when i was 9, i threw out my 5 yr old sister's baby blanket... she carried it everywhere... i thot she was way too big for that & she was embarrassing me, her big sis, i thot... anyhoo, we left it at home when we went on 6-wk family trip... i threw it out the minute we got back and she never once asked for it!

now, my control freakishness comes out when i toss my mom & sister's empty cosmetic bottles anytime i come home... the clutter drives me crazy when i'm trying to find one, just one, lotion bottle with some actual product in it!

they've learned... now they empty things out before i come home... and i've gotten better about just letting things be :)

Growing up my mother used to do this. She never sorted through her own things, mind you. I saw it not only an invasion of privacy but it fed the hoarder in me as an adult to become attached to stupid things.

The scary part about that RHOOC is that they are so sheltered from the "real" world that they threw out those items instead of donating them to a charity who can use them. What a waste...the perfectly good toys go sit in a landfill for a couple thousand years when they could have been given to a child in need or a thrift shop which sells items to make money for a charity. Those people are disgustingly wasteful and think nothing of it.

I've never had anybody throw my things away, and I've never thrown anybody else's stuff away. Any time there's been a question about whether or not somebody's "unused" stuff is really necessary anymore, the protocol is "Hey, do you still really need this sort of overworn scarf/empty photo album/ wad of receipts?" Throwing somebody else's stuff away, no matter how insignificant or junky you think it is, is just disrespectful. Unless they're a hoarder. Then you need a shrink. And they'll help get rid of all that stuff.

I've never thrown out anyone else's stuff, but my mother was famous for giving away things of mine I had distinctly told her not to touch. "Irritated" doesn't come close to describing how I felt. I would never want to be responsible for making someone else have to endure that.

I've been guilty of tossing other people's stuff out, both at home and at the office (I share my office space with a co-worker)... but the items tossed are always carefully chosen and I must be absolutely sure it won't be missed. A good trick (which I learned from my mom) is to hide it away somewhere for a little while and if the person never goes looking for it, then it gets the garbage green light!

oh, yes, i do occasionally feel guilty about the baby blanket... altho in the 30 yrs since the incident, my sis has really never asked about it even once and neither of us are super sentimental about stuff... still, i would never do quite that again!

no guilt re the empty cosmetics bottles :)

My mom threw out something of mine once. Just once. When I found out, I gathered up all of her makeup, put it in my backpack and threw it out at school.

She knew what I did. She knew why I did it. She never touched my stuff again. Yes, we are very close-then and now.

I can't imagine why anyone would think it was OK to throw out/give away something that was not theirs. It is NEVER your place to do this, even if you mean well. One man's trash is another's treasure, so even if you think the item is totally junky, it may be valued by someone else. Aren't we all entitled to having things that other people might not think are great, but we love? As the old Latin proverb goes, In matters of taste there is no dispute.

I would feel so betrayed if someone did this to me that I could never do it.

My parents threw all my stuff away, I barely have anything left of childhood. It makes it very easy for me to purge my own belongings and live a clutter free life. Also makes it easier when my leases are over and its time to find a new apartment!

as a child i had a small chest that i would put found items inside. One day i came home from school and it was empty. Turns out my mom threw everything out cause she said it was just junk. But it was a treasure to me. Man, that really fucked me up for a while. Haha, writting this is making me sad just thinking about it.
But yeah, don't throw other people's things.

Oh Lord. My children would hold on to everything and their rooms would be piled 6 feet deep with crap. Every parent I know gets rid of their kids stuff when the kids aren't looking.

I wouldn't do it to another adult (except my ex's p*rn stash as I was on my way out the door), but with kids it's a must since they will NOT do it themselves.

oh yeah, and she gay away my entire Garbage Pail Kids cards collection away too. Man, i'm gonna give her a call right now....

I took it a step further- one roommate left his former roommate's stuff piled in a corner of the living room (I am talking a towering stack) so after they didn't return for it for MONTHS, I sold that gold on eBay. It was nice, unopened stuff, like a rice cooker, a few textbooks, and some other kitchen appliances. Cha ching for me twofold!

My dad did this to us a bit as kids and I did it to my husband a little bit when I moved in. Then I realized I didn't like it when my dad did it so I don't do it to my husband. I do some urging and nudging and then I move on. He's not a hoarder so I can deal. He does have more clothes than I do though.

Aprill11, that was pretty low. I hope you tried to contact the owner of the stuff beforehand.

