<p>^ VeryHappy - Your question has been addressed in a number of Forums. You can Google “children of hoarders” “married to hoarder” etcetera. I found much insight, but few solutions. YMMV.</p>
<p>Just extending some support to you folks who are married to or children of hoarders. It sounds like a sad and even overwhelming challenge. I’ll keep you in my thoughts. If anyone has solved this problem - and some have - it means there’s hope for you, too.</p>
<p>It seems to have a biological component and to run in families. My MIL and SIL are low-level accumulators whose homes are uncomfortable to visit. Clean bathrooms, clean-enough kitchens, but tons of unused and unusable stuff piled in corners and closets. My dh would do this in our living areas if I didn’t push back hard. As it is, he has “his” area in our basement that I (supposedly) don’t touch. (Except that I’ve been doing stealth missions down there to get rid of stuff for the past couple of years.) </p>
<p>One of the things that drives me crazy on “Hoarders” is that the professionals always let the hoarder decide what to get rid of. I realize that it’s probably the only way to really address the problem, because otherwise the hoarder will just accumulate more stuff. But I always wonder why the cleaning teams don’t just secretly dump stuff because will the hoarder really remember what was in 20 trash bags in one of several storage units?</p>
<p>Does anyone else think that all the “picker” shows on TV about people who pay for what pretty much looks like junk might encourage hoarding? Though I have to say I think this is the best commercial I’ve seen so far this year: <a href=“American Pickers Commercial - YouTube”>American Pickers Commercial - YouTube;
<p>“One of the things that drives me crazy on “Hoarders” is that the professionals always let the hoarder decide what to get rid of.”</p>
<p>Yeah, this makes me nuts too. Frankly, I’d describe it as “enabling behavior.” But the hoarder is the client, and this is hardly the only example of “everything for the client, nothing for victims” thinking in America. I often wonder how these shows would play out if the children of hoarders were the clients. Quite different I’d imagine.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how it would work if the hoarders weren’t put in charge. I mean, unless the professional is planning to live with the hoarder forever and make all the decisions for him/her, the hoarder has to take ownership of the process. They can’t be put into a situation where they can say, “Oh, I didn’t want to throw that out so it’s okay if I buy another one.” If they’re the ones who are making the call, they have to take responsibility (finally!) and it’s harder to go back on something that you agreed to. </p>
<p>I mean, it’s sort of like the difference between making your kid do his college applications and you doing it for them. If they do the work, they have some ‘skin in the game’ and have an incentive to buckle down since they owned the process. If you fill out the applications and chose the college, you’re essentially turning them into a spectator in their own lives. It might be more easier just to run roughshod over them but if you want lasting commitment you have to let them do the work. </p>
<p>^ W&MParent - I like your example of college applications. Let’s expand it a bit. You’ve told your student that there’s money for fifteen college applications. He has 150 schools on his list … and it’s December 27th. The student is passionate about each of his 150 schools.</p>
<p>You’ve got three days to reduce the 150 schools to 15 … and your student has spent the past three months “refining” the list … by increasing the number of schools from 143 to 150. Do you tell the kid “OK, just tell me which schools you’re willing to discard?” Or might you say “OK, tell me one school you feel especially good about.”</p>
<p>JMHO, but if the goal is to change thinking, and the problematic thinking is having inappropriate volumes of stuff (which would still be inappropriate if half was discarded), then perhaps it might be better to tackle it from the other end: “Let’s make a list of 5,000 items you want to keep for now, and we’ll add more later.”</p>
<p>^^That’s exactly the problem. Unless the hoarder wants to change and is willing to get rid of the stuff, it is hard for anyone else to do anything. Once they are willing to change then outside help would be priceless. It is overwhelming to try and deal with all the accumulated stuff, especially if you are not so young any more. My husband is 69 and I am in my 50s. I don’t think we physically could clear up the mess ourselves in the event that a lightening bolt hits and he decides to do something about it. </p>
<p>I have wondered how I will cope if the day comes when I am left on my own to deal with it (sounds morbid I know, but I can’t help but think about it as with the age difference it is likely that will happen). My potential solutions range from renting a huge dumpster and just throwing stuff out, hiring someone to come clear it up (that would have to be part of it as some of it is physically beyond me), a couple of gallons of gasoline and some matches…</p>
<p>frazzled – The reason the therapist puts the hoarder in charge of the cleanup is because it’s essential that the hoarder learn how to make those decisions themselves. You and I can go through a pile of papers and make the Keep or Toss decision on each individual piece of paper. Hoarders are incapable of doing that. Sometimes on these shows, the hoarder will at some point just throw up their hands and say, “Fine, throw all of it away.” That’s just as bad as the hoarding, because the individual decisions haven’t been made. They have to be taught how to do it, and the only way to teach them is to have them begin to practice it, item by item.</p>
<p>Plus, other people making these decisions, even loved ones, is extremely threatening to the hoarder. The accumulation of stuff is the symptom, not the disease. People hoard for a reason, and just tossing the accumulation does not address that reason. The root cause must be got at.</p>
