Hacker News Reader

Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I moved to a house this month. First time in a house since I was at my family's home. I had a twilight zone moment last week when I realised that literally nobody else on my street uses their garage to store their car. Every garage is just full of stuff. How do you accumulate that much stuff that you need what's essentially a storage locker at your home?

When I was younger I had a moment where I was sick of my computer cable hoarding. Every device gives you cables and you never know which one of your ball of 200 you're going to need. I eventually concluded that re-buying things is cheaper than the cost to my happiness by having to store these things forever, not knowing which you'll actually need.

View on HN

OK, this is a very specific point to comment on, but - I'd disagree with you about the computer cables.

I occasionally get annoyed by my Big Box Of Cables: I used to work in digital filmmaking, so I've really got a LOT of cables in there. And it's a pain to have to wrap 'em, store 'em, and periodically cull 'em (I think I can safely chuck out the SVideo cables now...).

But whenever I need a cable whilst working, I can check that box, and after a bit of digging, it's usually in there. 5 minutes lost max.

If I don't have a cable in that box, I either have to go out to buy one - total time loss between 25 min and 2 hours depending on whether I need to journey to Maplin or can just get it locally - or buy from Amazon, which could be a day lost if the task I need the cable for is on the critical path for whatever I'm doing.

Local storage is sometimes more efficient.

(Having said that, I did make one change a while back. Unless I'm really, really sure I will need more, I only ever keep 2 of a specific cable type. At one point the spare cat-5 was threatening to take over the house.)

The key is to wrap them up somehow (I put mine in freezer bags) so they don't get tangled while in storage. The parent post's comment about a ball of cables suggests they don't do this. That can make storing lots of cables feel like a much worse idea than it actually is.

If you have them in freezer bags or whatever, on the other hand, you can just chuck them all in a box or bag, put it somewhere you can't see it, and you're done. When you need a cable or adapter or widget that you're certain you've got, rummage through your collection until you find it.

You're also less likely to lose any little caps or adapters that these things sometimes come with.

That's a really clever idea, and I am absolutely going to do that from now on.

(I just wrap 'em neatly currently. The film industry is good at techniques for cable control. But I've not heard the "freezer bag" idea before! )

Go forth and spread the word!

How do you accumulate that much stuff that you need what's essentially a storage locker at your home?

... By having kids. At least, that's what I've observed. You may be storing stuff for them, even after they leave the house. Also, you have everything that they've outgrown, but that you haven't had time to get rid of. A lot of the stuff that I see in garages appears to "belong" to someone else, including possibly the deceased.

But I think there are a couple of other factors that turn us into pack rats. One is that stuff is sold at discount in quantity, so we accumulate extra stuff. Shopping in quantity also limits the hassle of driving to the store and dealing with the crowds.

The other thing is that we're influenced by the fear of being spontaneously dumped into poverty, something that the hip young "minimalists" probably don't have to worry about. So we hoard material stuff as a hedge.

Granted, these things don't necessarily make sense. The money we could save by owning a smaller house (if zoning laws allowed such a thing to exist) would probably be worth more than the stuff that we hoard in our bigger house.

My garage is for my home gym, non-current-seasonal items, and household tools. If you want to maintain your own house, you'll need a fair amount of tools. It's mostly cheap ryobi stuff but it gets the job done and works well since it isn't being used super frequently like a professional would.

I had a similar observation, except that instead of just storing stuff, they're converting their garages into another bedroom.

I don't blame them, housing a car seems rather wasteful, doubly so if there's a perfectly usable driveway. It'll be interesting to see how Bay Area municipalities update their building codes if cars-as-a-service ever takes hold.

> housing a car seems rather wasteful

Not if you live anywhere with a significant amount of snow in the winter... Especially if the local municipal authorities combat that snow on the roads with absurd amounts of salt.

Winter is no problem for me without car, and we have snow most of the winter. A car is a choice you make, not somethings you have to have.

This is an urban dwellers fantasy.

How is it a fantasy? If anything, I find it easier to get around in the winter, living in a city. Less traffic on the roads make cycling more pleasant (yes, I cycle in all levels of snow), and walking through town is peaceful and quiet(er) vs summer excursions.

I should say, I have a car, but we use it for leaving town, not <1 mile trips within it.

Your post is a non sequitur.

I said nothing about whether a car is a choice or a necessity. That would depend on where you live also, but for different reasons.

I only said that it is not wasteful to house a car under the following circumstances: in the winter, where there is a lot of snow, and where the local municipality dumps salt on the roads throughout the winter (which gathers on surface of the car, including exposed components beneath).

We have a garage, but we keep our car in the driveway and I say this as a New Englander. Having to keep the garage clean of the shit that falls off the car after a winter excursion is worse than having to brush the snow off after a storm, in my experience.

Having lived in New England, I wouldn't keep the car in a garage there, but my comment is about salt, not snow. Having also lived in Wisconsin, where the government uses literally mountains of salt each winter on the roads, I'll absolutely keep a car in the garage rather than near the street where large machines kick up salt as they dump it onto the roads. Enough collects just driving in the winter as is.

> How do you accumulate that much stuff that you need what's essentially a storage locker at your home?

By having a house, car(s) and kids. And seasons.

My garage is full of: five bikes, eight studded winter tyres (or 8 summer tyres, depending on which part of the year it is), ten large moving boxes full of clothing for other seasons, christmas decorations, tools of every description, cans of paint and other chemicals, large bags with ice hockey equipment, skis, ...

Just the car wheels and the bikes alone occupy most of the space a car would.

Did you just peek in my garage :P

I recently went through my Big Box of Miscellaneous Computer Stuff and tossed out everything that wasn't current. Firewire cables? Gone. Mini DV recorder? Donated. Old A-B style USB cables? I only have one device that needs one, and it already has a cable for it. Gone.

Same with old 250 gb external USB drives - they're just too small these days to hold anything useful for me, so got rid of them.

Its not really that people hoard or anything like that, its just that many things that people want are quick bulky, and often people dont have a garden shed to store it in.

Items such as:

Lawnmower

tent

hedge trimmer

toolbox

bicycles for every family member

sleeping bags for every family member

The above is enough to half fill a garage if you want easy access to these items (i.e not stacked on one another)

unless you are in a 3000+ sqft home, where will you store your: snow sports equipment, summer sports equipment, bike, tools, camping equipment, car accessories, etc etc.

believe me, especially once you have kids, you'll have stuff coming out your ears.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com