Hoarders

OP, are you so perfect that you can't handle a few quirks here and there?

Yes, I am perfect and cannot handle a few quirks here and there, especially quirks that cause people to fill their homes with so much trash that the floorboards rot and rodents run amok.

Hoarding is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and depression.

I try to purge myself of unneeded things every once in a while to reduce clutter and I'm pretty good at it. Sometimes I have a hard time parting with useless stuff. If I bag it up and don't look at if for a while I forget I even have it. Then it's easier to part with because I don't miss it.

My sister is. It’s definitely on a scale of OCD/ mental illness. Totally together otherwise but behind her house door is a huge hoard. Deeep seated. Not as easy as “clean up” Definitely requires intense psychotherapy and treatment. Like obsessive eating - they just can’t stop without creating intense anxiety. Sad - but I always think they could be on drugs or a serial killer.

There is an ep on now where the broad has pee and poop in jugs and bottles from 13 years. Thousands. Not to mention maggots galore in the frig. Why do they bother to clean this up? Gas and a match. A bulldozer.

Once they clear all the crap out, isn’t there a remaining shit and piss odor and mold and dead cat smell that will never go away?

It's definitely a serious, serious mental illness. I know people who have given up happy marriages due to it, and been found in their hoard, dead.

They've done brain scans and there's a real problem there. This isn't people who are just collectors or messy. I'd rank it as worse than run of the mill OCD, and barely a step below full on schizophrenia.

I want to slap OP out of whatever shit he's in.

I live in a condo building that has a guy that hoards trash. He orders every meal delivery and every few months after the people around him start to bitch about gnats and odors, you'll see a junk service show up and spend the day hauling out trash that I supposes he refuses to take out himself. I don't get it. Depressing.

R10 Depressing.. for you. That's hilarious.

Every hoarder and person living with severe depression is a better person than OP.

A mother of a high school friend is a hoarder. When her husband died about twenty years ago, she stopped cleaning. Completely. The house has turned into an absolute hoard. Both messy and dirty. It's like she wanted to freeze the moment of his death somehow, as if that would bring him back.

Have some compassion, OP. They've obviously suffered some type of trauma or abuse that has led to this behaviour.

My parents bought a house at auction to flip when I was about 13 or so, and it had belonged to a hoarder. It was rather odd; it was like the people (person?) who lived there had received a phone call one night that said "get out this second or you will die!" and so they literally left everything where it was and departed. Toys and clothes strewn about, under an inch of dirt; there were unidentifiable things growing in the refrigerator and washing machine; the floors and walls were completely ruined, there was so much crap piled everywhere, you literally couldn't walk through the house. They paid next to nothing for the house, and all the money went into removing and replacing everything ... but the basement, stuffed full literally to the ceiling, was a goldmine of treasures.

We found antiques worth more than they'd paid for the house. There was a lifetime of newspaper and magazine clippings that went back to the 1940s. My mother still has the complete vintage dining room furniture that I saw on Antiques Roadshow going for a fortune. I found a lawnmower that I took home, tore apart and rebuilt. When complete and running, I painted my name on it knowing that my father would try to sell it... which, regardless, he did. The neighbor who bought it used it for 25 years, and when he died, his son took it. The best part was that when my now deceased father sold it, I announced that I would never mow another lawn, and I'm pleased to say that I have not. It was a point of contention between us for years, but I stuck to my guns and said I would rather suffer his wrath than use the push mower that he insisted did a better job. Meanwhile, the neighbor's lawn looked fantastic and he raved about how that mower never had a problem (and still had my name in ornate 13-year-old script painted around the deck) and worked better than any other he'd ever owned.

I imagine OP marching over to a depressed neighbor’s house, flushing their Prozac down the toilet, and telling them to SNAP OUT OF IT.

I wonder if there are any clean and neat hoarders. I admit that I don't understand the not cleaning part at all. Is losing your sense of smell part of the illness?

Do you mock other health issues as well? Depression? Diabetes?

MGM Star Ann Miller.

My dad was a clean and neat hoarder, so you didn't really realize how bad it was. He would keep everything but pack it up neatly in boxes and store it in the basement or the garage attic.

Mom told me in about 1999 he took old 1970s Tupperware tumblers out of the trash, washed them and packed them away. When I found them after my parents had died, I discovered he'd kept the original plastic bag they came in back in 1977 or so, and when he saw the tumblers 20-odd years later, he knew where that 22-year-old plastic bag was, put them back in their original bag and packed them away.

