Oops, sorry, wrong thread.
Obligatory link to self-help book on this subject with high consumer ratings on Amazon: “It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff”.
I have the deepest sympathy for people who grew up in any kind of squalor. It’s horrible to have the one and only place you should be able to call home corrupted this way.
My own childhood home was between a 1 and a 2, at times. We were especially bad with food; food that came in the home was either finished the same day or, if no-one wanted it, it was kept to rot. I remember my dad doing unhelpful things liek pasting angry notes on the bread basket to “Take The Bread Lowest In The Basket”. Ha! The bread in the bottom of the bread-basket was usually fuzzy and green. That is why I learned to always toast my bread; stale bread tastes less bad that way. That is also why I like Vegemite or Marmite on bread; those were the only toppings that didn’t go bad.
My mom also did the “I made a large pot of this recepy and I didn’t put it in the freezer and the pot doesn’t fit in the fridge and it has been out on the stove all night but I’m not throwing it out because someone might eat it, later.”
That is just like my mother only she has bought the shelves, crates and bins.
She starts to “organize” but the task becomes to large since she wants to do it in such great detail that it takes so long that she gives up. That just leaves half a box and half a bin full of stuff that should just have went into a trash bag.
Even if she does happen to organize a shelf it never stays that way. Items are set on it and remain there until you can’t even tell what the orginal purpose was. Instead of her cleaning up the shelf or bin she already has she just buys a new one.
Her latest was an under the counter pull out basket. She placed this basket under her computer desk. Right below her keyboard. She stated she now has a “place” for her medications.
Clearing out exsisting garbage and throwing it away to make a place does not click. That stuff just needs “organized” and it should stay there until it does.
I agree with lisacurl that is much like an alcoholic or any other addiction for that matter. A person needs to admit they have a problem first before they will seek help and even then admitting a problem does not mean they will do anything to change.
It is hard on a child to confront a parent. You are taught your whole childhood to respect, obey and to never second guess them.
I think we handle it in many different ways. Some try interventions, some attempt to clean and do what they can while getting berated for throwing away their precious items. Some do it under the cover of darkness while the parent is in the hospital or away on vacation and others still do nothing at all.
I used to think my mother was just lazy and there are times, even though I have done a lot of research, that same thought creeps into my mind. I can not understand having dirty plates on your floor or stacked next to the computer. You made breakfast and carried the plate to the bedroom. Why did you not carry it back to the kitchen when you went to get lunch? or dinner? or the next breakfast?
Because the kitchen needs “organized” so the plates remain until that happens which of course never happens. The sink is already full, the counters are covered as is the stove and the table and the microwave cabinet. There is no “place” to put the dirty plate in there anyway. And the vicious cycle continues.
One would think that a major clean up and out would fix it. Make a place, put things in their place, rinse and repeat and the problem is solved but it does not work that way. Once several items get out of place which in a normal household happens all the time the cycle begins again. I can’t put item one where it belongs because another item was left there so now item two is put where item three is suppose to go. Before you know it the place looks like it did six months earlier.
The other major issue is there is just not enough room for everthing to have a place and they are not willing to part with anything to make room.
My dad will take this to an extreme degree with certain items. Mostly empty boxes, coffee cans, and misc. parts - for anything. Because you’ll never know when you’ll need to ship something, store something, or repair something. There’s a room dedicated to this crap and a small aisle to the exit door to the side of the house that you have to tip-toe to. From the floor to the ceiling. He dreams of renting a dumpster to clean it all out, but never commits to it - going on many years now. I would do it, but I’d get shit for it. I think he actually holds a fear of losing this stuff and might suffer a panic attack the day he needed something, and would be like “I told you I could have used [insert item here]!” I’ve repeatedly said I will buy what ever it is you need, just throw this shit out.
