Hoarding: Classic or dud?

(sorry...)

Other stuff... Kinder Surprise toys (I never play with them, yet I keep buying the overpriced chocolate because assembling is something to do in the car), spoons for McDonald's McFlurry (I keep thinking I might make a similar dessert at home one day and this exact spoon type will be mandatory for eating), "ambient" mp3s I keep in my drive to feel cool but never ever ever EVER *EVER* listen to.

(That couple were soooo nice. Having too many books and cds and board games and comics = having your priorities right! I felt PAIN when he sold his father's old camera for half what he expected and when he chucked that computer keyboard into the crusher. At least he didn't crush any cds or I would have been heartbroken. I wish I'd been at the jumble sale, I bet there was some great stuff there. Mmm, more clutter to buy! Er. Anyway.)

Does anyone want some rubbish scratched cds? No, thought not.

I'm not nearly as bad as most of my friends, though.

BUT.

When I'm called upon to perform an emergency tracheoctomy, I'll *know* that I have just the right tools for the job!

erm... somewhere!

I have 3 friends who are world-class hoarders - books, records, videos, comics, magazines, newspapers....When I see all their *stuff* it begins to make me uneasy after a while. I start converting it into cash, which is a bit crap really, isn't it?

I am a hoarder by nature, but recently i got rid of a couple of hundred books just to give me some more space. I asked myself over each one, 'will I ever read this again?' and the answer came back yes or no. Keep the yes former, ditch the latter. This can be applied to everything, even sentimental trinkets like the beermat where some lover from years gone by wrote her phone number in eyeliner.

It's kind of sexy, throwing out loads of your shit. Like a step into the unknown. Even if that unknown is merely what your flat looks like without a load of crap in every available space

to which i replied "HAH you'd know all about that, RECENT BUFFY CONVERT!"

which duly sent him scampering off into his little DEN to read up on C++ or something.

Reason for PURPLE WALLS = TV interior designers are goffs.

However purple walls are not a good idea.

Hoard records obviously but beyond that very good at getting rid of other shit. I always keep old letters people sent to me though, I like shit like that. But no baby teeth, old magazines, books or videos....

But, you see I got rid of this old broken toy battery powered saxopone that I bought ages ago, it was out in the yard. For the past couple of days I would hear a mournful tune, and couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from, it was the saxophone on autoplay, obviously trying to get my attention so that it would be saved. It's back under my bed. *sigh*

If only I had sorted stuff out in 2002 or 2005 :(

Hoarding is a massive massive dud, because one day you'll actually need something and you won't be able to find it coz it's in a pile of tat or under a mountain of stuff. I might even buy an external hard drive and put all my CDs on it, and get rid of the majority, and all single issue comics!

I strongly encourage you to do so. Past a certain point collecting possessions turns into mania and drudgery.

Do it. I am in the process and it's seriously liberating. So much STUFF.

It's already begun! I am going to return my friend's ancient Nintendo and games to him tomorrow! And I'll pick a load of books for the charity shop too!

i've been working on my bf - he's quite the hoarder, and i'm slowly encouraging him to throw stuff out. i LOVE getting rid of stuff. it's such a weight off the shoulders. i went from owning a big-sized room full of stuff to just 2 suitcases and about 3 boxes before i moved to the US. very liberating. also, it makes moving so much easier. i dread having to pack up all my bf's stuff next time we move house, which is why i'm slowly clearing out now. i don't mind stuff like books etc, because that stuff is easy is box and sort, it's general clutter that i despise.

Hoarding is one of the few traits that really just MADDEN me. I don't mean like collecting a type or types of things. I mean people who fucking save EVERYTHING. "This juice box reminds me of eighth grade. I can't get rid of this interesting looking pebble! I know I haven't LOOKED at this stuff for two years but I know I don't want to get rid of it!" Like my grandma has BOXES and BOXES of sewing patterns she never, ever uses/used/will use and it just drives me fucking nuts!

