Does not sound like you meet the DSM criteria for hoarding mentioned in the article. It sounds more like you are someone who likes hardware hacking and hangs on to a lot of hardware bits and pieces for that reason.
What did sound familiar was the sense of overwhelm. And the pattern of "don't touch my piles, because I know where everything is".
Some years ago, when we were living in an ancient farmhouse, I had a basement full of stuff. Bits and pieces of all the stuff that you need to keep an old farmhouse working.
I also maintained collections of books and documents used in research, for reference in case anyone asked. Now, at least that stuff is all on disk.
