Admit to "your INSANITY"...we will not Laugh (maybe little giggle).

[Sourdough]

I save containers....."WOW" but do I save containers. Example: Hundreds of two quart containers from "Vanilla Flavored Creamer". Yes, I do sometimes use them, cut them in half and have a "quickie" disposable funnel, plus the bottom half is a "free" seed starter container, or spent cartridge open box. But I have accepted, that at my age, there is a finite quantity of containers I'll ever need for SHTF survival. So it is time to own fewer Vanilla Creamer containers. Then there is empty sour cream or yogurt containers, liquid soap containers, etc..

 

[SouthCentralUS]

My name is SouthCentralUS and I am a canning jar aholic. I took them out of all the nooks and crannies of the house, put them in the attic and lost count at 2000. There are still about 500 empties in the garage and and about 500 with food in them. Just cant pass them up.

 

[Cascadian]

I like gloves and flashlights. When people talk about their fancy guns I tell them I have $2000 in flashlights.

 

[Amish Heart]

I like birds of all kinds. I never say no to fowl. Chickens, turkeys, now guineas...there's always babies in the house (4 big brooders full at the moment), always some eggs in the incubator, and always some juniors somewhere in cages. I give away more eggs than we keep, even give chicks to anyone that wants them.
I also like food storage. We wouldn't need to go to the store for a long time, but I like to go once a week anyway. Why? I always look for more food storage. I like it organized like a store. I don't want to need anything.

 

[dademoss]

My name is Dave, and I am a "Boxaholic". If not for the 12 box program, I would be inundated with cardboard boxes.

Maybe after the boxes, I can deal with my book addiction. Nah, too far gone

 

[Amish Heart]

I know a boxaholic. They drive me nuts. Sorry. Husband is a borderline boxaholic, but I don't say much about it because he puts up with all the birds.

 

[Tootsie]

Ammo. Grandma likes ammo.
Actually, books are my weakness. Several thousand all fairly organized.

 

[Caribou]

Ammo? If you think you have too much ammo, are you an ammoaholic, or are you out of touch with how much ammo you really need?

 

[Tootsie]

Ammo? If you think you have too much ammo, are you an ammoaholic, or are you out of touch with how much ammo you really need?

Yes.

 

[dademoss]

Yes.

I use boxes of ammo for bookends . Rats, it's that box thing

 

[hashbrown]

It's socks.... I never throw socks away I hord socks I have trash bags of socks. I think its because my mom darned up my socks when I was a kid and you always have a big knot in your shoe when they are sewed up. I have a sock problem. I won't feel like I have made it until I have a new pair of socks everyday.

 

[LadyLocust]

Clothes pins - old ones and the bags they were kept in. Love them. Oh and whisk brooms- no idea why. Otherwise reasonably practical.
Sorry @dademoss you might twitch reading this, but boxes drive me crazy. That’s one of the things I try to keep away

 

[Morgan101]

Why are we limiting this to one item. We are all borderline hoarders.

Cascadian: I share your passion for flashlights.

Sourdough: I also stock containers. I use empty soda bottles to store water. Actually came in handy as we just had a 48 hour boil notice. I also keep old medicine bottles. I have made some nice Firestarter kits with those. If you are trying to hide something in plain sight a box of handgun ammo will fit nicely in an Aspirin bottle.

I lost track or stopped counting the number of knives I had during the Regan administration, and that doesn't mean I stopped getting new ones. I just stopped counting.

Same with backpacks, and I just found out that 511 opened a store close to me. OMG!! They have a wall dedicated to backpacks and pouches. This is going to cost me a lot of money.

What else do we hoard?

 

[Grizzleyette___Adams]

I am sooo complex (haha): I am infatuated with

1) containers
2) boxes (see #1)
3) books (99% of them are educational...I don't have time for fictional stuff)
4) seeds! Lots and lots of every kind, medicinal and edible.

We are not alone! There are lots of memes Out There that go along with this sentiment (click on the thumbnail below):

https://imgflip.com/i/40cj0r

 

[backlash]

Knives, tools, and flashlights are my addiction. I just ordered a new Olight Warrior X Turbo. It has an amazingly bright long-range beam.
Containers of all types are always good to have. A person can't have too many Folgers Coffee containers full of nuts, bolts, screws, and washers. It's sometimes faster to drive to the hardware store than it is to search through all of them for just the right thing.
Here's a hint, when looking through a can just dump it all out on a towel. Then when you finally give up looking you can use the towel to dump everything back into the can.

 

[dademoss]

Knives, tools, and flashlights are my addiction. I just ordered a new Olight Warrior X Turbo. It has an amazingly bright long-range beam.
Containers of all types are always good to have. A person can't have too many Folgers Coffee containers full of nuts, bolts, screws, and washers. It's sometimes faster to drive to the hardware store than it is to search through all of them for just the right thing.
Here's a hint, when looking through a can just dump it all out on a towel. Then when you finally give up looking you can use the towel to dump everything back into the can.

I usually drive to the hardware store, buy what I need and dump the leftovers into one of the cans marked "MISC hardware"

A towel? Barbarian . My misc hardware gets dumped into a special "?funnel tray?"

 

[Weedygarden]

My name is SouthCentralUS and I am a canning jar aholic. I took them out of all the nooks and crannies of the house, put them in the attic and lost count at 2000. There are still about 500 empties in the garage and and about 500 with food in them. Just cant pass them up.

I just want to say hello, SouthCentralUS. We do not see you here very often, but you have been with some of us since PS. I hope you are well!

 

[snappy1]

I have several, first of which is old cookbooks, canning books and printed recipes. If the internet went down for good, I will still be able to eat well!

I am a canning jar aholic.

Me too!

I don't want to need anything.

