Hoarding

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I'm a bit OCD and hoard dumb stuff, like plastic grocery bags (which I re-use for the waste paper baskets) and boxes. OMG I can't throw out a good empty box (what if I NEED one?!) I also used to be reeeeally bad about keeping every scrap of paper the kids brought home from school.

I read the book 'Stop Obsessing'; it's a great book about taking your life back from OCD, and it helped a lot. Now, I'm able to get rid of a few plastic bags or boxes when they're overcluttering my basement... and last summer I went through the boxes and boxes and boxes of the kids school work and got rid of all but 1 box worth of my favs. It was hard... I am no where NEAR as bad as the people on hoarders, but it's definately a struggle for me.

Come to find out, all the women on my mom's side, including her, have the same issue... but they just chalked it up to growing up with the same values in regards to junk. I'm the lucky one... I saw a therapist, pinpointed the origin of the behavior, and corrected it... GO ME!! :)

My aunt & uncle were hoarders. My aunt passed away about a year ago in the house, so the EMTs went in and were over come with the hoarding & smell. They had to report the issue, which was good because we were never allowed over, or if we did go over they would quickly run out lock up and say lets go to such and such.

After the funeral we spent 3 days cleaning out the first floor of the house. There were paths leading everywhere and the stuff was piled up at least 6 ft, sometimes all the way to the ceiling. They had a cat, but had not seen it for weeks... well we found the cat and she has passed away. You know those big dumpsters that you can have dropped off for remodling, well we filled SIX of them in ONE day. We had to throw the clothes & shoes we wore in there away because there was no way of getting them clean again.

They just keep buying, thinking it means something, but then never using it. A lot of it, at leas for my uncle, had to do with feeling good about buying things. These items were always gotten at a thrift shop, garage sale and sometimes the dumpster. He said that everything had deep meaning to him but when we asked if something at the bottom of the pile was never used did it still have a meaning. Also growing up being the only boy & middle child he was over looked a lot and all he remembers from his childhood is being told no, can not have while his sisters got something.

He broke down realized that all of it was just stuff, had no meaning. It took losing his wife to see that this life style is not healthy PLUS the city told him this needs to be cleaned up or we are going to order the house be torn down.

We are still working with him today, checking up on him, we have a set of keys so we can go into his home so he can not hide the issue again. He does struggle, it is how he thinks, we are helping him to change his pattern of thinking but it takes time.

I am sad for others that struggle with hoarding. There are a lot of reason they are hoarding, at the time it makes them feel good then it is over wheleming to even think of cleaning it all up so they will just stick with the good feels. I an never mad at them, that actaully makes things worse, but it is easy to get frustrated when it seems they will never understand why this is not a healthy way for them and others to live.

My former MIL is a hoarder. It's a HORRIBLE "disease" for lack of better words...this is a VERY accomplished W., educated and a GREAT W. - but she can't let stuff go....

When we (my ex and our daughter) stayed at their home once - I was taken aback - this is a W., on the outside, that is put together and educated...yet her home was eeewww...and when i saw eeewww - i mean - look at some of the piles on the show and it's WORSE...bathrooms disgusting (feces, urine, bugs, cobwebs, dirt, spiders, mice, centipedes - i could go on)...they didn't think anything of it...my ex suggested they take our daughter to the pool - as he knew I was sickened (as was he) - then.....

we went to the store and purchased gloves and cleaning supplies as well as new sheets and a comforter and a vacuum cleaner (neither my ex or myself cared if we offended her) I stopped at a laundry mat and washed the sheets and comforter as well as pillows...then we went back and I cleaned the bathroom (it took me 3 hours no joke) and the bedroom - my ex stripped the bed, put the mattress in a zipper bag (you know the allergenic kind?) put a new mattress pad on and made bed, vacuumed and did what he could to make our room (his childhood bedroom) liveable.

The next day - they went out - i was beat from cleaning - no, she didn't see what we had done at that point...I couldn't fix myself anything to eat because the kitchen was beyond healthy...I bought trash bags and filled them with what I thought was trash (20 year old phone books, old boxes, etc.) and put them by the door - washed the dishes, cleaned the counters (they were this beautiful butter yellow but I THOUGHT they were brown) and cleaned the toaster out...when they came back - she Panicked - and I mean to hysterics...all of the bags were opened by her and NOTHING left the house....my ex was mortified...as was I...we cut our trip short as there was no way we could handle the mess...

To this day - their house is a mess and those bags I filled? It's 21 years later and they are still opened and in the kitchen where I left them....

I'm with you, J.. It's when someone is threatened with losing her kids and doesn't seek help that I start to judge. It's not like I expect someone to "get better" overnight, but a mom should at least be in active treatment. If someone is in weekly therapy and is taking her meds (if prescribed) and still has a serious issue, it does feel wrong to judge. But if someone has a mental illness like this and doesn't get help - even when kids are being taken away - I feel like the problem is maybe them being a lousy person, not them being a hoarder. Totally judgmental, I know, but hey - cancer patients get chemo, alcoholics join AA, and people with mental illness should get help, too, despite the obstacles of embarrassment and fear.