The WORST was this old Santa Claus-looking bear who I worked with at Kinko's. Basically any time someone brought in a document (or such) to be copied that had a bear on it, he'd make a few copies for himself. Whatever, okay. Then after a while he told me he couldn't sit on his COUCH because he's stacked so many of these images of bears on it over the years. He told me about when he first moved to town how overloaded he was with stuff. He sorted through about 1/3rd of his stuff for a few days and just gave up & called a garbage co. (or someone) to pick it up, and they picked up, literally, FIVE TONS of shit he had stacked up in his house. I have never seen his house but I felt almost nauseous hearing about his hoarding.

Most of the beautiful deadstock and unworn vintage items I've scored at thrift stores and ebay over the past 10 years have been thanks to the insanity of now-deceased hoarders, and the frustration of their descendants who just put the whole she-bang up for sale/auction. THANKIN U, CRAZIES!

A good way to curb hoarding AS much stuff: live in the smallest quarters possible.

The problem is my husband is a hoarder. I'll sometimes get rid of shirts and stuff he hasn't worn once in the four years I've known him. Other things, too. The only time he noticed was when I threw away his iRiver charger, but that was bcz it was full of a box of shit peripherals like a bunch of 12 volt AC adapters and USB to PS2 converters that no one would ever use, esp. us.

Ha, mine has a massiiiiive box full of random cables and stuff. Srsly it takes up like half our storage space. I keep threatening to chuck them but last week we actually found one that was useful so I am not allowed now.

http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php

wow wow wow that is a site to get sucked into.

I really do have a morbid fascination with this thing that pisses me off so much.

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

http://plonkmedia.info/crazymum/

I remember seeing this second one some years ago and thinking how odd it was that most of it was 'collections' - but all mixed up with other crap, too.

haha i feel yr pain abbott! i politely asked my bf to clean out his desk drawers, with the excuse that i need space for all my bookbinding stuff, and he did stuff - there were a few things he wanted to hold onto, but i'll get rid of them eventually (lol he still has his first 'laptop' from like 10yrs ago). i probably got him to chuck about 2 large garbage bags of paper out (he was hoarding all his grad school notes).

tbh, clutter actually causes me some serious anxiety. when we were doing a big clean out last weekend, i was feeling super anxious being surrounded by all this stuff just piled everywhere, as we rearranged/put things away/threw stuff out.

xpost

dirty/dirty.html is more complete emotional collapse -- just completely having given up. that's not really what hoarding is.

crazymum/ is classic hoarding. everything haphazardly organized and stored in spots that used to serve social functions -- chairs, couches, guest rooms, dining rooms all inaccessible due to encroachment. but more suspended than abandoned, just temporarily crowded. these people still function at high levels even though family can't come over & their front door doesn't open all the way, it's a level of sustained bad faith within someone you love that seems to slowly be tipping the line over into madness, but never quite.

I live close to it, so I will just simply say that if your partners have a box of old power supplies they won't let you throw out, you are making light of the term 'hoarders' by applying it to them, and count your blessings

Draw next to me:

Tons of CD-Roms, Darth Maul action figure, bauble, notebook from 1991, Pan-Am playing cards (from circa 1984), Bumblebee transformer (headless), plastic scraper thing I made in craft class, a stack of Xmas and birthday cards, Empire Strikes Back postcard from my sister dated 1997, compass, a conker, bunch of keyrings, Pokemon Sapphire instruction booklet, sew-on patches from the Lego club, Transformers skectch pad (from circa 1986), fruit mahine game, large paper clip with St.Bernard on it, Earache Sampler cassette (might listen to this), load of photographs, stuff from Xmas crackers...

I am screwed :(

I'm thinking the Lego club sew-on patches might be worth something!

Should I just hire a skip? But the thing is I'll feel bad if I don't try and recycle this junk/sell it/give it away.

what about sorting your stuff into 'levels'? like, stuff you know you can definitely part with (bin it), stuff you're not sure about (box it up for a few months, revisit it and then bin it), stuff you're really not sure about (same deal as previous)?

and yes, putting stuff up on ebay/similar is a great idea - as long as you know you'll actually get round to posting stuff out to buyers

n.b. i am a total slob, so minimising clutter in my life means minimising the amount of carnage i live in on a day-to-day basis (and the same applies to my bf)

Yep, that's what I shall try and do! Thanks!

