This is definitely not off topic for some areas of the maker space …
I find this topic highly offensive!
I take exception to your taking exception!
I suffer from this problem at home. I blame my family. Dad’s employer relocated the entire family at no cost no fewer than five times. My father was a woodworker who perhaps sensed that superb quality old-growth Douglas Fir, Red Cedar, and other western conifers would someday be in short supply. As such, he had - and still has - an immense hoard of material that would be impossible to assess today.
There was no garage in the family houses; there was simply the shop. At the last three places there was this … construct… we called the aircraft carrier. It was a framework almost the length of the garage roughly 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall. Within, it contained all of dad’s long stock of wood. On the side were various shallow shelves. On top was more material and a regularly-changing assortment of boxes, improvised drawer units, and sketchy shelves.
There were other things. Dad made dozens of standardized wooden “ammunition boxes” (their resemblance to Civil War era artillery boxes was a bit more than passing) consuming about 2 ft³ each, generally loaded to maximum practical weight. There was a cast-iron wood-fired stove that moved three times that otherwise sat in a corner of the shop. Then there was his 1949 Chevrolet Carry-All Suburban that I observed loaded onto more than one moving truck, loaded to the bump stops with other possessions.
At one point while dad was still working for the employer with the generous relocation policy, my father was at a company social event (with name tags) and someone he didn’t know did a double-take. They introduced themselves then said they’d always wanted to meet him and went on to describe how they did relocation for the company and how our family held the weight record every year we relocated.
Heck, the folks moved out of town ~15 years ago and hustled off some of their stuff on me in the form of a storage unit that was perhaps 15% full of my stuff.
So … I used to be able to park a car in my garage and did - regularly! But then the garage door opener broke and I was not overly motivated to remedy its failure. Inevitably, the crap started piling up in the garage. I bought a new opener in May and aspire to install it this year, which may force the issue of the garage looking like an immense junk drawer: furniture that needs refinishing, old carpet I snagged from a friend’s house and used <5% of, a chest deep freezer I got for free and don’t use, stuff from Fred’s, construction materials I bought in surplus for projects I have since completed (or nearly so).
I know the feeling of it might come in handy some day along with sentimentalist notions about artifacts from the past. I do force myself to deal with it on a small scale periodically. I need to do a big push so I can install the garage door opener and park at least one vehicle in the garage. Shelves would be good - along with an outbuilding for the yard work tools.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with the same sentiments. Since I was a teenager I have been consumed with the “what if’s”, more or less what happens it manufacturing & modern society suddenly becomes taken back a 100+ years. I have learned skills just because of this, your not going to need a banker, lawyer, ect…Have skills to build, make & fix so you have something tangible. This is inevitably why I have so much stuff.
Just last week I was moving my stuff from my old to new company van. I threw a lot away. Well today I needed atleast 2 of those things. A piece of 18 awg wire to do a loop back test on a comm port & a stinking box to send the part back to the factory for warranty. Ohh well I guess.
For people who make miniatures, no scrap is too small to save!
I am prepared to deal with the … unexpected loss of services … for far longer than the average person. It’s not particularly burdensome or expensive to have a few weeks worth of dry goods and what amounts to camping tools on hand.
And while I have yet to read Shopcraft as Soulcraft (on loan from dad for some time now), I’ve long been well aware of the wisdom within. I’m a desk jockey by day, but still mow my lawn, do basic maintenance on my house, and find satisfaction in doing a number of physical things for myself - perhaps because progress is more visible and concrete than at work where it’s all virtual and abstract.
It’s not hoarding if you have it stored away on shelves, or pallet racks…
I have no idea what you’re referring to or implying.
We’re all here to help the “hoarding impaired”.
After all this “disability” impedes the progress of many projects. 
Scout’s motto: Be Prepared!
My alternate motto: Bullets, beans, and beer. 
I find myself short on beer…
I find myself short …
Catching up on some reading, ran across this in Bloomberg Businessweek:
Help for the hoarding impaired.
Somehow I don’t think the book really equates messy with hoarding…
So, if anyone wants help cleaning out a department’s hoardings, I would be glad to help!
My favorite way to work with “hoarders” is to have a 4/5 rule. You can keep four things for every one thing you let me throw out. That removes 20% of the junk, and that’s actually the maximum behavioral change most people can comfortable deal with anyway.
Unfortunately, one person’s refuse is another’s treasure. I believe that the swap meets are a better solution than wholesale into-the-landfill parties.
Most hoarders have a lot of trouble getting rid of stuff on their own. It’s really tied to anxiety and procrastination. As I don’t have a hoarding issue or that particular type of anxiety, it’s way easier for me to whirlwind through and get rid of junk.
While I’m not a big fan of wasting stuff, I’m even less of a fan of being buried in junk we can never use (it might be useful one day is not acceptable). I’m actually fine with transferring it to the donation shelf if people will promise not to transfer it right back into a room. Then, it has a chance of being used before the shelf is cleaned off.
I’m not planning to jump into anyone’s space and take their precious junk, but I’m offering. If you know you need help, and you can’t handle it, I’m available to throw your stuff away or find a nice home on a beautiful farm where it can chase bunnies for it.
I find that others have a lack of imagination when it comes to their judgement of “hoarding”. I believe your viewpoint has been formed by your embrace of the American “disposable society”, wherein one must upgrade to the latest and greatest gadget every quarter. We no longer fix anything, we simply land-fill it and buy another one from China (who, interestingly enough, are pioneers of re-use – sometimes with not-so-wonderful results).
Let’s be clear on the distinction: Hoarding, in my book, means you are buried in leftover greasy pizza boxes and decaying telephone books. Collecting, on the other hand, is an intentional, focused effort in which thought has gone into every item that sits on a shelf.
Actually, I’m looking at it from a clinical perspective.
I think this is a pretty good basic description:
https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/hoarding-basics
I like the quote, “Hoarding is the persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value. The behavior usually has deleterious effects—emotional, physical, social, financial, and even legal—for a hoarder and family members.”
The issue is that worthless junk is harming your relationships or making your space unusable. If people are fine with it and your space is safe, I’m fine with it. I think a lot of areas in the Space are just fine, but I’m glad to help with any area that isn’t if the various folks involved WANT help. If not, I’m fine with your pile of junk as long as it doesn’t cause fire code issues or get in my way.