<p>This makes so much sense. It’s a bit like trying to solve the problems of alcoholism by throwing out the bottles of alcohol. </p>
<p>I sure feel for you swimcat.</p>
<p>My spouse has ‘hoarder tendencies’ though he is very aware of it, and has it under control for the most part (to use the alcoholism analogy again, he’d be more like a ‘problem drinker’ than an ‘alcoholic’ in hoarding terms). His mom is the same way. </p>
<p>No idea if this generalizes to those that hoard, but for him, he realized one challenge is that the longer he has had something the more he values it and can’t let it go (regardless of its value). So, as an example, tax returns from 1983 would actually be more valued and harder to part with than say tax returns of 1993.</p>
<p>I agree and can certainly see the logic of putting the decisions in the hands of the hoarder. It’s probably the only way to find a permanent solution. But it drives me nuts to see the hoarders on the program refusing to make those decisions or understand how much they’ve inconvenienced or even hurt the people trying to help them. It’s a very sad disease.</p>
<p>I had a co-worker who was a hoarder. She had an array of related mental health problems - depressed, compulsive - and couldn’t get on top of her many medical problems, either (diabetes, obesity). She was very intelligent and talented, but just would not see the need to take action. It certainly seemed to be a brain thing. Sadly, she passed away before she was 60 years old.</p>
<p>“I have wondered how I will cope if the day comes when I am left on my own to deal with it …”</p>
<p>SCM - There are auction firms that specialize in emptying homes of the departed. My brother works with a couple of these. You remove what you want (to a storage facility temporarily) and the auction firm clears out the house taking anything you no longer want. Anything of value they sell, offsetting the cost of clearing out the house.</p>
<p>I know what you mean. Mental illness, and addiction in particular are so frustrating-- you so want to rescue the person, get them to see the light, knock sense into them-- and yet it’s beyond them. One striking pattern I see almost all of the TV hoarders, is that when pressured with logic to give something up, they will fight back with arguments that make absolutely no sense. They can’t explain it nor argue in their defense, but they are pressured to come up with something anyways. Their brain is in overdrive…absolutely beyond “making sense” which is why the arguments with them are so futile and hurtful. As ridiculous as trying to talk a person with psychosis into not believing their delusions. </p>
<p>I honestly think if I had to deal with someone close to me who was a serious hoarder, I would join an organization like Al-anon to help me cope. Seems like the exact same frustrating dynamics as a loved one with any addiction: watching them hurt or kill themselves with their addiction, and struggling to come to terms with our powerlessness to change them, and learning strategies to avoid getting sucked down that road of trying to ‘fix’ them and instead learning to draw boundaries and keep your own life sane.</p>
<p>I like LaMa’s definition: that you can be messy and disorganized, but that’s not necessarily being a hoarder. My sister is amazingly awful. Every room is chock full of stuff. Her kitchen table has 2-3 feet of newspapers, mail, magazines, and catalogs. The path from her bed to her closet is a 3-4 foot mound of clothes the whole way. Once she got very upset with me when I read the title of this organizational book which sat on top of many other books. She has two staircases and each step has at least 4 books on each step. But I honestly don’t think she’s a hoarder. She just hates to clean up.</p>
<p>By contrast, I think my son is a hoarder. He can not throw stuff away. On top of his desk sits plaques and medals that he and his brothers got at least 10 years ago for participating in soccer or baseball. Besides that are his art projects from elementary school and papers from MS. So far, I’ve kept this mess somewhat liveable because I throw stuff out when he goes off to college. It also helped him to watch a show once. But, I worry what he’ll do after college. Gulp. And his dorm now? Yikes! </p>
<p>Anyone know when those shows air? I think we need another fix.</p>
<p>I just went through the chart provided by NewHope, post #61. My sister ranks a three. She really does have a hoarding problem. It could be that on top of hoarding, she’s disorganized and messy. I suspect she’s in denial about her hoarding issue and just says she hates to clean. Is this typical hoarding behavior?</p>
<p>Gotta go toss out some that stuff in my attic now.</p>
<p>Wow. I just read this whole thread and it is a fascinating subject. I don’t think I have hoarding tendencies but i do think that a lot of clutter accumulates due to indecisiveness. I will pick something up and put it back down because i can’t figure out what to do with it. </p>
<p>I have a friend who I think has hoarding tendencies and I think it is combined with ADD and compulsive shopping. I think these traits, together, create the perfect storm of chaos.</p>
<p>Do any of you who live with hoarders or know one see tendencies toward ADD or compulsive shopping?</p>
<p>This summer, my house was a victim of a bedbug outbreak. Thankfully, we caught it early but regardless, we had to teat the house aggressively to rid it of the pest. This involves emptying all drawers, closets, cabinets, etc. We even had to empty most of the attic. We removed everthing in large plastic storage cotainers or plastic rash bags. And we had a time limit because it had to be doen by the time the first treatment was scheduled. Most of our worldly possessions are now stacked in an out building waiting for the last of the bug treatments to be completed next week.<br>
I have gotten used, in the last two months to living very minimally and I like it! I told my H that nothing, and I mean nothing is coming back into this house unless we absolutely LOVE it or absolutely NEED it.
