I think people who are into crafts. They have all of these yarns, construction papers, various tools and stuff. All so that they can say that they have all of these projects in mind that they want to do. But they never do them so they get more crafting stuff and it just eats away storage until their place is practically consumed by it.
Oh man, woodworking is pretty bad. Tools galore, scrap wood everywhere, and half-finished projects all over the garage.
Shhh! I swear I can build that for only twice the cost and take three times as long, but it will be waaay quicker if I have this new tool.
Your mistake is in what you are making your comparisons to. You can’t compare your solid wood bookcase to an Ikea cardboard bookcase, you need to compare it to the fancy brands that actually do make things from solid wood.
That is a personal attack I do not appreciate
Extreme couponing
People who pick stuff off the curb, refurbish it, and resell it.
My neighbor (apartments) does this but mostly around the time rent is due because she doesn’t have a job. She leaves her shit all over the property: half-finished furniture, tools to move it, etc.
Anyone into restoring cars probably has one or two cars that don’t run on their lot. Time goes by and those cars are rusting faster than they’re being fixed.
I’m starting to get into making my own flies for fly fishing. It’s a ton of fun to buy like local feathers and shit but it does take up a lot of space and you’d be surprised at how expensive some of the materials can be
Relevant and interesting if you’ve never heard the story.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/great-feather-heist-180968408/
Automotive, back yards becoming junkyards of old cars that “will be fixed one day”. Piles of used oil, broken parts, tools that are for only one purpose. Extra car parts, that may or may not work.
Crafters are definitely up there, overall - but I think wargamers might beat them. Hundreds to thousands of models, paints, brushes, terrain, carrying cases, books - it adds up to a hoard of epic proportions. That’s just personal experience though. Lego fans can also get to be out there, and TCG players.
Gotta second the card gamers. I have no idea what cards are in my collection anymore, and i only have three longboxes of cards. I’ve seen far bigger collections. There’s a few reasons a quit that hobby, and this is one of them.
Every collecting hobby is definitionally a hoarding hobby.
You must have met my wife. My oath, the amount of fucking yarn and fabric in her stacked to the ceiling sewing room is horrendous. She couldn’t knit enough blankets in her lifetime to use up half of it.
As a crafter who is more on the Marie Kondo side of things, it’s way worse than that. I’d say a lot of time, knitters and sewists (my two main hobbies) buy yarn and fabric with no specific pattern or project in mind but rather just because it’s pretty. Some of them seem to be proud of their room-filling stashes. Personally I think most people just like the instant gratification of purchasing craft supplies but don’t have the patience to actually create the craft, especially since knitting in particular is very, very slow. I have tried really hard not to fall into this trap and have been actively not purchasing yarn for a few years now, though I’ll still put it on my Christmas list.
There is a sweet spot with buying tools and materials just because you want to and having the right thing when you need it because of an impulse buy. That is me never.
Haha exactly! I got frustrated as an early knitter when I bought pretty yarn and then realized when I got home that it wasn’t enough for a project. I stopped making that mistake pretty fast and have been fairly disciplined about it.
Hams maybe. All the different electronic components, radios, cables, and parts they collect over the years. And before you know it, the antennas are through the roof!
I grew up near a guy with literally dozens of towers on his land. He would get paid to decommission old towers then he’d put them up at his place rather than scrapping them.
The antennas can be a lot more than just through the roof.
The “hobby carpenter” and handymen sort. Guys who like building stuff and own land to do it on. So much crap and sub par materials. Hundreds of salvaged half rotten 2x4s that might be enough to hold a person with a couple dozen of them. Shit tons of insulation just getting soaked outside, tons of random cinder blocks and bricks, etc. Add in a side of drywall, random carpet scraps, tons of various wiring, and a massive assortment of tools that have probably seen more house dust than wood dust.
Not taking a dig at these guys, but you have to be realistic with what you can accomplish. Unless its a crazy good deal/find that you know you will use or be able to give away, don’t touch it.
For the sake of space and organization, just buy materials for the project RIGHT before you build it, and AFTER you plan EVERYTHING about it. Account for EVERY piece you need so you never need to buy a bunch extra “just in case”.
But that’s a good board!
I’ll definitely hold onto good wood, things with zero knots, nice grain or simply rarer species, but I’ll never hoard used construction lumber.
This guy diy’s
nervously glances at the bin of scrap wood
And when these guys discover local auctions, the storage requirements explode. So many half-broken mowers, engines, chests of old tools - all needing sorting out, fixing and keeping forever.
My Dad’s a carpenter and growing up this essentially describes our backyard. So much timber that gets left over at the end of the job that he’d grab for a carton of beer. So much of it soaked and white-ant ridden.
This is me but I at least keep my stuff indoors, clean and organized.
Any “retro” collection. Old video games, for instance. In many cases, the barrier to entry is sky high, because there are very few old consoles or games on the market; The collectors have bought all of them, and are never planning on selling.
I had to give up my retro game collection when I moved and I realized how long overdue it was. I hope someone out there is enjoying my old consoles and games.
If I were a collector, this would be my thing.
I am not a collector though. I don’t have the house for it and I don’t want a house big enough to be able to do that.
Everything that has yarn.
Yarn just seems to take over a home everywhere I’ve seen it.
I pretty much had to set a limit with my wife. Like you can have these 4 giant tote bins filled with yarn supplies and two baskets of projects in progress but if you want more than that you have to give some away.
I had to make a boundary because it was getting out of hand.
I got rid of all my yarn one day last year because I was overwhelmed. Haven’t gotten any since but I really want to get back into knitting/crocheting. I’m afraid I’ll just end up with way too much again
Backpacking. I have a big plastic bin filled with equipment that I decided to go another direction with.
But makers are the kings of hobby hoarding, just look at Adam Savage. He has parts for things he hasn’t even thought of building. He has a plethora of tools that overlap entirely just because the set of tools is closer to a given work aspect. Walls of bins with various degrees of filled because he bought 100 of something a decade ago that may have a future use.
Perfect example.
The rare occasion that “the thing” ends up being exactly what you needed is incredible, though.
It’s almost always whatever you you threw out last week though.
Or what you put in a storage unit that is inconveniently far away. I still need those 5mm magnets…
Adams cave is so beautiful and well ordered these days. He’s the best kind of hoarder.
Those videos are so relaxing to watch
Opposite with me. I’ve got 25+ years of hiking in, never been a gearhead. That shit’s expensive. I buy one and make it work until it don’t work no more
My first backpacking trip, my bag was 40lbs. I said fuck that jazz, and now my pack is 20lbs and it has made trips so much better.
The ultralight stuff is a whole new set of gear I’ve considered buying but don’t know if I’ll use it enough to be worth it. My old school ass carries about 50lbs on a weekend trip though it drops fast as I eat up the food and drink the beer. I managed this for decades while my body weight was about 130lbs. Now I’m at 170 with plantar fasciitis, mild arthritis and possibly Covid lingering effects.
Cars because they are so big, and ugly when in disrepair. Small scale hoarding is a small scale problem.
They’re also wasteful pollution machines when they’re run, and for no practical purpose. They’re just toys to these people.
Same as the social media servers you utilize and the streaming services that you utilize.
Data centers use a ton of power for subjectively no practical purpose.
To be fair, the same can be said about most forms of entertainment.
I have a friend who is a car guy who owns both a scrapyard and a storage lot due to the fees he was racking up with his hobby.
