Anyone who’s been living in the same house for 33 years—as my wife and I have—knows all about being overwhelmed by stuff. It’s everywhere. The place is packed to the gills with it. And it just keeps coming, via Amazon purchases, yard sales, inheritance, and gifts. It’s like there’s a giant, unseen conveyor belt that keeps dumping it in.
Furniture is perhaps the worst, as it doesn’t take up space by accident—it’s designed to take up space. Fortunately, its accumulation appears to be largely self-limiting. I mean, you can’t collect couches or Naugahyde Barcaloungers unless you have a warehouse and a prescription to treat the disorder. Still, we have a disassembled set of bunk beds in the basement that haven’t been used since the kids were, well, kids (the youngest is 32), and that my wife and I hold onto in case we buy a house in the country or near the beach and want to set up a guest room for the grandchildren. Note that we do not have actual grandchildren, or even children who appear interested in producing them. But hey, wouldn’t want to get rid of those bunk beds, right?
I turn 68 this summer, my wife is 69, and the inflow of stuff into the house doesn’t seem to be slowing down in the least. It’s no wonder that people say that the greatest gift you can give your children is to deal with your stuff and downsize before you pass away. I say screw that. If they’re going to inherit our assets, they’re going to inherit the problems that go along with them. I mean, fair’s fair, right?
I like to think that my automotive stuff is special in some way. It’s like having spare blood bags in the fridge if you’re accident-prone and your blood type is really rare. And when I need some part, I know that I have it somewhere, and when I actually find and install it, I feel that specialness. Obviously, the cars themselves, like furniture, take up a lot of space. Fortunately, unlike furniture, they’re not as self-limiting as you’d think, because they don’t live inside the house. As you know if you read this column, I’ve allowed the car count to creep up to 14 (three in the garage, six in the driveway, and five in rented warehouse space). The stuff, however, is at times more of a frustration than the cars are. I mean, I don’t go looking for a car, spend hours trying to find it, and come up empty-handed, yet know it’s here somewhere. That happens all the time with the parts.
Part of the problem is that several stuff-bombs have been dropped on the house. After my mother passed in 2019, we gave away most of the furniture, dishes, and clothing, but—even the boxes of family memorabilia notwithstanding—how can you give away utilitarian items you know you can use in your house, like a crate of light bulbs, or two crates of painting supplies? Likewise, when a friend’s car-guy father passed and she wanted help cleaning out his shop, how can you say no to boxes of taps, dies, clamps, drill attachments, and files?
But car parts, due to their role in our collective automotive passion, are their own special category of stuff. Because of my four decades of activity in the BMW Car Club of America, I’m a known point-person in the Boston area for helping spouses deal with their deceased husband’s cars and parts hoards. If parts are worth enough for an easy sale on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, I’ll say so. Usually, though, there’s one or two high-vapor-pressure items, and the rest is just, well, stuff. That is, maybe it’s not straight-up junk, but it’s a collection of items where the time it would take to sell isn’t worth the effort. People usually just want the hoard gone. Four of these parts stashes dropped into my lap over the past decade. There’s an initial tendency to keep a hoard together—give it a look over, make mental or physical or electronic notes so when you think “Hmmmn, do I have one of these?” either the neurons can fire or you can have a list to look on. But eventually you decide that you don’t have a moral responsibility to keep a shrine to people you never met via their stuff, and you try to consolidate in some meaningful way.
By far the largest amount of automotive stuff I have is for BMW 2002s, as I’ve owned 40 over a period of as many years, and still own three. I’ve tried dividing the stuff up as new and used, and within that, ignition, fuel, cooling system, electrical, and trim, but it’s a losing battle. For example, I don’t necessarily have a dedicated box of road-trip spares for each car; I tend to throw such a box together before a trip. But if, nine months later, I can’t find a fuel pump or a distributor cap, I may discover that I never disseminated the parts from the last road trip, and the box is sitting intact on a shelf in the back of the garage. I pull the fuel pump out of it, solve my immediate problem, but—Wham-O—create an incomplete road-trip box that’s likely to get me in trouble if I grab it at a later date thinking it’s got everything I need.
Another big issue is the often torturous path that purchased parts take. I may order some new part online, or snag something used off Craigslist, but wherever it comes from, unless it’s big like wheels or seats (which are items not easily misplaced), it comes in the front door of the house. If it’s a part whose need is acute (e.g., the car is down and I’m refreshing a browser with a tracking number waiting for the part to arrive), I bring it directly into the garage and install it, but more often it sojourns somewhere. It may sit in the front hallway or at the end of the kitchen counter for a few days, then make its way into the basement, which is a kind of parts limbo (“The basement: Where parts go to get lost”). I used to have a box at the bottom of the basement stairs where car parts sat. When I installed the workbench at the end of the basement next to the door of the garage, I moved the box there. But now the workbench is as cluttered as everything else, so it’s still easy for things to get misplaced on the way to their final destination, especially if it’s an “I’ll install it when I get around to it” part as opposed to one that’s solving an immediate problem. If the car that needs the part is one of the three in the garage or in the driveway, I’ll try to put the part in the trunk, but if the car is one of the five in storage 75 miles away, well, you see the problem.
