I am actually wondering why I have waited so long to talk about this subject. Kathy and I were always trying to get rid of stuff. In the garage, in the attic, in the house. I don’t know how we accumulated so much stuff. I think we are all guilty of this which is why the Storage Industry is doing so well. Recently when I was getting my house in Turlock ready for sale It was obvious that I needed to get rid of some stuff. With the help of my children…mostly Nanci and Marti I divided all of this into five piles. Stuff to keep..which would go into storage. Stuff that might go to other family members. Stuff to sell. Stuff to donate, and finally, stuff to throw away. So many decisions. There was no hurry really so we methodically went through everything. Divided it the best we could and basically, we were done. Not really done but a good start. Once we had identified the stuff to sell then there was the decision to have a garage sale or sell the stuff online. I opted for online because when I was growing up my mother had so many garage sales that I vowed never to do that again voluntarily. If push came to shove it might come down to a garage sale but I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I remembered that a few years before Kathy passed away we had some success on NextDoor. It is very user-friendly and I started putting things on the site. I could not believe my good fortune. I literally sold everything I wanted to sell. No tire kickers. When someone called about something they came and paid cash and took it away. I am not going to bore you with all of the things I sold but the variety was amazing and when the last item was taken away I had collected over $3,000. Unbelievable. Now the 5 piles were 4 piles. We contacted everyone in the family regarding what was in the possible family pile. Again pretty much all of the items that were in that pile were claimed by people in the family. Awesome!! Now we had three piles. Storage, Donate, and Throw away. Over the years I had become very frustrated with these various places that ask for and handled donations. Believe me, it is not as simple as it looks. One of my favorite charities is the Salvation Army. I always want to give stuff to them. Unfortunately, they have way too many rules and make it very difficult to be a giver. They had a long list of things that they wouldn’t take. It was difficult to take the stuff to their location because the hours and days were limited. You could have them pick the stuff up between 1 and 2 on the third Tuesday of the month and there were some other restrictions that I don’t remember right now. Bottom line the most user-friendly donation destination for me has always been Goodwill. No muss, no fuss, they take almost anything at almost any time and they give you a receipt for the donation. I use to deduct it on Turbo Tax and have for years and have received many deductions for my donations. Now with the new tax laws, those donations are not going to be enough to make a difference. Having said that Goodwill is still the best option.
Let us talk about throwing stuff away. We have a transfer station in Turlock…not an actual dump. If you are throwing away household garbage which is a very wide range of stuff then this is your answer. There are some exceptions. Paint…I needed to go to Kelly Moore to donate old paint. They will only accept paint. No turpentine, stains, or other paint-related items. They will only take 5 gallons at a time and only on certain days. I also found out that there is this stuff that you can put in the paint and it will make it solid and then you can throw it away. Now we come to the difficult part. Liquids…i.e. toxic chemicals. I called everyone and no one gave me a straight answer. They have places to get rid of paint and electronics. Start asking about, lawn chemicals, herbicides, bug killers, weed killers, stains, the fuel of any kind, oil of any kind, lamp fuel, OMG. No one has a straight answer. They need to be more forthcoming. I found out in Chico they have a place where you can actually take liquids. This was refreshing. Sorry liquids in Stanislaus County don’t exist as far as the powers that be are concerned. Find your own way to get rid of that stuff. I am not confessing anything. Maybe someday they will have a place that everyone can dump liquids. I think it is important that these companies make it as easy as possible for us. I believe most people would welcome this. I also think that most people want to do the right thing. A straightforward approach by the garbage companies would help a lot. I promise that I did not bury a 55-gallon drum of toxic liquids in my backyard. That would never happen. I did make a trip to Chico at one point and dumped many gallons of liquids there. Problem solved. I hope you have better luck than I did. Define toxic…I know I don’t want any of this stuff to find its way into the groundwater. I have every confidence that some great minds are working on this right now. Maybe they will come up with a liquid that you put in the bad stuff and it renders it safe. Like the stuff that turns paint solid. We have some very smart people out there.
