TOM UTLEY: I’m a hoarder, my wife’s a declutterer, and the free stuff our neighbours give away is creating merry hell!

Oh, the fatal attraction of free stuff! The offer of something for nothing has been testing my powers of resistance almost to breaking point since the height of the pandemic, when public-spirited neighbours set up a WhatsApp group for residents of my street.

I should explain that the original purpose of the group was to offer help with shopping, dog-walking and the like to neighbours who were forced to self-isolate.

I was hugely impressed by the response, which brought out the very best in human nature. Neighbours who had barely exchanged a word with each other before Covid (I live in South London, where we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves) showed themselves willing to go to almost any lengths to help those in need.

The offer of something for nothing has been testing my powers of resistance almost to breaking point since the height of the pandemic, when public-spirited neighbours set up a WhatsApp group for residents of my street [File photo]

Now that we’ve all been freed from house arrest, however, the group has evolved into something slightly different.

True, the same neighbourly spirit survives, with requests — readily granted — for the loan of tools, say, or help moving heavy furniture. But just lately the group has also become a shop window for goods that our neighbours no longer want.

Allure

In the past few days alone, declutterers in our street have offered shelving units, armchairs, camping equipment, exercise bikes, bunk beds, stackable wire drawers, ‘bed mattress toppers, washable’ (whatever they may be) and all sorts of other bits and pieces, illustrated with photographs of the items up for grabs.

But the great difference between our WhatsApp group and other online retailers is that everything our neighbours advertise — including stuff in mint condition, which might fetch good money on the open market — is offered free of charge. Gratis. On the house.

I’m sorry to say that all this largesse, which has sprung from the noblest of motives, has brought out the very worst in my acquisitive nature. But then such is the allure of free stuff.

For no better reason than that those child-size bunk beds were offered free of charge, I found myself looking at them and thinking: ‘Oooh! Those are worth having! Perhaps I should bag them?’

As so often, however, I was saved from lumbering myself with items I didn’t need by the fact that, like almost everything offered by the group, they were snapped up instantly by others (who, dare I say it, probably had no need of them either) [File photo]

Leave aside the truth that I have no conceivable need of them, since the youngest of our four children is now 29 years old and well over 6 ft tall. Forget, too, that our grandchildren already have perfectly adequate bunks of their own.

The fact that I could have had them for nothing made them almost irresistibly attractive. Although it would never have crossed my mind to pay for them in a shop, I found myself sorely tempted by this most generous offer.

I was even drawn to those bed mattress toppers, washable, though I had only the vaguest idea what they were.

As so often, however, I was saved from lumbering myself with items I didn’t need by the fact that, like almost everything offered by the group, they were snapped up instantly by others (who, dare I say it, probably had no need of them either).

The thought also occurred to me, I have to admit, that Mrs U would be furious if I brought home those bunk beds, that armchair, those shelving units, camping equipment or even the bed mattress toppers, washable.

Indeed, I know I’ll be mighty peeved if Jeremy Hunt, the new Chancellor, rats on the Tory manifesto commitment to the triple lock, or confiscates any of the other benefits on offer to the hundreds of thousands of people like me who don’t really need them

This is because our marriage, like so many others I’ve come across, has long been a running battle between a declutterer and a hoarder. In our case, I’m the hoarder, she the declutterer (though with other mixed-sex couples, I grant you, it’s often the other way round).

Indeed, throughout our 42 years of wedded bliss, I’ve fought tooth and nail to stop my wife from chucking out audio equipment we haven’t used for decades, favourite shirts long-frayed at the collar, or Latin textbooks I haven’t so much as glanced at since I was 13 (‘But, darling, one day I may need to quote from it in my column!’).

Meanwhile, my urge to amass more possessions grows stronger with every trip she makes to the council recycling dump. And never is that urge more compelling than when the possessions in question are offered free of charge.

Mystery

Don’t tell me that I’m the only one. Indeed, can you put your hand on your heart and say you were able to resist taking home twice as much veg as you needed, in the days when every supermarket offered BOGOF deals?

If so, you have stronger willpower than I. True, many’s the time I’ve told myself that if I accept the offer of that ‘free’ extra packet of sprouts, nobody will ever eat them and I’ll just have to throw them away when they turn squidgy and black. But that’s never stopped me from taking them home.

Or look at those beams of delight on the faces of game-show contestants when they learn that they’ve won the mystery prize of a TV the size of a tennis court or a top-of-the-range set of garden furniture.

Never mind that they may live in a cramped bedsit on the 18th floor of a tower block, and their prizes will therefore be of no use to them. Who cares when they’re free?

In the same way, I was delighted when I turned 60 in 2013 and became eligible for the 60+ pass, offered for free travel on public transport by the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (remember him?).

As readers with long memories may recall, I resisted that offer for several weeks, telling myself that since I was still in handsomely paid full-time employment, I really didn’t need my fellow taxpayers’ charity.

But my conscience soon surrendered to my addiction to free stuff, and I haven’t paid for my travel in the capital since (except, of course, through my local and national taxes).

Desperate

Almost nine years on, the Government has never stopped lavishing gifts on me, quite apart from the ‘free’ healthcare all Britons have been offered since 1948.

Not only do I still get free travel, but I’m also a beneficiary of the winter fuel allowance, free prescriptions and eye tests, cut-price energy bills and, best of all, David Cameron’s murderously expensive triple-lock pensions. All this I’m given, though even in my semi-retirement I remain a higher-rate taxpayer, with no pressing need for any of it.

Of course, many will argue — and some in the most violent of terms — that nobody is forcing me to accept any of the benefits I’m offered. If I had a shred of decency, they will say, I would turn them down so as to leave more for those in desperate need.

But how many of us, I wonder, can honestly say they would choose to cough up, if offered the choice between paying for a journey — or a visit to the GP, for that matter — and getting it free at the point of delivery? I can’t speak for you, but I’m not a blinking saint.

Indeed, I know I’ll be mighty peeved if Jeremy Hunt, the new Chancellor, rats on the Tory manifesto commitment to the triple lock, or confiscates any of the other benefits on offer to the hundreds of thousands of people like me who don’t really need them.

This is what Rishi Sunak is up against. It’s all too easy for vote-hungry politicians to dish out such goodies at election time. It’s a whole lot harder to take them away again when times are hard.

But, let’s face it, most of us are quite grown-up enough to realise that nothing is actually free. We know, too, that the Treasury simply can’t afford to go on playing Santa Claus on anything like the scale we witnessed during the pandemic.

So, yes, I wish Mr Sunak every success in his mission to cure the nation’s fatal addiction to free stuff. Just don’t expect us to smile while he’s at it.

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