They were stained and broken and ruined, but he still thought they were worth something. It was an entire house like that, with probably 500 boxes, plus some enormous wooden barrels and of course everything that just ended up in closets. All neat, all junk.

I just saw this. The woman doesn’t mind eating moldy, feces topped bread because she’s done that for 13 years. Bitch needs to be in a mental institution.

Living among the filth, and eating filthy food.. I'd imagine that these people must have an iron clad immune system... not that it's recommended.. lol.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for hoarders because their behavior frequently causes the misery of others. Neighbors have to put up with the stench and filth from the hoarder next door. God help any poor person who has to live with the hoarder; there are children who have to live in situations like that and it must be torture for them. And of course the worst are the animal hoarders. They think the dozens, sometimes hundreds of animals they have are being "cared for" when in actuality they're suffering and dying. Hoarders are detestable.

OP seems borderline. So who are you targeting now, OP?

R15, Come ON, the previous owner didn't LEAVE, s/he DIED in that trash heap!

Hoarding like this attracts rats and diseases that impact the neighborhood. Drastic action needs to be taken.

I mean, it's weird, but I don't detest them. There's clearly something going on "upstairs" that ain't right.

"Using high-resolution, three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging they compared the study group with normal images and found that damage to a part of the frontal lobes of the cortex, particularly on the right side, were shared by the individuals with abnormal behavior. This means that there is a particular spot in the brain that put the brakes on hoarding.

Another study has shown that compulsive hoarders have a unique pattern of brain activity, distinct from that seen nonhoarding OCD patients or normal control subjects. It suggests that hoarding is associated with impaired decision making. When hoarders wrestled with decisions about their personal items MRI scans show much more activity in the areas of the brain that control decision making, attention and controlling emotions. This area of the brain is known as the 'bilateral anterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex' or VMPFC. "

I guess I'm the opposite of a hoarder. I only keep what I use and nothing else. My place looks like I just moved in and the movers haven't delivered the rest of my furniture or any of my boxes. Do I need to see the therapist?

I have hoarding instincts, but I’m mostly able to keep them under control. It’s something about not wanting to let go or be wasteful. It’s easier to store something in case you might want it and you think you can decide later to throw it away. The thing is, if you do want something, you can’t find it or it’s not in good shape. It’s sort of comforting to have stuff around though, up to a point.

I like Dr Robin Zasio; she is always ladylike and compassionate, never more so than when she is gingerly stepping through feces or seeing dead animal carcasses in the freezer. I also like perky organizer Dorothy Brenninger, who takes all kind of abuse from these psychos and keeps on trucking. I'm split between the two males, Corey Chalmers and Matt Paxton; Corey gets confrontational, which sometimes helps, but Matt is always game to get down with the bags of shit and bottles of pee. I love lesbian (I hope) Dr Julie Pike, but a lot of the old ladies really hate her.

I would suspect that there is a very low incidence of success in these cases. They don't do follow up shows, but in many instances they do show their failures, especially when a house is found to be structurally unsound or destroyed.

Well, OP, there are certainly people I'd like to slap the intolerance out of.

My Mother.....not extreme hoarder but she'll bring back 6 (same copy) newspaper from her job; shops spontaneously and buys multiples of the same thing-three chandeliers instead of one, a complete set of tiles "because I might tile the spare room"-that was 20 years ago and it's been replicated often. Instead of one rose bush why not 20" because they were on sale".

Her convertible which she last drove 10 years ago sits unused in the garage"I might drive it again".

Eight sofas, several dining tables, dinner services, saucepans and all sorts of baking/cooking/slicing and dicing gadgets......all good quality but how fucking many does she need?????

I want to beat her with the goddamned rose bush-the thorny one.

Mad as a fucking hatter.

Neighbor was a hoarder. Live on a golf course and his “treasures” started spilling out onto the greens. The HOA came down hard on that. He finally moved and the house required a dumpster and entire remodel. These sickos impact not justhem and their families but all those around them.

R33, sorry for that. It must have been rough when you were a kid.

