Ask the Adult Child of a Hoarder/Clutterer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
221

I’ve gotta throw out a “thank you” for the thread, it finally pushed me into cleaning out my sewing room.

NajaHusband does all the other housework, partly because I’ve got two jobs and partly because he’s just a neatnik by nature who grew up with a househusband dad instead of a housewife mom. He does all, and I mean all of the housework, but he does not touch my sewing room, by mutual agreement.

I’m a “professional” crafter, insofar as I make a living doing it, so it’s just about impossible for me to throw away materials. Even scraps of scraps of scraps are worth saving, and any time I throw craft-related stuff away it feels like real, cash money going into the garbage can–partly I feel the cost of whatever it is I’m tossing, but moreso the potential income. In addition to this I’m messy while I work because it’s easier to clean it all up at once when the project is done than it is to stop every few seconds to put something in the trash… but I also work about sixteen hours a day and I have a hell of a time making myself find time to purposely clean.

Sooo… it was getting to the point where I’d have drifts of leather straps and piles of suede scraps in corners, and dropped bits of hardware on the floor, then it became too much trouble to put away the big hides, so they were stacked on my cutting table until I only had a small corner left on which to cut and… finally I realized I had no room left to work. Goat paths! I had goat paths!

Anyway I spent all day yesterday sorting out actual garbage (papers and things) from business receipts (tax time!) and useful materials from the bits of thread and shaved edges of leather and other trash, and boy I could have used a lawn rake to pick up all the thread clippings.

I sorted out all the long straps and hung them up where I can easily reach them, instead of having to pull them out of a bin. I got separate bins to sort out the small straps of latigo from the suede and different sizes of suede scraps so I wouldn’t have to paw through one giant, heaping bin every time I was looking for something. I also got a tray with little dividers so I could sort out the hardware instead of having a mountain of little paper bags on my sewing table, and–get this–I used them. The sorting bins, I mean.

Now, it’s not pristine, but at least it’s pretty tidy and I have a glorious amount of space to work again! I even found a couple completed and mostly-finished pieces in the rubble, which is like actual cash money.
Thanks again!

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The friend I have mentioned several times in this thread came home from a few days out of town to find that her fridge had been in the “on” mode the whole time, causing overcooling and the explosion of several cans of soda. At least it gave her an incentive to clean out some of the crap that’s been in there for ages.

Speaking of old crap…I was with her on the trip and found that her bottle of foundation smelled really bad, like something had crawled in there and died. It was probably rancid. I mentioned it to her but she said she couldn’t smell the nasty odor that I was detecting.
I’m sure she won’t want to chuck it out.

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One of the things at Mom’s house is a couple of boxes of “family papers” we got from Abuelita’s house. Now let’s see… Abuelita died in '95. So except for peeking inside whenever the storage room gets reorganized, nobody has done anything with those papers in 13 years. I’d been asking Mom to let me go through the boxes and toss away stuff that nobody but an archeologist from the XXXth century may ever have an interest in (a bill for a hat, ok, so it’s the first hat Abuelita bought for herself but who cares).

Day before yesterday I scanned into PDFs my published articles. Back when I wrote them, external storage computer materials weren’t very solid, so I’d kept both electronic copies (currently unreadable) and printed ones. After seeing a pile of “important papers” turn into “paper for drawing on”, Mom finally gave me permission to clean the boxes. Yay! (I’m scanning the newspaper articles from a paper that doesn’t exist any more and the photocopies of XVIII century documents, then the whole thing goes into reuse - and we do reuse)

224

Well, it’s official.
For a while now, I’ve been gently prodding my parents with “But what if there was a fire, or a medical emergency? You might not get out in time, or the EMTs might not get in in time and get you out again in time. Don’t you think you should…” EMTs have been to the house. And according to my mom, they had “no trouble” getting to the bedroom and back out again. Yeahright. But my parents are not embarrassed, and still see no reason to have clear floor space. So that’s that.

225

I was the child of a hoarder.

