Ask the Adult Child of a Hoarder/Clutterer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

or, How I Grew Up in Squalor While Attending Private Schools and Looking Somewhat Normal.

This post is a little disjointed, but someone asked elsewhere about starting a thread like this. I’ll be glad to answer questions anyone has if I can.

My mom’s living situation currently is in flux. She’s receiving money to rebuild/repair her home from the federal Katrina relief funds. The latest word I have from her is that she is going to try to find an apartment to live in while the work is being done. For my own sanity, I have maintained strong boundaries of staying the hell out of her business with regards to the Katrina relief stuff. She chose to go back and live in her damaged home rather than stay with me and my husband after the storm. (God forbid she be away from her stuff.)

I grew up in a home where third-degree squalor was the norm.

Everything always seemed to be covered with a fine layer of dust, ash, and sticky filth. Both my parents were smokers, my mother fried foods constantly, and she drank coffee and left drips and rings of it all over. Of course, no regular housecleaning was done. Food was left on the stove after a meal to rot in pots and pans. Dishes were left in the sink to smell. I’d want to do the dishes, but it was frustrating to have nowhere to put them away when they were clean, because the cabinets were full of items which were never used but which my mother wouldn’t allow to be thrown away.

The sink in our bathroom was broken for my entire childhood… literally the drainpipe was broken off and it couldn’t be used. The tub could only be used for baths because my dad had the soap dish out of the wall and it never occured to anyone to fix it so we could use the shower. I’m talking about DECADES here.

We had closets which were useless because they were stuffed with clothing and stuff that no one wore and no one used, but my mother wouldn’t allow us to throw away… this in a 850 square foot house with 5 children. We needed that closet space!

The house was constantly infested with roaches. I honestly do not remember a time when it wasn’t. Not just tiny little roaches, either… the big “palmetto bugs” that New Orleanians call cockroaches. The kind that crunch so loud when you step on them that the crunch echoes, and that leave a splatter of guts. I had roaches that big in my bed with me several times as a child. Once my mother put out those old D-Con Four/Gone roach foggers while I was at school, and I came home to a carpet of dead roach bodies. The kitchen floor was literally black with dead cockroaches. They half-filled a garbage bag when swept up. Mice and rats infested the house as well. You could hear the rats in the attic and walls. Once a rat crawled out of the wall and died on the kitchen floor after my dad put out poison. A big black sewer rat, about a foot long through the body.

To say that my siblings and I were isolated is one of the understatements of the year. Obviously, we didn’t want to bring friends home. Family members would come over, but you could see the horror in their faces. I remember once as I got older my grandmother telling me sadly she had no idea why my mother lived that way, as she was not raised like that. The shame, the secrets you keep… I’m getting a little nauseated going back to this time in my life, honestly.

You could not say anything to my mother about the state of her house. She would take it as an insult on par with you calling her fat or ugly. I mean, she would become violently angry. If it was my dad or one of us children, she would turn it back on us, saying that it was all our fault because we didn’t help enough, and we were all to blame.

I’ve come to realize that nearly all children who grew up in squalor or hoarding homes heard that it was their fault a lot… a sort of share the blame from the sufferer or focal point. (In my case, my mom.) It took me years to be able to relax if my home wasn’t perfectly clean and ordered. I can actually relax somewhat if I have a dirty dish in my sink now, but if I know I have guests coming, I do still freak out with the cleaning. It’s the doorbell panic syndrome of childhood, of “Oh my god, I can’t let them see the house like this,” even though my house is fine.

Here are some websites about the phenomenon and how it affects those who suffer from it and those who suffer from those who suffer from it:

http://www.squalorsurvivors.com
http://www.childrenofhoarders.com

2

Does your mom suffer from depression?

I was going to ask how this affected you, but you answered that…you’ve gone 180[sup]o[/sup] in the other direction.

What do your siblings say about this? Is your father still around?

Did no one call Children’s Services? Did you have to do your own laundry and cooking? How did you learn if you didn’t have your parents to show you?

3

I almost hate to say this…but part of me identifies with pathological clutterers.

I clutter. Maybe 4-5 times a year I’ll shovel it out, but rarely will I try to organize it or strategize against it. I just don’t have the faith to believe I’ll follow the plan. I loathe all but the loosest forms of organization. In my mind, it is a Sisyphean task, a life sentence.