Billionaires are crazy hoarders too, except they hoard money instead of pets and tin cans. They have waaaaaay more money than anyone could possibly need or use.

adhd medicine helped me stop the accumulation and collecting of physical objects. I did switch to collecting digital things and that fits the mind's need, and takes no space, but uses time. ADHD drugs did not help with getting rid of useless collections. thank god I never collected garbage and dead animals, for instance. I recognize what happens to those kinds of people and it is really really sad, and also gross.

I saw one show where the house was infested with rats and mice. I wondered why they didn't tent and fumigate the place first, before all the vermin moved to the neighbors' homes.

R33 I didn’t grow up in a hoarding house but my father became one in his later life; it was really gross and depressing when his place crossed the line from messy/cluttered/too much stuff into dirty and gross. Especially sad when they are elderly. I read a book from the library called Coming Clean written by a woman who grew up in a house with two hoarding parents that was very descriptive but she managed to get through it all the while keeping it secret from her friends.

It more common than you think, guys. I can spot these houses from the outside sometimes, even when it isn’t obvious. It is very sad.

I always feel sorry for the neighbors. Not only are those hoarder houses eyesores, but the neighbors have to deal with vermin infestations coming over to their houses or apartments. It can be a nightmare, because if the hoarder is stubborn and uncooperative, things can't be dealt with for a long time due to all the legal rights they have.

"Do I need to see the therapist?"

Since your behavior does no harm to yourself of anyone else I'd say so. Hoarders, on the other hand, harm themselves and everyone around them. They pose a danger to health and property.

I know a couple of cases of mild hoarding, both of which came on as the person got older and was suffering from serious depression.

They are respectable middle class homeowners, and know of each other's existence. One knows he has a problem but has developed health issues that keep him from physically attacking the problem, so he's living in the few clear spaces in his house and doesn't see how that can change. The other has seen what can happen, and is slowly clearing and organizing the clutter. Very, very slowly, because the urge to hang onto stuff in case it's needed is still there. It's actually normal in retired folks with limited financial resources, because they don't want to have to buy stuff, but there's a fucking limit.

When I was a child there was an elderly lady who lived on our street who was a hoarder, but back then they were called "packrats." I don't think the word hoarder was in use yet. You couldn't see in her house because all the windows were piled full of boxes, and the very few people who were allowed in her house said there were piles of shit everywhere, they had never seen anything like it. She also had several cats who used the house as a giant litterbox. It was all very "Grey Gardens." When the old lady finally died, there were two giant dumpsters in the yard to clean everything out. It took more than a week. The house was torn down because the hoarding and the cats had damaged it beyond repair.

Here's a fascinating example of positive hoarding:

Marion Stokes was a librarian and public-access TV producer in Philadelphia who believed in the power of information. From 1977 until her death in 2012, she recorded every news broadcast that was on the air at the time. She often had as many as eight VCRs going at once. Her collection spanned some 140,000 videotapes, and now the Internet Archive is working to digitize them all.

The Marion Stokes Collection so far

My great aunt was a hoarder, but as R42 describes. She was a spinster with no skills. She hoarded because she had no income and no belongings.

I have a few family members with this terrible disorder. They were/are item specific hoarders, though. It is an OCD with origins in trauma.

R29, you might have some form of OCD, or maybe you're just a really committed neat freak. But, if you're happy and it isn't causing issues in your life then what's to worry about?

Urg, I have a friend with this issue. I find it particularly vexing because, in her situation, it's brought upon by mostly delusion, but also an unwillingness to fix an easily-remedied situation This friend and her mom have a situation that would likely be considered hoarding by most relevant professionals. With them, there is a (likely) delusional belief that a lot of their collected possessions have value. So with them, it's not hoarding junk; it's this faux high-brow activity of collecting "antiques" or curiosities. One of their relatives died leaving a house filled with old musty furniture; both my friend and her mom drove hours to the house and pillaged the place, taking home all these pieces of old wood furniture. Admittedly, many of them were/are cool. It wouldn't have been so bad, but they both live in small, modern (1990s/2000s) two-bedroom townhouses/apartments with no storage capacity. Further, while some of the furniture was cool by itself, it didn't really have a place in a more modern home. So aside from a generally cluttered and over-stuffed look, their places looked schizophrenic in the decorating. Also, most of it, antique or not, cool or not, was junk, ruined from years of neglect and wear and unsalable in most markets.