My mother learned it from her mother, who I think picked up the habit from growing up during the Depression. I remember helping my grandma buy things for her to save up for people and the items would eventually get lost in the pit of the basement. We would go to the stores after the holidays and stock up on the 90% off items and she would pack the items away somewhere. She would also save items that nobody really needed, like used pill bottles or emptied tissue containers (both of which she still tries to give to me despite my multiple refusals).
Anyways, the house was always messy growing up. Messy rooms because of little kids…Cat that was wonderful in every way except for the bladder control problems, items that never got put away or just shoved even futher back in the closet, and so on. Eventually as my mom became the primary caretaker of my Grandma, she developed her habit of saving things for the rainy day. No, we didn’t need those paint rollers yet but by golly when we decide to paint the house someday, we were prepared! The small bungalow eventually became so filled with items, that “cleaning” just meant moving things into different piles.
Out of the five family members, I was the only one who cared about how clean the house was. I was tired with never being able to invite people over due to embarassment. I hated the smoke-stained walls, dirty carpets, and piles of junk that I couldn’t throw out because my mom would ask where I put EVERY. SINGLE. THING. When I was around 9 or 10, mom just gave up and let the house go to hell. The living room became her bedroom.
It was horrible, so horrible…To be so young and to try to take on such a giant task of cleaning years of grime and tons of trash. Needless to say, at that age I couldn’t do it all. No matter how much I yelled, pleaded, or cried, nobody else even attempted to lift a finger until I was 20.
When I was 20, my parents got divorced and my mom moved out. Dad, also hating the state that the house degraded to as much as me, decided that with mom out of the way we should clean it to our hearts’ desire. With mom out of the way, we could throw out all of the items she had been hoarding in the corners of the house.
I attempted to tackle the rooms one by one and tossed out expired items, trash, stained clothes, and anything that wasn’t remotely needed. For 1 bathroom, 2 bedrooms, 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 living room, 1 basement, 1 computer room, and 1 laundry room it took a month to clean. “Clean” in this sense means not the type of clean I would like it to be, but it the house came out cleaner than I could ever remember it being growing up. We threw out over 40 garbage bags of trash. I threw out medicine and food that was older than me. I washed the walls until the water in the bucket looked like Coke. I cleaned away 20 years of neglect and unhappiness. I can say that the house now contains about 1/2 or 1/3 of the contents that it did before the cleaning. The house is far from done…We’ve painted a few rooms but they all need to be recarpeted and repainted when we get the time…It’s been tough, but I figured that my Dad deserved the clean house that he was always asking for (which, in my family’s case, was not an unfair request) and my sister could have a few nice remaining years being able to invite friends over without being too embarassed.

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That was a lot to take in and I am glad that you and your family are now cleaning out.

I am interested in how you deal with your mother now. Do you visit her or speak to her? Do you ever plan to confront her with her problem?

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In a year and a half, I’ve visited her three times I think. That in itself is a long story. To try to shorten it, I’ll just say that after my dad initiated the divorce, she pretty much took off. My grandmother owned a vacation trailer in a trailer park in the middle of the state, so she decided to live in that over the summer and probably would have done so even longer had she not managed to get herself kicked out. She would occassionally come home to restock and rest before taking off again. I actually preferred when she gone, since it meant we could clean without worry and since having both parents under one roof was really akward and miserable. While we didn’t throw every single piece of her stuff out to say the least, there were definitely some things that she would have thrown a fit over had she noticed that they were missing. She was literally crying over her unfinished ceramics and paints (that she had not touched in a decade) and we had to go fish them out of the garbage.

