Beating the Hoarders

The Asst. Zookeeper and Heathen #1 are gone for TWO WEEKS!!!!  No one is chaperoning me!  And the first thing I did in my unchaperoned-ness?

I cleaned the top two floors of the house!  That will teach them to leave me home! Hah!

Strangely enough, it was enjoyable.  Heathens #2 and #3 played well together (ssshhhh - don't tell them I said that!).  I got all 3 Heathens rooms "purged" as I call it.  "Purging" is when I enter the room with garbage bags in hand and NOTHING is safe.  Currently, you can see the floor in all three bedrooms and all the drawers in the dressers close easily.

The garbage cans out back are overflowing with black bags - but the Heathens can't see into the bags, so I am safe!

I love my Heathens, but they are all hoarders.  Not the kind that you see on TV shows.  Not ones that will suffer as adults.  But definitely hoarders.

Heathen #1 hoards clothing. 

Dirty or clean, he keeps it in his room.  Claims that he HAS ALREADY given me all his laundry when asked.  I hauled out 3 laundry baskets worth.  I'm sure come of it was clean and just never got put away.  But I didn't recognize half of it as having come through the laundry room lately.

Heathen #2 hoards candy wrappers.  Somewhere is the man who originally thought about putting contests onto candy wrappers, or the "collect so many of these and get this" gag.  That man is worshiped by Heathen #2.  This summer it seems to be the wrappers from Dum-Dum lollipops. 

Apparently there is an online store where you can redeem your wrappers.  So he saves them.  He stashes them in drawers, under the dresser, under the bed.  Anywhere he thinks they are safe.  When told he needs to clean up the garbage in his room, he becomes indignant.  "They're not garbage.  They are wrappers and I'M SAVING THEM."

Heathen #3 hoards paper. 

Any paper.  ALL paper.  Especially if he has used a pen or pencil or crayon or marker and placed the SLIGHTEST mark on the paper.  If the paper comes in a notebook, he insists on tearing out the used pages so that the notebook is "new" - but he saves the torn out pages.  And the little ruffly-edges caused by the spiral binding.

At 10 am this morning, the garbage men came to my house and left me with two large empty garbage cans outside.  The hydraulic on the back of the truck was like the sound of a starter pistol in my mind - and I went into action.  At 5 pm, I had filled both cans plus placed a box and two additional garbage bags beside them.

I feel SOOOO much better.  If it would only stay that clean....  But we all know better.