Lego club patch = £4.95 on ebay, I have three of them...oh and Lego Yoda mini-figure going for £12! (with 13 bids)

I live close to it, so I will just simply say that if your partners have a box of old power supplies they won't let you throw out, you are making light of the term 'hoarders' by applying it to them, and count your blessings

Oh no for REAL. I don't have it bad at all. I am just afraid of anything that looks like a tiny step toward hoarding behavior (my grandmas on both sides were pretty bad hoarders, I guess, so it was just drilled into my head as a kid that you don't keep around things you won't use).

maybe take*

I call the wall of bottles a research library now, because that's what I use it for more

please let us know if you decide to dispose of this library, I might, errm, know someone who'll take these off your hands

If you walk into my apartment, it doesn't look hoarder-ish, relatively clean... but open a closet or cupboard and it's like *BOING!!* cartoon explosion of junk

Also there are books behind books that I haven't seen in years, I'm sure there's some good shit in there

If you walk into my apartment, it doesn't look hoarder-ish, relatively clean... but open a closet or cupboard and it's like *BOING!!* cartoon explosion of junk

haha this is my exact situation too. tho been trying to work on it. i'm never gonna be full kondo but it is a relief throwing shit away and knowing places are neat, even the invisible ones.

xxpost New ILX FAB (Fancy a Bottle)

Also there are books behind books that I haven't seen in years, I'm sure there's some good shit in there

Had a bit of this lately but also a fair amount was from the depths of the pandemic -- extra cash and some likely looking books for a buck each and the like via Alibris? Sure! So I need to work on reading and pruning those too.

Similar has happened with my booze collection when I started getting into cocktails

I'd say the collector's urge is a distinct mentality from hoarding, but the two behaviors share what you might call a porous border.

random junk in closets or cupboards. Not keeping it deliberately just kinda the detritus of life, old stuff.

This sounds to me like simple procrastination extended over a long period where your dwelling hasn't changed, so there was no urgent need to clear away the "detritus of life". I think that happens to many of us who don't move residences for decades.

^^^^ yeah this

yep that's it really. nonetheless i think it's good to do a spring clean or whatever.

also felt that attitude sometimes prevalent in other parts of my life also, so fixing it where fixable has become important to me, albeit i don't expect to succeed entirely.

please let us know if you decide to dispose of this library, I might, errm, know someone who'll take these off your hands

Somebody's going to have fun going through all this stuff when I croak. If anyone throws a wake for me, there's the booze sorted.

i'm lucky in that most of my hoarding is digital, same concept, it's just that everything i've hoarded over the past 30 years is in a discreet black box. occasionally i open up the box and swap out one chunk of metal for another.

my physical space is... cluttered. last time i moved was when i broke up with my ex. we argued about what to keep - we both wanted to give the other everything. i actually threw out some stuff that apparently has some value, like the novelization of "the evil of the daleks". i don't regret it. it wasn't a very good novelization!

i mostly have what i need. what i don't have i do without, until it shows up and i find out what i do need. somebody gave me a dustbuster. we had one as a kid, and god, it's so great for keeping the dust bunnies and hair from out of under my computer desk.

sometimes i try to organize the things in the black box, but it's exhausting and time-consuming. the thing is that i don't know what i _have_. i'll go through my files and say "oh, i forgot i had this, this is cool". of course i could have done perfectly well without it but it is COOL and now that i KNOW i have it i don't want to throw it out.

at any time the black box could get hit by lightning and everything in it could be destroyed and i probably wouldn't mind much, except for my personal writing. i try to keep cloud backups of my personal writing, but, well, i can't quite get my head around the software. text documents are insignificantly small. i had a local hard drive die, actually, and i lost my entire curated music library. i'd spent years curating a collection of dead music. the curation itself is the loss. i still have all the music, but the collection was of the stuff i _particularly liked_. now i have no idea what was in that collection. it would take years to recreate, and it's not worth it. everything passes.