I don’t have a close relationship with my mom, never did. I think it was due to the miserable childhood growing up in a dirty home. She always lived in the living room (yelling at us to be quiet whenever we were trying to get ready for school). Her days didn’t start until after 2 p.m. Even then, she didn’t do much for the family. Maybe shop, make dinner 3 times a week…then it became 2…then it became 2 when we helped…then towards the end they said it was just once a month if at that. My dad worked, my mom was supposed to be the homemaker. Both were alcoholics. He hated coming home and seeing the dirty house and my mom doing nothing, so that just got him more depressed and he would recede into his little corner of the house to play on the computer and drink until bedtime. Mom watched TV all day. He tried to get her to clean the house. Pleaded, argued, demanded, threatened with divorce. She reacted the same to all of these. Always came up with excuses, nothing was ever her fault. While we kids were chores and money-eaters, there always seemed to be more than enough for her cigarettes and beer. When there wasn’t, she stole from her family. The main reason that I broke off all communication with her was during my 11 months in Japan, she e-mailed me twice. Just twice. Paragraph long e-mails. No care packages, nothing for Christmas, nothing for my Birthday, nothing when I could have used some love from home the most. Later on I found out that she hadn’t even written the e-mails but got somebody else to do it (my name being misspelled should have been a giveaway, I suppose). I asked her why she e-mailed me only twice, why she couldn’t snail mail or call on the computer or anything, I was treated to her usual exercise of excuses.

I’m not saying that I’m the perfect daughter by any means but I would think that a parent would like to keep in touch with their child when they’re gone for 11 months. My dad did. My aunt even did. Hell, even my dad’s girlfriend was more concerned than my actual mother.

Anyway, I came up with the philosophy that there’s no point in trying to hold onto people who don’t reciprocate the love or respect you give them, screw the feelings of familial obligation that society forces upon us. And honestly, it doesn’t feel any different. I don’t feel that I’m lacking a mother, because I haven’t had the equivalent of one in a good 15 years (with the acception of my aunt, I suppose). She never bothered to change for the better. Dad stopped drinking, smoking, and took action to protect what he could of his assets and get custody of my little sister whereas my mom just sat there and cried “I’m going to lose my baby!” like a freaking Lifetime Movie moment as she cracked open another beer. She could have gotten a job. She could have cleaned up. She could have gone to counseling with my dad. She could have detoxed while she was still under my dad’s insurance. She didn’t even lift a finger, she was just full of excuses. I’ve learned to cope. I realize that having her around would make me miserable. I don’t really miss her, except for her cooking.

Back to the hoarding…After getting kicked out of the trailer park and going through a few more boyfriends (I didn’t say she was a classy lady) my mom is now living with my Grandma. Mom’s stuff is cluttered and stored away in one of those storage warehouses and she herself is living in my grandma’s basement. The basement used to be the hang out area for all of the grandkids but now it reeks too much of cigarette smoke and is cluttered with too many of my mom’s and grandma’s things, it reminds me of the way that my house used to be. Since she lives with a hoarder and since she has never tried to change her habits, always believes that everyone else is at fault but her, it would be impossible to confront her about her hoarding habit. She won’t change. She didn’t change with the divorce. She didn’t change when 2 of her 3 kids became alienated. She didn’t change when she was caught stealing from everyone. Hoarding seems like just a drop in the barrel compared to everything else she’s done.

As I said, I’ve seen her three, maybe four times since coming back home in July. Only one of those times has been to specifically see her; the others have been to visit my grandma but she was present too. I always drag my little sister along, too. It’s unfortunate that we don’t see my grandma as much as we should, but both my sister and I hate going because mom is usually there taking care of my grandma (amputee due to hospital neglect, been in a wheelchair for around 9 years now). At first, I never wanted to see her again. I was so, so angry. I couldn’t think of her without thinking of the crappy childhood, the apathy of my supposed mother, the stealing, the lying, the cheating, the drama. I refused to talk to her.
After this past Christmas…I don’t know. My siblings and I had to go into her room/the basement for a “family christmas” for a moment. I just looked around and thought “Wow…Divorced, no job, alcoholic, living in her mom’s basement at the age of 44, and doesn’t even care/worry? This is so sad”. So now I don’t feel as angry as I used to, there’s an overwhelming sense of pity. I decided that if she calls, I won’t be such an asshole anymore. Her life looks miserable, even if she doesn’t think so. I’ll come over if she ever asks and I’m home at the time (my dad’s house is fifteen minutes from my grandma’s but right now I’m on the other side of the state). Maybe it was a good decision, since I don’t get so many angry dreams anymore. While I would never invite her to come live with me or anything, maybe this is a step up from nothing. I gave her my phone number (again) and the address to the house that I’m living in for the year in case she wants to contact me. I really have no reason to contact her, but she made it sound like she’d like to keep up a mother-daughter kind of relationship in the future…or someday…probably won’t happen.

