The Most Useless Things People Keep in Their Garages
Garages are supposed to keep our cars safe, not store a lifetime’s worth of junk. But somehow, they always fill up with broken tools, mystery boxes, and things we’ll “fix someday.” If your garage is overflowing, it might be time to toss these useless items and reclaim the space.
Ancient Paint Cans
After the last redecoration decades ago, you held onto those leftover cans of “eggshell beige” just in case you needed them. Now they’re dried up, rusted shut, or come with extra lumps and you haven’t used them since. It’s time to let go - it’s what the paint would have wanted.
Mystery Keys
Unless you’re Coraline, you don’t have tiny doors to other worlds you need to keep shut. Those keys were once important - maybe they were from a previous house or a lock long replaced - but if you haven’t used them in years? You’re not going to miss them.
Cracked Flower Pots
The most useless of the flower pot family, the classic cracked flower pot is a regular feature in the garage’s “plant hospital.” When they outnumber the useful ones though, they’ve flatlined; announce the time of death and bring in some new ones.
Boxes of Cables
Electronic spaghetti really builds up, and soon you’ve got a ball of random wires that you throw into a box marked “cables” and leave in the garage, most likely never to be touched again. If it doesn’t connect to something you own, it’s trash.
Mismatched Footwear
You’re never sure how you wind up with one odd shoe or a random singular rollerblade, yet they always turn up like you have a garage gremlin eating the other one. You’ll never catch the gremlin with the leftover shoe - it’s just taking up space.
Dried-Out Tubes of Caulk or Glue
Even if you can remember a time when that stuff flowed freely, that period will never return. There’s not much you can do with dried-out tubes; they’ll never be the same again, and now only serve as weirdly shaped memories. Throw ‘em out.
Old Holiday Decorations
Sure, Halloween decorations are supposed to be scary, but when your half-melted Santa is sending unholy-sounding “Ho ho ho”s through the darkened garage in the dead of night, you should probably consider a clean out. Or an exorcist.
Broken Tools
Some things are useful broken - a rake you can turn into a cup holder, for example. Others, such as the old lawnmower that you swore you’d fix a few years ago and never got around to? That’s eating up space that working tools need.
Half-Empty Propane Tanks With No Nozzles
Specific? Yes, but you know the kind we mean. Plenty of dangerous materials find their way into your garage, half full and inaccessible in the way they should be. Not only are they useless, but they’re dangerous too; dispose of them safely so they’re not a fire hazard.
The “Guest Mattress”
If you have a guest room, you’re probably better off leaving spare mattresses in there instead of the garage. Unless you’re starting up a bug motel, get rid of the springy torture slab - you and your guests deserve better!
Deflated Sports Balls
Yeah, we know - you’ve been meaning to inflate them for the past five years, but something always came up. If they’re out of shape and/or leaking mysterious fluids, kick them to the curb (not literally - take them to the dump) and be rid of them forever.
Unused Buckets of Screws
Self-assembly projects often come with extra screws, or maybe you left some out and kept them… just in case. Either way, they’ve been sitting unsorted, and now they’re probably too rusty even if you did know what to use them for!
Unusable Camping Gear
This stuff has probably weathered its fair share of storms so now it’s time to let it rest. Bent tent poles, rotten materials or missing pegs, if it looks like a prop in a horror movie, cancel that trip to Camp Crystal Lake and throw the gear out.
Unused Gym Equipment
Treadmills that don’t tread and rowing machines with one oar tend to live in garages when they outlive their use, relegated to the purpose of coat racks. The last workout they can provide is carrying them to the trash.
Old TV-VCR Combos
Do you even have VCRs anymore? “Vintage” isn’t another word for dead things from the past: they have to be usable to earn that accolade. It’s just haunting the garage like the ghost of guilty pleasures past.
Toys for the Next Generation
It’s very common to save toys for future generations, but unless it’s a potentially valuable Star Wars toy or something they will have advanced by the time your kids or grandkids come along. They’ll want holograms or robots.
Old Hoses
These tend to lurk in the corner of your garage like lethargic snakes who would strike if they felt like it, but they can’t be bothered. They also don’t want to water your garden, as your wrestling match proves whenever you try to use them. It’s trash time.
Expired Lawn Chemicals
You haven’t used the chemicals in years and they’re just sitting there with scary warnings and skulls slapped across the container. Get rid of them in the safest way possible, and the only sign they’re missing will be the lack of suspicious haze when you open the garage door.
Stacks of Cracked Tiles “just in Case”
Maybe those cracked tiles from your DIY venture were fixable, so you held onto them should you need a spare. But years later you still haven’t used them and the cracks remain. There's nothing else for it - the only think you can do is turn them into crazy paving that lines your trash.
Suspicious Batteries
If you have to lick a battery to find out if it’s got energy left in it, you should skip that part and assume it’s dead. Recycle those batteries instead of letting them roll around your draw, potentially leaking battery acid.
