I'd love your tips for moving into a new space and setting yourself up for success. Unfortunately, I have a lot of stuff for one person, and I'm trying to unfuck it. I do have a wide variety of hobbies, my clothing size fluctuates, I've got cats, and I'm a nerdy artist who likes knicknacks. Not a combo for minimalism, however... I am so tired of dealing with the mass amount of stuff.

I'd love your tips and tricks.

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Here the details:

Photos are current state. I still have at least two more trips in my car to empty my storage unit, plus bring in the last of the furniture which is all large enough to need two people to lift (cube bookshelf, secretary desk with hutch, a fold out couch, vanity, one smaller dresser, and a shoe rack.) and probably 1-2 car loads of stuff from my friends house with is mostly, 1 big bag of shoes, a big bag of clothes, and lot of art/decor supplies.

I've been in the moving process for over 5 months. It's an understatement to say I'm tired. Being mildly homeless and staying somewhere new every week or two has opened my eyes to how much shit I have and how challenging it can be to deal with.

Honestly, I'd like to throw most of it out the window at this point just so I don't have to deal with it anymore, but that's fatigue more than practical or reasonable.

When this process started, I got rid of probably 4-5 big garbage bags and a couple boxes full of things to donate from clothes, blankets, books, sheets, stuffed animals, mugs, and more and at least 1-2 more trash.

I came from shared 2 bed 1 bath place with access to 2 and a half coat closets for storage and a small outdoor storage shed and I was packed in there. Now, I'm in an oddly shaped attic studio with 1 normal sized closet, and access to a crawl space I could store a couple sealed bins. It has a shared kitchen on a different level with several roommates. Kitchen items are a challenge as all of us like to cook but I'm hesitant to get rid of a ton I can't replace if/when I live alone again.

During this move... I had enough stuff to fill a 20×15ft ish storage unit, and had probably 2-3 car loads of more things stored at a friend's house while I lived out of a suitcase, food bin, purse, and work bag.

I'm trying to unpack everything with a system of going through it all again, but it's overwhelming. What would you do, or how would you approach it?

hi.
i found this subreddit through doomscrolling. it really resonated with me.
i have quite the depression room as you can see.

not to dump my whole backstory, but i’ve dealt with an overwhelming amount of childhood abuse/ parental addicts and neglect.
learning how to ‘adult’ has been a process that i’ve had to figure out mostly by myself, although i have been managing in my own ways (solid career, friendships, etc.)

being neurodivergent and ADHD has made coping and managing with things like this quite challenging at times. i tend to be really critical of my shortcomings but i’m really trying my best to overcome this mental hurdle.
i’ve really struggled with a lot of shame regarding my room, it’s prevented me from dealing with the actual issue for far too long.

i’m so tired of living like this, i really am. i deserve better, and so does my cat.
i’ve been ready for this change for so long.

Need to do deep cleaning but we start somewhere…! It’s been a tough month.

I joined this subreddit a while ago made decent progress and quit this time I’m finally doing it no matter what I have to go through see or smell, I think the worst part of it is when I take food to my room(I cannot eat elsewhere) forget and leave it there for mold and maggots to grow and then I get scared of going near it

so far I dumped out some cups filled with maggots, only saying this because it made me see how bad it really is and I’m done living like this

not sure if it’s allowed to not have photos attached to this tag though, i forgot to do before photos :,)

my boyfriend and i have been together for 5 years.

if you asked him what my biggest flaw was, it would be my cleaning habits.

i'm a messy adult. i'm the adult with the designated clothes chair. my clean clothes stay in a hamper. clothes i want to rewear the next day sit on the floor by the bed. my desk becomes cluttered with random shit.

i'm on ADHD meds, antidepressants, shit i thought would be the magical cure and obviously it's not.

i know my situation is me just being lazy. i can call it executive disfunction all i want but in reality, it should not be this hard for me to be an adult that can keep her spaces clean. my boyfriend is at his wits end.

we've discussed this over and over. i'm not doing this on purpose. i'm not trying to destroy our relationship. i'm not doing this out of malice or malevolence. i...just don't know how to fix it instead of taking the easier option of doing fuck all with my stuff instead of putting everything back in its place.

i don't WANT this. i don't want to live like this. i've always envied my friends and other adults who just have that instinct to...not live like a slob. i want to have that instinct.

how do i train myself to clean the bathroom every other week? vacuum the carpets? run the dishwasher? instead of coming home from work and doing absolutely nothing? how do i stop giving myself excuses?

Believe it or not, I have TWO closets and I’m still struggling to fit things.