She hasn’t called me yet. I doubt she will, but that’s what I expected. Like the hoarding, I just don’t think that some things will ever change.

Sorry for the long post.

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I think it’s amazing that you can come to that point, truly amazing. Good wishes to you.

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Wow. {{{Nikonikosuru}}} I have no words, really, except to say it sounds like you’ve reached acceptance and some kind of peace. It’s good to let all that anger go.

Has your childhood affected your housekeeping? Are you overly diligent? (It sounds like you live by yourself.)

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I’ve been cleaning out the left-behinds from when my dad died in November of last year. He died intestate, leaving a house in disrepair, and three storage facilities chock completely full of so much stuff that two twenty yard dumpsters could not contain it all. I still have dozens of boxes of papers to go through. There is everything from tax and escrow documents from the 60’s, to shreds of paper with my fathers name and address on them (such as one might tear from a magazine) saved in a manila envelope titled ‘nametags’. Among the trash? Well preserved newspapers announcing the beginning and end of WWII. Civil war artifacts, a smattering of coins and some paper money, hidden from the invisible demons in my fathers life.

I haven’t truly grieved the loss of my father to date, I’m still far too mad at him.

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Thanks for the well wishes, guys. I’ve been following this post for a while, and although I haven’t said much to what other people post I have been reading them all…It’s interesting to see all the things we have in common.

Dolores, I would say that growing up in the condition I did made me want to be the complete polar opposite of my mom. I never picked up a cigarette, I never drink to excess (and when I do drink, it’s never beer), I want to be there for my future kids as much as possible and never make them feel like a burden. Cleaning wise, I’m definitely more picky than my other two siblings. I really enjoy a clean environment. I wouldn’t call myself overly cleanly, I do feel more at ease when everything is in it’s proper place. Right now I’m living in a house with three other girls for the year. We’re varying degrees of messiness, and we would probably clean a lot more if we had more free time. When I get my own place it will probably be clean more often than not. :slight_smile:

buttonjockey308, I’m sorry for your loss and the burden you were left to deal with.

232

I just learned that E.L. Doctorow’s next novel will be about the notorious packrat Collyer Brothers: An Excerpt From E.L. Doctorow's Next Novel

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As I learned in a more recent thread, an intervention almost certainly won’t work. She has stopped talking about doing anything at all about the mess, although she complains a lot about structural and plumbing problems–yet refuses to get them fixed though she has quite a chunk of money.
One of our mutual friends is about to ask her to consider selling the house as is and moving, since she doesn’t spend much time in this house anyway and spends 90% of her time elsewhere.
We’ll see.

234

I’m so glad to have found this thread. My husband is a clutterer, bordering on hoarder. I am embarrassed to have people over to our house - he changes in the living room and leaves his clothing laying on the floor. If he changes our toddler, he leaves our son’s clothing where it falls on the floor. If he changes in the bedroom after I’ve gone to sleep, he leaves his clothing on our bed, frequently on top of me. Seriously, I’ll wake up in the morning (like today) with shirts and pants draped on top of the covers covering me. If his clothing isn’t on top of me, it’s on the floor. Used dishes stay on the kitchen table in the exact spot in which they were used, only to be nudged out of the way for the next meal unless I come by and put them away. I’m often afraid to go on a business trip because I know I’ll come home to a kitchen smelling of old, rotting food, a sink full of filthy dishes and pots and pans and a floor covered in clothing and mail. My husband also has five unused towers for the computer that have been in the cats’ room for three years, and our basement is getting progressively worse.

