Enough already my ass

[Eisa]

Exactly, tropicsgoddess. Just throwing stuff out only traumatizes them and doesn't get to the root of the problem--they'll only gather stuff up again.

I have hoarding tendencies myself. Especially in my room. If my room is messy, it is "safe" to me.

[trailerparkmedic]

My husband's grandmother was a terrible hoarder. She grew up during the depression, so that may be part of it, but she would do things like give him used underwear with holes in it, since they were still useful. Her house was so bad that they just sold it as-is when she died, because no one had the time or money to clean it out.

His aunt could probably be on the Hoarders show. She cannot access half her house because of stuff, and there are several rooms that are unlivable because a pipe burst and they are now moldy. I think the electricity is out in a few rooms as well. She doesn't want help, so we can't do anything. I just know they're going to tear down her house as soon as she leaves it.

His mother isn't so bad. She has way too much stuff and won't get rid of any of it, even when we offered to Ebay it for her free of charge. At least her house is still livable and we can even use her kitchen table about half the time we visit.

I am also annoyed at that clutter quiz. Yes, I have dirty dishes in the sink, but that's because I refuse to run a half-full dishwasher. I also have one stack of bills on the table, would like to vacuum if my friends were coming over, and have clothes that are too big for me in the closet, since I'm losing weight. Yes, I am a terrible hoarder.

[tropicsgoddess]

At least Hoarders has clinical psychiatrists there to help out and the families or friends of the hoarders.

[EricKei]

and her dishes get washed twice, first in the sink, then in the dishwasher.

Well, this actually makes perfect sense to me ^_^ If working at a restaurant in the past taught me one thing, it was "WASH the dishes by hand first...the machine is there to take care of whatever you missed and then SANITIZE the dishes"...

And even in a home, where the machine functions differently, it's still a good *idea* to get rid of as much dish crud as you can before washing them anyway.

[protege]

My guess would be it often has something to do with the Great Depression.

That wouldn't surprise me. My maternal grandfather's family was dirt poor during the Depression. They were farmers, not Rockefellers

Anyway, after he died, my grandmother wasn't too impressed with the massive collection of crap that he'd saved. Not only was the basement filled with clutter, but so was the garage, and several of the farm outbuildings. We're talking every piece of paper related to the family-owned feed store, tax returns dating back to the 1940s, parts for cars (or equipment) that had been sold off long ago, lots of tools, lumber, fence posts (and rails), and junk. Lots of junk.

The first week after he died, my grandmother had one of the neighbors come down with a truck, and started hauling that shit away. 3 truckloads later, and her garage (a two-story building, BTW) was empty. All of the tax returns were torched, along with most of the feed store papers. Yeah, I know...but it was the 1980s, and personal shredders didn't exist then. Everything else was packed into the family station wagon and brought home. Some of it was kept (the tools, for example, ended up at my house eventually), but most of the "keepers" were sold at garage sales.

Dad's side of the family wasn't as bad. They were relatively well-off during the Depression, and didn't see a need to hang onto things. Grandpa couldn't see the point of keeping things around if they no longer worked. There was some junk in the "back room" under the garage, but not much. Most of it was cans of paint, various cleaners (Grandpa was a sales rep for a big cleaning company), tools, spare parts, and some junk. What little stuff there was, had to go. When his health started failing in 2001, Grandma had me take a look at the various items, since she didn't want to get stuck dealing with it. She had enough on her mind. I simply took it, and the paint cans, cleaners, and other stuff no longer wanted...and tossed it into the dumpster at work.

With that said, I think that the Depression (and the rationing during WWII) had an effect on the people who lived through it. Jobs were hard to get then, and people had to make do with what they had. Remember, during the war, our country's entire industrial production, had switched over to military items. New vehicles simply weren't happening, and many once-common supplies (even paper) were in short supply at times. I'm sure that's *exactly* why many people hang onto things, even if they're falling apart, or can no longer be repaired.

