Dear LPG,

I am now in my mid-seventies and I just know that I have to think about an age old problem (or perhaps you can call it an old age problem) which is not peculiar to me, and that I know affects younger people too.

I was reading your post which was dated 12^th December 2017 and entitled ‘Stuff!’, which proves my point really.  AJ sounds just like me.  I remember reading it back then, and promising myself that I would write this warning in case anyone decided to do what I did about it, but it is now 2019 and it has taken me two years to put my warning down on paper.

I think that I knew that I had a real problem because when I took a look behind the furniture I realised that the view of all my skirting boards, in all the rooms of my house, was seriously obscured by little things, and little boxes of things, that I  had hidden there.  In fact this was the factor that I used as my ‘acid test’ in the February of 2011 when I made up my mind that something had to be done. 

I decided to put some of it into storage and started by looking at what the storage companies had to offer, but in the end I rented a garage and stored it there.  It is quite a big space but I managed to fill it quite quickly and it felt good to be able to see so much more of where the floor and the bottom of the walls meet in my rooms at home. 

I had decided that I would do what they do on that television programme where someone sorts and prices the stuff up and it gets sorted out and reduced.  I was going to visit for a systematic sort out once a fortnight that summer but, very quickly, other things took up my time and although I made visits to put more stuff in from time to time, the actual sorting out part of the process sort of got forgotten. 

Now, eight years later I have done a little maths.  I have paid about £30.00 per month rent for the garage and all my important, intrinsic, bits and bobs are still there; so my house is tidier but I have still got a lot of sorting to do and it has cost me about £6000 to have my home tidy again, and the problem may be out of sight, but I still so need to deal with it. 

When I think of all the money I have spent on it over the years, I find myself toying with the idea of just getting a company to clear it, but I find that a painful thought too.  So I just want to say that storing it is not the answer and will end up being very expensive.

PB, Forest Hill