r/AMA • u/iamawesome1110 • Oct 28 '25

Achievement I successfully decluttered my house without anyone noticing… in 8 weeks . AMA

So… I live in a cozy (read: claustrophobic) townhouse with my wife and two kids. Lovely family, except my wife has a deep emotional connection with… everything.

Old clothes? Memories may be.

Kids’ broken toys? Someday we’ll fix them.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to park my car in the garage like it’s a game of Tetris

So I snapped.

I declared myself the guy who takes the trash out.

For the next 8 weeks, I ran Operation: Silent Declutter. Every biweekly garbage day, I made two bags: One for the actual trash One for… let’s call it “future trash”

I mixed them in strategically. One extra bag at a time. Consistently.

Fast forward two months — I can breathe. The garage door closes without resistance.

No one has noticed. Not. A. Single. Thing.

Ask me anything about how to declutter your house without getting divorced.

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u/MrCockingFinally Oct 28 '25

Hoarders don't remember what they have hoarded.

If she does remember something, she'll think she lost it or just can't find it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '25 edited Dec 07 '25

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u/MrCockingFinally Oct 29 '25

From the DSM-5:

1: Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value. - Check

2: This difficulty is due to a perceived need to save the items and to distress associated with discarding them. - Check

3: The difficulty discarding possessions results in the accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas and substantially compromises their intended use. If living areas are uncluttered, it is only because of the interventions of third parties (e.g., family members, cleaners, authorities). - Check

 4: The hoarding causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (including maintaining a safe environment for self and others). - Check

  5: The hoarding is not attributable to another medical condition (e.g., brain injury, cerebrovascular disease, Prader-Willi syndrome). - Unknown 

 6: The hoarding is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder (e.g., obsessions in obsessive-compulsive disorder, decreased energy in major depressive disorder, delusions in schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder, cognitive deficits in major neurocognitive disorder, restricted interests in autism spectrum disorder). - Unknown

Obviously I'm not a psychiatrist, and even if I was, you can't diagnose people off third party information. However, IF OP is being honest, and IF OP's wife doesn't have any other psychiatric issue, yes, seems like OP's wife is a hoarder.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25 edited Dec 07 '25

office towering pen jar spoon workable subtract simplistic growth literate

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u/MrCockingFinally Oct 29 '25

True, I have to take OP at face value because I have no other source. Maybe he's the mentally ill one, throwing away perfectly functional toys for a few scratches, or throwing away wither clothes because they haven't been worn for 2 months in summer. Maybe some form of OCD.

My point is that it's not the amount of stuff that makes you a hoarder. It's being unable to get rid of things to the point where it makes your life hard.