[boringscreenname]

My great grandma had some hoarder tendencies. I think her living through the Great Depression had a lot to do with it. There was one entire wall in her living room, just stacked with canned goods and other non-perishable items that she never used.

The refrigerator and freezer were especially bad. I went to get something out and noticed she had Oranges in there with blue mold on them. I asked her if I could go through it and clean it out and she let me. When I got done there was an entire trash bag filled with stuff.

She had so much stuff in her freezer it actually stopped working because she had it packed too full. She had meat in there that was 10-20 years old.

Then when I was staying with her she had health problems and had to be rushed to the hospital via ambulance. She had diabetes and congestive heart failure and wasn't taking her medicine for them. I found her medicine in a bowl on the table. When we asked her why she didn't take it, she said she wanted to save it in case she ever ran out and needed some extras. We would've taken her to get her medicine or picked it up and brought it to her, if she would've called and asked.

My mom is not a hoarder, but she likes to collect stuff. Growing up every room in our house was themed. In the living room, we had a deer head, deer pictures, deer curtains and deer figurines. In the kitchen it was all geese stuff from plates to glasses to silverware and dish towels. But she never used it, it all sat in a cupboard in boxes collecting dust. And the counter was filled with geese cookie jars, geese salt and pepper shakers etc. The cabinets got so full they started sagging, I'm surprised they didn't break. My mom also likes to keep stuff that she thinks will be useful, but then never uses it. For some reason she kept an empty baby wipes container, even though my youngest brother is 11. She asked me if I wanted it, and I said no, just throw it out. Then she argued with me about, why didn't I take it, and she didn't want to throw it, it's still useful. I asked her if it was so useful why wasn't she using it, and just how long had it been sitting in storage anyway. She eventually threw it away.

I'm the total opposite of a hoarder, I go through and purge stuff on a regular basis. I live in a tiny house with my husband, two kids, and a dog. The house is crowded and feels small enough when it's clean. We don't have space to store stuff we don't need. I give away a lot of stuff on Freecycle or to the local thrift store.

[ADoyle90815]

My former MIL actually lost her house because of her compulsive hoarding when the health department declared the living conditions to be unsanitary. One of the major reasons why I divorced my ex-husband is that he was just as bad of a hoarder as his mom was. In his case, I think the trauma of his dad dying of cancer made his hoarding go out of control. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I see my former MIL on Hoarders someday, as her house was as bad as many of those seen on that show.

As for myself, I do have a stack of magazines, but those are mostly food magazines and I do use the recipes. I also did laundry, so I had clothes on the table, but those were put away when the loads were finished. Now, I do donate clothes I don't wear anymore to local charities, something that gets done at least twice a year. My grandma is the opposite of a hoarder in that she has always kept her house spotless, and even washes paper plates with soap and water before throwing them out, and her dishes get washed twice, first in the sink, then in the dishwasher.

[MoonCat]

My aunt had years' worth of canned goods stashed away. And tons of new clothes in the attic which had never been worn, still had the tags on them, and were years out of date. When she moved to her new house, my sisters and my dad helped clean out the place. Her house was very clean, it was just the old canned food and the clothes that had to be tossed or given away.

I do have some of those tendencies, but I've conquered some of them. We tend to hang onto leftovers longer than we should, but no one tries to argue that they're still edible! I can happily toss a half-cup of whatever because I know we're not going to eat it.

[ArcticChicken]

My grandmother, also not a hoarder, did the same thing, as did a friend of mine's grandma. I think that's an old person thing. Not sure why.

My guess would be it often has something to do with the Great Depression.

My aunt has some thrifty habits, especially when cooking, that came to her from my Grandma, and she's traced them to thing Grandma learned during the Depression.

I'm also pretty sure Grandma grew up in the dust bowl, so that has something to do with it.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I wonder what would happen if you offered to make supper using those same rotten food items? I seriously doubt they'd call your bluff on it and eat it.