It may be because I’m ADD and somewhat OC, which makes tidying up feel like an endless onslaught of effort, expended on thousands of minor things, one at a time…all towards a goal that, once attained, immediately begins to come undone.

I also want things. I want them sooner rather than later, but the things I want have very specific characteristics, and I won’t let myself spend a fortune on any one thing. So I have to balance those three impulses by bringing home a lot more shit than I really want.

eBay loves me, but would you be surprised to learn I’ve bought in over 300 transactions without once selling? No, you wouldn’t.

4

My sibs and I feel my mother has been depressed her entire life. She refuses to seek help. I recently came across a description of borderline personality disorder and it fit her to a tee. My sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) is scared of her, and refuses to be alone with her.

How has this affected me? This has just been one more ingredient in the stew of family dysfunction which got me into A.A. and therapy by age 24. I’m 40 years old and a chronic underachiever, but I’m happily married and employed, so hey. I have a brother who committed suicide in 1990. My next sister in age exhibited signs of autism or emotional disturbance before she was 18 months old and, at mother’s insistence, was never diagnosed or treated except as demanded by the school system. My other two siblings and I now just say she’s mentally ill to save time and explanation. Those two siblings have made bad life choices with regards to drugs, relationships, incurring debt, and other things, but thankfully are alive, gainfully employed and in healthy relationships as they enter and approach their 30s.

My father and mother separated when I was a senior in high school and eventually divorced. He was out of the picture for a long time. He had lots of psychological problems, particularly after my brother’s suicide. He’s also very emotionally immature. My siblings and I just say that Dad’s about fifteen emotionally, and don’t expect much more than that. He’s also got a bit of age-related mental stuff going on.

I’ll continue in another post.

5

How old were you when you moved out?

and

Did the house really look any worse after Katrina?

and

Do you visit since you left?

6

lisacurlI was thinking about starting this thread too. Hope you don’t mind if I contribute. Strength in numbers and all that.

I’d say my dad is somewhere around third degree too. Of course those pictures really don’t do it justice. They just throw a bunch or cloths and newspapers around. They don’t show the tar and dust and dog hair.

My Dad also refuses to fix stuff, if it’s broken, that’s the way it stays. The knob on his security screen door has been broken for about ten years. He cut a hole in the screen and you have to reach through to open the door.

The hording is similar to, but not quite like living in squalor/filth. I’d say the results are about the same though.

I think my Dad is too embarrassed for us to clean. He knows he should do something about it. It’s his responsibility. He knows deep down that that is not the way to live. But then he is used to it, and probably does not see how horrible it is.

It’s also upsetting that some people probably think poorly of the rest of the family because we are seen as not trying to help him. That really really hurts because we try so God damn hard.

And don’t even bother to suggest counseling for him. That’s simply not going to happen.

Taking a weeks vacation for the cleaning of 20 sq. yards worth of trash and filth is nothing, NOTHING compared to the stress and difficulty of just trying to get to be allowed to do it. I think the denial, or anger expressed is the horders way to desquise deep, deep shame.

It’s also tough, because when he passes on, it’s going to be extra hard going for all of us because of the house we are going to have to deal with. That makes me feel selfish, but facts are facts.

My Mom, thank God is the exact opposite. So I was not raised in those conditions.

7

And guilt. We feel guilty for what we do; we feel shame for what we are.

8

Does your mother visit you at your home? And if so, how does she handle it? Or is it more likely she doesn’t visit because she doesn’t want to be away from her stuff? In other words, does her ‘stuff’ become more important then her relationships?

9

When I was very young, my mom still had a handle on things. She would do laundry and make meals and keep the house in some sort of order. Then she had two children in two years and things started kind of falling apart. My parents’ marriage was not happy by any means, and they were under a lot of financial stress. So somewhere in there, I am sure I learned to make basic meals and do basic laundry to “help mom” because of the babies. I know I learned to make bottles because I remember feeding my sister. I would have only been eight or nine. Mom might have had some post-partum stuff going on, too.

It’s important to realize that you don’t wake up one day with dead mice rotting under piles of clothes in the hallway. The clutter accumulates. You get sick, or you’re just too tired to keep up, and slowly but surely, it just piles up. Keeping up with a large family in a very small house with very little money would have been a huge effort for someone who was enthusiastic about doing it, let alone someone who was cursing themselves for getting into that situation.

