Adventures in Etsy and Ebay

As of three weeks ago, I became the proprietor of an Etsy.com shop named Nostalgicats. I have no particular affection for the name but I was stumped to come up with something on short notice.

My first items up were a set of demitasse spoons and a set of Royal Albert china. I've added a couple of items most days and right now have 15 listings. At first, I didn't think I'd sell anything or that anyone would even see my shop. There are so many listings on Etsy, far more than I can comprehend and I am not willing to spend more money to get my pictures farther up the queue.

I did a lot of Ebay several years ago. Ebay has become more confusing with their charges and listing options. I like the simplicity and appearance of Etsy shops but there are some items that don't belong there and will have to back to Ebay. The best part of all this is that I am inspired to go through drawers and cupboards and haul things out, then make choices. I put things in piles: Keep, Sell, Donate, Trash. Undecided items go back into Keep pile for now.

The downside is that I am cluttering by having stacks of stuff that needs to be photoed and listed, then put away until sold. Packing materials and supplies need to be stored where they are accessible. This okay with me though. I find myself organizing my house around my activities so I use the space, instead of feeling guilty about dirt and clutter piling up in rooms that are intended for traditional purposes.

The danger of Etsy and Ebay though is seeing things that I have to have. I have fallen several times already and racked up a few disappointments so that I am far more careful. It's also fanned the fires of my desire to craft things, particularly involving fabric and embellishments. I already have a huge basket of knitted and crocheted items that no one particularly wants and no, they would never sell on Etsy.

One thing I have learned is research, research, research before listing. (Probably should do that before buying but that's all about the impulse.) I have found several things are actually worth more than I would have thought due to names on the labels. At first, I would look up items like silverplate flatware and find it was worth far less than I hoped, so I was starting to get lax. Then I looked up a label on some cloth napkins my husband bought at a garage sale and found out they were the product of well-known designers (not well-known to me, obviously.) That added a few bucks to the asking price - not enough to make me rich.

Volume is the answer though. I'm not going to sell one or two items and go on a cruise for a year. Lots of little stuff, mostly under $20, will add up. It adds up, or I'm hoping it will begin to add up.

Are there any other Etsy or Ebay fans? Do you sell on either one? If you buy, are you disappointed at times? Share your experiences, please!

Hoarding on TV: Reality or not?

The two shows about compulsive hoarding that I have seen are: "Hoarding: Buried Alive" on the TLC network and "Hoarders" which is aired on A&E. I can't really tell them apart, although "Hoarders" seems to be the bleaker of the two, more likely to let the images tell the story. HBA has a tendency to manipulate a storyline.

I've also seen a couple other series that take a kinder, gentler approach. The one I liked best was "Clean House" which I believe is off the air. "Clean House" wasn't really about hoarding; it was about clutter getting out of hand. Since there is a narrow line between cluttering and hoarding, there were some run-ins with hoarders, but most of the people represented on Clean House were folks like you and me (me anyway) who had simply become overwhelmed by their stuff and too depressed to do anything about it. This would result in a toxic household in which no one would take responsibility for starting the process of cleaning up.

Now let me come clean (oh, so clever) on my household status. We've got a whole lot of clutter and hoarding going but have not graduated to garbage house. In fact, we regularly remove clutter and reorganize the stashes to keep things livable. But we've lived in the same house since 1987 so the problems run deep. I tend to be messy, the sort of person who winds up with stacks of papers everywhere. My husband thinks of himself as a collector, which is what a lot of hoarders call themselves. He is also a natural, ingrained recycler, meaning that he saves many things that could be of use someday. No doubt a handy trait in the pioneer days.

I gave up my background to explain my interest in Hoarding as an issue. My "domestic matters" are deeply affected and so the subject will come up on this blog a lot. But not every post, I promise.

Back to the Hoarding shows on television -- the situations and people appear to be real. I can only manage to watch an episode or two every few months. I watch because I think I might learn something about the process of change, but I never do. Somehow, if it happens at all, it seems to happen off-screen.

Both shows follow a similar formula. A hoarder reaches a critical point in her or his life where they must change or lose everything. Eviction, condemnation, health issues and so on are the usual reasons. In some cases, the hoarder's house has deteriorated beyond restoration and has to be pulled down. One episode, the landlord was trying to evict a man who could only get into his house by going to a neighbor's apartment and crawling out onto the fire escape to climb the stairs and enter his own kitchen window.

Obviously, these are the most extreme cases which make the best television. As the episode unwinds, the family and friends of the hoarder (sometimes victims) come upon the scene and try to offer help and support. Often the support from close family members (siblings, children, parents, spouse) deteriorates into rage and recriminations. A therapist becomes involved to oversee the situation and to be honest, appear to be wretchedly ineffective, no matter how experienced.

The camera lingers lovingly on the worst of the clutter. Given how extreme these cases are, most rooms are piled with junk so high that no one can walk in them, much less know what lies beneath the piles. Garbage hoarding is the worst, with long shots of vermin skittering around and slime growing up the walls. Generally the hoarders themselves have reached a point of wanting to change or understanding they need to change but simply cannot. Once in awhile, a stubborn hoarder will be featured who will declare themselves problem-free and claim to like living as they do.

After establishing the dysfunctional household and family group, the next phase of the show is the clean-up. This is the part where I pay attention and feel I have learned the most as far as what not to do or say to a hoarder. Usually a volunteer group is brought into clear since the volume of garbage and clutter is staggering, beyond the capability of being cleared by just a couple people. They are led by a professional organizer, who always claims to have experience with hoarders.

The cleaning day might start well, with the hoarder enthused and energized,until they discover that someone threw away something of value. Might I mention here that this is inevitable, since hoarders value things for unfathomable-to-the-rest-of us reasons. Pandemonium ensues as the hoarder wants to inspect every plastic bag that has left the house. OH NOES! Treasures are being stolen! Everyone must back off now and sit while the hoarder tries to start hauling items back into the house.

The therapist dithers around the hoarder, offering up socio-speak that the hoarder usually ignores. Close family members lose it, shouting in rage, initiating confrontation, trying to browbeat the hoarder into recognizing how their behavior has stifled the entire family, that there are other victims involved here. None of this works. The organizers pops in repeatedly to berate the hoarder about time running out, the volunteers need to go home, the truck needs to leave etc.

Will the hoarder succeed or not is the big question as the show cuts to a commercial break. How will this painful mess get sorted out? When the show returns, the hoarder will have given up or...the house will be cleaner to some degree, at least livable again. Sometimes the family is enjoying a meal in their kitchen that is now functional again. But oftentimes, as in reality, the hoarder returns to their home after the meltdown and remains mired in their trash.

I would like to see what takes place during that commercial break (kidding, I know that what goes on takes a lot longer). How did the hoarder come to the point of letting everything go? This is the most important thing that I and many other viewers need to know. I know they didn't clear the house in a single day or even a weekend, so how long did it take? Did the therapist convince the family to get into group counseling instead of just treating the hoarder? I have these questions and many others.

Maybe I expect to much from a "reality" TV show. Just typing that sentence and looking at it makes me feel naive. These shows are sensationalizing and exploiting families that need help. But at least hoarding awareness has increased extensively, resulting in a lot more study and resources for information. That's a good thing, as Martha would say, and is helpful to me and my family as we struggle to bring order to our home.

Questions for readers: Do you think you are a clutterer and in danger of sliding into hoarding? Or are you a super-organized person who loves nothing more than sorting everything into its proper place? Where do you fall on the scale between compulsive hoarder to OCD organized?