In today’s episode, we are bringing you the ultimate guide to home and garage organization! As our hosts explore the best practices for decluttering and optimizing space, you’ll find valuable advice on managing seasonal items, tackling old paints and chemicals, and knowing when and how to part with unused things. This episode empowers you to transform your living areas into well-organized sanctuaries while embracing modern solutions for inventory management.
SPEAKER 01 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
SPEAKER 08 :
In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio.
SPEAKER 06 :
And good morning. It is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560, listening to a replay of our show. Thank you for that as well. We appreciate it very much. Live program today on July the 12th. July the 12th. Beautiful day, by the way, here in Colorado. So wherever you’re at listening to us, we appreciate that greatly. Hopefully the weather where you are is great as well. We are sitting at a nice 66 degrees here in the Denver area. front range area, which makes for a really nice day to go outside and get a few things done. I’ll talk about a few things along those lines today as well. Text line, don’t forget 307. 200-8222-307-28222. You can call the studio line as well, 303-477-5600, 303-477-5600. So I thought I would go over a few things today in regards to organization. For a lot of you listening, this would be a great time of the year, you know, depending upon where you’re at with your yard chores and so on, and some of that is ongoing i fully understand where you’re doing you know you’re weeding and mowing and trimming and all those different things my wife reminded me last night too that for some of you depending upon you know layout and irrigation and so on might be time to adjust you know watering schedules times do some head adjustments things like that the extra heat that we now have That will show up in, in other words, you have areas where you don’t have proper coverage and things like that. You’ll start seeing some, you know, dry spots and some things along those lines. So now is a great time to get all those adjusted. And they need periodic adjustment anyways. Most… folks probably realize that although if you don’t realize that they do the heads themselves keep in mind they are you know mechanical they get stepped on walked on run over all those sorts of things lawn mowers and so on so they will need periodic adjustments so it might be a great time you know great time of the year great day to actually go out and do some of that as well and i will not get into the specifics of how to adjust each type of sprinkler head because there are a multitude of even brand to brand. And some of you listening in some of the outer areas are actually texting in as well. So thank you, by the way, for that. We appreciate it very much. And one other thing too, Rodents, I’ve had some conversations, not just with one of you, but several of you this week on how to get rid of rodents and things like that. And I may get into some of that a little bit later today as well, depending upon how things go with the program. But again, the text line 307-282-22, 307-282-22. And again, thanks for the text messages. And if you have any questions, by the way, off air, and a lot of you know this and do this, so I appreciate that. But if you’ve got a question even off air, you’re more than welcome to send a text message or an email. But a lot of times text messages are very quick and easy. You can text at any time while another show is going on, by the way, or after the shows or whatever. I do my best to get those answered from you or for you, I should say. Read those questions and things from you on a routine basis, and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can. And typically within a matter of a few minutes, unless I’m in the middle of something, you know, phone call or whatever, you know, some of my own chores on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes I’ll get text messages after the show, and it might take me a little bit of time because when I get home, I do a few things around the house as it’s my day to get, you know, get home, get things started around my house in regards to chores and things like that. So… If you’re texting and I don’t get back to you for a little bit on a Saturday, you’ll know why. But those of you listening to the replays and other times, yes, you can text even during those times, and I’ll do my very best to get answered back. But I thought today would be a great day to talk about cleaning, organizing. It’s that time of the year where… It’s nice out. It’s easy to get some of those things done to where you can roll things out and actually get things cleaned out, cleaned up, organized, throw things away, go through items that you may or may not use any longer. And everybody has a different rule of thumb on what to do when it comes to throwing things away. So. The rule is out there that you read is there are some folks out there, the quote unquote organizing experts will tell you if you haven’t used it in six months, then you probably don’t need it. Now, I would stretch that. especially where we’re at in a seasonal, you know, location like we are here in Colorado. There are some things you just don’t use in the summer that you need in the winter. There’s things in the winter that you need that you don’t use in the summer, you know, vice versa. You know what I mean by that? So bottom line is I think the six months can be a little bit short depending upon, you know, where you live and what you’re doing. But I would say personally, and this is hard for all of us, myself included, if you’ve got something that you haven’t used in a year, do you really need it? Now, some of you that are handy folks and you do things around the house and you do some fixing up of different things and so on, you may keep a few spare parts and things like that kicking around. And you may do that just to have things for that what if I need this particular thing. item you know this light switch or this electrical plug or you know i’m keeping a you know six foot chunk of wire or whatever those are that’s not what i’m talking about when i when i’m talking about things that you would because those are like inventory think of it that way and that’s different and i think that’s where sometimes people get off off track on what should we keep versus what we should throw away now what i would also say is what you inventory quote-unquote Probably need to look at that from time to time, just like stores do, just like all of the auto parts stores. NAPA is a big sponsor of Drive Radio, and they do this on a routine basis. And anybody that sells parts or supplies or whatever, they’re going through their inventory on a routine basis because if that inventory isn’t turning enough, then there’s no sense in having it take up shelf space, and they might as well put something else in its place. I think some of the stuff at home is kind of the same way. In other words, we’ll use those switches and chunks of wire and so on. Depending upon how much room it’s taking up, where you’ve got them stored, and so on, keep in mind that, and I know this goes against the grain of a lot of folks’ thought process, but there are stores still that provide those items. And in a lot of cases, it’s not that expensive to go buy a chunk of wire and or a light switch and or an electric plug. Now, if you have enough things going on where you