DON'T GO IN THE BASEMENT!

About a year ago, my husband and I decided it might be time to downsize. We have a too-big house on a too-big lot, and making our way to the second-floor bedroom had begun to feel a bit like climbing Masada, but without the spiritual payoff.

 

We consulted a local realtor who told us that Step 1 of Getting the House Ready to Sell is "decluttering." Now, "decluttering" is a very misleading term. It sounds like something a cheerful, plump woman in a gingham housedress might do in her country kitchen over the course of a few hours. It is not.

 

Take our basement, for example. We told ourselves we'd handle it on "the next rainy weekend." Remembering that moment now, I would just like to say "AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!" and indulge in some bitter weeping.

 

You see, we didn't realize until we actually got started that, for decades, we had suffered from CHD—Compulsive Hoarding Disorder. (And yes, that's a thing. It's actually mainly my husband's thing, but he says I'm making too much fun of him in these posts so I'll pretend it's me, too.) We also have the misfortune to live in a large house with a great deal of storage. 

That is a very bad combination. It allows us to keep items based on the following Misguided Beliefs:

• We might need these some day. (We won't. Ever.)

• Our kids will get a kick ouf of these when they're older. (They will not.)

• These will be great to bring to class reunions! (No, because we'll have forgotten where we stored them.)

• We can pass these on to the grandkids. (We won't, because they will have become breeding grounds for the plague, to be disposed of by experts wearing hazmat suits.)

• These are going to be worth a lot of money. (See below.)

 

(The last item refers to thousands of lovingly preserved comic books, Happy Meal toys, and vintage games that my husband has stored in the basement for years. He might very well be might be right about their value. But it's clear he will never sell them. No, eventually they will be moved to a storage shed, and then they will be left to our sons, and then our sons will leave them to their own children. 

Finally, the by-then abandoned storage shed will be featured on "Storage Wars," where the lucky buyer of the unit will gleefully announce that he paid $100 for collectibles that he'll be able to sell for 50 bazillion dollars. And somewhere, in the Great Hereafter, I'll be pummeling my husband and screaming "Dammit, we could have had a home in the Hamptons!")

 

Anyhow, our initial survey of the basement revealed 

• the aforementioned collectibles
• a tower of paint cans in disturbing colors that match nothing presently in our house 
• stacks of ancient slide carousels containing vacation pictures of people we do not know
• columns of warped LPs; 
• boxes of plugs, cords, and remotes that fit no known equipment
• cartons of craft supplies used when we were doing the boys' school projects for them 
• a fleet of Pinewood Derby racers
• an infinite number of boxes with unsorted, unlabeled photographs
• huge containers of unusable holiday decorations and wrapping paper 
• several dozen mystery boxes that had not been opened since we moved in twenty-some years earlier.

 

And that was just the beginning.  You see, I haven't yet described the decision-making part—the what-we'll-keep-and-what-we'll-toss stage. That's the next blog. And it will reveal why it's a miracle my husband and I are still married.