Even the food hoarder lady on A&E was not so far gone she was actually eating the crap she was hoarding. She was buying new stuff and storing it away from the rotten stuff. So a few of her pistons were still firing properly.

[blas]

Kink, I tried to argue with my parents that I was throwing away food that could make us sick, or would just keep continuing to sit in the fridge for who knows how long, and I was told I was wasting food, and being grounded was going to teach me a lesson in asking permission before throwing away food and wasting it.

Oh, bonus points, they said if they ever caught me doing it again, I'd have to buy my own groceries.

Now, I'm not perfect, but there's not mummified leftovers or rotten fruits in my fridge.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Wow.

My in laws are not hoarders, but they do that thing where they let food go bad in the fridge. I threw out so much stuff one time on a cleaning binge I had to get the guys to move the green box (I think you UK people call it a "wheelie bin") for me.

And my MIL tried to complain. I just said "Look here, it's a miracle you two have not poisoned yourselves. This shit was MUMMIFIED."

My grandmother, also not a hoarder, did the same thing, as did a friend of mine's grandma. I think that's an old person thing. Not sure why.

Those of you out there with hoarder tendencies, try this: watch a couple of episodes of "Hoarders" or something similar right before you do housework. Fix you RIGHT up, that will.

I tend to get more done if I do that.

[blas]

My parents have the same mantra. Unfortunately, my mom has a horrid habbit of buying fruits and other easily perishable foods and no one eats them....so she goes and buys more.......instead of putting those behind the older foods, she just crams the old stuff back, and back.

Hell, I've found plates with green dust on them way in the back of the fridge.

They also have left the same meat in the freezer for years. Not weeks or a month or two......YEARS. There was venison that made the move to the new house with my family.

I was grounded once for throwing out bad food at my parents' house. I had a friend over, we wanted to make breakfast, she found expired/rotten food in the fridge and I was humiliated, so we went on a cleaning spree. My parents came home, immediately reamed me out and sent her home, and they went through the damn garbage, screaming at me that we had to try to salvage this food. This EXPIRED, ROTTEN FOOD.

They actually took a lot of the rotten or old food in the garbage and put it back!

[EricKei]

And fortunately, he's got enough OCD contamination phobias he would never hoard food in a million years.

I definitely have some minor hoarding tendencies (nowhere near as bad as y Dad was, bless his heart) -- but I have a very simple policy when it comes to food: If I don't remember buying it/putting it in the fridge (because it's been too long), it goes into the trash. Period. I give a little more leeway for non-perishables in the pantry, but it still gets purged from time to time.

My old roomie -- to his credit, he helped me get rid of a lot of Dad's leave-behinds -- had absolutely zero concept of food safety (and this is an otherwise very intelligent guy who, at least casually, studied holistic medicine). He thought nothing of defrosting poultry in the sink all day (not even leaving it to sit in cold water), and looked at me funny whenever I would purge the fridge of items that were old enough to demand voting rights >_> The worst part was, I could never convince him to educate himself properly on the subject -- his mantra was, "It's never made ME sick..." I just hope, for the sake of the customers, that he never gets a job in foodservice >_<

[AccountingDrone]

I just watched some show where a designer comes in to stage a house for sale, and the people had a pair of dogs, and this woman is railing on how unhygenic dogs in houses are, and that people will walk into their bedroom and see a pair of dog beds at the foot of the bed and be all about unhygenic it is, and that the breakfast nook where the dogs have their food and water is a waste of space.

You can tell that stupid woman is both a non pet person, and someone who firmly believes that all animals belong outside, and people probably would be better off without pets.

My solution for the bedroom would be to make sure the bedframe was high enough to slide the dog pillows under the bed and hide them with a bed skirt. My solution for the dog water bowls and food bowls would be to perhaps put in a decorative table with a tablecloth that goes to the floor, and hide them under while showing the house.

Rob commented to me that when I get a service pup, and we have to sell the house that the realtor is shit out of luck, I will not hide my dog or cat, or their apurtenances.