Dear LPG,

My family have always lived in Lewisham and we bought our house about 35 years ago.  I do have to admit that I have spent a lot of that time collecting and acquiring all sorts of things.  

When we moved in, back in the early 1980s, I remember the children’s beds arriving, but we spent our first few nights sleeping on a mattress on the bedroom floor, because we had so little.  We both worked full time and over the years the not so little ones have grown up, studied, got married and now there are just two of us.  So we are both retired. 

But, even though the children have all ‘flown the nest’, their things remain.  I keep some because they represent important memories to me, and others because the not so young ones have promised to collect them, “really soon Mum.” since the turn of the century when they left.  My beloved other half is for ever sorting out his things, and not getting very far, and there is also the fact that we have acquired quite a lot of our parents’ belongings, as they have moved into sheltered accommodation.  I also admit that I forgot to mention my own collection of items, which I regularly begin to sort out.  My intention is always to get rid of the rubbish, but the problem is that my efforts to sort things out take so long because of all the memories that I associate with each item, that I usually feel so very unable to throw away!

I would not say that it is chaotically untidy but there are collections of things everywhere, in every room in our house and the cupboards are jam-packed.  I have serious problems when I am looking for things and there are little collections of things behind the sofa, beds and above the wardrobes.  I have tried sorting out but I am fighting a losing battle.

The result is that everywhere I look in our home there is STUFF, and the sad thing is that when I talk to my friends quite a few tell me that they have very similar problems.

Has LPG got any ideas?

AJ, Lewisham.