My partner used to do this all the time. I would have something - a bill that needed to be paid, a brochure I wanted to keep, a receipt I needed to keep, some notes about a book I needed to look up - and I would deliberately put it somewhere conspicuous so that I wouldn't forget about it, and then a few days later I would wonder what happened to it. Guess what? It was junk, it was in a conspicuous place (read 'it should have been put away'), so he threw it out as soon as look at it. The number of times I got upset and repeatedly told him that it was there for a reason, and he got self-righteous about his right to 'tidy'. Ugh. Thankfully now he works full-time and doesn't bother constantly 'tidying' every last surface in the house.

My mom made it a rule that we had X amount of toys in the home, and if something came in, something else had to be donated. Yeah, we put up a fuss here and there (there are hillarious videos of it). However, she eventually instilled in us a major sense of giving, so we started sorting out the 'donation' pile after birthdays and Christmas on our own when we got to be around seven or eight.

What really pissed me off was my Grandma trying to get rid of a small (very small) stack of my favorite childhood books. These are the books I intend on giving to my (future) children. Her reasoning? "They're old." I explained myself. Her response? "They look horrible!"

So now I've hidden them until her visit is over.

Myself? I might've done it once or twice on accident, during insane, last-minute moves. Otherwise, I put things aside in a box if I'm not sure the person wants it to stick around or not. Although my mom and I did have a fight over a fugly coffee table that I swore HAD TO GO - but I convinced her, I didn't go behind her back. She's done the same with me, so it's all good. :)

I would never get rid of someone else's stuff.

I admit I am too sentimental - and I save way too much stuff. But when my parents moved to a new house - my brother was ruthless about pitching everything he didn't see a use for. Scrapbooks, theme papers, my sister's writings from before she died - other stuff that made it through dozens of my mom's purges in the past 20 years - but because HE didn't value it - it had no value. Grrr. (I was living in another state and had no warning about the move.)

Funny bit though - my mom didn't notice until months later that most of her shoes were missing! She had put shoes that were out of season in a box for storage - and it apparently ended up at Goodwill as a result of the move. No big deal unless you realize my mom wears a 10 narrow and shoes for her are hard to find!!
Once she figured out what happened - she went and scoured Goodwill trying to buy all her shoes back! (small town so they only went to one place - plus - how many people are looking for 10N??

I can't throw out anything that belongs to my husband, when we go through our crazy cleaning bits, we will get rid of a good amount... I will always ask him whether or not he wants me to keep something of his. My mom would donate so much of my stuff growing up... I wasn't too sad about toys or anything, she knew not to touch my Mickey Mouse collection, but when she'd toss clothing? Ooooh hooo... I'd get mad!

lack of respect to do this to someone else, even a child.

I'm with kelleyk. My child would have the house stacked high with old toys, free stuff from happy meals, a million drawings of the same ladybug, her old clothes--everything--if I didn't get rid of things sometimes. And you can think about your parents either way: my mom gave away stuff all the time. I think it helped me become less attached to my stuff , but who knows, maybe it could have turned me into a hoarder. I'm grateful, however, that she did because I have friends who are still carrying around their childhood halloween costumes, all of their old homework, the bronze baby shoes, the prom dresses, etc. I'm kind of glad I don't have to think about that stuff.

I've been known to throw away people's stuff. But there's a line. It's arbitrary, but it's there. Though some might say there's not a line, I don't think that's true. Some people will save everything including things that ARE garbage. My rule is that if it could accidentally be considered garbage, then it doesn't belong in a common area...things like empty bottles, bottle caps, paper towel tubes, canvas bags, old magazines..even if they aren't mine are garbage after they've been out for two or three days. In our house we have a kitchen drawer for everyone...you're stuff can sit out on the counter for a day or so, but after that it gets moved to your drawer. It's your responsibility to cull it out when the drawer gets too full. Other stuff, unless it's obviously part of the decor, if it sits out too long, is garbage. If it's other stuff (books and the like) it gets put in the person's personal area (their bedroom, study, closet...whatever's in there is in there is theirs..it's nobody else's business) but not in the common area.

As for children, I think that moms and dads DO have a right to throw things out. Obviously it would be mean to get rid of something that is obviously SPECIAL...but when it comes to toys, if a purge is necessary, then that's what parent's are for...to make the decisions that children can't or won't. Kids would eat ice cream for every meal if they could...in my opinion it doesn't mean that they should be allowed to. The only thing I think is that the parent shouldn't do it secretly but should enroll them in the process, reasons why and consequences. If they're not old enough to understand this, they are young enough to have their opinion overridden.

ahhhh! its the zack morris phone!

