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<p>I don’t think anyone chooses to be sick, but true hoarding is an illness.</p>
<p>From what I understand, therapy is the only cure. If counseling didn’t help before, it’s possible that you just didn’t have the right therapist. Giving away and cleaning doesn’t help if the root cause of the problem is not addressed and resolved.</p>
<p>My nutty Aunt who I mentioned earlier in this thread, died a few months ago and my cousin has been cleaning out each of her homes, getting them ready to sell. </p>
<p>Last week she was at the Florida apartment and counted 132 jar/cans of olives and 66 cans of tuna. There was also copious amounts of other canned and boxed foodstuff, but most were so old the food banks wouldn’t even accept them since they were past the expiration date. </p>
<p>In one of the houses in Connecticut she found dozens and dozens of bottles each of gin, vodka and whiskey.</p>
<p>I am NOT a hoarder but I defintiely have more than "15 towels … Or three sets of sheets for the guest bed and many many very new and great books that I will never read and neither my H., we are not readers any more. Actually having only 15 towels and only 3 sets of sheets sounds not enough at all. What if you have 5 guests in your house, are you going to buy more sheets?..Kind of waste of time/money, to get rid of good sheets and then buy more when needed.
Then I heard some amazing advice on TV, from proffessional organizer. she said to get rid of any clothes that you did not use for the past 6 months. Well, I knew at least one girl in D’s HS class who wore any peice of clothing only once. Her daddy was very rich, I have never seen the house like their in my life. I do not belong to this crowd. Some of my clothes are over 10-15 years old and I still wear them. I guess in the eyes of some people I would be a horder, but everybody who comes to my house is teeling me how clean it is (thanks to my cleanning lady) and how well organized (thanks for lots of very big closets).<br>
Just do not listen to anybody, do what is good for you!</p>
<p>If not for me, I think my H would cross over the line from packrat to hoarder. Clutter makes me physically and mentally uncomfortable. It’s a real problem for ME, which H trivializes. When the “stuff” becomes overwhelming, I’ll get rid of some of my things, but I have regretted some of it (e.g. many Newbery and Caldecot award winning children’s books.) H is still buying Beanie Babies. Really.</p>
<p>My H is a pack rat. It makes me nuts. Not that I don’t tend to keep more than I need at times, but he is just ridiculous.</p>
<p>We have a small house with inadequate closets but we have a large walk-up attic and two basements. All of those are bursting at the seams.</p>
<p>About ten years ago, we built a separate building in our yard that functions as an art studio for me ( the first floor) and a storage space above. At the time, I remember arguing that I wanted the studio on the top floor because I suspected that “stuff” would get dropped in my studio on its way to storage. I was overruled (due to plumbing costs, etc)and the studio is on the bottom floor. Just as I suspected, my H drops things in the studio rather than completing the task of bringing it to the attic above.</p>
<p>Like Missypie, I cannot bear to have clutter around. This is a problem for me ONLY in my art studio. I don’t mind a certain amount of clutter in the house but in the area that I make art, unrelated objects and random stuff is like mental static for me. I cannot concentrate or focus on what I am doing. For whatever reason, my H does not get this. I have been driven to throwing things out onto the lawn when I want to work in there. One night after I did that, it rained hard. I think he got the message. For a little while anyway.</p>
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<p>That’s exactly what I was going to recommend. You beat me to it.</p>
<p>I also hate clutter! I may not always be the best housekeeper in the world, but I am a minimalist and try to keep things tidy. I find it stressful when there is a lot of STUFF around. I have always been this way, but since helping my folks move from a house, to an apartment, to assisted living - boy have I become more of a purger!!!</p>
<p>I truly believe that clutter causes severe stress and issues with focus. I have a relative who has extreme adult ADHD. Her house is a disaster. In particular, her upstairs. Makes my hair stand on end. I think that the home environment has had a very detrimental effect on the family members ability to focus and relax in their home.</p>
<p>My H thinks that I am neurotic that I can’t have any clutter in my studio that is unrelated to my art work. It’s about clearing the mind. When my environment is clutter free I can move forward. If it’s filled with crap, I get stuck.</p>
<p>EPTR, you’re preaching to the choir here.</p>
<p>Sorry. I was venting.</p>
<p>No need to apologize-I meant to post more, but then my D called and I was finding it hard to type and talk at the same time. Two of my kids have ADD - one severely so - and really think they would do better in a very uncluttered household than the opposite. But I work full time and my H is a SAHD, and I lost that battle in about 1992.</p>
<p>I am also married to a guy who would become a full-blown hoarder if not for my perpetual vigilance. 