No one called Child Protective Services, because no one knew. My extended family saw the mess, but they just thought it was mess, not dangerous. I think they thought my mom would get it together some day, or they blamed my dad out of loyalty to her (it was mostly her family who saw it). Most of all, this situation engenders an almost alcoholic family syndrome where you protect the sick parent. You would never have known something was wrong at home from us kids. We were cheerful overachievers with bright shiny little faces outside the home. Without it ever being said, we knew we had to protect mama from anyone knowing how bad it was at home.

10

I just wanted to say thanks for the interesting thread. I think a lot of people will want to read it, either because they know someone with this problem, or they can understand the impulse to hoard for themselves.

I have a couple of aunts who are at least at stage two, or they were years ago. I haven’t been to visit. I remember the one house in particular had a sort of tunnel through the porch area, and rooms that were never opened because they were full.

11

I left home went I was 18 to go (escape) to college. Survivor guilt complicated a lot of the other emotional problems I left with.

I honestly can’t say with any certainty what the house looked like before Katrina since I had been going to some pains to avoid entering it for years. The dust and just ick would make me physically sick when I spent more than five minutes in there. I went in the house twice since the storm and was driven out quickly by the mold smell. I do know that the house had major roof damage and leakage into the walls which then molded. Part of the interior ceilings fell in. How she is living in there, I have no fucking idea.

I refuse to enter the house any more. If we have to move her stuff out for repairs, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m highly allergic to mold, and my husband will probably pitch a fit if I want to help her move her stuff out even if I wear breathing apparatus.

12

I truly hope you don’t feel judged or mocked or vilified by this thread. It’s difficult for me to talk about my experiences with this without the resentment for my mother seeping through every word, but a lot of that is because she’s my mother, you know?

The website, Squalor Survivors, in my OP is for people who are clutterers. There are a lot of good resources and camaraderie there. I remember one story of a woman who lived in truly fourth degree squalor, with filth up to hip level, who eventually managed to literally dig her way out of it.

13

I know someone who grew up in third degree squalor. His parents were divorced, and his mother worked for Child Protective Services.

14

Well, I do live 75 miles away, so it’s not like she can just drop in. I know it became extremely important for her to get back to Metairie after the hurricane even though a normal person would have been able to see that her house was unlivable. I know she was uncomfortable with the fact that I wouldn’t just sit down and that I was “always cleaning” while she was there. I wasn’t “always cleaning”… I was doing the normal stuff you do to keep your house in a fit state.

15

No, please I hope more people join in.

With regard to the not fixing things that are broken, I do have a sort of opposite response to that now as an adult. The instant something breaks, ESPECIALLY in the house, I want to get it fixed or I want to know that we have a plan to get it fixed. I can’t relax if we have a drip in A/C unit and bucket under it, or if the car is making a weird noise or something like that. My husband has learned that is one of my neurotic things, WE DO NOT NEGLECT REPAIRS.

16

Not a problem, lisa. I’m not your mother; I’m degree 2, not 4 (I abhor filth as much as I do organization); and I’m not yet ready to acknowledge my situation and what it means for my future, so I can still keep your family’s story at something of an arm’s reach.

I’ll check it out.

17

I don’t really have any questions but just wanted to say thank you for this thread. It is very interesting to me because I have a friend who grew up in a situation like this. I’m not really sure how bad it is/was because I’ve never seen the inside of her parents’ house (an absolutely beautiful house from the outside). My friend has told me she could never have friends over as a child/teen because of the condition of their house. If someone was coming over, her mom had to have at least a month’s notice because that’s how long it would take for her to get it clean enough. A few years ago my friend had back surgery and had to move back in with her parents for a few months while she recovered. When she moved to her own apartment again, my husband and I helped, and were shocked that her parents had dumped all her stuff on the front lawn because they didn’t want us coming inside to get it. My friend said it didn’t take long while she was staying there for her mom to start complaining that she needed her room to put stuff in. My friend’s relationship with her mom is strained, to say the least. She’s often made comments to me that she wished she could do things like holiday baking with her mom like I do with mine. As a result, I’ve made an effort to share my (totally awesome) mom with her, and invite her to bake and other “mother-daughter” stuff with us. I’m very sorry for her and for those of you here who’ve had to deal with situations like this. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be and I know how painful it’s been for my friend.

18

Same with my Dads house. I said in an earlier thread that my Wife and I take care of his Dog as best we can. It’s not too bad in the summer as we can be outside (although his backyard is a mess too). Last time we did it my Wife had her shoes off outside and put them back on to go into the house.

