Are you a hoarder?

[RoGeorge]

About saving EE scrap, stocking jellybean parts, books, equipment, tools and such.
Do you ever think about yourself that maybe you went overboard with your lab? 

[nctnico]

You missed one option: recovering hoarder

[themadhippy]

im in treatment.

[RoGeorge]

Added poll option

[schmitt trigger]

I was until a close friend of mine who hoarded old paraphernalia died suddenly from a stroke. His grieving widow was burdened, among a dozen other priorities, of disposing of a basement full of stuff. Neither his grown up children nor his closest friends knew what to do with 90% of what had been hoarded, and a state sale didn’t help much either. Most ended on the trash.

As neither of my children likes electronics, I have started disposing of stuff that I won’t ever use again, like a boxful of TTL chips. And no longer salivate over surplus sales.

[Brumby]

For those who are drawn to this thread .... take a look at the *TEA Glossary (scroll down a bit).   

.... then tell us how well you identified with what you saw there.   



*TEA - Test Equipment Anonymous

[Brumby]

PS   I'm saying nothing. 

[coppice]

Can you get through your front door, and work your way to the toilet and your bed? If yes, you aren't a very good hoarder.

[RoGeorge]

Well, added a "something else" category to the poll 

[globoy]

I'm with schmitt trigger.  I had to deal with my father's estate and I know my partner and children won't know what to do with my lab so I now have a yearly purge with the goal that every year more goes out than comes in.  I have to say it always feels good after the purge!

[madires]

A few years ago an old friend passed away, much too early. I helped to clean out his hobby related stuff and we gave several boxes full of useful parts and devices to a local repair café. They happily took everything. The junk went to e-waste and more valuable devices were sold. Of course, I also took some things.

[T3sl4co1l]

No.

I have a fair number of things laying around (about 2000 unique items actively cataloged, though to varying degree of accuracy, mainly in terms of being lazy updating the quantity when I fetch some parts..), but no mass quantities of anything, and just a few bits of junk/salvage that I've mostly picked over already.

I can see where an ordinary person might consider that a lot, but the nature of electronics is to need a lot of little things.  I have like three reels of anything, and those are just incidental; most are singles to hundreds, cut tape or the like, and things I use regularly in breadboarding and prototyping.  Most components fit into a couple of drawers, boxes and organizers, and the rarely used stuff sits in a couple of boxes in the basement.  Pretty sure everything I have would fit in a standard storage locker, and most of that will be furniture.

Tim

[Zeyneb]

I've a lot of unfinished DIY projects. Not really EE, but more car repairs and stuff to do in the house. Some are in the way before I can complete the next. All the stuff will be used in the end. I would like to do a very good job of each project, so that is overwhelming and also lead to procrastination.

[artag]

You missed one option: recovering hoarder

There's a reason why that option isn't needed.

[coppice]

You missed one option: recovering hoarder

Recovering from hoarding, or recovering stuff to hoard? The latter is an interesting class of hoarder, stripping everything down to a collection of components they will one day reuse for exciting new projects. The snag is they are always too busy stripping stuff down to ever start those new projects.

[Smokey]

Funny thing is most people you would accuse of hoarding have boxes of old newspapers, or thrift store clothes, or little elephant figurines.  The sum total actual market value of all that stuff is about $0.00. 

If I consider my test equipment stash a "hoard", then someone that had to deal with that if I died suddenly would make out well if they had an eBay account.  I think that sufficiently offsets the box of old motherboards and other random circuit boards and components under the bench.  :⁠-⁠)

PS.  As the son of an actual hoarder of the newspaper and magazine variety, my advice to anyone looking at having to deal with that at some point is.....  Just because someone else applied value to all that stuff does not mean that inherited value must be transferred to you.  Try to accept that before you have to deal with it.  Trying to process that in the moment when you are waist deep in boxes is harder to do.

[coppice]

Funny thing is most people you would accuse of hoarding have boxes of old newspapers, or thrift store clothes, or little elephant figurines.  The sum total actual market value of all that stuff is about $0.00.

Wifey's uncle was a hoarder. When we had to taken action, and cleared out his apartment, there was about $20k in a bundle amongst those old newspapers and other junk. We had no idea it was there, and it almost got thrown out.

[Postal2]

I threw away the vacuum tubes. I wanted to give them away, but they offered to send them by mail. I left a couple of sets for a device that I don't know what to call (in the photo). I had a lot of vacuum tubes.