Case in point: Three years ago, my Bavaria was in a short film. There was trivial damage—a plastic piece on one of the rear door armrests broke. They paid me for the used part I found on eBay and for the little aftermarket metal reinforcing bracket I found on some boutique website. The parts arrived, but the Bavaria never came back home—it had been sitting in the warehouse and was only driven occasionally until this week. I’m entertaining selling it, so I wanted to—finally—replace the broken piece. I couldn’t find it or the bracket anywhere. And I can’t find any online trace of the vendor from which I bought it.
Similarly, my red E9 3.0CSi coupe—the nicest car I own—has never had the correct hen’s-teeth-rare air-conditioned console faceplate in it. I found someone selling a 3D-printed facsimile a few years ago, and bought it. This spring, I relished the thought of, after 40 years of ownership, finally installing it and a period-correct Blaupunkt radio in the car. I can’t find the faceplate anywhere. It’s probably in a box with the Bavaria armrest and bracket pieces. But I’ve turned the basement and the garage upside down and have unearthed neither.
While we’re on the subject of boxes, I’ve decided that they’re evil entities. Sure, we need them as an organizational tool, but we often overuse them. If you’re a restoration shop or a highly-dedicated DIYer, you probably have hundreds of linear feet of shelving and dozens of identical plastic cargo boxes. You’ve probably methodically loaded and labeled the parts from a car you’re disassembling, and these plastic bins make your shop more presentable and organized. The rest of us make due with irregularly-sized cardboard boxes used for a whole variety of questionable purposes. The truth is that creating a box and filling it gives it a sense of legitimacy that it may or may not deserve.
“Jeez,” you’re saying, “What the hell is Rob on about this week?” I’ll tell you. For example, when you sell a vehicle, you clean it out and throw everything into a box and label it something like “Last stuff out of the truck,” if you bother to label it at all. Maybe months later, you buy another truck, or you’re about to rent a U-Haul trailer, you need the hitch electrical adapter, you can’t find it, but eventually realize it’s in the truck box. You then do something that actually makes sense—you make a “Trailer” box for the adapters and hitch pins (not the actual ball hitches that slide into the 2-inch receiver; those are too heavy for a cardboard box; you get to misplace those some other way). That’s a useful box. You then realize that “Last stuff out of the truck” is not a real functional description for anything other than your own laziness. So you do what you should’ve done in the first place—you take the time to clean it out, throwing 90% of what’s in it away. You don’t need the street map because they’re obsolete. You don’t need ten years of old registrations and inspection reports. You don’t need the rock or the twig or the shell or the other little keepsakes you picked up during the truck’s ownership. If you do, just make one box labeled “Rocks and twigs and shells and keepsakes,” throw all of them from all the vehicles in there, put it on a shelf in the basement for ten years, and then throw it all out at once.
Amirite? I am.
The problem is that it takes a lot of time to methodically go through your basement and garage, make the tough decisions, and reorganize and rehome decades of parts so you can actually find the things you’re likely to need. Like anyone is going to prioritize their time on this planet to do that.
So, like most other humans, I live with my boxes of stuff. But these days, I hear them mocking me. “Ha!” they say. “This guy thinks we’re a monument to his passion and thriftiness, but really we’re the physical manifestation of an inability to throw things out. Let’s fall and crush him.”
Man, when I find that $12 bracket for the broken armrest piece in the Bavaria, I’ll show them.
***
Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic™: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem, is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.
I generally only keep original part removed from a car I own or I keep spare parts for thing that are near impossible to find now like a NOS T top for a car none are available for anymore. You know you use the death grip not to drop bit if you do you lose a roof kind of part.
If I sell the car I sell the parts to.
The parts I have could bring good money and the key it to make sure your family knows what you have and not just toss rare NOS parts.
The biggest sin is to not be organized and most of us are not organized. I should be better. Might keep a note book on inventory and value and what it is for to help you know what you have and the family if you take unplanned dirt nap.
Well said Rob! Thats me to a tee. And the best way to find a stashed away part is to buy another one. Guaranteed you’ll find it shortly thereafter while looking for something else..
“Let’s fall and crush him.”! Hahaha – Best line!
Rob, maybe it is a Rob thing, but I hear you – I don’t have 14 cars, but I have a bunch of my Dad’s old tools and whatnots, and he died in 1985… hmmm….
“…I’ve turned the basement and the garage upside down…”
Yeah Rob, we can tell from the pictures! Unlike you and your stashes, I’m CERTAIN that there will be hordes of folks rushing to get hold of all the treasures I’ve been collecting over the years……………….yeah, right. 🙄
My cache is much smaller and yet just as bad.
2 car garage, wood shop on one side, 1978 motorcycle and (as of this weekend) 2 1965 fords.
One of the cars is getting a new motor so I have space- for now.
But I need to move the wood shop ( 2 small rooms in garage to clean out) and then…. figure out how and where to put everything.