feel like you need to have a few of those items around, then you have to do the math on how much room is this taking up. Should I be keeping it? Should I not? I was going through some cabinets this last week looking for something. And I’m like, why do I have some of this stuff? And so this weekend, today, tomorrow, I will go through and do some of the things that we’re talking about right now. Kind of a reminder of today’s show and why I thought I’d talk about this. Because, you know, you get some things that maybe even get tucked in an upper part of a cabinet or they get tucked into a box or whatever the case may be. And pretty soon, you know, it’s that old saying, out of sight, out of mind. And unless you go and actually… look in the box and determine what is actually in here, you may not even think about that. And I guarantee you, I’ve got some things kicking around my garage that I probably have had in boxes like that for probably decades. Plural, not singular, plural. Meaning, I don’t need them anymore. For example, I opened a box the other day and there were some old speaker mounts for like, you know, speakers you would put on the wall and things like that. Speakers I no longer even own. And I’m thinking to myself, why do I own these things? I mean, yeah, they’re nice little brackets, but I can make a bracket out of pretty much anything. Why do I need to be stocking and having these things take up shelf space when I could put other things on? So that’s the stuff that I’m talking about. If you’ve got things in the shop, and you guys all know me, my biggest complaint with a lot of individuals as I drive around is, especially in the wintertime, you drive around, you see all these cars parked outside. They’ll have a two or three car garage, but yet there’s a bunch of cars parked outside. And in the summertime, when the doors are open, it’s really easy to see why there’s cars parked outside. Reason is the garage is full. And keep in mind, for a lot of people, the garage is full, and so is the storage unit that they’re renting on a monthly basis. As we here, myself, Larry, and Charlie, look out to the west, and we look over the top of these storage units, and we see people come and go all the time, loading, unloading, and so on. And I get it. Sometimes those are a necessity, and you need to store some things. in a storage unit for X amount of time. Although I will tell you that I think most people store things in there for probably far too long. And most of what’s in there, once they’ve moved in and settled in, if they did some sort of temporary storage during a move, most of what ends up in there is junk. Sorry, but most of it is. And that’s where I think we have to be really careful on what are we keeping versus what are we getting rid of. And again, that’s a constant reminder for me that, OK, do I really need said item? And again, if it’s something that you feel like you should be keeping, then. They now have, and there’s apps even out for this now, which is very interesting. And this is something I’ve not spent a lot of time investigating, but I think it’s a really handy thing to do. There’s a lot of folks now where you can buy the different organizational tubs. In fact, you can even buy a rack to put the tubs in if you’d like to. You really can store things easily. Now what people are doing is they’re starting to have and use these apps that allow you to put a barcode or a QR code, I should say, on each tub whereby you take your phone, you scan into your phone what’s in that tub, you put that tub away, and if you ever want to know in the future, hey, I think I have such and such, You can look to see, okay, here’s where the tub was last. It’ll even show you a picture of that on some of these apps. And or you can just scan the QR code on the outside of your tub, and it will tell you what’s inside of said tub. In a lot of cases, you can even have a picture of what you had in the tub or what you’ve laid out before putting in the tub. Again, multiple ways to do that. And there’s multiple ways to organize that. That’s one example of if you want to store some things away. Now, what I would say is if you want to store some things away and keep track of it, that’s a good way to do it. But I would also say this. Only store the things that you really know you’re going to need. Now, for some of us, that is, again, seasonal items. You’re only going to take things out during this time of the year. You’re going to only typically have your cookout gear and things like that out in the summer. Summer months, for example, some people do cookouts all year long. I get that. But for most people, those are seasonal things. You know, your kids and some of the toys that they have and some of the outdoor activities and so on. Those are things that as you get into the fall and winter, you may want to put those things away. You may want to organize that better than what it is right now. And again, idea being how do we condense a lot of those things down to whereby we’re not taking up all of that garage space that so many people, by the way, are paying for? but yet aren’t able to utilize to put the car in. It’s more of a drive radio topic, I guess you could say, because I also see constantly vehicles that are vandalized, stolen, broken into, and so on. And I think the first thing I always think of is if that was in, in a lot of cases you can see from the pictures of the people posting that there was a garage there, and then you have to ask the question, why is the car not in the garage? Again, not being critical, but just asking the question, why is the car not in the garage? If the car was in the garage… Chances of that vandalism or that theft happening probably is minimized unless you leave the door open or something along those lines. But again, point being, how many people are able to even park in the garage that have one? And if they can’t, it’s because there’s so much stuff inside the garage. First things first, and we’ll walk through some of this, and a lot of this is self-explanatory, but some of you maybe have done this, some of you maybe have not. I would take a section of your garage and work on a section at a time. What I mean by that is you take everything out of the garage. So that particular section, you lay it all out, lay it all out in the driveway, start determining or lay it on the floor of the garage or however you want to do it, depending upon what your room situation is. But then start deciding, what is it I need? Versus what is it I don’t need? Now, some items, by the way, and this is for some people listening, you may have the ability to turn some of that into cash. Facebook Marketplace, other things along those lines. You may be able to take garage sales. You may be able to take some of what you have and what you may not need any longer. You know what? Somebody else may need and may be willing to turn over some cash to own what you have. And especially some of you guys that are business owners and so on, you typically, like myself, you have a rotation of things that just you accumulate. It just happens. Things happen. And depending upon what those items are, you may be able to turn those into some cash and do that by just using, again, Facebook Marketplace, which has become the replacement for Craigslist. So think of it that way. And You’ve got the ability to take items that you would normally have kicking around the garage, taking up space, and then turn those into something else. The other thing, too, that starts