Do you have a hard time letting go of old photos? Even ones that you don’t particularly like? How about ones that a deceased family member left behind? Do you burn with guilt every time you think about clearing them out, even though you don’t recognize a single person in the pictures?

I’d like to make a friendly suggestion that you start working through that unnecessary guilt and attachment now.

A Lifetime Captured on Kodak

When we cleaned out the hoarded houses, we found thousands upon thousands of printed photos and slides. Snapshots of every momentous family trip or mundane event alike.

A trip to the World’s Fair? Captured on film. A calendar that was sent to Aunt Mary for Christmas 1987? Captured on film. 

If you are a rocking a phone with camera, like almost everyone is nowadays, you may not have much use for printed photos. But if you’re a technophobic Luddite like my mom, photo prints are totally your jam. 

Add to that a hoarder’s desire to capture every moment.

Then combine that with the photo printing specials at the drugstore, back in ye olden days. 

They had discount specials where you could get 4 prints for the price of 1. Yep, quadruple prints. For a roll of 36 pictures. That’s 144 pictures from ONE roll of film. Multiply that by 200 rolls of film, and you can start to imagine the scene in my old house. 

Mountains of photo packages. Big plastic tubs stuffed with prints. A closet crammed full of negatives, slides, and snapshots. Everywhere there were photo envelopes, most of which had only been opened once to check that the pictures turned out okay, all those years ago. 

A Hoarder’s Best Intentions

Oftentimes clutter and hoards are exacerbated by good intentions. You’re going to be a good friend by sending copies of the pictures to all of your friends who were at the party. And you fully intend to do that once you have some free time to sit down, write each person a long note, pack up the pictures, and finally take them to the post office. 

Fast forward to 30 years later, when your a-hole kid (me) throws those unsent duplicates in a dumpster. 

To be fair, I did give some of the photos to people who might like them as mementoes of good times with my parents. But the bulk of the pictures had to go. There was simply nowhere to keep all of them, and no reason to.

Eighteen photos of outgrown clothes that were given to Goodwill? Pass. 

Six hundred photos of random strangers, locations, and events known only to people who are now dead and can’t explain their significance to me? Adios. 

Fifty-seven awkward photos of a chubby prepubescent with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and Coke-bottle glasses? A hard no. 

Photos and FOMO

In the excellent book Stuff , Dr. Randy O. Frost and Dr. Gail Steketee explain how one hoarder was “trying to preserve her ownership with pictures.”

They described another hoarder who had numerous unread magazines and unwatched videotapes she had recorded:

“As long as she saved them, they were part of her experience. If she got rid of them, she would lose the experiences. For Debra, the driving force for her collecting seemed to be the fear of missing out on life or failing to remember it.”

Stuff, Dr. Randy O. Frost and Dr. Gail Steketee

Key Takeaways

• You don’t have to keep old photos unless they are meaningful to YOU. Someone else has already had the chance to enjoy looking at them, which is the sole purpose of a picture. Mission accomplished.
• If you intend to share photo prints with someone else, do it immediately. If you absolutely can’t do it at that very moment, set a time limit for giving them away. If the deadline passes, throw away the pictures. Seriously.
• Digital photos are magical. You may be a digital hoarder, but at least your floors will be clear. If you simply have to have the photo, scan it to your computer and get rid of the hard copy.
• Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about getting rid of unwanted photos. Keeping them is not a duty or an obligation. You are not running a free storage facility for dead people’s things. It is your prerogative to do with those photos as you wish.
• Remember, Things Can Be Different.

Hope and joy,

Rachel