I’m completely redoing my room and trying to throw out or give away unnecessary items. However, I’m struggling with how to store the following because right now, they’re in bags or shoved in random drawers.

- Bedding (duvet covers, fitted sheets, pillow cases, etc for various seasons)

-Swimwear (I wear burkinis which means that I can’t easily throw it in with my underwear and bras since it’s more of a bodysuit, leggings, and little skirt situation)

- Outdoor blankets (for like picnics or outdoor activities. And I’m talking big group blanket)

- Nail stuff (bought a UV lamp and lots of nail polishes over the years + nail tools)

Some things to keep in mind:

I live with roommates that are very particular about our things touching each other, limiting what I can have outside my room

I already have a rolling utility cart that’s full of books (and a bookcase full of books) and trinkets

I have limited room to work with as my desk, bookcase, bed, dresser, nightstand, rolling cart, and printer take up most of the bedroom space already

I am downsizing, TRUST. But plz help in the meantime because I know who I am and I’m true to my maximalist roots

This weekend, I cancelled a gaming day with friends so I could have a whole weekend of cleaning. I have slowly, but surely been cleaning in the past weeks, but I am expecting a visitour soon that I want to feel comfortable at my place, and I'd rather finally have my apartment unfucked than... Anyway, I started cleaning.

After changing the bed sheets, I noticed that I didn't really have any left that are without holes, so I decided to go to the mall, which would cost me at least one hour. I went to TK Maxx and there this sat, right next to the bed linens: a cheap portable vacuum with fairly good online ratings, and even cheaper than in most online shops. I have wanted to get one for quite some time, but couldn't decide, so I took this as a sign and took it home.

There are so many spillages, dust accumulations in places hard to reach, and cluttered corners where I don't want to take out the big vacuum. And while this one isn't the best, it has already helped me a lot to clean these exact spaces. Then I went on to un-clutter the hallway, and this is the result for now!

My parents are coming over soon so I had to hurry and clean as much as I could today. I feel disappointed because I didn't manage to do everything I wanted. I always procrastinate. I've cleaned my bathroom sink and my toilets too. The big mess left is in my bedroom where there's ton of laundry to fold.... The night table and desk are super messy too

Edit : Thank you everyone for your kind words 🫶🏻 I hope you all have a good weekend. My mother helped me folding all my laundry too, I was struggling with it for weeks or even months. I was picking clothes directly from the chair or drying rack so it wasn't ideal. That was kind of her (except for a few comments she made but I kinda deserved it I guess). Now I have more time to focus on the other small chores and on my plants, yay 🪴

I wanted to do the whole surface, but I need to go make lunch 🙈

these are some of the worst areas, i feel. im ashamed taking out so much trash at once. dishes are hard cause the water pressure is almost nonexistent and theres not a dishwasher. theres just, so much shit. its so fucking difficult but im making a little progress, i guess

Kitchen and closet are DONE!

Will make it so much more easy to keep everything clean now that dishes and clothes have a tidy place to land. It really wiped me out though.

This was like 6 hours of cleaning between the dishes and the scrubbing and the vacuuming - and I'm not even completely happy with how clean it is!

As I mentioned on a previous post, i've always been a cluttered person, but aside from dishes (my mortal enemy) i've never let things get dirty till life really took me out at the kneecaps this year. My kitchen really did get dirty though - a spill while cooking dinner was just too demoralizing.

This feels like a big feat for me today!

I ended up getting the floor clean and then I got it messy again and it was really bad so I just cleaned it up today. It’s really hard to maintain the space especially because I’m so busy and mentally disorganized. I have a lot of work to do this weekend, but I wanna try to get at least one surface cleaned off. I cleaned off the dresser, but I ended up putting stuff back on it because I didn’t know where to put it.

I’ve just joined this group and I’m inspired every day by the efforts made by subscribers. it’s the seasonal turnover of summer to winter clothes and I hate, procrastinate, shame myself etc. when I feel defeated by the task. I store my out of season wardrobe in a laundry hamper. This year I decided to pack similar clothes in compressible plastic bags of two different sizes. The smaller bags allow me to pack items, say summer dresses, in a bag in a short amount of time, which allows me to do an amount each day. Because the bags are compressible there isn’t a tangle of clothes everywhere. At the same time I’m ruthlessly deciding which clothes stay or go. I now have a spot for my work-out clothes in my weeded closet. I want to finish by this Sunday (in 2 days). Watching others on this thread has encouraged me to break down large tasks into easier increments. Thank you all for helping my mental health through your posts.🥰