I have a very hard time not doing something while I’m there. But my Dad always says he will get to it later. It’s very frustrating to have to swallow that every time. Pointing out that his ‘laters’ never come to pass is just a formula to get yelled at.

And if you do get to clean. Work like a dog to at least get the trash out and vacuumed, it’s back to it’s original state in just a few months. Don’t really know how he accomplishes that.

I think a big difference is an average person does a little organizing or picking up just as a routine while they go through their day. This helps keep a lid on things.

19

Thank you, lisacurl, for starting this thread. As I said when I asked for this, I’m coming to the realization that my in-laws are somewhere on this spectrum and slowly getting worse. My husband was not raised in the kind of squalor you had to live in, but there were 6 kids in a small house and not a whole lot of cleaning. There were frequent moves, so I think that helped to keep things under control too–also the fact that there was very little money, so they couldn’t buy much and ate all their food. At any rate, they had homecooked meals and a pretty ordinary home life. When I married my husband 12 years ago, my in-laws place was messy and cluttered but certainly liveable. (I should also note here that I have always known that we would have to help to support them when they got older.)

Since then, things have slowly slid downwards. They got a house, which we thought would be wonderful; finally they could have a permanent home and gain some equity for retirement. But within a few years, they started saying that we shouldn’t come over because it was too messy. The times I was there, there was junk mail in piles, the table was covered with stuff, the kitchen counters could not be seen, and so on. My husband would go over there to fix their computer and blow a ton of dust out.

My MIL would talk about how she wanted to be a better housekeeper, and since I’m not the world’s best myself by any means, I used this as a means of connecting with her. I tried to sympathize and tell her what had helped me to improve. One year I even gave her a book and a household journal I’d made for Christmas, saying that I had found them helpful! I hoped that she would see me as ‘on her side.’ We usually gave them nice things for the house, like a good bookcase or new towels, but it didn’t seem to help–they didn’t replace the old cinderblock/board bookcase because my husband had crayoned on one of the blocks when he was 3. (Oddly, this seemed only sort of weird to me at the time.) I would offer to help clean and MIL would refuse. My SIL went over there and tried to make her get rid of the junk mail, but it didn’t work very well.

MIL is a sucker for thrift store bargains and will buy old junk and give it to people or keep it. I think this is partly because they could never give gifts to their own kids and they want to make up for it, but they’re still poor. But also, she just can’t resist buying stuff.

A few months ago they lost the house; they had drawn out all the capital and had a huge, unmanageable mortgage. They had to move, and my husband and his brother went over to help. At this point we had not been over there for several years; while we knew it was messy, it had not occurred to us that it would get so bad. The carpet was pretty well ruined. My husband was horrified by the state of things. The (largeish) bathroom was entirely filled with bottles and cleaning supplies on the counter and floor. They had not prepared at all for moving day and the house was filled with unpacked junk. I think a lot was thrown away, but some went into my BILs house (which they hate) and plenty was just boxed up and taken to the new apartment, which is small and now filled with boxes. I haven’t been there, and my husband only saw it on moving day, but BIL says they haven’t unpacked.

Looking at the “degrees” list, I would say that they are well on their way to second-degree problems. I can easily see it getting worse in the future. I’m only just now realizing that this is going to be a truly serious problem, and it’s not just that they are simple clutterbugs, like me only worse. (I’m always trying to be better, but I do have a tough time with clutter and housecleaning!)

So I’m sorry for the very long novel I’ve written, but does this sound correct to you? I don’t want to overreact, but it suddenly seems to me that we haven’t been concerned enough.

I also want to say that I’m so sorry that some of you had to grow up in such awful environments. I’m starting to figure out how very difficult it is. So thanks for this thread, and for reading this if you’ve gotten to the end!

20

Thank you for this thread. It’s a fascinating topic for me. I think I was married to a second degree guy. He would not let me throw away hardly anything. Things went broken for years. One item I remember distinctly was a clock. It was full of roach droppings - the big egg packets that palmetto bugs leave - and it didn’t work anymore. His mother had given it to him, and he refused to get rid of it. There was tons of stuff like that. Old dirty AC filters, broken appliances - just junk! The house was always dark and dusty and dirty. I couldn’t keep up, and finally gave up.

He died five years ago. My house was finally thoroughly clean a year after he passed.

It’s now airy and bright and open! And anybody can drop by anytime they want! It makes me feel happy and proud.

Have faith that things can change, clutterers. Get help and get rid of the burden.