My husband has a glass honey jar, shaped like a bear... that you are supposed to return to the store and refill... Oh think totally awful... and one time I tried to ummm donate it and got seriously caught!!! Never again!!! And my kids neither... it really is stealing... So when I clear out or declutter I make a pile of things "to go" and they check through it first. And sometimes it stays but mostly it goes. I am not ruthless but they don't actually have to keep old candy wrappers and broken markers in their drawers. My kids are so used to me decluttering (I am the opposite of an obssessive hoarder) that they are quite good at decluttering themselves.

http://www.se7en.org.za/2009/07/17/teaching-kids-to-declutter-in-se7en-steps

my mother used to do this to me all.the.time. and it drove me nuts. it would have been much nicer if she had spoken with me about it or let me know beforehand. It has definitely made me paranoid about privacy and people touching my stuff. i could never trust her after that.

Both my wife & I are both accumulators, but I'm also an organizer, and I put things away... she doesn't. I regularly have to go through her mail to throw out the junk mail. But I only do this after warning her: "so, that pile of mail's been on the side board for 4 months, it's filled that nice In Box I got you. I'm going through it this weekend if you don't...."

Abandoned items left from a roommate should be gotten rid of after a while. (2 months )

I take my nieces and nephews toys and sort the unplayed with ones into tubs and put them into the garage. That way they can ask for items if they miss them. Eventually those will be opened and given to charity with the kids permission.

She could have used www.freecycle.com. Someone would have picked up the toys immediately and kept them out of the landfills.

April 11
It must have been very inconvenient to have someone's stuff just left in your place. And it certainly wasn't thoughtful or considerate for whomever to have left it (unless you agreed?) That said, it is NOT your stuff to toss, sell, etc. Even given their behavior.

How hard did you try to find them? I would have had the stuff shipped out COD or stuck it in storage (and make them pay) if, after trying several ways/people to contact them, it was still around. How well did you know these people that they would just let stuff stay?

What you did was flat out wrong. In fact, it was theft. Sorry to be harsh, but your frustration doesn't give you the right to sell it! (Unless you had a contract that said: Whatever you leave becomes mine and I can do with it what I want.)

As to the parents who believe that it is their right to toss their kids stuff: Please, think again. People who toss their kids stuff are basically saying: We own the kids, we own the stuff. No, you don't.

I was raised by a woman who did this. We had immaculate rooms. I mean immaculate and very very clutter free. But this woman (our mother) was so bored with her life that she had nothing better to do than go through our stuff and just toss stuff. She also, at one point, sold off our stuff. Please understand: We were not rich kids with tons of stuff. We had very very little. And much of what we had was stuff of great sentimental value and irreplaceable. I cannot tell you how painful it was for my brother and I.

To say that this was traumatizing (she would also rearrange all the stuff in our drawers and closets and the furniture in our room and this includes when we were teenagers), is to put it mildly. Both my brother and I still bear the scars about this and are fanatical about people touching "our" stuff. You really do not get over this kind of behavior. And it was one more thing that alienated us from this woman.

Ironically, when the time came that our mother had to go in to an ALF, we went out of our way to allow her to review and choose what she would take (three room apartment had to be winnowed down to stuff to fit in one room). We knew totally, how traumatizing it is to make that kind of move and also to have to give up your apartment and your stuff.

It would have been easier and faster to just toss stuff, but even given how she treated us, we would not do it. It would have been as disrespectful for us to do to her as it was when she did it with us.

People's feelings are worth far more than a clean space. If they aren't, YOU have the problem.

By the way, I wish I'd had the guts to do what one commentor here did: Tossing your mother's stuff. Clever but if we had done that, we'd have been beaten to an inch of our lives.

It's funny in a way that everyone focuses on people who live with stuff and clutter (not talking hoarders here) as the ones with problems. Well, folks, people who go around carelessly tossing other people's things? They have some serious issues too.

And if you live with or are married to one, I'd be reconsidering if you should continue. Seriously. This lack of respect is huge.

And I'm even more appalled when spouses do this to each other.

Sweet merciful crap, RomaineNYC! Save it for your shrink!

Hey, let's not belittle RomaineNYC. There might have been a bit of TMI in there, but a point was being made. There was no snarking at others for making the same point more briefly, soooooo....