another part of it is growing up as a doctor who fan - the disappointment i felt when i realized that NJN would _never_ be showing the daleks' masterplan. we do live in a New Ephemeral Age, I've learned over the years. stuff disappears all the time. i don't know what, can't predict what. i try to save what i can. i like to think that some of it might be useful to donate to some queer archive in the future. at some future point in time maybe i'll have the only surviving copy of "she/they car wash". it doesn't seem likely to me honestly, but who can say? you don't know what you got till it's gone. sometimes not even then.

no cat feces for me - not just cuz i'm allergic to cats. i grew up in unsanitary conditions. my living space may be cluttered, but i draw a line at filthy.

i guess one of the other things that prevents me from hoarding is that i am a bit of a shut-in. sure, whenever i go to a thrift store i leave with _something_. last time it was a luchador bottle opener and a plush squid. i also definitely do the thing - i've seen it called out among gen x-ers - where i have a hard time getting rid of the original packaging.

Hoarding is both acquisition and keeping. It is both genetic and learned. It’s way more common (esp in the US) than anyone thinks. It is a spectrum disorder and, above all, an attempt to exercise control over one’s circumstances. It is also frequently set off by unprocessed trauma. When you think about all the unprocessed traumas out there, it’s no surprise that some people react by constructing a fortress, even if that fortress is made of shit. No one wants to admit that this is the case so we get a lot of “is it or is it not?”
My belief is that most of the time both acquisition and keeping (or a combination of the two) is a manifestation of profound grief.

As for me, I have stemmed the acquisition. The pull is strong but I resist it. The keeping is another issue but it hasn’t gotten in my way (yet, as an adult) so I’m trying my best to keep it at bay. It’s def still a strong pull to save things, whether for offering proof or not forgetting who I am to maybe I can give this to someone. Seeing my mom laud her churn made me despair bc she obviously thinks she gets it but she doesn’t.

got rid of a lot of clothes, books, dvds, cds this summer that had been boxed on the never-never up in the attic for years and it felt great

xpost yeah, the long-running reality show Hoarders (and to some extent its rival, Hoarders: Buried Alive) tries to trace the roots of each case study: the origin is indeed trauma, often if not always, though results can vary quite a bit, if with somewhat predictable results, in terms of property etc crises, but then somewhat volatile cycles of reactions to those who are trying to help, personally and professionally Inc; divesting the hoard, as hoarder already agreed to(cycles recognizable to professionals, but still requiring very careful response in the moments)
And yeah, for me also, it's now more about the keeping---but also, if I could just stop buying books---

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris

I need to get into this 'Swedish Death Cleaning' trend.. just removing shit on an almost constant basis

All of your CDs and records and cool books take up too much damn space please let me help you with that especially the CDs: Cow Art's Hoarding Solutions

Yeah I have watched every ep of Hoarders trying to get an idea of how to talk to my mom/parents to get them help. Have failed continuously ! But it reinforces my will to not be like them.

I watched one episode of one of those shows and it was all this unused purchases from like Big Lots and Amazon... just random things, still usually in their original packaging, just piled in corners or plastic bags. She didn't seem to value any of the stuff but definitely was not up to the task to do any kind of serious cleaning
And yes, there was plenty of catshit all over the place as well

I have literally watched all seasons — the people vary, the stuff varies, the grossness def varies but the motivation and delusion is virtually all the same.

I watch mainly to see subtle variations in what works and what doesn’t. This one lady was irate that she didn’t have a chance to sort her stuff in its original place — usually they make you sort on the lawn and she found it humiliating — so they let her do it her way. The show is quite humane imo.

I don't actually wish this at all, but if a catastrophic fire were to destroy my apartment and all its contents, I might just go full on Kung Fu and start wandering the western states with a bedroll and a can of Spam... I think I mostly have a job to fund the housing all my bullshit stuff

Probably this is one of those threads where I mentioned a good book, rec. by Elvis Telecom and quincie: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, by Gail Steketee and Randy Frost, who have worked a lot with hoarders, well as studying and teaching about them. Steketee (quincie's teacher) has also written work and teacher's guide editions of Treatment For Hoardng Disorders, but I'm trying not hoard the hoarding books, as some people do (why these authors have stopped bringing printouts to discussion groups).

has written *workbook* etc.

