14 Ways You Know You’ve Got Too Much Stuff

One man’s clutter is another man’s treasure. We’ve all got stuff we hold on to for less than sensible reasons, but some of us just take it that little bit too far. To mark the Radio 4 series, Objects of Desire, a programme which explores our relationship to our possessions, we thought we would put together a list of how you can tell if you’re heading into the kingdom of clutter.

1) You have a drawer full of keys that open nothing, some string and the head of a watering can that cracked in the late eighties. If anyone approaches it you shout at them.

The fate of the object has been claimed by no-one.

Jean Baudrillard (Philosopher)

2) You take three bags to the tip and come back with four.

3) Time Team have expressed an interest in excavating your bathroom cabinet.

4) Bag-ladies tell you you really need to start letting go.

5) You’ve still got a Betamax VCR ‘because you never know’.

6) You have a spare everything. And sometimes a spare, a reserve, and a spare spare.

7) You can costume an entire primary school production of the Wizard of Oz with the contents of your airing cupboard.

8) Your car can’t remember what the inside of your garage looks like.

9) Rather than pack to move house it would be less stressful to burn it down.

10) You keep bent Tupperware for sentimental reasons.

11) You occasionally unearth objects you have genuinely never ever seen before.

12) A quick tidy of your desk drawer requires three strong men and a skip.

13) You can lay your hands on a combined rice cooker and bean steamer in a trice but have no idea where your handbag is.

14) You have a loyalty card and flyer from a restaurant you visited seven years ago. Once. In Winnipeg. And it wasn’t very good.

If any of those chimed with you, it might be time for a quick trip to the charity shop. We’ll come with you, actually….just find the car keys….they’re under this copy of the Radio Times from 1974…