Really, if I go first, our kids will have a disaster on their hands.</p>
<p>There are only 2 things he can’t get rid of (thankfully): paper and tools. “His” areas of our house - the garage, shed, and half the basement - are full of stuff he can’t possibly remember he has. It doesn’t really look bad because, thanks to my nagging, he has taken random piles of paper (journal articles, old bills, and receipts mostly) and put them in large plastic bins, then stacked the bins to the ceiling. No fire hazard, and it’s not at all “Hoarders”-worthy. But if not for me, he would be the nice 60-year-old guy on the show who just doesn’t understand what the problem is.</p>
<p>I know this isn’t really a solution, but I do periodic stealth missions when I thin out his stuff, which I find therapeutic.</p>
<p>I told my H we are getting a dumpster and if he doesn’t fill it, I will. He knows I mean it.</p>
<p>H and I are very different on this score. His parents were packrats, with piles of newspapers all over the house and an attic that you could only stand at the entrance of and throw things in. My mother is ruthlessly neat, and throws or gives everything away, including things with great sentimental value. I think we both responded to the extremes of our parents.</p>
<p>I don’t think books are hoarding. I often pick up a book and reread a favorite passage or section. I lend or give them to people with those reading interests. My H has taken a lot of my books and put them in boxes in the attic, and I’ve even found him trying to surreptitiously throw them in the garbage. That really makes me angry. Just this summer, a friend of S’s had gotten into Anglo Saxon poetry and Icelandic sagas. I had S take him my Angle Saxon text book from circa 1974, which has a lot of poetry and fascinating excerpts from the Anglo Saxon Chronicles. (I also sent my pristine copy of Ezra Pound’s Personae, which contain his “translations” of several Anglo Saxon poems. I just recalled this, and I want it back! It has some of my favorite poems in it.) You never know when a book will come in handy.</p>
<p>Okay, I recycled a stack of AP prep books that are now 6 or 7 years old that S barely used. I recycled 4 tubs full of his papers that I had cleaned out of his room when he went to college that he never went through. 5 years in the garage was enough. (The stuff I thought he might want H moved to the attic, which means we may have it forever.) But favorite children’s books? Never! S read to shreds many of MY childhood books that were saved.</p>
<p>I have a problem with paper piling up, as well as issues of The New Yorker that have one article left that I mean to read. What tends to happen is that I have a pile I’ve been meaning to go through, then we have a party or something and I end up just throwing the pile in a box and moving it to a room where such things collect and closing the door. This summer I’ve been devoting time to going through such stuff and recycling it. I’ve recycled shelves of Food&Wine and Saveur magazines from 1997 that were taking up space in the kitchen. It’s very liberating.</p>
<p>H, on the other hand, looks through all incoming mail while standing over the recycling bin. This is all very well and good, but once he threw away an envelope containing a check for over $1K from a client of mine. He threw away catalogs from suppliers that I actually needed. Now I have him trained to give me my mail, unless it is an obvious solicitation or the like.</p>
<p>^^^My husband is like that. Once he threw away my W-2 form, and I’m absolutely sure he threw away my birthday card that D1 sent me. I didn’t want to open it until it was actually my birthday, so I left it on the counter. When I went to look for it, it was gone. DH always denies being the one to throw things away, but there are only 2 of us living here, and I know I didn’t do it. That only leaves him or the dogs. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I have a friend who bought a house that was filled with stuff. Multiple dumpsters…</p>
<p>I don’t think all of it is hoarding, though. The previous owner was an old gentleman, and I think he forgot he had something or didn’t remember he had just bought something, so every time he went shopping he would buy a new broom, cans of tomatoes, a new shirt, etc.</p>
<p>And some stuff like newspapers may just be too much of a pain to recycle so they just pile up. It’s not because he couldn’t emotionally get rid of it.</p>
<p>My husband is an anti-hoarder. DS has been in the dorms for less that 2 weeks and H spent today clearing out DS’s bedroom. While he didn’t throw out anything he thought DS might want to keep there’s definitely a lot less stuff/clutter in there now.</p>
<p>Collectors and clutterbugs are not necessarily hoarders. Hoarding is defined not by the amount of stuff, but by the emotional reasons underlying the accumulation, the detrimental effects on the life of the hoarder and others, and the hoarder’s denial of the problem. It has previously been seen as an OCD subtype or a symptom of depression, but the newly-published DSM-V treats it as a separate disorder.</p>
<p>O, the irony. Yesterday, inspired by this thread, I went into the study and selected about 20 books that I really didn’t want and couldn’t see anyone wanting in the foreseeable future. This was an historic event, because I <strong>never</strong> relinquish a book! :)</p>
<p>So I piled them up by the back door, and told H that he should look through them to see if there was anything he wanted to keep. (I’m talking things like country inn guides that are over 20 yrs old. Who knows if the places are even still there!) He says, “I don’t really want to get rid of ANY books. What about those boxes full of SF and fantasy paperbacks in the attic!” Those are books I LIKE, said I. Moreover, YOU are the one who put them in the attic!</p>
<p>Sheesh.</p>
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<p>Well, there’s your mistake.</p>