Oh wow:

The Hoarding Research Team at BU School of Social Work, led by Dean Emerita Gail Steketee and Associate Professor Jordana Muroff, engages in activities that include the study of hoarding and its background features, relationship to other disorders, and possible etiological factors.

CLUTTER IMAGE RATING TOOL
The Clutter Image Rating (CIR) tool was developed as an objective rating scale to assess hoarding and clutter. In 2007, the paper-based measure was first introduced in Dean Gail Steketee and Professor Randy Frost’s Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring: A Therapist Guide. Professor Jordana Muroff and a team of students led by Ann Ming Samborski and Sophie Lehar developed a downloadable CIR application for iPhones and iPads.

Click here to download the CIR application on iTunes.

today my mom told me 1) she took a bunch of my dad's (moldy, old, dusty) clothes to a charity shop and 2) walked out the other side with some new-to-her clothes

when we cleaned out my dad's house seven years ago, i had to insist to my mom that absolutely no one wanted his 40yo electric blankets. tbf i made her throw out the chest with all my childhood stuffed animals (most of which she had sewn for me herself) because i didn't want to do it myself

when my mom's house got cleaned out two years ago i was in no place to deal with it, but thankfully there was enough money to largely sort it out without me. never has money been better spent. i don't know how many dumpsters were involved nor do i want to know.

I have a little version of "you know, this will come in handy someday" (screws, ziplock bags, scraps of leather etc.)

It’s taken me forever to realise it, but having a terrible memory helps with this. The same thought process for me now goes “this will come in handy someday…but when that day comes you probably lay won’t remember you own it. And even if you do remember you own it you won’t be able to remember where you’ve put it, and you won’t have the time or the energy to look for it. And you now live in a world where you’ll be able to buy a replacement for very little money and get it delivered next day. So even if you keep it, you’ll probably still end up buying a new one when you do eventually need one. Just throw it away”. It still feels terrible and wasteful, but the alternative was drawers and drawers full of stuff I might or might not use at some point in the next 20 years.

A month ago I actually needed an XLR cable for the first time in, like, 20 years. I'd given them all away so I got a new one for like, £6

I have one older friend who is a bit of a hoarder and a prepper. It's not that she won't let go of things, but she definitely shops on impulse to make herself feel better in the moment. Like, when we first got our Aeropress, she wanted to have one as well, so we got her one. She only drinks instant coffee, so that's another piece of plastic crap that's just gone into the general mess in her house. Similarly she buys things like soup makers, which she will never use. It's an impulse I understand, this idea of "everything is so awful, maybe buying this will fix me." This, combined with her lack of mobility, means that all her stuff just accumulates in bags and boxes, and nobody can go into her house, which means she has had no cable television and no central heating in all the years I've known her. She also has a leak in her conservatory roof that she can't get fixed because she's too ashamed to let anyone come inside. I never want to be like that.

Yeah I have watched every ep of Hoarders trying to get an idea of how to talk to my mom/parents to get them help. Have failed continuously ! But it reinforces my will to not be like them.

Absolutely this. I look at how my parents' stuff is arranged, and yes, their house is full, and it shouldn't be, but the big thing for me is that there's no flow to anything. Any time my mother needs the ironing board, for example, she has to move stuff from out of the way of the press it's in, then open the press, then move more stuff, then take out the ironing board, with all that extra stuff piled around, and then she puts it all away again in exactly the same way. It makes no sense. My parents have their dishwasher in the utility room off their kitchen, which means that putting away their clean dishes means having to move them from one room to another. It seems crazy to me.

nobody can go into her house, which means she has had no cable television and no central heating in all the years I've known her. She also has a leak in her conservatory roof that she can't get fixed because she's too ashamed to let anyone come inside. I never want to be like that.

this is my fear about my sister.

It's very hard even to see from the sidelines. I can't imagine what it's like to be living inside those houses and those feelings.

