The basement of this house has a little bit of a spider problem right now. It’s strange, because most of the pipe spaces going outside appear to have been sealed, but this house was built in the 70s, so it’s tough to know how those seals are holding up. There really isn’t very much stuff in the basement, so the spiders die off pretty fast, but sometime last year, I started setting traps up near the corner where I keep my boxes, and those traps (changed once) have nabbed somewhere between 15 and 30 spiders, as well as a moth or two, mostly starting in the late spring.
On the one hand, these spiders are gross, and the traps have caught some rather large ones lately. On the other hand, I seem to find myself down there checking them out a lot, kind of like how people slow down so they can observe the results of a car accident. I’m tempted to buy a gallon of insect spray to go around the foundation outside, but that slight fascination has prevented me from doing it. “Look at this one, wow!”
Even more importantly, the spiders in the basement have done something really weird and, I suspect, good: they’ve forced me to question why I have so much stuff down there in the first place.
When I first moved into this place, there was the possibility I would only be here for 6-9 months. Not wanting to save money on rent just to turn around and have to use those savings to buy appliances again, I kept my washer and dryer, microwave, toaster, and all sorts of others things I used in my apartment but which didn’t really matter here. But circumstances changed, and over two years later, it’s like, “Why do I still have all this crap?” I won’t be here forever, but it seems such a shame to keep what is ultimately just a few hundred dollars’ worth of junk lying around because saving money = good.
I love my parents. I really do. But you know, we all pick up bad habits from our parents, and my parents used to hold onto everything. Every time we moved, we hauled this huge, stupid, lumbering baby bed wherever we went because they “might need it some day”. Twenty-five stupid years later, it finally started getting some use for my sister’s kids. Sure, my parents “saved money” by keeping it and not having to buy another one. But did they really? Like, really really? How much is a baby bed these days, couple hundred bucks? Because I’m pretty sure it took a lot of sweat equity, space, and heat/AC to keep that thing around for 25 years. I’m not trying to be mean when I say this, but that is poor-enomics. That’s what happens when you fear the cost of things above all else, and ignore the mental and financial overhead that simply owning junk requires. Storing this stuff is expensive, and it frequently doesn’t occur to people that the cost of transporting large items across the country, or even just across town, is often more expensive and more of a hassle than it’s worth.
(To be fair, my parents have changed a lot of their ways and have gotten rid of a lot of things. They plan to retire a few states away, and at that point will be leaving a lot behind, which is smart)
So I realized that that was why I was holding onto a lot of these things. Microwave? $70. Curtains? Like, $25. Toaster? Like, $20. Big pile of stupid boxes sitting in the basement for the past two years. Really? Like, really? (I don’t have a particularly compelling reason to ditch the washer and dryer yet, as those did cost me around $800. With the help of a special hauling strap and a friend, they’re fairly easy to move, too. But who knows).
But it’s tough to beat that psychology. Especially the microwave, for some reason. My brain was like, “No, you may need that some day! That is important technology!” Bro, you can probably get a working microwave for $20 secondhand from ReStore. And if this one is in such good shape, maybe somebody else out there needs it instead of you just keeping it in the basement, the abode of your arachnid friends.
It’s kind of like my old laptop. See, all of my laptops have been from the same Dell series, and all plug into the same docking port I have setup at my desk. I keep the old one around because it was kinda cool and it works with the docking port. But I also have a desktop I could easily setup, and even if my current laptop bit the dust, I’d probably just order another one online for even cheaper, since these are from 2016 and are aging every day. Laptops depreciate in value super fast, so this same model is probably quite a bit cheaper even one year later. The old laptop doesn’t take up much space, so it’s not a huge deal to hold onto it, but it’s not like I’d ever use it for anything more than a temporary measure, or some sort of “public” laptop that I wouldn’t especially miss if it got stolen in a coffee shop or a library. But this is also just a fantasy I tell myself because I really never go to coffee shops or libraries. It’s a plank of wood in the corner, is what it is. Poor-enomics fears loss and therefore holds onto everything just in case.
(Confirmed. I think I paid about $350 for this laptop, I’m seeing quite a few for around $250 on ebay. Sometimes you can just replace certain parts and get things working again, too)
What I’ve always found fascinating about getting rid of junk is just how little I miss it once it’s gone. I mean, if someone had for some bizarre reason ditched my microwave while leaving the box behind, I wouldn’t have had a chance to even realize this but maybe once per year. Think about that! This is true for so many things. And if it’s something you wouldn’t notice for several years in a row, well…there probably aren’t many compelling reasons to keep it. Life is short, man. You ain’t got time for keeping that crap around.
The real danger of large storage spaces is not spiders: the real danger, is amassing huge piles of stupid shit and having this weigh you down. Fight that shit!