I used this device to very precisely tune the recording channel of video recorders.

[Kjelt]

Yes I admit I am a hoarder.
So much I can not work in the lab due to overloaded tables with project stuff.
Time to really throw away invaluable stuff I am never going to use anymore and give away the rest. Time is often the critical part. The few hours left next to work and family , I rather spent tinkering and getting stuff which gives me a good feeling, then sorting out and throwing away stuff which feels bad.
That is why I admit I am a hoarder, I suffer from the weird brain programming that old obsolete parts are as valuable as antique art 

[hans]

Yes, I also suffer from hoarding problems.

Not from jellybean components or old project crap per se. I'm not very much into recycling and I don't have any purpose to hold onto old parts since all my designs use modern SMT parts... But I do have a bad habit of holding onto old IT equipment. I still have my laptop from 16 years ago, and until recently I was still using a 12 year old desktop as a HTPC. I replaced that machine since, but I doubt I will actually disassemble and sell/dump that tower anytime soon.

But like a "real" classic hoarder: no. I had a family member that had this problem, which we only found out after his passing. His bedroom was literally full a boxes covering all walls up to the ceiling, and after a first scout through the house I wasn't even able to find his bed. The bathroom was even stacked full of junk.
So sad to see that even before someones funeral, but more so, that I knew this person so well but he never asked for help. He was aware this was a problem, as he was very ashamed of it.
In the end we threw about 10 containers out of junk. And with container I mean: one of those large ones that fill up a truck flatbed that you use for constructionwork.

[pcprogrammer]

In the end we threw about 10 containers out of junk. And with container I mean: one of those large ones that fill up a truck flatbed that you use for constructionwork.

That must have been expensive. 

I'm not a real stuff hoarder, just a bit of a collector of microcontroller and other modules. Plus my large fischertechnik collection and my synthesizers, scopes. Oh wait maybe I'm a bit of a hoarder. 

I'm for sure a digital hoarder. My mail and other archives are way to big, but can't get myself to clean it up. I just buy another harddisk to keep on going.

[mendip_discovery]

I'm not a hoarder but other people may think I am.

I have old hard drives as I fear the moment u bin them somone will say how easy it is to recover data.

I also like having the tools for a job, so I often buy the bits and the tools for a task use them and then keep them ready for the next time.

My granddad was a hoarder, my mum is, and my uncle. Though when it's not my stuff I can let go of it easier.

I just dont like throwing good stuff away, I always have ideas of fixing/restoring it. I just get ....

I also don't like selling stuff as I always seem to sell it too cheaply.

Distracted.

[EEVblog]

I own two storage units, one 44sqm, one 31sqm.
Where do I apply for my club card?

[mendip_discovery]

That made me think of AA meetings, but a TEAs version of it. Each year for good collecting you get a component first year a resistor, then a cap, and so on. We would all have IDs that we could show which would allow people to identify another as a TEAs member. There would also be a need for a arbitration body to deal with managing issues around multiple members after the same test gear at events.

[fourtytwo42]

I put myself as a recovering hoarder, I would at one time strip pcb's for "useful" components, take apart old furniture for the screws, nothing was wasted, I also had/have a huge collection of data books. Over the years there is no doubt I have not only saved money this way but been able to build many things from stock rather than waiting for the post.

Now approaching my 70th year many things have changed, data is widely and instantaneously available online so I don't need the books anymore (many have already gone), old electrolytic's get to old, I find I am simply not building the scale of electronic projects I used to and most parts are rapidly available with online stores no matter where you live.

As for screws meahhhh the garage has many many bottles some of which have not been touched for years and new pozi-drive screws are a lot easier to use in an electric screwdriver than slotted heads so I reckon that's next on my clearout list as well although the comment about having stuff to hand still counts but 10,000's ??

Hording is largely history and often for emotional reasons, I used to have a TEK465 big lump of iron that I nurtured for years but eventually it just got to old and has been replaced by a small USB scope that easily travels everywhere with me and can even be balanced in side big bits of kit for measurements. I should add I still have my foibles like a DIY bass major amplifier (EL34 push-pull) left over from my gigging days in the 60's & 70's that I won't throw away (at least it's only one) hahaha

I guess sometimes we just  have to accept progress for what it is and blow away the cobwebs