Despite both suffering from hoarding issues, my friend and her mom have two separate issues; my friend's mother has old stuff that she just wont get rid of (a lot of which is in bad shape). However, she, in her later years, doesn't really take on any new possessions. For example, she moved out of her first home and proceeded to take out the built-in, ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, and she's still carrying the stupid things around with her, decades later, from place to place. My friend, on the other hand, continues to absorb material items, but she's not necessarily opposed to getting rid of things. She used to work in retail, which of course made it significantly easier to get these things. She has several large storage bins of old makeup samples and testers she's collected over the years. Although 5-10 bins may not seem like a lot, those 5-10 bins contain A LOT of small cosmetics. Mind you, none of it would actually be sanitary to wear at this point, but she still hangs on to them because they still look new. She's also collected a lot of clothes (most of which no longer fit her) and shoes and impractical domestic items. She told me how she unpacked a box she came across from an old move and there were 10+ ice buckets in there.

To be perfectly honest, I myself carry a lot of stupid shit around with me. I have way more clothes and shoes than what I need and I do tend to heavily and redundantly accessorize my kitchen and bathroom (I've cut myself off from buying anymore bar soap until what I have is gone). And most people have at least one to a few areas in which they go overboard. What really makes me loathe my friend's situation is that her accumulation of possessions is actually causing her tangible and significant issues. What happens when you need to move and you have a lot of furniture? It needs to go with you. And if it isn't you who moves it, then it has to be someone else. Thus, my friend is constantly harassing her male friends (myself included) to move her junk for her. I actually planned a longer trip during her last move so I couldn't physically help her. She's had to get storage units to store the extra junk. Unfortunately they cost money which she doesn't have, so she defaults on them and has to either move all the stuff out or lose everything to a forced sale. It's really a sad situation, and it would be so easily resolved by just filling up her car and taking stuff to the dump. But she just will not do that.

I don't have this problem, but I understand compulsions. I have trichotillomania; I pull out my hair, and then I feel bad afterwards. It seems like it would be so easy to just not do it, but it's not. The same with anorexia. The fix to the problem seems so easy and obvious to those who don't suffer from it; eating is a natural instinct, and it's the first thing we do after we're born. So, I won't judge. It becomes a problem when you let it encroach on other people's life. If you're renting someone else's property, or you have dependent people living with you, then it's a shitty thing to do. But if you live alone, and it's your own house, I guess there's no harm in it.

I lived three blocks from the hoarder house in San Francisco where the mummified body was found. When I lived there the mother would have still alive and the daughter a young woman. I didn't know them, I just recognize the address. The Inner Richmond around Lake St, where I lived, is a very nice neighborhood, . Lots of Victorians and other fine homes and apartments. I was in a charming flat. You could walk everywhere from there. Shopping, parks, museums, easy bus ride downtown. I loved that neighborhood.

Later in SF I lived in the Glen Park neighborhood. My next door neighbor was a hoarder. Mr. Tully. It was also originally his parents home. We lived in matching Queen Anne Victorians except for mine was solid and well cared for and his was so rotten and unkempt the wood was sagging and looked spongy. I rarely saw him, never went in his house, but could see the stuff up against the windows and the one time I went to the back door it looked packed in there. He was very sweet, always wore overalls. He's long gone now and both houses have since been torn down and replaced with an apartment building.

I saw an episode of Hoarders with a neat hoarder. It was a working woman who was always well dressed and nicely made up and coiffed. She had a QYC shopping addiction. Her house was clean but totally stacked up with clothes and other purchases. She also rented storage facilities to house her hoard. They were able to clean up her place and make it decent. It looked a lot better than other cleaned up hoarder houses. Who knows if she was able to maintain it though. Hoarding is a powerful sickness.

I also have a problem hoarding dead bodies. The electricity bill got out of control.

So many freezers! So I got solar and I don't regret it one bit. The initial outlay was large, but the savings are certainly making up for it.

Also, another body hoarder told me about this freeze drying thing you can do now. But I don't know. Is it the same thing to open a cupboard and see human jerky staring back at you as it is to go down to the basement in the middle of the night and open up a freezer and see those little crystals on their bodies? It's like looking at a snow globe that you created for yourself!

You know I was thinking about making little snow globes just with body parts in it, but OMG that lady at the craft store nearly talked my ear off. And so many instructions and extra products.

I'm living on a fixed income here. Twenty two social security paychecks. Twenty three next month now that I ordered myself another freezer from Target. They deliver anything now.