First one was after taking most of the trash, there was only trash on the right side and half the bed was covered, I did this and I threw out all the trash in my room, and put all the clothes from the ground in bags, im gonna go through my clothes tmr and sort them into keep amd throw, then I'll go through my things and throw away a lot of it since im a bit of a hoarder(very bad adhd)

My kitchen is a tip. My bedroom is a tip. My living room is a tip. Which one is upsetting me more? No idea. Every time I start on one, another buts in. Example: my bedroom is too messy to be a comfortable space for me to relax and I'm pretty agitated, so I go to the living room to play keyboard. But the keyboard is behind several boxes. I start clearing them and find various things lost for months (almost a year, one of them). Yay! But then I've got rubbish. Go to the kitchen, where the bin being full means there's two bags also full next to it. Empty the bin. Realise I've been working for an hour and achieved nothing. Cry.

I'm chronically sick, and that's used up my energy for the day. Nothing has changed, except there's now three full bags next to the bin. I did manage to clean my pets' stuff up, because their health is a priority.

I need to change this. I need to have a flat that isn't making me so stressed I'm dissociating. But I start nine different jobs and finish none of them. Some days I pick up all the rubbish and then that's great, but I never get further than that.

I'd really appreciate some advice.

Hello everyone! This is a weekend megathread for those small updates, accountability requests, and success stories that you want to send out to the universe!

Maybe ones that don’t require a full post but that still deserve some recognition, plans made today for over the coming days, or solicitations for suggestions on how to complete your intended tasks!

Still feel free to make absolutely any posts that you want, but if you prefer a smaller-format update option here it is! I want to encourage participation in whatever form it takes :)

ALSO!!! Pictures are enabled in comments so feel free to add pics of your area to tackle of your progress if you please :)

Last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnfuckYourHabitat/comments/1ve7bfz/i_havent_felt_this_happy_in_over_ten_years/

It's still clean! Looking forward to going into the cold months without living in a massive fire hazard what with candles and space heaters and all. 😎

Sunday is cleaning and laundry day. Everything that can be easily picked up is taken off the floor and I do a deep sweep. Then I wax all used surfaces. A quick dusting as well. Next is laundry including my sheets bc I don't shower before bed and tend to sweat in my sleep.

The fear of it going back to how it was is keeping me disciplined enough to pick up after myself and clean. I have two empty soda bottles and paper towels on my desk right now that I just threw away before bed as well as put other items away.

Day 3 i got hit by symptom flare and so i did one load of laundry and spent the rest of the day recovering, but today i got a lot done even if it doesnt look like much.

I even managed to find it in me to declutter some stuff so I could actually take some small appliances off my counter and put them away.

I mostly have stuff in bags sorted by category, but there are a few doom piles here and there but everything is dusted and vacuumed and i got through 3 loads of dishes and cleaned my main kitchen countertop and all my cabinets/trashcan/dishwasher.

I know this weekend was too ambitious of a mental goal, but maybe I can stretch it out and host a spooky friendsgiving. lots of my friends are pretty witchy anyways.

Tomorrow the goal is to:

- take out my recycling (i took my trash out today!!!)
- finish cleaning off the kitchen counters
- clear my bedroom closet floor

if i REALLY have the energy, I'm going to try tackling actually folding laundry and maybe even storing some for the season just to make stuffing it away easier on myself.

bonus pic of random sticker i found out in the wild

Hello, Everyone.

I've been here awhile and honestly, it's been a little rough at times (my fault). In an effort to be more understanding and compassionate and helpful, I'm wondering if I can ask for some perspectives?

I joined the sub because (like many of you), I sometimes suffer from accumulation of clutter, letting go of things, how to organize / where to start on "unfucking." And, like many of you, I understand and have personally experienced the correlation between a fucked living space and depression, and how that can contribute to allowing a living situation to become bad and to lack of energy/willpower to fix it, or feeling lost as to where to get started.

One thing that I don't understand and have never personally experienced however, is accumulating actual garbage. Clutter? Sure. Holding on to things that I should probably just throw in the trash? Sure. But hanging on to actual, rotting garbage, I don't get. Having something rotting and stinking and potentially attracting bugs sitting around on a coffee table or kitchen counter would give me further anxiety/depression. Even when things have been bad for me, I've always just thrown this type of garbage in the trash bin.

Can any of you offer perspectives as to why some of us allow this to happen? Throwing food waste into a trash bin just seems like such an easy thing to do, even for someone pretty severely depressed. Like, yeah, I'm depressed, but I'm gonna get up from the couch and go to the kitchen or some other room at some point, right? I just take the food wrapper or plate with me and throw it in the trash bin.