You should never discard anyone else's stuff - it is theirs. This goes for kids. You GAVE them the toys - go by legal standards after you give a gift, you no longer own it or can claim you do. It is the other person's. If you just randomly toss their stuff, don't be too surprised if they don't toss yours - it's only fair.

I couldn't. It just seems rude.

When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of weekends in other homes and often when I came back, my room would be gutted and all of my stuff would be gone.

The thing is, it was probably good for me, since I learned that parting from stuff I thought I "needed" won't actually kill me. It's something I think a lot more people should learn.

But it's still rude.

When my oldest daughter bought her first place, in addition to stopping in with a house-warming gift, I brought a box of her "treasures" stored in our basement. I did that every time I visited her until everything was gone.

I was shocked--NOT--to learn that she got rid of all but one or two items. Funny how all those treasures weren't as valuable once she had to store them herself.

I do admit to tossing a WAY-inappropriate t-shirt out and then convinced the kid that she had probably just lost it.

I had a situation where someone was living with my family and they left a bunch of stuff. we were not on speaking terms and he dissapeared, so we threw out his stuff. Upon inspecting his bags and boxes, we found crap he had stolen from my kid brother. This man was 25, my brother was 12. If someone imposes their crap on you, you have no obligation to keep it. Toss it, sell it, burn it.

Growing up we had a flood in our basement that ending up damaging a lot of me and my sister's stuff so my mom had to throw it out.

Many many years later, she confessed that there wasn't a flood, the clutter was just getting to her so she took it all to Salvation Army.

april 11- I side with you on this one. If someone no longer pays rent at your apartment, their leftover belongings shouldn't be your responsibility. If they couldn't even be bothered to move their stuff after several months, than its obviously not that important to them.

Think about it. If your lease was up at an apartment, you'd remove all your belongings. You wouldn't expect the next tenant to contact you months later to return your stuff. The same applies in this situation.

I think its ridiculous to suggest that april 11 could have put the belongings in storage and contacted the old roomie to have them pay for the bill. Yeah. The old roommate couldn't even be bothered to pick up their junk... and we're supposed to believe they'd ever fork over the cash for a storage unit? Not happening.

I'm pretty sure that many of the posters who have said that you shouldn't throw out/give away children's toys have never been parents and have no idea how much stuff these small people accumulate, either purchased by parents or, more likely, given to them.

I've seen my sister-in-law give away trunk loads worth of stuff to new parents who were in need. Trust me, her 5 and 3-year-old and the 18-month-old do not miss the 3-6 month toys, the clothes they've outgrown or the toys that were given to them without regard to what they actually enjoy playing with.

I make sure to check with my sister-in-law before I buy things for the kids to be sure it's something that is actually needed/wanted. I'm hoping to avoid scenes like the littlest one's first birthday party, when she received THREE ride-upons, despite the family already owning a couple. (Two ended up going to Toys for Tots that year, still new in their boxes).

I wouldn't just throw stuff out no matter how much I am convinced my SO wouldn't actually notice - I insist that she makes the call so there is no comeback on it.

What I really, really want to do is throw out the stuff our landlord has left around the place but I'm not allowed to do that either! The garage is FULL of crap and I can't wait 'til either they take it away (we're in the process of buying the place from them) or I can call in the house clearance people to take it away (at their cost of course). It stresses me, knowing that boxes and boxes of stuff is just sitting there getting mouldy and old when someone else could benefit from it.

Grr--
OK, that's pretty funny.

It's been at least 10 years since I lived with a roommate - not counting sig oths here - but I can safely say that I've thrown away a lot of other people's stuff. My sig oth at the time and I found ourselves the last tenants in a very long string of short term roommates stretching back at least 5 years. When we moved out, everything went - couches, books, dishes, etc. If we didn't know who an item belonged to, then that item had been in our household at least 3 years without ever being missed or claimed by its previous owner. That's totally enough of a grace period for me.

Subsequent apartments have come with a healthy layer of cruft left behind by previous tenants or the landlord. When possible, I contact the tenant or landlord to see if they want the items in question - but more often than not, it's just junk that someone didn't bother to pack, and so it gets tossed. I'd expect the same of people who find stuff I've left behind.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that when my ex and I split up, he kept our house but stopped making mortgage payments. He eventually moved out, leaving the house in terrible disarray, and my now fiance and I made several glorious trips to the dump with all of his junk. I figured, as above, if he can abandon stuff our house for a year or more, it can be tossed.