Do you think you can buy slide out shelves for freezers? Is that something you can get at a big box store or do you have to have it custom made?

I know, I sound like one of those crazy collector people who special order curio cabinets for their Precious Moments dolls!

But you know, I'm so much happier now that I have a hobby. Everyone should have a hobby.

R50 I know! Yet OP is so angry about it. Child of a hoarder, guys?

R50 thanks for adding that bit of reason into the conversation. I posted R49 and I acknowledge what I wrote wasn't thoroughly written, to the point of rendering it short-sighted.

[quote]The best part was that when my now deceased father sold it, I announced that I would never mow another lawn, and I'm pleased to say that I have not. It was a point of contention between us for years, but I stuck to my guns and said I would rather suffer his wrath than use the push mower that he insisted did a better job. Meanwhile, the neighbor's lawn looked fantastic and he raved about how that mower never had a problem (and still had my name in ornate 13-year-old script painted around the deck) and worked better than any other he'd ever owned.

You hearten every teenage boy held hostage by a parent's lawn fixation, R15. As a result of being my mother's lawn slave, I always wanted to live in an apartment. Still do live in one.

I have bought several 'clean' hoarder houses, usually from adult children whose parents have died or they were finally able to get them to go to assisted living. The clean outs can be depressing. It feels invasive and disrespectful in a way---like you're casually throwing away someone's life. Decades of bringing stuff into the house with nothing going back out. And it's not all junk either. Lots of very nice furniture, books, new kitchen wares, beautiful dishes, exercise equipment, etc. Our junk guy takes ALL of it. He sells the good stuff and takes the rest to the dump. I have been asked many times if I ever keep anything. It's tempting, and there have been a few small items here and there, but another wise flipper told me not to start keeping stuff because my own house would become a hoard. Our priority is to get the house empty so we can begin the rehab---usually within days.

some hoarders like me are historians, they luv the charm and past that surrounds objects.

Pretty much what R3 said, plus a serious loss trauma (like the death of a loved one). Really sad, and very difficult to treat.

The collyer bros were killed by their own hoarding.

Marjorie Diehl Armstrong, the pizza bomber mastermind, also a hoarder.

[quote]My friend, on the other hand, continues to absorb material items, but she's not necessarily opposed to getting rid of things. She used to work in retail, which of course made it significantly easier to get these things. She has several large storage bins of old makeup samples and testers she's collected over the years.

By "testers" do you mean fragrance testers? Depending on the fragrance and how well they've been stored, those can bring in great money on eBay.

[Quote] Do you know any hoarders?

My parents.

I'm not sure when it started. All i know is there wasn't empty cat tins lying around and dead cockroaches filling up their bathtub and kitchen. There's only a narrow walkway because there are papers everywhere. I feel really sorry for the 2 cats that live with them.

[quote] clean and neat hoarders

I remember one episode of Hoarders about a sweet Southern older lady schoolteacher in South Carolina who had boxes and boxes of materials for crafting projects and new stuff from shopping sprees. Her house wasn't gross or dirty at all, just completely overtaken by stuff. But boy did the sweet Southern exterior turn nasty and vicious when they tried to get her to let go of her hoard.

My partner's mother had a childhood friend who was left a multimillion-dollar inheritance by her brother, a research chemist. She was not only rich but also cheap and a hoarder to boot. Her house was a "neat hoard," with boxes of stuff piled to the ceiling and pathways carved throughout. One of the boxes was labeled STRINGS TOO SHORT TO SAVE.

It's not just an OCD thing or whatever. Hoarding is a control issue. People who hoard typically have lost family support, or are estranged in some way(s), typically years or even decades ago and this is there way to feel like they 'have' something in their lives.

We have an elderly woman in our building who's a hoarder. Her son is a (semi) famous musician, lives about 6-7 miles away. Does he come to visit her? Well, maybe 2-3 times a year. Does he show her he cares about her or loves her. No, he's too busy with his 'career', which amounts to 1-2 gigs/month in different parts of the country. But everyone thinks of him as this kind, caring guy. If he was, he'd come and try to fill that void that she's filling with buying 3 things a day via Amazon. All things she doesn't need.

