Why do old people accumulate "stuff"?

So you'd rather just fill up the landfills with useful stuff?

You talk about an eco nightmare!!

About 10 years ago when we moved my grandfather into a retirement home, I helped clean his house out. Man, what a ton of stuff. He would've been about 78 or 80 at the time too, that Depression mentality again.

For him, it was lawnmowers and parts. Don't ask, because I don't know. Parts EVERYWHERE in this little shed he had out back, not to mention about 6 pushmowers and 2 riding mowers. His front and back yard were both about as big as three standard parking spaces. Guess he was with lawnmowers how I am with cars.

Then we filled a dumpster with stuff from the house. And then half-filled it again after the company came and emptied it for us.

Settle down guys.

I'm not saying anything bad about folks who were influenced by the Depression, etc.

I'm just saying that lots of people save stuff. Some are old.

There is one thing to be said about hoarding. If the economy ever does collapse and we revert to bartering, all of that extra crap turns into money. Even now, when I need money for something, I sell some junk on eBay.

When I clean out, I either take it down to the Goodwill or post up stuff on Freecycle. I don't like filling the landfill.

My dad wasn't into hoarding but he also believed in getting every bit out of something. He told me about my grandfather (who I never met, died of lung cancer before I was born) and how for a while he was a mechanic at a Buick dealership. The part of the story that's pretty cool: he said Gramps would, at the end of the day, go into the locker room and take a shower, scrub up real nice and wear a white suit home.

They did move around a good bit looking for work, that's just the way things were then. Gramps was from South Carolina originally but during the job search they lived in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and finally back to South Carolina all by the time my dad was 12 years old and they never wasted anything.

OTOH my grandmother on my dad's side was a hoarder. It took us FOREVER to clean out her house after she died.

For some people, I've heard someplace, things equal memories. If you have it on hand, you can recall the events around it.

minimac's dad sounds like me...except I don't let stuff go unused so much. I use all my stuff.

Now my grandmother on my mom's side is a hoarder. Just anything no matter how useless. She's made big smooth metal balls from compressed cigarette wrappers. Looks pretty cool but...it's junk.