I think people who are into crafts. They have all of these yarns, construction papers, various tools and stuff. All so that they can say that they have all of these projects in mind that they want to do. But they never do them so they get more crafting stuff and it just eats away storage until their place is practically consumed by it.
Model Railroading.
It’s not the worst, but it requires all the key ingredients - you need to own a home large enough to have a ‘spare’ room, which means you’ve got disposable income. And displaying the trains is almost as much fun as running them, so you end building shelves and shelves, which then sprawl out to the rest of the house. Only to realize you’re missing the ‘key’ one from that set, got to go find that, obviously.
And then of course you can’t throw away the boxes, because that would lower the resale value, so you need to rent a second storage unit. Not that you would ever sell them of course. But your kids will be sitting on a goldmine!
And that’s just the collection portion. It’s a crafty hobby, from making scenery & waterfalls & little trees all the way to the special paints to make the engines look aged. That will need a room as well.
And now that we’ve got the train shelves in the kitchen, you know, I could put a food themed railroad on the table there. Yes I already have the desert themed one in the train room and the prairie themed one in the living room and the snow theme layout in the hallway, but I don’t have a silly one. No of course the Halloween theme one doesn’t count.
The reptile-keeping hobby. ):
Every collecting hobby is definitionally a hoarding hobby.
Cycling can get bad. Some dudes have a garage full of $20k of bikes.
I am on the low end of the bike hoarding spectrum. I have two very modestly priced bikes (one road, one fat) and a 20” box of parts and accessories. You could count the 4 water bottles in the cupboard, 4 bike shorts in the drawer, and 6 bike jerseys in the closet as well. 2 pairs of bike shoes, a hook of tires and tubes in the garage, oh god never mind I have it bad.
This week I actually got to use some old cranks I had saved from a bike I replaced.
Ok I’m not actually going to ride those cranks. I just needed to fit them on the bike to confirm the other cranks were bent and not the bike frame itself.
Now I’m going to buy new replacement cranks and keep the old ones AND the bent ones for some reason…
The “hobby carpenter” and handymen sort. Guys who like building stuff and own land to do it on. So much crap and sub par materials. Hundreds of salvaged half rotten 2x4s that might be enough to hold a person with a couple dozen of them. Shit tons of insulation just getting soaked outside, tons of random cinder blocks and bricks, etc. Add in a side of drywall, random carpet scraps, tons of various wiring, and a massive assortment of tools that have probably seen more house dust than wood dust.
Not taking a dig at these guys, but you have to be realistic with what you can accomplish. Unless its a crazy good deal/find that you know you will use or be able to give away, don’t touch it.
For the sake of space and organization, just buy materials for the project RIGHT before you build it, and AFTER you plan EVERYTHING about it. Account for EVERY piece you need so you never need to buy a bunch extra “just in case”.
My Dad’s a carpenter and growing up this essentially describes our backyard. So much timber that gets left over at the end of the job that he’d grab for a carton of beer. So much of it soaked and white-ant ridden.
And when these guys discover local auctions, the storage requirements explode. So many half-broken mowers, engines, chests of old tools - all needing sorting out, fixing and keeping forever.
nervously glances at the bin of scrap wood
But that’s a good board!
I’ll definitely hold onto good wood, things with zero knots, nice grain or simply rarer species, but I’ll never hoard used construction lumber.
This guy diy’s
This is me but I at least keep my stuff indoors, clean and organized.
My first answer would have been retro game collecting, but that’s already been discussed, so I’ll posit custom PC building. That’s a hobby rife with keeping spare parts “just in case”.
Source: Self
I feel like you’re attacking me for my
drawerboxcratetotestorage rental of cables…No no, I’m sure my box of IDE Hard Drives & CD Burners will be of use to me at some point…
I’m sure if you add up all those hard drives, there’s like 1 GB of storage! That’s valuable, right?
You laugh and you joke but I stumbled into a PS2 original, the fat one, with a network adapter so you can slot a hard drive in. I went into my spare parts and pulled out an old IDE hard drive, as the PS2 was before the spread of SATA (I think even before SATA was announced) and it popped right in and guess who doesn’t have to worry about discs
As shit, I’ve got one of those for spare car parts…
Oh man, the car parts one take up so much space too.
Do I need three exhausts for my WRX? Nope, but I keep banging them up off reading.
3 engine blocks, all needing some form of rebuilding. Mostly just new bearings. Or an entire extra wire harness because in the last rebuild it was just easier to buy a new one.
All my old shocks and springs after I replaced them with outback gear.
And that’s just what fits on the car. I’ve got big brake kits for cars I don’t even own! But they’re like $2k if I can ever find a buyer.
This is the one hobby where you actually might use the thing you’re hoarding just in case.
True. But do I really need all those case fans that I’m holding onto? Or that big bag of DDR3? Probably not but it’s cool ok…
All I can say is that you’ll need them within 6 - 12 months of getting rid of them.
last week i needed the dvi to hdmi converter cable i’ve been saving in my cable hoard for like 8 years and i have never felt so validated
Nice! So vindicating when that happens.
but it is a double edged sword, lol. now that i have proved to myself that those cables really will come in handy one day, i am forever stuck with a slowly growing stash of cables!