My mother has a cousin who is one of those compulsive QVC people. She's also an alcoholic. My mom tells me her cousin gets blasted drunk and orders tons of shit off of QVC that she doesn't need at all. I've never been to her house, but my mom and my aunt tell me it's hoarded full of shit, a lot of which is still in the boxes. It's just insane. And then you think of all the money that's been totally wasted!

[quote] It's a sad mental illness and I want to slap them out of it.

Quick someone contact the American Psychiatric Association, OP thinks it has found a cure.

Yes, Op, slapping is the proper therapy for hoarding. Very effective.

As my mom got older, and dementia was setting, she got more and more hoardier. She was never the neatest person, but she started piling up crap and would get visibly angry and defensive if I tried to get rid of anything.

Once she died, I had to rent huge dumpsters and dig through her mess.

Watching my parents hoard showed me that absolutely nothing is important. I have no problems throwing anything away.

Hoarders often understand that what they are doing is not socially acceptable. They don't invite people over and don't let anyone look into the front door.

I hear slapping works well to cure cancer and hemorrhoids too

Most of the time, I SLAP IT!

Wasn't Kate Jackson outed as a hoarder?

Yes, r73. She was outed as a hoarder in the tabloids several years back. Her house in Santa Monica was piled full of shit and a professional cleaning crew had to come and take care of it.

One of my favorites was the lady in the Bay Area who received a $1 million settlement from her tech employer and then spent the entire thing on teddy bears. Expensive antique ones right down to cheap new ones. She had a large house and filled the entire thing up with them. The show brought in a queeny teddy bear expert to assess their value and they carted three truckloads away for auction. The lady seemed really happy to have her house all cleaned up and uncluttered again. The end of episode update, however, said she had called off the auction and had all three truckloads of bears brought back to her house.

Insane overspending is a compulsive behavior that's different than hoarding, although the same person can do both (bad combo). I had a friend who was a compulsive spender, basically, she was well to do and would buy absolutely anything she want, she LIVED "retail therapy"! It drove her friends nuts and created obvious difficulties in her marriage, but the compulsion never went away. She didn't hoard the stuff she bought, and a lot of the compulsive idiotic spending she did was for gifts, she didn't spend it all on herself, and she was willing to get rid of stuff. It was acquiring that fed the compulsion, not keeping.

So a person can spend compulsively without hoarding, and a hoarder can hoard without overspending, or a person can constantly buy shit they can't afford and keep it all forever. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be an effective treatment for either disorder, most people who spend or hoard keep doing it as long as they live, and that was true of my "spendthrift" friend. She's gone now, and never changed as long as she lived, in spite of years of therapy.

R75, that reminds me of an estate sale I went to recently. Apparently 10 years ago the former occupant inherited 5 million dollars. It was clear to see how she spent her windfall. Big house on acreage filled with purses, shoes clothes, china, about 30 cake plates, tons of expensive cookware, antique furniture, and just too much of everything.

The downside was the walls hadn't been painted in years and were covered in tacky, ugly cheap prints. The carpets were filthy, the house itself of contractor grade materials, no quality upgrades. She was obsessed with material items. It still didn't explain how she blew through so much money. I imagine she must have traveled a lot. In the end it was all gone and she was forced to move to a trailer. Usually the estate sale hosts don't openly talk about their client, I guess this group just couldn't help themselves. it was sight to see. I got some nice things for my shop, including about 5 vintage cake plates.

I've read that for some people hoarding begins when they inherit their parent's and other relative's belongings. I'm not a hoarder but I have too much stuff and a lot form my late parents and grandparents. I've been ruthless and rid myself of meaningless stuff but it's really hard to separate from things that are attached to memories. I think for hoarders, everything has some sort of magical meaning from which they can't part. It's a sickness that's obvious to see if you watch Hoarders on TV.

$5 million and she ended up living in a trailer! You could just smack people who are so stupid with money that could set them up nicely for a long time.

R6 why was she hoarding her feces? I only saw a bit of the episode. Did they level her house?

R79, I know. We were marveling at her stupidity. Pay for your house outright, put money into it's structure and livability, invest in something that will show a return (like real estate), and stop buying 100s of pairs of shoes and purses. I imagine about now she's smacking herself. Dummy.

"I think for hoarders, everything has some sort of magical meaning from which they can't part."