to collect over time, again, I’m as bad about this as anybody, is old paint and chemicals. So, you know, you painted… a room at one point, and by the way, you may have even changed the color of that room since, but yet you’ve still got the paint from, you know, two colors ago. What are you going to do with that? Now, here’s the rule of thumb on paint. In Colorado, other states that are listening, some of you guys that listen in Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Jersey, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, you know, other places outside of Colorado, I don’t know how it is because every place is different. But here in Colorado, you cannot throw liquid paint in the trash. So if the can is hard and solid and it’s gotten all dried out, you can throw it away. No problem. I’ve never had any issues with that whatsoever, and I think the rules are okay on that. If it’s liquid, though, you cannot. And part of that is because just think of the mess and everything it makes when it’s actually liquid. So there’s a couple things you can do. For some of you that get a lot of Amazon boxes and deliveries and things like that, if you’ve got just a little bit of paint left in a can and it’s liquid, then go ahead and pour that out onto that cardboard, let it dry, throw the cardboard away, and you’re good to go. The other thing you can do is there’s a lot of community drop-offs that they’ll have different times of the year where they’ll take household paint and chemicals and things like that, solvents, what have you, and you can drop those off there and then they handle the disposal of. But The biggest thing on the paint side of things is not throwing liquid paint into the garbage, of course, because you’re not allowed to throw really any kind of liquids along those lines. Paint, oils, things like that, those are no-nosers. They’re not supposed to go in the trash. So they need to be solids before they actually make it there. But that’s one of the things, too, to go through as we’re going through all of this is, you know, and by the way, if you have leftover paint, do you even know what it is and how old it is? Because that’s another one where with the new technology, If you’ve got old paint you’ve been hanging on to touch up and do different things inside the house, and that’s getting to be, you know, my suggestion would be date that can when you put it out. You know, what room is this? And then date it. Because as it gets older and older, that paint will no longer be as effective as it once was. And with the advent of these new machines they have at all of the paint stores, you can literally take a paint chip in. And darn near get exact. I mean, it will be so close that you’re you’re saving that old quarter pint or quarter quart of paint is the shelf space. It’s not worth taking up. Literally, it just isn’t. And especially as it starts to age and get older. and that paint will start to dry out even inside of that can about the only way to really store paint and have it last any length of time at all is full cans if you’ve opened the lid on it at all and let air in over time it’s still going to start to uh you know dry out and so now i get it latex paint you can add some water too and keep using it and so on but Again, each and every one of you needs to look at these things and say, okay, are these items that I’m going to use again or not? In my case, I’ve even got some old varnishes and things like that where it’s like some of these things I’m never going to use again. So those are things that I need to go through and start the process of disposing of as well. And then we’re going to get into here some of the garage organizers and things that are out there. There are so many things today that you can buy to help get yourself organized over what we used to have. But But same situation, as I was saying earlier, though, make sure that you’re keeping what you really need to keep. So let’s not just organize to organize. Let’s organize stuff that you’re actually keeping that has a purpose, because if you don’t need it in the first place, get rid of it. We’ll come back, talk more about that. Text line 307-282-22. The main line, 303-477-5600. We’ll be back here in a moment. Fix It Radio, the website, fixitradio.com. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. Larry Unger joining me now as well. And good morning, Larry. I should have said that earlier, but good morning. Good morning. Larry was on the other side of the glass, so I was saying good morning, but you don’t hear through the glass.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I was a little bit late.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s all right. It’s all good. It all works.
SPEAKER 07 :
It was funny because I was doing what you were talking about during your first segment there. City of Thornton has a tree branch and compost drop-off.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
So I had it figured out that my youngest son would do it for me so I could get down here and have no problem. But my son woke up with a sore back. So I ended up having to go down there. So I went there at 8 o’clock. I figured I could zip in and zip out.
SPEAKER 06 :
Not so much?
SPEAKER 07 :
Wasn’t quite zipping in, zipping out.
SPEAKER 06 :
Didn’t work quite that well, huh?
SPEAKER 07 :
No. In fact, there’s about 25 trucks in front of me. Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it just shows you, you know, it’s that many years people are cleaning out stuff. Some of the stuff that we’re even talking about today is what people are doing. Several of you, by the way, texting in. One said, my wife is a professional organizer. And she would always ask when decluttering, have you used this in the last few years? By the way, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. All other people talking about how you guys label different things and so on. And again, I’m not going to tell you all how to label, you know, your own storage and how you want to organize and so on. You know, that one is really a. to each his own i i don’t want to tell you how to organize all i’m saying is there are now more tools and things available including you know there’s a lot of things now even on your digital phones where you can take pictures and create folders and know exactly where certain things are and so on so a lot of you can take labels and somebody said masking tape and a sharpie yeah i mean you can get as simple or as fancy as you want point being know what’s in that box i guess what i’m trying to say larry
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it’s the important part because I’ve got 20 boxes of shells across my garage, and if I hadn’t had them labeled, I’d have to go through every single one to figure out what I want.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that’s what gets to be a pain. Oh, gosh, yes. And some of this I’ve done. As you guys all know my story, I’ve been working on and organizing things from – My folks for literally the past year, and I’m not exaggerating, I’m almost getting to the end. I’ve got a few more weekends left of some things to do, but I’ve been working on things for literally about a year, and I did exactly what Larry’s talking about, going through all sorts of things from my folks where it was a box of I have no idea what. So you’re opening it, and you’re going through it, and you’re determining is this something we need to keep, salvage, or something to pass on, or Or whatever.
