<p>We have only had 23 years. We met when he worked in England and then moved around a bit before returning to the US and living in one place. The moving helped not to accumulate so much stuff. Though now that i think of it, the 233 unmatched socks I got rid of when we moved from Egypt might have been a clue.</p>
<p>I agree that hoarders are more likely to part with things if people say how much they could use and/or would like to BORROW the item. </p>
<p>I can’t believe you COUNTED all 233 unmatched socks! I periodically toss unmatched socks & am puzzled as to what house elf is stealing them. :)</p>
<p>I think I counted them because I couldn’t quite believe how many unmatched socks there were! We had a maid in Egypt and she was horrified that I was getting rid of them. She didn’t believe there was not one matched pair in there - until she went through them herself. I can’t remember if she took them or not. I had quickly learned to offer her anything before I threw it away after she pulled things out of the trash and asked if she could have them. It was awkward at first because things that really were rubbish to me that i would never have dreamed off offering to someone (like a bra when all the elastic has gone), were not rubbish to other people - definitely learned the truth of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure while living there. She would have a field day in our house now.</p>
<p>That probably reinforced your H’s hoarding tendencies. Living through the Great Depression also reinforced those tendencies for many, I believe. Still can’t believe all the stuff my FIL had, including the lifeboat water. It probably would have poisoned anyone who tried to drink it so long after it was packaged.</p>
<p>That show scares the crap out of me. I watch it and than throw things away. I am very neat and organized by nature so seeing people live like that is horrible. They are very sick individuals. I know one couple who lives in a beautiful home with a house full of really nice stuff but there is just so much of it that it looks like a pile of junk to me. The one or two times I was in their home I wanted to take a shower after leaving.</p>
<p>Swimcat… Everytime you leave the house in your car load up bags and dump it. Does your town have a dump or could a good friend put it in their trash? Just resign yourself to get rid of it or your kids will have to deal with it someday. Once you are down to a more minimal life you will wonder how you lived this long with all of the stuff. It does not sound like your husband could do this. Would he get very angry if you touched his stuff?</p>
<p>I am taking classes at the university my daughter is at (about 50 miles away). I have been seriously considering taking a couple of bags a week and throwing them in her apartment dumpster. (Or having her do it). Yes he gets really annoyed. He was really unpleasant about them throwing things away from the garage (and it really was just rubbish). It is weird, he is a really kind, nice, easy going guy about almost everything - except this. Even throwing food away is a pain - don’t throw that away - I’ll feed it to the birds. Why did you throw this away. Drives me nuts. And as for food containers - plastic peanut bitter jars,etc - I have to sneak them into the bin. Dumping cat litter on top of the trash is a helpful technique to stop him taking stuff out of the bin!!</p>
<p>23 years is a long time, I take it that has been in one place?</p>
<p>We lived in our last house for 10 years. Stuff weighed 18,000lbs at move in. During that time we made no new furniture purchases. When we moved several years ago my H had to move ahead of the rest of us leaving me to handle the move. I took as much advantage as I dared, discarding many, many suburban loads of stuff. We still had 30,000lbs!! My H is also usually very easy going also but turns into mr hyde when it comes to stuff.</p>
<p>yes, 23 years in one place. Before that we were never more than 3 years and I had no idea about his hoarding tendencies. if we ever move we will have to have a huge clean out. Just putting the house on the market would be a huge undertaking. And i really want to move. One kids has moved to the East coast and would like us to be closer (though probably not next door). The other is probably moving next year. She commented today that she would like us to be close enough that we have a closer relationship with her kids when they come along than she did/does with her grandparents whom she saw rarely. So I’m really hoping she and her fiancee move Eastward as well so we can move be close-ish to them both. And i want a small, uncluttered house, with a small garden (no more acre).</p>
<p>Maybe that will inspire my husband to want to clear up and move.</p>
<p>If there’s a clinically diagnosable disorder that’s the exact opposite of hoarding, I think I have it. I literally have no odds and ends you’d expect everyone to have, and I throw away random things and find I need them a few days later. I suppose that’s better than hoarding, but it’s still inconvenient. I’m complete clueless when it comes to recognizing what’s important and what items I should buy to have handy.</p>