My mom’s canned and packaged food is nowhere near hoarding based on everything else in this thread. I think she is ashamed of her paper storage. Bank statements, receipts, other financial records. They are kept in the back bedroom (which was never used as a bedroom because it wasn’t needed). Shortly after my dad died, I visited her and suggested that I could start sorting the things in that room while she was at work. I had not seen her as angry in … decades. She came close to threatening to disinherit me because of it.

Fwiw (and I told her this) when she was in the hospital 2 1/2 years ago, I went in that room to look for important documents to scan and it was fairly well organized, a bit cluttered, but nothing to be ashamed of. I found the things I needed fairly quickly!

Like my mom has a fear of being diagnosed as a hoarder, when she is actually pretty normal and healthy!

So I told her about the guy who had been illegally living at the leftist community center who had stockpiled over 200 computer power cords (and much more… I did a lot of the disgorging).

I've been assisting with the outcome of several animal hoarding cases recently - backyard breeders that get overwhelmed when no one wants their kittens/puppies, farms with all species of severely neglected animals, folks who feed hundreds of feral cats but don't do TNR then lose their homes to foreclosure or eviction. Conditions have been horrific. It's so easy to become overwhelmed and people are so loath to ask for help, until it's far too late.

That is really depressing. Thank you for doing this work!

I was thinking it couldn't really manifest as a group, but with the animal cases do you ever see things get out of hand on a scale that wouldn't be possible for one person alone?

Yes - individuals certainly, but also families with multiple folks who could take on the animal care. The dynamics are rough in the family cases.

there's a creepy apartment building down the street from me where one unit has shelving cabinets backed up to all the windows so they literally can't see out, and no light can travel in... and black mold on the glass. God knows what's inside the place

Is it possible they have the shelving there so if a bullet goes through the window it would likely not hit a person?

I suppose that's possible but it looks really freaky and unhealthy

If there’s black mold and it’s an apartment building, my guess is that it’s not a case of hoarding, but a slumlord that won’t repair leaks!

My spouse isn't a full-blown hoarder, but it definitely dawned on me several years ago that they like to collect things and have a lot of trouble letting them go when space becomes an issue. We're literally in the process of having wall-to-wall shelving installed in one of our rooms because they can't bear to part with all the books, trip trinkets, etc. acquired over the years. We have a cottage that we used to rent out but have stopped so it can instead be a dumping ground for the furniture accumulated that cannot be donated. And just today I was told some people gave some lovely framed art to hang in the cottage - and my immediate response was "we have an entire attic collection full of your framed art already gathering dust!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilibrary

I am actually rather proud of myself for building a large stack of books to sell— I am running out of space, and had to stay honest with myself about which books I needed and which I was never going to need or read. Being a reviewer and poet means that I get sent stuff that I don't want all the time— I have started putting this stuff in Little Free Libraries or giving away to friends.

Luckily my physical record collection hardly grows at all because I don't have the cash to be shelling out constantly for neat records, plus I no longer consider myself a DJ, so that's taken care of.

My parents' house is full of books, and always has been. They do a cull every few years.

i'm very much not a hoarder and love to get rid of stuff. sometimes to the point of regretting it.

my partner is a little further down the hoarder spectrum. one room in our trailer is his and it's stuffed to the gills. he keeps meaning to "go through it" but more stuff just accumulates. he also keeps all his receipts, which in the age of online banking, i just do not get.

Like my mom has a fear of being diagnosed as a hoarder, when she is actually pretty normal and healthy!

It certainly sounds like it, especially if you can actually find the things you need in her files. The two big things I took away from Marie Kondo (don't laugh) were 1) putting things in neatly labelled clear plastic boxes with proper lids can go a long way towards making chaos manageable and making you look like a person with their life together, and 2) never put anything you value or will need again into black plastic sacks, because the second it goes into a black plastic sack, you can't see it, and in your mind it is now garbage.

The leftist community center also had a book hoarder who would bring in boxes of books to the point that he was politely asked to stop doing so unless he removed some of his previous contributions and the books weren’t damp or moldy. … He ignored the request.

A Steketee mentioned!!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Steketee%27s_Building%2C_2005.jpg