,328]

Ebay?! No way! I love my junk. <g>

[.... 23]

Reading through the excessive hoarding stories with interest here. Around 25 years ago i lived in a house in Arnold and across the road lived a chap in his sixties who'd I'd see emerging out of his house in the morning to work in a factory in Arnold and home again in the evening. Later on every evening he would pop out of his door to go for a drink in the clubs in Arnold, always very dapper, smartly suited, collar and tie like so many guys of that age used to be.

I came home from work early one afternoon to find two council trucks parked outside his home. He'd apparently been evicted. Asking the council workman what was going on he painted a story very similar to one or two on here. The Gedling Borough Council lads had been through his semi-detached and emptied it out. They told a tale of every room being chest high in rubbish, there was just one corner of the living room where he lived and a trail to get through to it. The stairways were piled high with junk mail with just a thin path through. What was even more surprising was that the house had not had any running water for a long period of time. According to a neighbour, the chap would apparently buy new clothes, shirts, underwear etc and wear them until they were filthy then dispose of them. That accounted for his apparent smartness (from a distance at least) as he had no means of keeping himself clean or doing any washing in the house. Another surprising factor was that he had also been a pools winner a few years ago. He's had the back garden landscaped amongst other things but had presided over this hovel for several years.

He never once spoke to or acknowledged me in the year or so I lived opposite. A strange, sad and somewhat reclusive man in some respects, but one who would go out and enjoy the social clubs in Arnold every single night. Few must have ever known the strange double life he led.

[Compo 10,328]

Did he have a Honda 50 or 90 scooterette by any chance?

[.... 23]

Not that I remember Compo. He lived on a road just off Coppice Road and worked in a factory barely 3-4 minutes walk away. Similar in the evening, He'd just take the short walk to the watering holes in Arnold but a few minutes away on foot.

[mick2me 3,033]

In D*rby there used to be a man called 'Black Bob' always dirty and unkempt. Rode a very small childs bike always hung with carrier bags full of rubbish he collected and took home. I did have occasion to visit his mid terraced house once. It had no floors inner doors or woodwork at all. He burned everything in the grate in the living room which was in effect the whole house. There was no ground floor just a mound of earth about four foot high in the middle, which you had to walk up and over to cross the room.

The exterior was a hotch potch of window frames that he aquired. and the back garden had a seperate outside loo on the roof of which were mounds of mixed morter and grass sods. His 'concrete experiments'

Quite normal if you ask me

[Compo 10,328]

I know where you mean Stu. I had a girlfriend who worked there. It is not the person I was thinking of - he lived on Redhill Road in the 60s.

[Compo 10,328]

Mick2me: I once had tenants like that in my house in Lancashire. They left after six months having paid no rent whatsoever except the initial deposit and took all the interior doors, carpets (all but the one covered in dog sh*t), radiators, pipework and boiler. The boiler was bolted through the back wall so they took a sledge hammer and smashed it out. When asked if he saw anything as a witness, the next door neighbour said he thought I had builders in doing some work!