SPEAKER 07 :
Throw away or whatever.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, throw away, exactly. So for those of you that are listening, yeah, I can’t suggest enough that. And I think there’s the other thing, too, that I think helps a lot, just as a side note. A lot of times we’ll just take a box and say, oh, that’s a good box, let’s use that. Well, is it? In other words, if it’s not similar size and shape to the other box on the shelf and you just end up with this hodgepodge of boxes, are you better off doing that or would you be better off to take some of the, like I said, some of the storage tubs and so on that, yes, there’s a little bit of expense there, but they’ve gotten so inexpensive anymore, even the clear ones, Larry. You can buy the clear ones for $4 or $5 a piece. They’re so inexpensive that… that then you can actually, and the clear ones, a nice thing I like about those is you can see inside what’s actually there. You not only can label it, but you can see inside. But my point is, yeah, it’s nice to save some nice cardboard boxes and put things inside of them, but if it’s not helping you organize your shelves and what you have any better than what you have now, throw those away also.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and the good thing about the clear boxes that you’re talking about, the plastic ones, is they’re stackable. So you could put two on top of each other and save space that way.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s the nice thing about the… container-type systems. And when I say boxes, folks, as you guys all know, they make the plastic-type containers in about every size you can think of. Oh, Charlie said and waterproof in a lot of cases. Yeah, and rodent-proof, Charlie, as well, Larry and Charlie. So thank you, Larry and Charlie, for saying that as well because for a lot of you, yeah, the cardboard, let’s face it, you can – they can make a nest right out of those and get inside. Now, I’ll also tell you this. I will also – somebody’s also showing me how they’re getting rid of some of their rodents today via text message. So thank you for the text messages, by the way. But I will also tell you that when it comes to even the – you’re not going to believe this. But the plastic storage totes, if you do not secure the lid tightly – They’ll get into those as well. Don’t ask me how, but I had it happen. I had a bunch of the stuff from my, again, moving my folks around and so on. And we had a bunch of things that we had just put in. We bought some of the plastic tubs to move things around and made it easier. And some of the loose items that are just kicking around, instead of getting a bunch of cardboard boxes, I figured I’d just put them in tubs. Tubs have been really handy. We’ve used them numerous times. But I had one that I’d put out in one of my sheds outside. Waterproof, but still outside. And I had just put a bunch of, like, Larry, just miscellaneous things that my dad had. Old tow ropes and just stuff I was going to go through, but I just hadn’t had time to do it last year. And this was getting towards the end of the fall. So here about, I don’t know, a month and a half ago or so, I’m digging through stuff, organizing. Like I said, I’ve been organizing most every weekend. And I this particular lid wasn’t quite all the way on. It was on, but it wasn’t like all the way on. There was like a little gap in one corner and I open it up and it stunk to high heaven. And the mice had gotten in there and had made a nest and had chewed up one of the older, you know, tow ropes that were that I probably should have thrown away to begin with anyways, but had made a nest and had chewed up one of those, quote unquote, you know tow ropes it was inside of there and i’m thinking to myself you little boogers they will get into everything so again the the point of some of these totes versus cardboard boxes if you’re in an area where you’ve got some rodents and things like that or you’re storing some things up in a you know maybe down in a crawl space or it’s out in a garage like i’ve got where it’s out in a barn or a shed or something like that and you want to keep things a little bit tighter those plastic they’re black and yellow and they’ve got the real lockable lid where things you can actually hear it lock on in fact to pull them off you’ve got to kind of get underneath one edge you really pull them off they’re they’re pretty much you know they’re not airtight but they’re pretty waterproof because the way they’re made water will go over the top of them and you know kind of run off the sides It’s got kind of its own little built-in roof system, I guess you could say. And those work extremely well. Not the type where the lid collapses, you know, folds onto each other. I’m not talking about those. Not those kind of totes. But the actual, you know, Christmas time, you’ll see them for Christmas decorations and things like that. Those things work extremely well. They’re, as Charlie was saying a moment ago, watertight, and they’re also rodent-proof.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, they are.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ve not seen a mouse or anything chew through the plastic gun. I don’t see them chew plastic anyways. It’s usually the cardboard and those sorts of things that they’re using. Now, they’ll climb inside of one if it’s open, like I just noted. And then they’ll go to town on whatever’s inside of that. But whatever you can do to keep those little boogers out of there, I would.
SPEAKER 07 :
If you can latch them down, they’ll stay tight enough that the rodents will go somewhere else.