He’ll go through periods where one aspect of the mess in our house - usually one that is invisible to most people (like the famous spice cabinet incident) - really bothers him and he cleans it up. But his organization usually means making piles of things on the floor.

This thread worries me, but also makes me hopeful that we haven’t gone past the point of no return. Over the past few weeks, every night I’ve spent a few minutes tossing things we haven’t used for a while, packing other things up for a trip to the Goodwill and finding a place where things can “live.” I also make myself a to-do list every day that involves scrubbing one of the newly-uncovered rooms, maintenance items (wash dinner dishes, fold laundry, change sheets) and planning for household repairs. I’ve pulled my toddler into the process, which has resulted in my husband at last getting involved, too.

What kills me is that I grew up with a neat freak and was excruciatingly clean when I lived alone, but my husband’s tendencies and also my own exhaustion (and laziness) have overwhelmed me. Having our first child resulted in a house that looked like a bomb had gone off; I won’t have it that way when we have our second.

Cluttering is a combination of gradually-accumulating crap, along with life-changing events (like having kids sometimes) that speed things along. It really, really sucks, but it’s good to know that people have dug themselves out of even the worst of it.

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I love this thread. I have a real tendency towards clutterbuggery but every time I read new posts here, I get a real urge to tidy up a bit - even to the point of throwing stuff out. Long may this thread remain because so far, in 50+ years, nothing else has given me quite the motivation as reading the posts here has done.

236

I know this thread is old and considered a zombie but I hope it stays open.

I really feel for anyone that has to live with a hoarder. I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must be.

My mother had a moment of clarity about a week ago.

She said she was ready to clear some stuff out and she needed help. She claimed she wanted to start sorting through some boxes but she could not physically get them out.

I told her I would move any boxes she wanted to go through to her table and bring her some empties so she could sort and keep what she wanted and throw out what she did not. I even offered to shred any papers she felt contained personal information. I would not be surprised if she agreed to want the shreds back as proof I really shredded it.

She replied that she wants to have someone literaly sit with her and help her. She wants me to hold a trash bag while she looks at every fucking piece of paper and determines whether it is trash or not. I don’t think I can do that. I cannot stand to sit at her place for more than 5 minutes much less hours sorting through old papers. She also made the comment about her keeping stuff that is important, well “important to her”.

She also mentioned she had to sort through some old homeschool stuff. My son has been done for almost three years and my daughter two years. I told her to just pitch it all. We don’t need it and there is nothing really in there to keep. She never responded.

She also stated she has no idea what was upstairs as she has not been up there for years. I responded that if she has not needed anything up there in years then she should consider there is nothing up there to even be concerned about. No response.

She also never responded to me bringing over the empty boxes and moving the ones she wants to go through.

I think she thought about it and again she feels way to overwhelmed to do it. sigh

I want to help her although I also feel resentful that I have to which of course leads me to feeling guilty for feeling that way. She won’t do it on her own. She won’t take the time or energy to do a damn thing but she expects me to hold her hand while she throws away a piece of mail from ten years ago. It make me angry and sad all at the same time.

I am going to try to bring it up again about bringing over empty boxes and see what response I get but I am not hopeful. Even if she agrees I see items moving from one box to another with very little getting thrown away.

I guess the fact that she even brought it up and we talked about it a little is a positive sign but if I don’t get any positive responses I am going to drop it until she brings it up again.

sigh So frustrating. :frowning:

237

I guess it’s time for me to post my confessions here.

While my home isn’t to the degree described and pictured here, I still live in horrid conditions. I have battled depression most of my life, and it sucks the life out of me. I tire (mentally and physically) so easily, and cleaning just sucks me dry.

My parents weren’t like this; my father was a neat freak, and my mother WANTED everything clean, but SHE didn’t want to do it. When I was in the 4th grade, she passed the housecleaning duties off to me. I wasn’t allowed to go outside or play until the cleaning was done to her satisfaction. This set up the groundwork for me to DESPISE cleaning. Hated it, hated it , hated it.

