"Hoarders" - The Play At Home Game

When I was running my vintage clothing business, particularly between 2008-2010, I turned most of our apartment into a storage facility.  I stopped taking pics of the place until a year or two ago.  I had never been a hoarder, but the thrill of the hunt left me with tons of clothing and accessories.  I had too much to photograph and sell.  Every Christmas I hired an assistant.  The right hand living room window was completely blocked off by massive storage bins.  I had three racks of clothing in the gallery, every surface had stuff on it.  I had put together an expensive shelving system, planning to use it as an all-in-one.  But it got covered in more stuff.  All of our closets--except Jeff's--had my clothing in them.

Those of you who've seen my apartment know that by NYC standards, it's huge.  We had a cleaning lady come in every two weeks, so it was somewhat under control.  Mostly she helped me organize the clothing etc. and then cleaned the rest of the place.  We worked with an organizer, but everything kept going back to crap.  Here's some pictures from 2006.



My custom-built shelves.  I used the ironing board to de-lint and pack clothing.  The area on the far right later had bins stacked to the ceiling.



Our living room.  By 2008 huge storage tubs went all the way to Jeff's desk on the left by the window, and the right-hand window was almost completely blocked off.



Our gallery.   It also got way worse. In the back you can see my beloved plus-size mannequin, Bodicea. She was donated last year to the Shirley Chisholm Foundation to be used at a home for at-risk teens.

I sold on Ebay for nearly ten years.  After the economy bottomed out, I was selling at a loss. I closed my store, sold off all of my vintage and donated much of the contemporary stuff, or gave it to plus-sized friends.  I sold up to size 10X in contemporary, as large as I could find in vintage.  I put ads in Craig'sList for free hangers and packing material.  Every piece of bubble wrap that came out of my supply closet HURT.  I've been cleaning and purging off and on since then.

Recently I discovered I'm a paper hoarder.  A month or so ago I had a shredding company take out an industrial size container of paper, and there is still tons more. (Gaahhh...)  BUT!  Our apartment is cleaner than it has been in years.  In fact, it's so clean it makes me a little anxious.


Living room

We had the built-in metal bookshelves moved into the living room, and donated the Ebay shelves to Materials for the Arts. And 85% of the bins, particularly the huge storage tubs with wheels. The Victorian fainting couch belonged to Jeff's mother.  We got it when she moved from Nyack to North Carolina in the 1990s. The armchair and ottoman are also from my mother in law, when she moved from North Carolina to the Ass-End of Nowhere.



Living room facing the gallery.  Above the couch hangs a painting of Pittsburgh by my mom.



The gallery.

My mother painted the ocean scene, which is what you could see from our late lamented beach house.  The gallery is 20 feet long, so you can't get a feel for how large it is. On top of the bookcase is a sculpture that my mother did in the 1940s. The red bag contains my dad's ashes, and the top hat I brought back from London for him.  It's so big that when I put it on, it drops to my nose.


Other side of gallery.

Note marble "cane stand" on the right.  My sister did the painting of our first cats c. 1975.  The antique chest is from my mother.  You can't see it, but on the left is an antique German table that my other sister gave me, and an antique monastery chair (or a good copy) that I got from Sarah Lawrence college while my dad was president.

The rest of the boxes are in a corner of the dining room.  I moved them there before a dinner party for my sister Tessa.  Eleven people, including my mom and the rest of the family.  It was a whopping success. 

Yes, it is an episode of "Hoarders."  We've been in our apartment for many years. But it wasn't until I started the business that things got so out of hand. 

When my brother posts his pictures of the dinner party, I'll put some up so it REALLY is an episode of "Hoarders." 

When Shipping Goes Wrong...

Last Halloween, I shipped out a lot of costumes, and I do mean a lot of costumes! Some of them were vintage bridal gowns which I dyed silver in the bathtub (using black dye, but synthetics turn silver).

One day I took a load of packages to the Post Office, happily notified the customers to expect their packages, and would like to say I sat back and waited for the positive feedback to roll in. But life goes on, and so I had to go back to listing, measuring, photographing, yada yada yada.

A few days later, I got an email from a buyer saying she had received the wrong dress. When she described it, I thought, "Oh, no." She was buying a fairy princess costume for her daughter, and had received a bridal gown! And needed it that weekend! (Let's call her Buyer A.) I contacted Buyer B immediately, and guess what? She'd received the wrong dress, too!

There was only timely one way to make it right, which was to have them ship the dresses to each other, rather than ship them to me and have me ship them back out again. I immediately Paypal'd Buyer B the money to ship the gown to Buyer A. (Buyer A didn't have a Paypal account, but she wrote to say she'd let me know how much it would be.) Later that night, Buyer B sent me an email with the tracking number of Buyer A's dress.

Still with me on this?

Long story short, the days went by and Buyer B did not get her gown. Meanwhile, Buyer A got her dress the day before her daughter's event.

I pulled Buyer A's contact information when I got no response to my emails, and left several phone messages. Nothing. Then I got an email, days later, saying that an emergency had come up for Buyer A, and she would ship Buyer B's dress immediately. Oh, and by the way, Buyer A got her dress and her daughter loved it.

It was already too late for Buyer B to get her dress in time. But she was a pleasure to work with every step of the way. Besides, it was my fault in the first place, even if I was pretty cheesed at Buyer A. I gave Buyer B a full refund, and she left me positive feedback, which she did not have to do.

After consulting with Trust & Safety (a misnomer if there ever was one), I wrote to Buyer A that if she did not send the package to Buyer B, I would have to file a mail theft claim.

A few days later, Buyer B got her package!

Only the bridal gown was badly damaged, the sleeves shredded. It had been intact when it left here; that is all I will say.

I love my buyers, believe me. Except when they are psycho.