I'm moving back!

[Mike from back east]

Great that you're starting early on downsizing all the stuff; it takes time, more time than most people would expect. I did the same in 2005 before leaving northern VA for COLO SPGS. Took me a couple of months to unload tons of stuff, and still, we filled 60% of a 53-foot moving van. Now it's almost 20 years later and we've still a ton of stuff to divest.

I wrote about it in some of the older threads on this site:

- Cleaning out the house before moving.

- Should I hire a long distance mover or buy new furniture after moving?

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Great that you're starting early on downsizing all the stuff; it takes time, more time than most people would expect. I did the same in 2005 before leaving northern VA for COLO SPGS. Took me a couple of months to unload tons of stuff, and still, we filled 60% of a 53-foot moving van. Now it's almost 20 years later and we've still a ton of stuff to divest.

I wrote about it in some of the older threads on this site:

- Cleaning out the house before moving.

- Should I hire a long distance mover or buy new furniture after moving?

Oh we have been at this for a while.

When we started planning to come down here in 2021, I gave a bunch of furniture and TVs and kitchen stuff to my kids. We put about half of what we owned into a storage unit in the Springs and left it there. What came down with us was enough to live comfortably in our apartment.

We found out pretty quickly about the storage units here in AZ. When my husband's maternal grandmother died, her stuff was put into a unit in Tucson and left there untouched for over 20 years. When his paternal grandma passed, her stuff and a bunch of the previously deceased grandfather's stuff, also put into storage in another unit here in Tempe. Again, about a couple decades went by. Units on auto-pay just...sitting there. We had a plastic tub full of keys we had found, and then we had to figure out where the units were and take the keys and figure out which one would open the lock.

For the Tucson one, luckily Dad gave us a card with the codes and unit number. Yay!! So other than driving to Tucson, figuring out the key and doing the work of emptying, sorting, downsizing...Grandma collected toothpick holders lord help us... not too hard. The one in Tempe was more challenging. Dad printed out the payment confirmation email every month, faithfully stapled the two pages and put it in an ever growing pile of stuff on his desk. So we knew what company it was. I tried calling and no one answered. Dad said "It's the place past the railroad tracks, in the first building. You just go in the door, it's there." Um. And his gate code was the last four of his social, like way too many of his codes. Again, I'm like ...We get there, each building has multiple doors. Which one? We do not know. We thought we knew which unit, but tried multiple keys on it and had no luck. I kept trying to call, eventually got hold of someone who told us which unit (not the one we had thought) then we had to figure out which key, and it was not one in the tub...turns out Dad had that key in his wallet, but did not tell us until...eventually. Quite an adventure in this musty old storage facility that time forgot.

Fine art, antiques, furniture, all kinds of fancy things. And freakin' toothpick holders. Why not. Later after my father in law passed, we had to work our way through his whole house full of stuff. Now we have no more storage units here, a couple of them up in the Springs, and we're down to a very manageable amount of stuff left here in the house to deal with. (Would fit in an apartment.)

[wilberry]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

Oh we have been at this for a while.

When we started planning to come down here in 2021, I gave a bunch of furniture and TVs and kitchen stuff to my kids. We put about half of what we owned into a storage unit in the Springs and left it there. What came down with us was enough to live comfortably in our apartment.

We found out pretty quickly about the storage units here in AZ. When my husband's maternal grandmother died, her stuff was put into a unit in Tucson and left there untouched for over 20 years. When his paternal grandma passed, her stuff and a bunch of the previously deceased grandfather's stuff, also put into storage in another unit here in Tempe. Again, about a couple decades went by. Units on auto-pay just...sitting there. We had a plastic tub full of keys we had found, and then we had to figure out where the units were and take the keys and figure out which one would open the lock.

For the Tucson one, luckily Dad gave us a card with the codes and unit number. Yay!! So other than driving to Tucson, figuring out the key and doing the work of emptying, sorting, downsizing...Grandma collected toothpick holders lord help us... not too hard. The one in Tempe was more challenging. Dad printed out the payment confirmation email every month, faithfully stapled the two pages and put it in an ever growing pile of stuff on his desk. So we knew what company it was. I tried calling and no one answered. Dad said "It's the place past the railroad tracks, in the first building. You just go in the door, it's there." Um. And his gate code was the last four of his social, like way too many of his codes. Again, I'm like ...We get there, each building has multiple doors. Which one? We do not know. We thought we knew which unit, but tried multiple keys on it and had no luck. I kept trying to call, eventually got hold of someone who told us which unit (not the one we had thought) then we had to figure out which key, and it was not one in the tub...turns out Dad had that key in his wallet, but did not tell us until...eventually. Quite an adventure in this musty old storage facility that time forgot.

Fine art, antiques, furniture, all kinds of fancy things. And freakin' toothpick holders. Why not. Later after my father in law passed, we had to work our way through his whole house full of stuff. Now we have no more storage units here, a couple of them up in the Springs, and we're down to a very manageable amount of stuff left here in the house to deal with. (Would fit in an apartment.)

Tooth pick holder Collection ! I love it ! One thing I learned the hard way about AZ is that everything in a cardboard box is filled with spiders and I got multiple Brown recluse bites which eat away the skin, not fun. more than once I have called the Salvation Army or even paid a Company to take away loads of Furniture and house hold items we had accumulated but the SPIDERS ! . What was really hard was selling a lot of my Guitars and microphones , music equipment , CDs , records, Cassettes .....oh well we are more or less mobile now. Starting early before retiring was a good Idea.

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by wilberry

Tooth pick holder Collection ! I love it ! One thing I learned the hard way about AZ is that everything in a cardboard box is filled with spiders and I got multiple Brown recluse bites which eat away the skin, not fun. more than once I have called the Salvation Army or even paid a Company to take away loads of Furniture and house hold items we had accumulated but the SPIDERS ! . What was really hard was selling a lot of my Guitars and microphones , music equipment , CDs , records, Cassettes .....oh well we are more or less mobile now. Starting early before retiring was a good Idea.

I actually have not seen many spiders. Surprisingly. Though in one of the boxes there was a dead bug that freaked me out until I finally got rid of it. It was a kind of wasp or hornet that was bigger than my thumb. I mean it, this creature was enormous. Solid black with reddish brown wings. Well preserved, definitely dead, but still freaky to look at and gave me the willies! I do not need a wasp the size of a mouse, no thank you, even if deceased. Ack!

Yeah, Grandma was part of the National Toothpick Holder Collector Society which is an actual thing that exists. LOL? Also an organization called "Questers" which I guess is just for people who collect whatever? (Wait, just looked it up - they are all about the preservation and restoration of historical objects.) So yeah. Toothpick holders. And what's wild is that since I've been taking them up to this consignment shop in Mesa, where they sell all sorts of things, I have seen tons of toothpick holders in there. Most of them are "EAPG" (Early American Pressed Glass.) So there is overlap with those who collect the carnival glass, art glass, uranium glass, etc.

Look, who am I to talk, I collect fridge magnets.

Honestly to me the real treasure has been the family histories. We had a few people who loved to write, they wrote their own stories and those of their relatives down, and there are piles of correspondence. I have a whole box full of love letters that my husband's dad wrote to his mom when he was wooing her. And the writings of a great grandfather who was part of the group of Mormons who went from Utah to Mexico around the turn of the century. Just all kinds of interesting things.