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<p>I get the idea that you never really SOLVE the hoarder’s problem…you help them manage it. It seems like it might be like alcoholism in that respect. The reason why she went on the show is because she was offered a year’s psychiatric help and drugs to deal with her problem.</p>
<p>This show makes me sad. I have watched it with curiosity, and find it so fascinating. Yet now feel guilty because its so voyeuristic. Entertainment around peeking in on someone’s stunning mental illness. I’m not judging those that watch but I just realized this about myself. </p>
<p>Moreover, it just hit me: I feel they are cruelly approaching this illness just to make a good TV drama. It would seem that some serious medication, along with therapy, should be in place FIRST before they start ripping away clutter and crap from these ill individuals. Maybe they do this but there is never mention of it. </p>
<p>Instead it seems they drive up with the trucks and cameras, create possibly unnecessary pain upon the ill person, use pressure and wasted logic (often by non-therapists). Invariably family members end up in tears and yelling at one another in a tug of war with the ill person (who clearly feels tortured having their hordes torn away…). UGH.</p>
<p>No doubt it’s a long road to recovery (in whatever form) but why on earth would they not provide medication, individual therapy and family therapy first, and then start work on removing the goods? Why not at least <em>mention</em> there is medication that can assist? That might give some hoarding viewers some hope or willingness to seek help. </p>
<p>I am hoping what we see on the show is not how it really goes for these individuals. They talk about post-therapy care, but I hope there is extensive ‘pre-therapy’ care before the cameras roll in.</p>
<p>I have a neighbor who is a hoarder. He collects newspapers. In every room now, except for the kitchen, and a narrow path from front door to kitchen, it is literally floor to ceiling stacks of newspapers. He at least reads them! He gathers them from the newspaper recycling depot behind his house. I imagine he probably started at a young age (as he lives in his childhood home and is now about 60). </p>
<p>You’d never guess by his personality (he seems so otherwise normal), nor his appearance (spotless tidy clothes and car), nor his yard…but his house on the inside is scary.</p>
<p>Swimcat, I just read your story. I’m so sorry! It sounds so frustrating and unfair. But your kids sound amazing, and you sound like a saint of a wife. He is so lucky to have all of you.</p>
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<p>Part of the drama is the 2- or 3-day deadline they impose. Sometimes there’s a reason for it – the county is going to visit, or the kids are going to be taken away. But sometimes there’s no obvious reason for the rush. And yet at the beginning of every segment the announcer intones, “It’s noon of Day 2, and Joe has made no progress.” Or the organizer or therapist says, “We’re only going to be here for another day.” I understand that it makes for compelling TV when you put that kind of pressure on someone who needs TIME, but really it’s the worst possible thing you could do to a hoarder.</p>
<p>The other night I saw an episode featuring a 16-year-old hoarder. Really sad. :(</p>
<p>I am one of the “kids” who will be left to clean up after a hoarder parent. It is sad, frustrating, depressing, embarrassing, scary, humbling… My other parent kept the house under control when still alive, but after passing away, it quickly became clear how enormous the problem was and is. </p>
<p>If the person doesn’t think they have a problem, it’s next to impossible to help them get better. The saddest phrase I’ve heard thousands of time over the years is “I’m working at it.” My parent recognizes that there is too much stuff, would NEVER let anyone in the home, and manages to fool every friend because outward appearances are neat, clean, etc.</p>
<p>My sibs and I, all adults, have tried various approaches. None have had the slightest affect. The first try was to help “organize” the stuff into boxes and containers to make room to walk through the home. Next visit a few month later, all boxes were opened with stuff pulled out all over, back to the previous condition. The last try was all of us there at the same time, furiously bagging stuff and filling a huge dumpster, 3 weekends in a row. For the first time in 10 years we had 3 rooms where we could see and vaccuum the floors. It really felt like progress. We decided we could live with our parent telling everyone that the horrible kids threw away all the “good stuff”. (200 empty yogurt containers and foil wrappers off of chocolate candies are not good stuff. Neither are newspapers, piles and piles of them, 10 years old.) The end result, dumpsters were visited, “good stuff” was carted back to the house, and 2 months later it was back to usual.</p>
<p>The worst thing is wishing your parent could have a decent life during older age and knowing you are incapable of providing that for them. </p>
<p>Swimcat, I really feel for you. Please take good care of yourself.</p>