I had a tenant that was a hoarder, it was terrible, I couldnt believe it when i went in to do the annual inspection of her apartment. I worked with her patiently for several months and finally CPS was called out. They also tried to work with her by implementing "help" to clean up her home otherwise her 11 yr old was going to be removed. She fled with her car FULL of stuff and left me with the mess. She moved out in November of last year and I'm still working on getting her apartment back in order.
As far as I can tell we dont have near the resources to help people in this certain situation. It would be a good field to get into.
Her son was very emotionally disturbed as well, the damage had already been done, and unfortunately probably still is wherever they ended up.
Hoarding is like any other weird addiction, they are trying to feel "comfortable" with "things".... even if its junk, trash, cats, etc... I wish I did understand it more, but not sure I even want to go to such a dark place of the human mind.

My grand mother became a hoarder after the death of her husband ... she was always a boarderline animal hoarder, luckily she only had 4 cats in the house (but someone would check in on her frequently unexpectedly as well and tattle to my dad if something was a miss) but there were always about 20 cat food dishes on the porch at all times. My sister had to clean out her house when we were moving her to my dad's and my sister found the cremated remains of EVERY animal she ever owned/cared for ... including her peacock! She did a good job of hiding it in the garage and keeping it out of site of my dad. There were rooms he just did not look in because she was tricky! Everyone has a diff level of hoarding and those who are severe need MENTAL help.

I have someone in my family who could be a hoarder if she had the space to fill. She has rooms that are way too crowded and storage units full of stuff she hasn't sifted through in years. I think part of it is the dream that things will be different one day - she'll have room to have her stuff out, and part of it is the loss it all represents and the psychological issues that go along with it. She's not had an easy life and I think she clings to things as a way of clinging to something she lost. She's never lost a pet in her stuff, but it's affecting her health and I wish we could get her to clear it out. I think she's depressed and her surroundings reflect that.

It's not an easy thing and I think that while it's cut and dry to someone "well" that you give up your stuff for your kids, to them it's like cutting an arm off. Would you easily cut an arm off, even for your kids? A working arm? Not an easy choice, is it? This isn't just a cleaning problem. It's a serious illness like depression or bipolar. They don't just need to remove the clutter, but they need serious professional help or their psychological problems will cause them to just clutter it up again.

Yes, we have a hoarder in our extended family. Probably not as bad as some of the houses seen on TV, but definitely a hoarder. It's an illness. A frustrating and difficult to treat illness. I always wonder if those houses that get cleaned up on TV eventually return to their hoarder state. Probably, unless the underlying mental health issues are treated. It's tough because they are often too embarrassed to accept help. The hoarder in our family is on my husband's side and I'm not even allowed in the house. I've only seen it a handful of occassions. My husband doesn't get there often either. There are insurance issues in our case that complicate treatment and the hoarders often don't see the need for or want treatment. I've heard even after receiving therapy it's an illness with a high reoccurrence rate.

My grandpa was a hoarder and my husband's grandma was also a horader. Her problem was MUCH worse. She filled not one but TWO houses and bought a third. One house was sold as is and the other one took a TON of work to be able to finally sell it.

It was a the biggest waste of time and money. Nothing was actually useable after the years of other things piled up on it. They would have had some actual money for their retirement if they didn't have the NEED to KEEEEEEP everything. My MIL is in charge of her care and is the OPPOSITE. Very clean and orderly. I give her credit for living the way she did and didn't carry the sickness on like her mother.

O-M-G! Cheryl O.
I can't believe your story!
21 years! wow!

@Rachel D.
Keep up the great work! You can get pass this!

I think I pass a house on my way to work daily that has this issue...Seriously....the house is trashed on the outside and deadplants in the window sill...and boxes visible in the window.....haven't been moved in years...at least not that I can tell.....

I've met people who were borderline. Most people have some level of emotional entanglement with certain objects -- it's only when the emotional entanglement extends to trash and bags of poop that it becomes a disease.

If you have any compulsive habits at all, you should be able to fathom the control a compulsion can have on a person. It is something to be pitied. Howie Mandell, who has germaphobic OCD, has said that his mind is a dark place to be, and that people wouldn't want to be there.

I just watched an episode of hoarders, and the urine and feces actually ate a hole in the floor of the woman's bathroom. It certainly is hard to understand the need to hoard bags of feces, but you have to know it's a mental illness.

Yes, I have met them and seen the inside of their houses. None of them have children.

It is an anxiety disorder and needs treatment. I have great empathy for them as I have struggled with anxiety (a different form) for over 20 years.

BUT they have to recognize that they have a problem (children being taken away, hello big sign there is a problem) and they have to seek treatment. If you were to just go in and throw out all their stuff it can cause a total nervous break down because the stuff keeps the anxiety under control for them.

The one I knows house is as follows: there is every fast food container ever brought into the house still in the house stacked in piles according to restaurant. Every newspaper, every piece of mail, every bottle of medication (hundreds of empty pill bottles), hundreds of empty toilet paper rolls...it goes on and on. Piles of newspaper in the utility room on the floor, layers and layers of it with dog poop between each layer...the dog died years ago. They will not seek help, they do not want help and refuse medication assist them...they are happy in their house and we just don't mess with it or go inside if at all possible.

It is a psychological illness...it starts small and builds on itself..until you have the homes shown on that show. Some people have the tendencies and are just "pack rats" because they keep all the stuff organized and can let some things go it never gets beyond that stage.

I can see why it makes you mad, because as a mom you can't imagine not being able to choose between your "stuff" and your children. To them it is a big jumble and I hope they get really good medical assistance.

...deleted my answer, as I answered the wrong question.