SPEAKER 06 :
And there’s a lot of, for a lot of you listening that have these, you know, you want to do the black totes or you’ve got black totes. There are now, you know, DIY things where you can go online or you can paint how handy you are. The nice thing about the black ones as well is they can be slid into holders. And so what I mean by that is in some cases you don’t have a lot of storage space, but you’ve got a lot of ceiling space. You can actually make this kind of slide system whereby that tote has enough of a lip on it where you can literally build a little track system where you can actually slide those totes up into the roof system, if you would. Again, marking everything to make sure you know what’s what. But you can literally slide those into a track system. There’s all sorts of do it yourself things where you can make them yourself or you can buy them. It just depends on how handy you are and what you want to do. But reality is, keep in mind, you’ve got, in a lot of cases, a lot of roof space that most people do not utilize. And those totes can slide right into those types of areas and free up all of your floor space. Again, idea being, and several of you have texted in on this as well, idea being, let’s park in the garage. When it’s all said and done, let’s figure out a way to park in the garage. Jeff, go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 08 :
Parking in the garage. What a novel concept. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, it’s funny. I’ve had two or three people that have texted in that have said, yeah, I make sure that, you know, I, I am always able to pull into the garage and I guess Jeff, I’m just so spoiled. I’ve not parked outside now in gosh, several decades because to me, part of home ownership was having a garage.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Yeah. And I, uh, We actually have a detached garage with three bays, so we have a total of four bays.
SPEAKER 06 :
Nice.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, all four have vehicles in them. Even the third bay of the detached garage, I kind of made my woods chop, but then we got a four-wheeler with a plow on it for the wintertime. Nice. The garden tractor just wasn’t hacking it, so I arranged it so it stays in there in the wintertime, but if I need the space, I just pour it out front and You know, it’s full purpose.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good way to do it.
SPEAKER 08 :
The only exception is the last couple of months. My son moved from up here to Florida, and I got some of his crap still in one of the bays of the garage. As soon as I get that done, all my vehicles will be in there except my sport track.
SPEAKER 06 :
Very nice.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t have room for that one. I was calling about your… I had to live with your story about mice and cleaning up, a story that combines both. On the back of the detached garage, there’s a deck, and I had a previous owner had built what can be very loosely called a garden shed. Underneath it, they basically put up some fiberglass panels. to kind of keep the rain out and stuff, put a door on it. But they did absolutely no landscaping to protect it from water coming in. And on the northwest side, there was actually a dip that gathered snow. So, I mean, it’s just wet in there all the time of a mess. And so I was getting ready to have it cleaned and landscaped. As a matter of fact, the landscapers are here this week taking care of that problem. But in the process of cleaning it out, I had about 50 feet of the 4-inch corrugated black tube for water mitigation. And I went to lift it up. I said, now, this is heavy. This is ungodly heavy. What’s wrong with it? Now, we have a cat domicile that we built in there for the barn cats that we have. They can get in and out around it. And they were losing a lot of food over the winter, and I thought, what animal’s getting in here? I mean, I’d seen raccoons from time to time, but nothing this year. And I went and emptied that out. There was, no kidding, 25 pounds of cat food in that corrugated tube.
SPEAKER 06 :
Mice had drug it in there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. And so I started looking at, why would mice come in where cats are? And it turns out, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this story, there’s a bacteria um and a parasite called uh toxoplasma gandhi that cats have okay and and the life cycle of that is that um they it comes to them from rodents and when rodents get it it makes them unafraid of cats so they will come to where the cats are um and then the cats will take care of them, eat them up. So apparently these little guys had been infected with something. I don’t know if it was T. gondii or what.
SPEAKER 06 :
Did not know that.
SPEAKER 08 :
They did not care about the cat being there, and they were happy to be in there.
SPEAKER 06 :
And evidently the cat didn’t care either.
SPEAKER 07 :
They had a smorgasbord.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, we have one that we’ve had for about eight years, and – I have another one that we just got last fall, and she’s a great little mouser. She leaves little presents for me. I had a pocket gopher head staring up at me when I went out on the deck one morning. But, yeah, so bottom line of the story is that, yeah, everything got taken out. We’re regrading the whole area. We’re drainage in around those panels. They put some road base down already. have plastic to carry all the water away, and everything that’s going in is going to be cleaned and stacked and getting rid of a bunch of hand tools that are either duplicates or I just don’t need anymore.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and by the way, that’s a whole other – I could almost do an entire show out of what do you do with old tools and things because unfortunately – and I know a lot of you are going to cringe at this, but it’s the reality, Jeff. Unfortunately, with the – Advent of so many now tool makers that are out there making some pretty nice tools at a pretty inexpensive price point. It’s made old tools almost. I hate to say this, but they’re about worth the iron weight that they are itself, unless you can find somebody to donate or give them to. Some of the old S&K and Craftsman’s and so on, there is just little, unless it’s some sort of an antique that has value because of that. Otherwise, Jeff, there is hardly any value to them at all. It’s almost a who can I give these away to, and even then that’s becoming harder and harder to do.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you had a session a while back on the power tools. I’m still trying to figure out, though, I just can’t. Bring myself to give them away. There’s two Model T jacks, tire jacks.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah. The problem is, as you know, there’s just not that many. The problem with the Model T, this is true of a lot of the early Ford vehicles, period. I can talk about this on Drive Radio as well, but even a lot of the hot rods and things like that, Jeff, they’re just not… as valuable as they once were. And I hate to say this, but every month that goes by, they’re probably getting a little bit less and less and less because the market of who wants those cars is aging out.