h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone has it, but only northern New Englanders seem to have a specific term for it. Cultch is anything used, bent, or broken for which you have no immediate need, but which you are sure you will have an eventual use for and therefore refuse to throw away. Every New England farmer has a "cultch heap" in the back corner of his tool shed. Townsfolk usually have it in the back of the garage or the darkest corner of the basement. Typical examples of cultch items: broken bicycle chains; power cords cut off of dead appliances or the electric motors removed from them; all the left over nails, screws, nuts, bolts, or other hardware from any project you've ever undertaken; also any salvaged hardware from anything your wife *made* you take to the dump.

Someone who never throws anything away, and therefore has a lot of cultch, is a "pack rat."