I never moved away from home because my mother developed serious health issues and I was needed to care for her. As an only child, there wasn’t anyone to share the work.

Mom died in 1999, and I let the cleaning slack off a little. Dad still rode me, but he did start pitching in to help more. We had some hellacious fights over my not keeping the house as clean as he would like, but I told him I was NOT spending every hour cleaning. Besides, if the house didn’t smell like Mr Clean 24/7, it would never be clean enough for him.

Back in 2005, my father died. And things began to get out of hand for me. The depression grew worse, and I began thinking seriously of suicide. So I just stopped cleaning all together. Now, 4 years later, I have mostly overcome the suicidal thoughts, but the house is so out of hand I don’t know where to begin. There is dust so think on everything it’s like a layer of dirt. Boxes are stacked all around. Dog toys are everywhere.I have several collections- 450 horse statues, probably 100 dog statues, etc. plus all my hobby stuff-crafting supplies, books, CDs… all covered with dust/dirt. Clothing I never wear is scattered about the house. Thank God only one room in the house is carpeted, because that carpeting is trashed. The dogs have ruined it, BIG TIME. The smell is terrible.

I don’t *WANT *to live like this. I have tried to start cleaning, but it seems that for every trash bag I take out, anoither 2 bags worth of crap pops up.

Now… ny kitchen is reasonably clean… I keep the dishes washed and no rotting food lying around, and the same with my bathroom. My laundry is done regularly. But I want to live like a NORMAL person. I want to be able to invite friends over. But I do not know where to begin.

This has ben a very difficult post to write. Thanks to this thread, I know I’m not alone, but it is still hard to admit so publically.

I am going to start (again) today. I will toss out AT LEAST one bag of trash.

It’s a start.

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PapSett, do you have some friends who would come and help you? I know that if one of my friends needed help like this, I would be over in a flash because I love tidying messy stuff up and getting houses organised. I know you are probably thinking, ‘But what would they think of me if they knew how I lived?’ People are, generally speaking, a lot kinder and understanding than we assume them to be.

There is also a lot of self-help available on the internet which you can find with a bit of googling, perhaps have a look around and see if you can find a system that looks good for you.

If you have a lot of stuff with crafts etc, one thing I would say is to get yourself lots of decent sized containers to put it all in. One of the biggest hurdles to keeping a place clutter free is not having somewhere to put stuff. And the great thing about big boxes is that they can be messy on the inside, but you wouldn’t know it because it all looks nice and tidy on the outside.

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Hugs PapSett. You’ve survived an awful lot - you’ll get to your next place, to the peace you desire.

It might be too perky for some, but I’ve enjoyed the FlyLady program (www.flylady.com). I don’t follow it all that closely and I skip many of the dozen emails they send each day. But I like the gentle encouragement, the shared battle against perfectionism.

FlyLady says don’t worry about catching up with the program, just start wherever you are. Do fifteen minutes’ worth of work. Just that. I started a few months ago and it’s making a big difference.

Yesterday I enjoyed playing with my kids even though we hadn’t tackled all the messes (instead of feeling that doom/guilt looming over my head). And the messes aren’t as bad as they used to be. When I was ready to deal with them, it didn’t take long to gain a sense of order.

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Papsett, here’s another hug for you if you need it.
I can easily imagine that the mess is overwhelming, and that it would be great to get some outside energy to help. Have you thought about asking for help from a social worker or church person? She might be able to hook you up with some volunteers who would love to help you out, for free.
There is something deeply satisfying for many people to be able to clean and tidy a really messy home, as long as the owner will let them do it. I think it is the difference in the before and after pictures. :slight_smile: Many people with problem homes growl and bite at everyone trying to help them; that wouldn’t be the case with you, you would welcome help. And believe me, there will be people willing to help. If you told them the story you told us here, anyone with a ounce of empathy would understand how easily the backlash of all you’ve been through would lead to a messy home such as yours.

Be charitable; give someone an opportunity to do something charitable for you. You will make them, and you feel so much better about themselves.