My husband isn’t anywhere near the degree that it could be called a problem, but I think he would be if I didn’t intervene occasionally. He has a closet full of the ugliest mutherin’ clothes from the '60s…stuff that wouldn’t even be sellable at a vintage shop…but he simply MUST keep them. Fortunately they’re out of the way, but he keeps stuff forever. He’s neat about it, but he has “separation anxiety”. He just can’t let go.
The mom of a friend of mine went through a fairly amicable divorce back in the mid-'90s; however, she eventually went through what appeared to be a pretty severe bout of depression and stopped throwing anything away. The junk filled all the rooms but one; the last clean sanctuary was the bedroom her three sons shared. The kitchen was so filled with junk that no one could get to the sink; the bathtub was used to wash dishes, but even it was a horrific mess; and she refused to get rid of anything, even going so far as to forbid her teenage boys from cleaning the house themselves.
I met this friend through my roommate at the time, so when he told me that his house wasn’t a clean place, I didn’t realize just how bad it was. Eventually, my roommate and I moved to a three bedroom apartment just to get this guy out of the house (later on, we moved his brothers out, too). Only once did I drop by his place to see for myself. It was much worse than what he had let on; it was so bad, in fact, I snapped a few shots from a primitive digital camera that I had in my car just to have record of the place.
These photos aren’t the best (this was 1997 digital camera technology), but you’ll get an idea about how bad it was. Of course, seeing these photos or even seeing it on television doesn’t, in my opinion, convey the horror of it all as seeing it in person does (or, worse yet, being forced to live with it):
The house, as I understand it, was beyond repair by the time her sons forced her to get a grip. She abandoned it and the county condemned it. Good riddance, too.
My former SO was like this, she saved every single piece of paper that ever passed through her hands: receipts, memos, newspapers, used napkins, etc. It got so we had an invisible line down the middle of the bedroom and her stacks were not allowed to infringe on my space. I once tried to organize some of her stuff to vacuum and she threw a giant, sobbing fit.
I wasn’t allowed in her family home; if we visited, we had to meet her mother elsewhere (like a restaurant). I can imagine the house was horrific, as any object she brought home from her mother’s stank to high heaven.
Just want to bump this. Great idea in a sad sad mess.
You know how some people say that if there’s a need, a business will spring up to serve that need?
There’s a business dedicated to cleaning up some of the situations we’ve been talking about.
Maybe they can be of use to someone, especially for those who are fearing the death of a parent leaving them with a huge mess: http://www.disposophobia.theplan.com/
We had a little situation a couple of months ago where we actually needed something that I had thrown away earlier; we lived through the crisis somehow. I don’t even remember what we did; probably just went out and got a new one. We’re not poor, and there are stores everywhere; I’ll just let the stores keep my stuff until I actually need it.
I dated a guy in high school whose mom had apparently gone into a depression when he was young and stopped cleaning; by the time I met him, he’d carved himself out a room in the basement (with an outside entrance), and to say his room was spotless is an understatement. We went upstairs occasionally, and the house was definitely a stage 2; my friend insisted on cleaning the kitchen and bathroom sweeping the floors (at least between his room and those rooms) occasionally, or it might have been worse. I felt so sorry for my friend and his five younger brothers. And the worst part was that his dad was the bookstore manager at a local college, and the house was actually owned by the college and rented out for a pittance – so it’s not like they couldn’t have afforded anything they needed, as featherlou said, and let the stores keep the stuff fo them.
I often wonder what happened/will happen to that house when the college claimed its property back. I suspect it will need to be torn down. And it was a lovely house in its day.
Next question: how prevalent IS this? Everyone here seems to have known someone or grown up with this, to some degree.
I must have some aspect of this, because just seeing those pics evokes some deep anxiety in me. I’m cleaning (a bit), and I always have a bag started for Good Will (clothes etc). But, some of this is appalling–how does one live like this? Eat out all the time?