Yeah, hoarding is normal human feelings exaggerated to a problematic or even dangerous level. Everyone has possessions they can't bear to part with because they have sentimental value, every sensible person is keeping some object they don't use regularly because they might need it some day and they don't want to have to spend money on a new one, every sensible person dislikes the gruntwork of keeping their house perfectly neat and clean.

And that's one of the problems with stopping hoarding, the basis of normalcy. It's like compulsive overeating, one of the reasons it's so hard to treat is that everyone has to eat - they can't just stop eating cold turkey the way I quit alcohol. So a compulsive spender and hoarder still has to buy and store groceries, toiletries, clothing, furniture, kitchenware, and all the normal stuff - but to stop spending or hoarding they have to stop themselves from doing it the way they really want to. I presume that's why the relapse rate is so high, they can never completely stop.

Good points, R82.

R60, she actually does have some fragrance testers. Most of them aren't super fancy (the nicest I've seen is a Prada scent, which isn't actually a luxury fragrance), as she worked at a Macy's. So they're your typical middle-of-the-road scents, like Polo or Coach. I had a good laugh at random bottle of Liz Taylor White Diamonds in one of her boxes. Some could have arguably been sold for a few 10s of dollars back in the day, but most are going on 6+ years old and not well stored; so I don't know how well they would last for that length of time in those conditions. Plus it's really at a point where the hassle of selling such items and shipping them isn't going to be worth the payout in the end. She really needs to just pitch everything. But 99% of what she has is actual facial cosmetics testers (makeup), lipsticks, eye shadows, mascara, etc.. That stuff definitely doesn't last much beyond a couple years (or less). And even if it did, make up isn't the type of thing you store several of years in advance of wearing it. She truly has so much of it that it could likely last her for 30+ years, should she continue using it all.

R82 you brought up some really good points. To add to that, I was thinking about how hoarding is an appearance-based (arguably class-based) diagnosis, based on an untidy, cluttered home, insufficient living space due to possessions taking over, inability to properly clean, etc. My mom definitely has a hoarder's spirit in her, She has way more shit than she needs, clothes and shoes filling several closets, unused kitchen gadgets and appliances, machines, pantries overstocked with multiples of the same product, etc. The thing about my mom, however, is that she actually has a place to store her shit. She and my dad have a larger country house with lots of walk-in closets, that also includes a large attached garage with lots of nice shelving. So with her, she definitely has hoarding issues, but they're not so noticeable because she has places to keep them out of site or at least in a semi-appropriate area. With my friend above (see R49), she nor her mother have any storage space, just your typical small townhome closets and a smaller two car garage with limited shelving. I wouldn't say either of them have more than my mom necessarily (my mom actually might have more sadly), but it's much more noticeably horrid and burdensome because they have nowhere to put it and so it inevitably starts crawling into their living spaces. And it is awful. My friend has piles clothes on hangers strewn over every piece of furniture, only one couch where people can sit, the kitchen table has become another makeshift vanity (with clothes strewn over the chairs). Kitchen countertops have become makeshift bookshelves, etc.. A visit to her home is my own personal hell.

[quote]Yeah, hoarding is normal human feelings exaggerated to a problematic or even dangerous level.

I'd rather know a hoarder than someone who uses "problematic" in sentences.

Were our dears John & Cedric hoarders?

R60, right? Someone will buy those testers.

My mother is a hoarder, started getting really bad around 50.

She is a childhood sexual abuse survivor. Unfortunately, she is not open to help and there is only so much others can do as she is a millionaire many times over.

My best friends Mom is from Japan and she's a hoarder now living in California. A Japanese hoarder I find interesting.

I worked for a short time as a land line telephone installer, it is amazing how many people are hoarders and you would never know it from the outside of the house. This was when the telephone company was phasing out party lines, these people did not really want you in their house.

One woman's house was filled with boxes, her living room was a maze of boxes stacked on all the furniture. While she had chairs and a sofa, they were all stacked to the ceiling with boxes. She had a card table she sat at in the living room in the center of the maze of boxes. All the boxes were neatly stacked almost to the ceiling and none were collapsing or falling over. For all I know the boxes could have been empty. The entire house was like this, the stairs to the second floor were stacked with boxes, all pretty much the same size. I had to go into a spare bedroom and change some wiring in there and that bed was stacked to the ceiling with boxes all seemed the same size and all were neatly stacked. She apologized for the mess, the house didn't smell bad, and wasn't dirty, just full of boxes.