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. If I could even figure out a way to do some yard art or something with them, you know, that was, uh, so it’s just, I hate to just throw them in the, we have a transfer station here in Lake County. We pay for, uh, uh, a local, uh, dump and, uh, and transfer station for other waste. And, uh, I can, I recycle all my stuff there about once a, once a week, you know, metals and plastics, and then they have a dumpster for trash. So, um, but yeah, I just, uh, I hate to throw it in the middle bin, the middle dumpster. Cause it’s like, yeah, you know, I, I can, I can appreciate what you’re saying. It’s like, no, I know, but, uh, but you know, after a certain age and I use that expression a lot, After a certain age, you realize all those plans you had for things are not going to happen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sort of fade away, don’t they?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Unfortunately, they do. I’m glad you said that, Jeff, because that’s a great segue into a lot of this organizing and that as well, is to really analyze, okay, I’ve been saving X amount. for x in some cases jeff decades plural and i’m not exaggerating because i’m one of those where you know i’ll get around to that at some point and before you know it 20 years have gone by you haven’t gotten to it yet meaning are you really ever going to get to it and if you’re only saving it because it’s a project you think you might get to someday let me give you a little insight no you won’t yep yep i have uh just to end it i have a framing nailer that i bought when i was uh
SPEAKER 08 :
putting an addition on a house in Colorado Springs. And I thought, oh yeah, I’ll be able to use this. I don’t think I’ve ever hooked an air hose up to it. And it sits in my garage now, and somebody’s going to find a good home for somebody.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and now even what’s happening, this is happening inside of auto shops. It’s happening even, you know, we’ve got some homes going in next to us, and I listen to those guys and some of the tools they’re using and so on. And the reality, Jeff, is you used to hear little compressors running, even when guys were doing roofing and nailing and so on. They’d be putting up, you know, framing or they were doing roofing or whatever, siding, and you’d hear the – compressors running because they were running a lot of the air nailers and things like that um yeah not anymore uh you hear that you hear no compressors running anymore at all because everything’s gone to cordless because they don’t drag a hose around everywhere they go yeah so unfortunately even those air nailers are becoming something of the past is my point
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you know, it’s a real bummer becoming obsolete.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is. I’ve got, speaking of those totes, and I’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll throw it out there again. I have got one tote, and this is not an exaggeration. I’ve overflowed the tote now, and I’ve got some stuff even laying on the floor around the tote that I keep trying to, anybody that comes through, I keep asking, do you want any of this? It’s all yours if you want, but anything with a cord on it. I have been, you know, old drills and things like that, sawzalls, et cetera. I have been sticking in this tote, figuring somebody at some point will want one of these. Jeff, I haven’t given a single item away yet in a year. Nobody wants a corded item anymore is the problem.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I heard you say that. I actually had a corded, I don’t know what you call the saws that you put the little attachments on the front of them, and they cut flush cuts.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I pulled that out to do some from a few of the fiberglass panels. And I was thinking to you when I pulled it out going, yeah, this would really be cool if it had a battery pack on it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Bring out this extension cord. So, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and it’s getting to the point where even in most shops, and I still coach a lot of repair shops and such, and even what a lot of guys are used to using in air as far as air ratchets and air wrenches and impact wrenches and things like that, other than about the only thing shops are still using air-related because you just don’t have enough power in anything electric yet, I say yet because that probably will change as time goes by, But the air hammers, whereby you’re trying to cut off a bolt or a head of a bolt or even use it for exhaust work and things like that, those end. That’s about it, Jeff. There’s very few things now inside of a shop that even shops are using air with. It’s gone all electric.
SPEAKER 08 :
And not even tires?
SPEAKER 06 :
Tires, believe it or not, for a lot of guys, they’ve even got the little Milwaukee, you know, the little portable compressors that I talk about. A lot of the guys, even as they’re doing other work and they’re having to adjust tire pressure and so on. Now, the tire machines and things like that, yes, they’re using air for those, of course. But when it comes to even filling up tires and doing things like that, they’re using the small little hand-held compressors because they can plug them in, set the pressure, not even bring a tire gauge with them, and just go tire to tire and speed things up because they’re not having to stand there, fill the tire up, and keep checking. It’s just all automated.
SPEAKER 08 :
What about taking off lug nuts?
SPEAKER 06 :
Electric, I haven’t used, even in my own shop at home, I haven’t used an air wrench to do that in probably five years.
SPEAKER 07 :
As a matter of fact, I just bought a battery-powered impact. Works wonderful.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, you don’t, again, Jeff, in the shops. Now, the downside is the electric impacts are a little heavier. As far as a technician is concerned, they’re a little bit heavier than what you would have with an air, but… But, again, you don’t have this cord that you’re out, that you’re dragging around, that you’re tripping over, that you’re having to hook and unhook and all of that. And the little bit of extra weight where the guys can still just take that and set it on the ground or set it on the rack next to wherever they’re working, wherever that last wheel that came off. At the end of the day, they’re not that heavy is my point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and the safety part of it.
SPEAKER 06 :
And again, going back on, because things have changed, gone are the days of guys, they’ll use the impact to put the wheel back on and get everything sort of snug, but everybody’s using a torque wrench now to actually torque the lugs down. So as far as that goes, you’re not needing it to tighten anything. You’re just using it to spin the nut back on is really all you’re doing. So you don’t need all that power that you once had because you’re not using it for that anymore.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yep. Yep, it’s an efficiency issue, not a… Correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
And again, I have some of these. I mean, some of the smaller handheld snap-on Milwaukee, whatever, where even your quarter-inch to three-eighths ratchets and things like that, they’re smaller. You don’t have a hose that you’re having to negotiate around and try to figure out in an engine bay, how do you get this hose to negotiate around all the things that I now have to do? You literally can take that cordless ratchet and put it in places that you would not be able to get an air ratchet in before.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it’s interesting because the impact that I bought just recently has a setting on it. So once you break the nut loose, it stops.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
So it doesn’t spit it all the way out.
