Other People’s Stuff

Here I am in the kitchen of my newly acquired house. I don’t say NEW house because it is 90 years old! I’ve been here two days and, because my sister has broken her ankles falling down the stairs here and is in rehab, I am confronted completely alone with all the left-behind junk the former owners escaped from.

The former owners of the house just left everything in it – furniture, files, fully equipped kitchen and – junk.

There are boxes and boxes in the sub-basement – all empty! They take up the whole floor down there. There are shampoos, hair-growing products, conditioners, lotions, sun creams in the bathroom. The guy even left a briefcase and files.

Even though I think “too much crap”, I suspect anyone taking over my apartment in Germany would say the same. Now a guest has moved in and I am also confronted with her stuff! She has put junk on the dining room table, at the bottom of the steps, on the counter in the kitchen… There is even a kitschy Christmas arrangement she’s put in the living room that whistles when you walk by.

I want to keep this place uncluttered – at least the rooms downstairs. Everyone needs an uncluttered space as a haven in this cluttered world. I’m going to tell the lady that everything needs to be kept in her own room. She’ll have a great time with that as she’s staying about 4 to 6 months and could fill a whole flat with her crap!!

I’ve found that people who can’t keep their money together still amass great amounts of stuff. If they have money, they spend it and wonder that they’ve overdrawn at the end of the month. Now my sister wants to buy a new (second) vacuum, so we’ll have an upstairs and downstairs sweeper! She says she’ll keep it in her room. Yeah, right.

One really bright side though: my brother and sister-in-law came over from Texas and surprised me when they, completely unexpected, rang my front doorbell!! What a joy! The next day, they went over to the rehab center and surprised my sister, too. We had a wonderful time eating take-out Thai food and even my niece came over. I haven’t seen her since she was 12 and now she’s 44! What a hoot.

I still think this whole house-owning thing is vastly overrated. For me, a house with its insurances, property tax, utilities, rodent, termite and pest control, garden care, as well as repairs/improvements are a liability. And you’re scared the whole time that somebody could break in and steal your precious junk.

Well, help yourself! And take some boxes when you go…