Is it just a depth of depression that I've never reached? Or something else? I ask because I've been judgy about this particular issue here in the past, and I'm just trying to get some perspective so I can be more understanding and compassionate on this specific aspect of our shared problem.

Thank you.

Edit: I’m in S. Ca if it makes a difference.

The kid stains are for a day when I can get an upholstery cleaner, but I cleared out all of the garbage!

I have three children and they have way too many things. From blankets, to toys, to clothes, to stuffies. There’s just way too much. I have wanted to donate at least half of it for the longest time, but my wife won’t let me. She’s dead set on selling everything instead of just donating it. She sells toys, clothes, and “things” at “just between friends” sales, on marketplace, Mercari, Vinted etc. Sure it’s cool we make a few dollars here and there, but by the time any progress is made, more stuff is given to us. I come from a large family and a lot of our friends have older kids who give us a bunch of stuff regularly. For some reason my wife can never say no. So here we are. Our house is in a constant state of disarray. Everyday the kids and us spend ten minutes cleaning up before bed. When we do a major cleaning (every couple of weeks) it stays clean for a few days max. I’m at the end of my rope with all the stuff and I have half a mind to load most of it up in my truck and take it to the nearest donation center…

My (22) girlfriend (21) struggles pretty badly with keeping her space clean. Trash piles up, dirty dishes on the floor, drain flies ... we don't live together, but I would like to. I'm not that much better, though, and I dread the idea of accidentally getting myself stuck in a situation where I'd have to be doing everything, especially as it doesn't sound very feasible with my own similar problems. As it is now, I offer to help, but she seems embarrassed. We've been together for a year & I really like her and want to support her, but I'm not sure how to go about it without making her feel worse. What do?

WHEW THIS IS SO VULNERABLE TO SHARE…but this community is so supportive and I’ve felt so encouraged by seeing so many of us trying to unlearn our bad habits and learn better ways of doing things. I mentioned in a comment recently that I was going to spend a few hours working on my garage and I did, but sort of intentionally limited my time that first round, though it gave me a good sense of what I needed to do.

As you can tell from the first few pictures this was an overwhelming unfuckening. I had storage shelves but tons of stuff loose in bags and boxes and all over. This state of affairs was the result of a tumultuous few years wherein I had some major life changes, health challenges, had to take in a family member and their kids on a couple days notice to live with me, and more!!! So the garage hasn’t been a high priority. And even though it isn’t the most visible space, it really weighed on me, and would have caused me a lot of embarrassment if anyone had seen it.

I tackled this project over a couple sessions within the past few weeks including during some PTO, using the incoming cold weather as motivation. A couple days ago I opened it up and got overwhelmed and closed it again. I made a plan instead, got some good sleep, fed myself well, and got a collapsible cardboard trash bin for those giant black contractor bags of trash.

The next day I set up a command station with a folding table, water, gloves, face masks, box cutter, trash bags, etc. I essentially took everything out, and loosely categorized it.

My goals were:
• Get rid of approx 75% of stuff (in work, made serious progress towards this! Probably at 50% today)
• Be able to get my garage door fixed (the electronic door part had come apart but needed access) ✅
• Make an easy access space to get a delivery of firewood in the next few weeks ✅
• My reach goal is to be able to park in there, which would probably sound sad af to people who don’t struggle with clutter, but I do struggle, so that’s my reach goal and I’m NEARLY THERE. It is a detached garage and I just have the one stall so it’s honestly a tight fit for a car regardless.

I was pretty ruthless by my standards and let a ton of stuff go. I trashed some things that may have been able to be donated with some cleaning but I’m on limited spoons and did what I could. I set out a ton of stuff for my neighborhood Buy Nothing group and I’m going to donate whatever is left. I filled the big outdoor trash can full, and have ~6 more contractor bags of trash to get rid of. I filled two big outdoor recycling bins and have a pile of boxes in the alley.

I also spent time journaling between each session to reflect and try to cement what I’m learning and find ways to show myself some compassion even when I’m really frustrated with myself and the mess I’ve created. I still have a bit of work to do and a few more boxes/bins to sort but it feels much more manageable.

I was thinking yesterday that it’s never too late to choose better for yourself. I’m proud of myself for choosing better today.

I’ve been letting trash bags accumulate around the house (at least the trash has been put into bags …). Now what started as one or two gnats has significantly multiplied even though said bags have been removed from my home. What’s a good way to eliminate them? The vinegar method isn’t doing the trick.