SPEAKER 06 :
They are becoming so handy, Jeff, that it’s almost, and they’re getting cheap enough too. That’s the other thing is in a lot of cases, some of the off brands, which for a lot of guys that are listening, you’ll probably hate me for saying this, but gone are the needs to carry a four-way or even a tire iron in the car, Jeff. If you’re somebody where you’re really worried about being out on the road and having any kind of a tire breakdown or whatever, Go buy the cheapest impact and the socket that fits your car. Keep it charged up. Throw it in the trunk or in the back of the bed of the truck or whatever. And the reality is you’re never going to use that tire iron again.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, because the lithium battery will stay charged for at least six months.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct. You don’t have to worry about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. It’s a different world out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Way different. And it’s making all of those corded items that I just mentioned. It’s making all those corded items just literally – and like you, I feel bad. I haven’t thrown anything away yet because I just haven’t gotten to where I can do that yet. And some of the tools and stuff that I’m going through from myself and my dad, so combining those two together, literally I’ve got – you know gobs of just electric tools that you accumulate over the years that because you now have a cordless tool that has replaced that good example I bought the other day just because I got tired of every time I wanted to grind something having to pull the extension cord out having to dink around so I bought one of the new Milwaukee 18 volt grinders I haven’t pulled a regular grinder with the cord out since Jeff because it’s just so handy you just you grab it use it and go there’s no dinking around with anything else
SPEAKER 08 :
Yep. The only problem is if you’ve forgotten to charge. But I know you, John, you have a charging station with all.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and I’ve got multiple batteries that I keep on the go. And that’s the other nice thing about, in this case, Milwaukee, but a lot of them are doing this now. You can actually push the button before you get started to see how many bars on that battery do I have left and do I need to put a new one on it before I even start this project.
SPEAKER 08 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 06 :
So believe me, it has come so far that in the shops, that’s why Napa, and again, this isn’t Drive Radio, but on Napa’s end, they are a huge Milwaukee distributor now and sell a ton of Milwaukee tools inside of the shops for the very reason I just said.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I’ve got to say that going back to the original part of all of this, cleaning things up and getting rid of the stuff that you don’t need is – It’s actually, once it’s out, there’s a certain lightness that comes to you to go with it. I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and after going through all the stuff of my dad’s, and this is not to be rude by any means. Anybody out there listening, please don’t take it this way. I’m definitely not trying to be rude or step on toes or anything like that. But what’s important to you and what you’re hanging on to… The next generation is not going to look at it the same way. In other words, Jeff, in some cases, it may end up in the trash anyways. You just aren’t the one throwing it out. Somebody else will be.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s it, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sorry to say that, but that’s going to be the case. This is a whole other discussion, but really what we ought to all do is get those kids that a lot of this stuff will be left to that they’ll be going through and have them walk through your shop or your garage with you and say, okay, guys, is there anything in here? I’m not willing to give this to you right now, but at some point all of this will be yours. Tell me what you want because that will give me a better idea of what I’m keeping versus what I’m tossing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I’ve done that with the big things like vehicles already. I’ve even changed titles to make people beneficiaries.
SPEAKER 06 :
But on a lot of this little stuff, Jeff, the same thing applies. I mean, if I’m hanging on to something because I think I’ll use it someday, but I’m not here any longer, where is that going to end up? Probably the trash.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. I think I’m going to get one of those big totes and put on things you guys get to throw away because I couldn’t.
SPEAKER 06 :
Not bad, actually. Not bad, Jeff. Let him have a little chuckle at that time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, something to lighten up the mood.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right, something to lighten up the mood when that happens. And you know what? What I’ve also learned through all of that, sometimes those laughing moments are the best moments because if you’re not laughing, you’re crying.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ll bet that’s really close to home for you right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
So if you can’t laugh about some of these things, you’ll be crying, so you’re better off laughing, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you’ll be doing both, but it’s better to have both than just one.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s exactly right. So, yeah, anything you can do along those lines to make it a little lighter for them, even down the road, go for it. Absolutely. Yeah. Jeff, always good talking to you, sir. Appreciate you very much. Let’s take our last break here of the show. We’ll be back and finish things up here in a moment. FixItRadio.com is our website. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, and we kind of got off track a little bit. Not really off track, but went a different direction there with some of the older tools and things like that you guys may find that you have that you’re trying to dispose of. And I’ve had all sorts of suggestions from folks on the text line over the course of the past year on what to do with some of those things. And here’s the reality. you can try all of the different things that are out there. Some of the suggestions are, you know, go to some of your local trade schools. Well, unfortunately, what I’ll tell you right now is unless it’s a nice, new or cordless item, they don’t want it either because they’re teaching all their kids how to use cordless items, not corded items, and even the air items. So that one probably isn’t going to work. Some of the nonprofits, maybe, you have to kind of look there because even a lot of the thrift stores and such won’t take some of these items either. It depends on what the item is. You have to really look at their fine print on what they’ll take and not take. Some things they will, some things they won’t. You have to look at that and see. Some of the items I have, I may end up trying to do that way and just see if they’ll take some of them. But sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. So you really got