Hoarding can be really rough on a family. From not being able to have friends over, to arguing about where things end up, if not everyone is on the same page, it’s really hard to clean it up.
I’ve never been a mean parent so I have a hard time getting rid of the kids’ things without their blessing. However, the tactic that I’ve used for the past year or two has been working okay. When I’m cleaning up, if I find some of their things, I put them in a pile and then I tell them to take the stuff to their rooms. If it sits there very long or ends up on the floor, I figure that they really don’t care that much about it or they wouldn’t leave it on the floor and out it goes.
I do have a problem with other family members in the house that like to stack things on flat surfaces. I don’t have a problem with setting things down when someone comes in the door, but the stuff never leaves. It sits there for weeks and months and then when I finally move it or put it where it belongs, it becomes a huge argument about how I lost it. This is really becoming a problem here but I’m not going to back down. I need all this stuff out of the house. I can’t be the keeper of everyone’s things.
I like your idea of putting other family members items in a pile and then leaving it up to them to put it away or get rid of it. Maybe you could do the same thing with the stuff left out or on the flat surfaces? Maybe get a basket (like a laundry basket) for each person in the household and when they leave something out, it goes in the basket near or in their room. Or put all the baskets in one place and if they ever can’t find something, they can check the basket.
I like the basket idea. I tried one of those stairway baskets but I put stuff in it and nobody took anything out! Then one of the cats started using it as a scratcher so I got rid of it. But maybe if they each had their own basket….