Me either!

 

[Amish Heart]

OK, I'm a guilty hoarder of old cookbooks, too. And books in general, but lots of cookbooks.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I am speaking in the collective, we collect stuff.. Cloth, canning supplies, food storage, camping equipment, specialty gear, knives, axes, saws, drills, tools, tool boxes and the list goes on forever.... I forgot seeds and gardening supplies..... Yep, we collect stuff.

And books, the library comes to us to borrow books... anything instructive, cooking, sewing, automotive repair, home repair, electronics and general education stuff.

Someone once told the wife that I was a little extreme, she replied,"You obviously don't know him, he was never a little anything"

 

[Rebecca]

I'm not sure I can pin point just one or two things I have too much of...if that is even a thing. But certainly included would be:

Canning jars, lids and rings. If I see them I buy them.
Seeds, I save seeds, buy seeds. Just more seeds.
Winter clothing particularly wool socks and thermal underwear. I have a huge amount of winter stuff. Paranoid about running out.
Fire lighting stuff...matches, lighters, cotton balls, cotton pads, petroleum jelly, flints, ...you name it I probably have too much of it.

 

[winds-of-change]

Yarn. Fabric for rag rugs. Wool for needle felting and wet felting. Pretty much anything crafty.

 

[Cascadian]

I almost said knives but then thought of OSU here. I am fine.

 

[joel]

I have non electric hand tools, 100 pairs of leather gloves. Lighter, matches, fire starters, 300 candles, 3 oil lamps, 2 gallons of oil, 10 flash lights, 3 propane stove. 20 or so cheap SS knives, A few hand crafted knives & many kinds of cutting tools. Rope, chains, tie downs & 550 cord. I will never use this stuff, my son may, if he does not sale it when I die. But the big thing is books, all kinds of books, most on plants, but same on tech stuff, history, cook books too.

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

Pretty much all of the above except flashlights; I can see in the dark fairly well and flashlights are too bright and tend to blind me.

Add pianos to the list. I have three. They are too big to have more. I want a baby grand and it sucks that I don't get to have one. None of that electric crap either.

 

[Woody]

Don’t know if it was actually a hoarding thing or not. Is having a barn full of particular items considered hording? If so, I would be guilty of hoarding broken old wooden furniture from the curb on trash day.

Old broken chest of drawers? Into the truck it went. Wooden chair with missing back slat or busted leg? Into the truck. 20 coats of paint on that old dresser? Into the truck it went. Pile of random old boards? Into the truck they went. Spring “Trash day” was my love. I would drive around all day and night until the trash trucks had them all taken care of.

But! If any of my buddies was repairing an old piece of furniture, they knew right where to go to try and find a match for a missing piece. Hey Woodrow! Need a piece for a chest of drawers, quarter sawn Oak, 3/8”. How about a Poplar drawer bottom? Out to the barn! It would take some digging, but we could find a suitable match after using a pocket knife to scrape off 20 coats of paint on a few. Patena not quite right on that one? Keep looking, it is in there somewhere!

Hardware also. I would get access to any old house before it was demolished. Usually a week’s notice. I would go and strip all the doorknobs, locksets, hinges, window hardware, kitchen hardware… Anything old and metal, I would remove and throw in boxes. Hey! That is what all those boxes are for! LOL Anyone had to repair one of those old inset locksets, I likely had that one of a kind spring in one of the boxes out there, you just had to spend time poking through them.

If there was time, I would grab woodwork also. Those 1800’s Victorians, even though many had been remodeled many times, held a wealth of beautiful woodwork. I had found green slate fireplaces plastered over, marble fireplaces, pocket doors, tons of beautiful floor tiles covered over… A few staircases also. They took some time to dismantle and many times just use the sawsall to grab Newal posts, spindles, handrails… Moldings also. One duplex had Chestnut trim everywhere with Cherry flooring. Had so many coats of paint you would never have know if you did not take a pocket knife to them. All pulled out, de-nailed, trucked and stacked in the barn.

HRm… Yeah, I guess that sounds a bit like hording HaHA!!!

Sad part to the story though. I was injured so had to sell the old farmstead. I sent word everything was for sale.. CHEAP, as in really cheap – Come and take what you want as I can’t take it with me! All that work of “Hording” likely got tossed in a burn pile by the new owners.

 

[SouthCentralUS]

I just want to say hello, SouthCentralUS. We do not see you here very often, but you have been with some of us since PS. I hope you are well!

Thanks. I read here a lot but don't have much to contribute.

 

[Alaskajohn]

When we bought our old Alaskan homestead, we were amazed at what previous owners had allowed to be left around the property. Such unsightly clutter. Some we immediately deemed useful, such as all the old tools and almost a hardwares store full of bolts, wire, pipes, etc and we certainly kept them. Other items like wood, those that were in good shape and not cut into smaller pieces we saved, but the “scrap” we burned. Then there was stuff we deemed litter as it was an eyesore as it laid out in the open. Again, if we thought it was useful and we had a place to store it we did, but we still hauled off several trailers full of stuff to the dump of burned it. After a full year of clean up, the old homestead looked presentable and very neat.

Seven years later, guess what? We are saving almost everything. If it’s metal, perhaps we can repurpose and use it for something. Scrap lumber? That stuff is like gold! Left over chicken wire? You bet your life we are saving that! Our place is back looking like a proper old homestead with all sorts of useful stuff strategically placed around the property. You can call me a hoarder!

 

[Tootsie]

I almost said knives but then thought of OSU here. I am fine.

Cascadian,you are right.
Buttons. Grandma likes buttons.

 

[Spikedriver]

I think the people here are not so much "hoarders" as followers of the "waste not, want not" philosophy.

I have a few things I might need someday, just lying around...