I have decided that the trick to organizing your home is not to clean out drawers and remove the things you don’t want or need. It is to remove EVERYTHING and then bring back a small portion of that total. The difference is that, once it is out of the house, you have to take ACTION to bring it back in. When we clean out drawers or closets, we have to take ACTION to throw it away. Most things hang in an ambiguous place and we make a decision to keep them by NOT making a decision at all.</p>
<p>My parents were living in a small rowhouse with steep stairs and my father had developed various neurological problems that were causing him to fall often. I kept nagging my mother about moving to an apartment but she insisted that “first we have to go through all our stuff.” The first floor of the house looked presentable, the second floor was okay, but the third floor (guest room and my dad’s office) had become so cluttered that there were narrow paths winding through the piles of papers and other crap. </p>
<p>My dad had developed dementia and had stopped dealing with paperwork; he just put every piece of paper he received into the piles (it was sort of interesting to go through it, because I could see from the dates on the papers when the piling had started, and I realized that the dementia had actually begun a couple of years before anyone else was aware of it). My mom had dozens of unfinished craft projects and had “organized” by buying lots of those plastic storage bins. Meanwhile the basement was packed with stuff going back to their high school years – and it was all ruined by mold and mildew. My parents refused to accept that it all needed to be thrown away, and kept insisting that they needed to “work on it.” My dad couldn’t even get down the stairs to the basement. I don’t think they are true hoarders but it was extremely dysfunctional. My mom had someone who came in to clean but she wasn’t allowed to go into the cluttered areas. </p>
<p>They finally moved into an apartment so I helped clear out a lot of stuff. My dad had around 500 books and wanted to bring them all; I had to sneak most of them out to my car when he was sleeping. </p>
<p>Ever since, I’ve been trying to get rid of anything in my house that we don’t love or use. Especially stuff in the basement. Ours is dry but there’s no reason to just pile stuff down there. I never want anyone else to have to deal with my mess.</p>
<p>I think a useful barometer is to answer the question “What is the kindest solution?” When a close family member was dying of cancer, her house devolved into a complete mess … piles of clothes and papers and medical supplies everywhere. But there was no hoarding (or clutter) in the house prior to that, and the clutter was really just a consequence of focussing on the short-term needs of the family. Four months after the person passed, the house was back to its normal uncluttered condition.</p>
<p>So what is the kindest thing that can be done for a hoarder who’s about to be evicted because they can’t keep fire exits unobstructed? Or a hoarder who’s about to lose their children because they insist on keeping moldy food in a nonfunctioning refrigerator?</p>
<p>NewHope,
That’s a good question. The person in my life who has these tendencies is not at all receptive to any kind of suggestions, offers of help, etc. She takes it as criticism and gets very defensive.</p>
<p>Went through the scale. My mother ranks a 1 but definitely has hoarding tendencies. Garage is full so they built another one. That one can house two cars but the loft space they built above is full. Spare bedrooms have lots of stuff against the walls in rubbermaid containers, neatly labeled but still there. Family room is the worst with stuff kind of everywhere but the room is still livable and the house is clean. No animals but when they had pets they were taken care of and no pet spills in the house.<br>
I was at their house this summer. Spent four hours going through stuff in the garage with Mom. Some to go to thrift store, some to a garage sale, very little that was trash except a bunch of plastic bags being saved for carting stuff. We made good progress but after four hours she was mentally done and we had to quit. That seems to be the only way to help her. She is not like the hoarders on TV, she readily admits she has a problem. Readily is able to trace it back to a childhood with nothing. No material stuff and no emotional support from her parents. If you met my Mom today you would never believe the way she grew up. The only way to help with these issues is to take it slow and keep the hoarder in control. Unless the situation is life threatening and then agencies will have to step in…</p>
<p>Does having a stash of fabric that falls over on itself (within a cabinet) count as hoarding? Those shows scare the heck out of me, but I see that I also have these tendencies especially with art/craft supplies. Of course, I complain about my daughter who can’t seem to get pieces of trash to the trash can and then empty the trash can when it’s full. Inevitably, her roommates are worse than she is, and she has wound up being the neatest one among them. So disgusting.</p>