Backpacking. I have a big plastic bin filled with equipment that I decided to go another direction with.
But makers are the kings of hobby hoarding, just look at Adam Savage. He has parts for things he hasn’t even thought of building. He has a plethora of tools that overlap entirely just because the set of tools is closer to a given work aspect. Walls of bins with various degrees of filled because he bought 100 of something a decade ago that may have a future use.
Adams cave is so beautiful and well ordered these days. He’s the best kind of hoarder.
Those videos are so relaxing to watch
Opposite with me. I’ve got 25+ years of hiking in, never been a gearhead. That shit’s expensive. I buy one and make it work until it don’t work no more
My first backpacking trip, my bag was 40lbs. I said fuck that jazz, and now my pack is 20lbs and it has made trips so much better.
The ultralight stuff is a whole new set of gear I’ve considered buying but don’t know if I’ll use it enough to be worth it. My old school ass carries about 50lbs on a weekend trip though it drops fast as I eat up the food and drink the beer. I managed this for decades while my body weight was about 130lbs. Now I’m at 170 with plantar fasciitis, mild arthritis and possibly Covid lingering effects.
I’m not even ultralight. I have a framed pack and a whole toothbrush. Those guys are nuts.
The rare occasion that “the thing” ends up being exactly what you needed is incredible, though.
It’s almost always whatever you you threw out last week though.
Or what you put in a storage unit that is inconveniently far away. I still need those 5mm magnets…
Perfect example.
Is this a place to cast shade or self reflect? In the former experimental scientist. They have closets of oscilliscopes, vacuum pumps, cryostats. Enough to furnish 3 or more labs. They always say they’ll use it, but the pile only gets bigger.
For me, I have the opposite problen in general. I throw everything away and end up buying or making new shit. Worst is probably code. Fuck making a repo. This is a one off. I can write the same code 3 times before I keep it, but I like to say that is what makes me a decent programmer. And I’ll keep telling myself that until I die.
I would actually love to know what hobbies don’t have some sort of hoarding aspect! I’m trying to think on it and I can’t come up with any at the moment.
I’m sure one of you can help me?
Playing music. Sure some people can collect guitars or whatever, but really that’s a separate hobby from actually playing.
Idk, I know a pianist and his house is just filled with boxes and boxes of sheets music!
Hmmm yeah I have learned a ton of fiddle tunes. Does it count as hoarding when its in your head?
But you need equipment to actually play?
I’m not a guitar collector/fetishist at all, but still need at minimum an electric (preferably at least two for humbuckers & singlecoils), a steel string, a nylon string and a bass to be able to play what I want to play. Not to mention amps, pedals etc. And this is strictly for playing gigs and home practice, when you get into home recording it piles up even more. Even if you restrict yourself to things you actually use, the possibilities for hoarding are pretty much endless.
Yeah collecting instruments, parts, strings/reeds, and accessories is totally part of it. People hoard to varying degrees but any hobby requiring physical objects is hoardable.
Crafters are definitely up there, overall - but I think wargamers might beat them. Hundreds to thousands of models, paints, brushes, terrain, carrying cases, books - it adds up to a hoard of epic proportions. That’s just personal experience though. Lego fans can also get to be out there, and TCG players.
Gotta second the card gamers. I have no idea what cards are in my collection anymore, and i only have three longboxes of cards. I’ve seen far bigger collections. There’s a few reasons a quit that hobby, and this is one of them.
collecting
3d printing, if you start it’s a wormhole, where you end up wanting more and more different types of printers, print a lot of useless crap, have a lot of filament lying around, and spare parts. Not as space consuming as automotive or woodwork etc but if you live in a small apartment without a dedicated room for hobbies it can get pretty crazy.
I keep trying to get into it. I have one and do some neat things with it. But personally. I’ve found it to just be another tool to fabricate for some other projects. But the little knick knacks keep being the main models showing up on printables and thingiverse.
I’d love to see a repository of 3d models of parts for various machinery and car parts. My entire interior is basically molded abs, why aren’t there models of all those pieces I can just print?
I wonder if one of those 3d phone scanning apps would be enough for something like that with a few measurements.
Mini DIsc enthusiasts
I know people are giving some very good examples, but a pet that can easily turn into a hoarding hobby is hamsters. You get one, get super attached, and then three years later whoopsie doodle, the living room is filled floor to ceiling with cages for all twelve of your little dudes.
This is just due to how much space the little guys need. In the wild hamsters will viciously defend miles of land, so bigger cages are always better. As a general rule, an ideal cage should have 900 sq inches of space and be at least 2 feet deep to allow several inches of bedding. So, one little dude will take up at least 12.5 cubic feet of your living room, or .07 cubic smoots for our friends across the pond. This adds up fast, and it can be easy to get in over your head because each individual little dude requires so little cage cleaning per month.
Yep, but imagine a Klingon falling in love with the warrior spirit of the fearless tribble. That’s basically the appeal of a hamster.
Fishing. 5 bucks here and there, it adds up. Even more so, fly fishing. I have some many materials