As problems go, I think you will agree to have these as problems.
It could always be worse!
I envy people who appear organized. Thanks for revealing the reality the rest of us exist in !
Having 3 different types of vehicles that all have needed major attention I have cardboard boxes everywhere. Mostly unmarked but vaquely remembered as ’73 Volvo 1800ES / ’70 Spitfire Mark IV / 2003 Matrix along with the specific oils, fluids etc taking up 1/3 of one bench.
Then, of course there are the plastic containers of both old and new, SAE / Metric nuts, bolts etc that will definitely come in handy sometime in the distant future. lol
The one thing I (mostly) keep organized are the tools. Nothing worse than spending 20 minutes looking for the short 10mm wrench, specific driver modified to fit that one tight spot, the socket extension just the right length…
And don’t get me going about inherited knick knacks from (too many) family members who passed over the last decade.
My poor daughter …
Yup, it’s as if I wrote this article. Literally. It fits me that accurately. And I read it as another poking of the bear, sincerely, thanx again, Sir!
Seeing the situation I’ve put myself in, I came up with a few conclusions. 1: I see all of my possessions & projects as piles. 2: For each item I take care of from beginning to end, that’s one less thing my surviving family/heirs will need to deal with. 3: No matter how much I take care of before I ‘move on’, there will still be a huge steaming pile remaining. Number 3 being said, I should get family members/heirs to pick out what they want now, and then set up a living trust to handle the remaining stuff (and then distribute said $$ from stuff being sold by the trust company, accordingly). This would put little to no burden on everyone. So for now, I’ll enjoy whatever I do while not feeling guilty. Now, all I need to do is to follow through😉
Pretty funny description of a common car guy (boat guy, motorcycle guy..,) affliction. I did have some minor success a few summers ago. The local drag strip held a car show/swap meet during a race event. I enlisted a friend & we took 2 pickups full of various big block & small block Chevy engine parts. Most of it sold at fire sale prices! I was happy & the wife was happier😁
I go to two swap meets per year. The first ten years I brought home more than I sold. Finally I made myself swear to stay at my spot and only get rid of things – no cruising around other spots! The last seven years I’ve unloaded a lot of items I don’t really need and have thinned the shelves out greatly. It’s been hard to not walk around the meets, and I’m sure I’ve missed out on a lot of killer deals, but I’m determined to stick to my plan!
In 2008, I was (finally) in a position to build a proper workshop/hangar. Steel, not wood, 50 by 90, 40 foot wide door, concrete floor, lights, shelves, racks, filing cabinets, compressor, outlets everywhere, 110/220, refrigerator, I think I got away with it by telling Dear Bride ™ that she would have the world’s largest shoe closet second only to Imelda Marcos. 4,500 square feet of the wide open spaces. Yes!
I looked at it and said this looks like the inside of the Death Star, I will NEVER fill it up.
Wrong. It is full, packed, there’s room to walk around, but not much more.
There’s a tractor, which I didn’t have or anticipate (but I need it) and the attachments, there’s an airplane, there are several antique motorcycles, power tools out the wazoo including a ShopSmith woodworking tool and accessories (which someone gave me, there’s no real market for it and it is too good to discard), furniture, boxes of books (lots of books) and supplies for an anticipated larger home, and more, more, more. Stuff “breeds” . . .
So here’s how I (attempt to) deal with it.
1) Like goes to like – all the parts for vehicle X are boxed, labeled, and shelved near vehicle X.
2) When something arrives, never put it “down”, put it AWAY, in a labeled box.
3) Use STANDARD size boxes! This is important, you can stack them and the stacks are less likely to fall over, and it (at least) gives the impression of organization. I use legal size file boxes, I can lift them when they’re full! 4) Don’t use workbenches for storage, or at least try not to (do as I say not as I do).
5) Put EVERYTHING on wheels, I buy HF dollies on sale and scavenge the casters to put on shelving, benches, etc. That way when I “reorganize” (yet again) I can just shove things around instead of unloading, lifting, discovering it doesn’t fit and then having to put it back and reload it.
6) Practice saying no to friends, family, random acquaintances who “heard” you have storage space and can they store their boat/car/pet dinosaur etc. for “a few days”, which invariably turns into months or years. Sorry, the space is full, zoning won’t let me, my boat sank or my horse threw a shoe, I don’t remember which, but I can’t help you, much as I would like to be able to.
7) THROW STUFF OUT – old boxes, packing materials, busted stuff you know you’ll never use/need/fix, things that are worn out (tires?), aged out (spray cans from 1936), old catalogs from companies that are out of business, you’d be amazed at some of the things we save that are uttlerly useless.
Wish me luck . . . I’m only 78 so I have probably only half a century left to get this figured out.
(And Dear Bride’s case files are also in there from 1850 or so, even though all that stuff is now on the county website, so those boxes of paper need to go away too – someday.)
Occasionally a friend who does house cleanouts hires me for larger jobs. It’s heartbreaking, but understandable to load dumpster after dumpster of a person’s life and watch them roll away to a landfill. Happens everywhere, everyday.
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