to look at that. And then somebody said, you know, check with your local church. Well, here’s what I know enough about churches in general. Don’t let them be a dumping ground. They get so much other stuff thrown at them that people get tired of, you know, old things that nobody wants anymore. They just think I’ll donate it to the church that pretty soon the church becomes your garage only tenfold. because everybody donates everything to them. And guess what they do? They go stick it in some closet someplace because they don’t want to feel bad about disposing of the item you just gave them. So they go stick it in some corner of the church someplace in a closet that starts to overflow at some point and eventually gets thrown away anyway. So at the end of the day, no, I will tell you right now, unless it’s something that your church specifically has said we need, I would not donate that to your local church because typically it’s going to end up in the same place anyways. All you’re doing is passing off the work to someone else. you’re not helping them at the end of the day is my point we’ll just talk to your pastor first to find out and and say be honest with me is this something you guys want you know don’t you’re not hurting my feelings if you don’t want it so tell me up front is this something you guys can use or not because if not i’m going to go find another home for it and and i get it i feel bad because there’s probably parts of the world Where there are people out there, you know, there’s probably some folks out there that would take some of these items all day long if you had. But the problem is getting them to them. The amount of effort and time and money and so on to get these items to them. It just becomes it’s ineffective to do so. And realistically, believe it or not, even in some of those areas. They’re probably using cordless tools as well, even in some of the most remote parts of the world. If there’s a little bit of electricity around to charge a battery, trust me, they’re not using a corded tool either. In a lot of cases, they’re still going to go cordless. Now, you see some videos where you’ll see some guy… Somewhere in the middle of wherever using some old ancient tool where you’re like, holy cow, I didn’t even know that thing worked that way. But those are the rarity that is not typical anymore. Most of the world has become modernized even in those particular areas. And the problem with old tools is disposal of. And the only thing I can tell you is if it’s. If it’s got some heavy metal and things like that in it, there is some scrap value there. So it’s not something you should throw in the garbage because yes, there is some weighted value to it. It’s not a lot, unless you get a lot of it, you start stacking a lot of it up. There might be some value there, but yeah, the scrap metal side of it, there can be some value there. And somebody will take some of that apart and take some of the copper out and some of the windings and different things. And, yes, there’s some value there. And I wouldn’t just throw it in the trash. But the problem is giving those corded tools away. Here’s one suggestion I’ve also got on that. If it has a really good cord that you think you could make a nice little extension cord out of by just putting a female end on the end that you’re actually cutting off of the tool, and you feel like you can get a nice little six-foot short extension cord that you can use around the shop for other things, maybe that’s the one you should get out of that particular corded tool. But typically, by the time an electric tool is ready to do what I’m talking about, the cord’s not any good either. So you’re usually in that boat of, okay, it’s time to… It’s time to be relieved of all of those items.
SPEAKER 07 :
The sad part is, because I don’t know any place to get rid of them either. I’ve tried the same thing. So if anybody’s listening, has a suggestion… I’m all ears.
SPEAKER 06 :
You bet. I’m all ears because, again, it’s getting harder and harder to find a place to take some of these old items to. And… Again, believe me, folks, I have been down the path of some of these suggestions that you guys have texted in and given me, and the reality is very few places will take these. Again, because even those folks that are trying to teach young people, apprentices, and so on how to do things, they want them to be modernized and use the things that they’re going to be out in the field using. Very few people in the field are using anything with a cord on it anymore. Just not happening. So anyways, Charlie? Oh, the switch to lithium? Yes. Yes, very good battery. Yeah, if you’re still using the old NICADs or whatever, and you’ve got the ability to switch over to the lithium end of it, A, they’re a lot less in weight. They’ll keep a charge a lot longer. Yeah, that is, in my opinion, that’s the only way to go. If you’ve got some old NICAD stuff, and by the way, that is one of my, in my tote that I was just telling you about, I do actually have, Larry, some cordless batteries. power tools in there. The problem is they’re all old NICAD driven tools that you can’t buy any, you know, the tools themselves have changed. You can’t buy that battery anymore, either in a NICAD or a lithium. So those I’m kind of going to set off to the side. You know, maybe somebody’s got the ability to rebuild batteries and go lithium that I don’t know enough about to know if that’s something that’s worth doing or not. That is way above my not only pay grade but time to even mess with, Larry, because I’ve already upgraded in a lot of cases those particular tools, and I just don’t need those old NICAD-driven power tools. Because what happens also really quick is when they design the lithium tool, they will actually design the tool around the battery so that the tool itself – is not the same as the old NICAD tool is. Typically, they’re a little lighter. The whole thing has become much more compact than what you used to have, meaning that that weight factor I was telling Jeff about earlier becomes less with the lithium side than what it was with the NICAD side. And that’s true, by the way, when it comes to some of the impact wrenches and things along those lines. I’ve got some old snap-on NICAD stuff that you hate to throw anything that says snap-on away. you know larry but the reality is once again there just isn’t a lot of value to those because it’s been super i mean those tools now are probably three decades old and i’m not exaggerating when i say that at least two decades old when they get to be 20 plus years old they just don’t have the same use and value that they once did so bottom line on the organizing of things get things cleaned out this is a great time of the year to do so one last thing i would say also this time of the year with it being nice and warm if you have a frost freezer and it hasn’t been defrosted for quite some time, grab your coolers, put all of your stuff inside of it, do some organizing with that as well, get that thing unfrosted, get it all dialed in, be ready to go for this next winter that way, and off you go. All right, that’s it for Fix-It Radio today. Don’t forget the website, fixitradio.com. Appreciate you all listening. Again, Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 03 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