"The collyer bros were killed by their own hoarding."

They're not the only ones. Occasionally I will see a news item about a hoarder found dead in their filthy, cluttered home. What a truly destructive, vile, nasty mental illness hoarding is.

I have hoarders in my family. All of them are sexual abuse survivors, at the hands of two different uncles.

I just feel, in some cases, it is most certainly connected to that.

I dated and briefly lived with a hoarder when I was young. It was in the late 90s, before the hoarding reality shows. I didn't know that what he did was "hoarding." I searched online and discovered the word "de-cluttering." I ordered a couple books about how to de clutter your home and life and he would NOT read them. Any time he was in the shower or out walking the dog I would hurry a few things out to a nearby dumpster. He never noticed them missing. Eventually I asked himnto move out. It took him months. One day he came by for a vist after he moved out and made a comment about how sad and empty my apartment looked without all his crap stuff taking up space and I realized he honestly believed his junk was valuable and was comforted by it surrounding him. Meanwhile I was enjoying a clean home with more space and felt relieved when all that crap was gone! Only later when "hoarding" came into mainstream consciousness did I understand what his problem was. I'm disgusted by hoarding, and even by larger than necessary homes and cars, etc. and prefer a minimalist, small living space. I wonder if that's fallout from seeing hoardibg firsthand and pushing it out of my life before it took over.

Interesting comment R93. That same phenomenon occurred with me. Having witnessed what hoarding can do to a person, I too have really made an effort (arguably excessive) to keep a much simpler life with fewer possessions. Yeah, it can sometimes suck, but it really does make life sooooooo much easier.

my goals for 2019 include getting clutter free; I'm a writer and have a print library that I'd prefer to keep; my weight fluctuates so I have some really nice clothes I can't currently fit into but don't want to just yet.

I could take a solid week to throw out stuff I don't need and that'd be great; I tend to not be in my apt as much as I want; I travel a lot to do parental caretaking.

perhaps all of this is an excuse; I could toss clothes and then buy new ones when I lose the weight and not go home as much, but for now I haven't found the time I need to devote to a clutter free life.

R95, here; I was working with a young woman who had a cleaning out/decluttering business; the first time she came over and started stacking and organizing I had a visceral reaction and had to leave the apartment; I trusted her and came back to things already more organized. - sadly, she left town; had she stayed, I'd be further along than I am.

To the point about magical thinking:

On one of the hoarder shows there was a young gay guy who was devoted to his elderly dog and believed that if he hoarded the dog's shed hair, which was all over the apartment, that the dog wouldn't die.

Watching Hoarders is motivation for me to throw out some things, or donate. I have a room.. with the door closed, that has all my spillover stuff. I go in, look around, and it's be hard for me to get rid of some things. I close the door.. out of sight, out of mind. It's my room of shame.. lol. The rest of my house isn't bad, and looks normal.. easy to move around. I throw out garbage, recycle flyers and mail, etc. I need to clean out some closets and especially, tackle that room. It'll have to be baby steps, as it is overwhelming.

New season starts tonight.

R98, I stopped getting flyers delivered to my home. I look at the flyers online. Less to clutter my home and less to recycle.

This show is such a guilty watch for me.

I just posted this on another thread about having to go into relatives homes after they die and empty the house.

One of my former friends was an extreme hoarder. He had magazines stacked in both bathtubs. He took sponge baths in the kitchen sink. Cooked on a George Foreman grill on his front porch because his kitchen could not be used for it's intended purpose.

when he moved into his current house the only help he had was his grown son, Jason and me.

We thought John was outside at the truck getting a load to bring in and Jason said to me "I'm going to throw this away" just then John stuck his head around the corner and said "no, you are not throwing anything of mine away"

Jason said "yes I will throw everything in this house away after you die and when I do I won't be picking up things and looking at them. Everything will get thrown in a box and thrown out and the only way you can stop me is to throw it away yourself or live forever"

R15, I'm completely exhausted reading your post-- do you have many issues?

The headache inducing sadness I feel from reading these posts really weighs me down, but I can't stop reading them.

Why does it make you sad R104? It's not your mental illness- it's theirs. Do you oftentimes let others issues get you down? If you do, you need to start living your own life.

The new professional organizer, Erica, sucks. When the hoarders lashed out at her, she took it personally and started crying. Bring back Dot Breininger!