<p>psychmomma and swimcatsmom, I feel for you and I agree with starbright – your hoarding loved ones are lucky to have you. It must be so sad and frustrating to see this happening. What you already know, and this show is educating the rest of us about, is that hoarding isn’t about the accumulation of stuff at all, and trying to prod the hoarder into getting organized is without first dealing with the underlying issue is an exercise in futility. :(</p>
<p>“You don’t know the half of it.”</p>
<p>Only family and close friends visit our house. As swimcatsmom so poignantly describes, it’s hard to fathom why smart and accomplished persons can be rigid about keeping stuff they don’t use … and frankly will never use. The best we can do for most people who don’t know a hoarder personally is to convey a single page from our own book of experiences. Here’s one. Dear spouse likes romance novels. Buys them. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Won’t resell them, won’t recycle them, won’t donate them … and certainly won’t throw them away. They got strewn throughout the house, and I got tired of it. So I built some bookshelves in the library, sized specifically for paperbacks. I collected 350 and put them on the shelves, organized by author. A dent admittedly, but better than nothing. After a couple months Dear Spouse looked at the bookcase and said “We ought to get rid of the ones we don’t want.” Progress, right? No. The 350 paperbacks were taken off the shelves and removed to the living room floor “for sorting.” And that’s where they still are four months later. The bookshelves remain empty.</p>
<p>Dear Spouse is not an ogre. Bright, accomplished, loves the children to death. But NOTHING comes ahead of that particular form of organization that makes other people shake their heads. And yet, whatever you see on the surface is just the small tip of a very large iceberg. 233 unmatched socks? Minor pain.</p>
<p>My mom is not a hoarder, however she doesn’t acknowledge the amount of stuff in the basement that hasn’t been looked at or touched since my dad died 18+ years ago. This includes boxes of old books, Christmas decorations, glasses, dishes and who knows what else. (some of this is valuable, as she was an only child and her mother had antique glassware in the 30s). </p>
<p>One example is she had a 35+ yo freezer that I kept telling her to unplug and unload because it was costing her a ton of money. (how much freezer room does a single person need?). One benefit of a 4+ day electric outage last year is that she had to toss everything in the freezer and unplug it. However it still sits in the corner with the door open. She has canned goods so old they have leaked all over the shelves they are on. </p>
<p>I often tell her I will need to take a month off work to sort through the basement when she dies. She doesn’t disagree and laughs when I call her ‘Scarlet’, as in “I’ll think about it tomorrow”. The first floor of her house is not cluttered, which makes me believe she is not a true hoarder, just someone who lives with the mantra “out of sight, out of mind”.</p>
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The 233 matched socks were a comment about me not realizing my husband was a hoarder when we were moving every few years - maybe the socks were a sign. I’d love the problem to be 233 socks now rather than a large three car garage stacked to the walls and ceilings, a huge Den that is crammed to bursting with stuff (think pathways through it, my sewing room that is stuffed to the ceiling (I don’t sew any more because I have no space), a porch I can’t sit on because it is full of stuff, an outside that looks like a junk yard with old cars and boats and lawn mowers and appliances such as water heaters, the storage unit where other peoples dryers and washers that he started bringing home are now stored at a cumulative cost of several thousand dollars over the last decade, the huge piles of recycling stuff that never goes to the recycling center.</p>
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We are the same - only family ever comes to the house. I am embarrassed to ever have anyone come here so it really affects me socially.</p>
<p>When my husband was taken really ill a few years ago and I had to call an ambulance I was worried how they would get into the house and get him out of it. I went out into the front of the house to make sure they could get into the house - and walked on some of his rubbish out there and hurt my foot. I was in the ER while they were trying to save his life and my foot was in agony but I didn’t want to say “when you’re done saving his life, can you take a look at my foot”. Went to our family doc the next day and had broken a bone in my foot.</p>
<p>As well as worrying about him and hobbling around with a stick, I was worried that if he died people would come to the house and how was I going to make it presentable - isn’t that awful. But it was an issue. People came from our church with food and I didn’t want them to come in. It’s a sad way to live.</p>
<p>What can relatives and friends of someone who is a true hoarder do to help them? Or is there nothing at all that family and friends can do?</p>