At my sister’s, you could find canceled checks inside of shoes or in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity. Coins and loose change (often foreign currency; she traveled a great deal) everywhere, medicine and personal hygiene products in amongst the hot pads or videos etc. There was NO organization whatsoever. She wasted a great deal of money on duplicating stuff because she couldn’t find stuff. This was the more functional of the twins, mind you–the other one (a brittle diabetic) had no qualms of having dinner out of a can etc.
I guess what I’m saying is that I just don’t understand daily living with this. Also, that UK show on BBC America (can’t remember name, good show) shows houses as bad as any seen here, and yet the people seem OK with the overhaul–and most of them are keeping it a bit tidy at the one month follow up. How does that jive with real life?
I think we’re talking about a spectrum here, not an on-or-off condition. I’ve been cleaning this morning, and I found myself thinking things like, “That was a gift from Jim’s parents from their trip - it’s never fit, and it never will, but it was a souvenir.” And things do get overwhelming - our basement is fairly cluttered, and it’s a daunting task to tackle. What really helps me with that is setting small, easy to accomplish tasks for myself. I’m not cleaning the whole basement; I’m organizing the mess of cassette tapes.
That said, I don’t understand living with rotting food and feces and stuff, either. A garbage bag and a trip to the curb makes all that go away. I think that’s where we’re getting into the “disordered” part of the spectrum.
The current estimate in the U.S. is about two million, as far as hoarders go. I’m sure the number is higher than that, since you don’t know what’s going on in a house if you haven’t been inside it or peeked through the windows.
OK. I just finished this thread, and I have to admit, while my living area is not as bad as some I’ve seen on the links provided (as in, no food waste or rats and roaches), it is definitely on its way there. I know I have a problem, and this thread let me know I’m not alone. So, today I’m going to do some cleaning, a little at a time. I mentioned on another thread my fear of becoming a crazy hoarder lady. I may already be there, I don’t know. All I know is, I refuse to have my child taken away by CPS due to my living conditions, or to die like the Collier brothers did. One was killed by a pile of falling junk while bringing food to the other, who starved to death as a result. So right now I’m off to do some laundry. Then I’ll probably tackle that pile of old New Yorkers in my room. Wish me luck.
How Clean is Your House? I love that show. I’m fascinated by the filth that some people live in, and part of it my own tendency toward Slobdom, and the other part of me that wants to be anally clean and organised. And yep, my mother’s room, basement, pantry, garage, and other parts of the house could have been on the show. There were no feces or rotting food, but there was plenty of expired food, and food that had been purchased, never consumed, and gone to the bugs. I once found a cake mix when I was a teenager, and was about to mix it up, when I noticed the bugs in it. Ick city.
Ooh! Good point. I am going to try and remember it.
I want our house to be for us, the people (okay, and the dog), not for STUFF.
Oh my Og, that toilet is going to give me nightmares. How hard is it to clean a toilet? Dump some bleach in the bowl at night and flush it in the morning!
So I guess it starts out by degrees, then piles up until it overwhelms you? Wasn’t there a story about two bachelor brothers who were found dead under mounds of garbage in their apartment?
pepperlandgirl, have you and your husband looked into counseling?
I’m not sure that the people who call up the show and ask to be helped are the same people who suffer from a mental disorder that won’t allow them to let go of trash. I think there are probably plenty of people living in squalor who live like that for other reasons–
they were ill or depressed for a while and got into a jam, need help getting out but don’t want to stay there
they are simple slobs who never cared about tidying before–frequently feel that they’re ‘above’ all that sort of thing–but realize they’ve gotten out of control and want to change
they’re overwhelmed with work and kids, don’t have any habits, and haven’t grasped that you can’t fit 10 cubic feet of stuff into 5 cubic feet of space
oh yeah, and pepperlandgirl’s problem–still letting parents control them by rebelling (I sympathize, pep, don’t think I don’t)
I did watch an episode yesterday in which a woman had a very, very hard time letting go of her stuff, but at the same time she knew it couldn’t go on. But she was initially doing it for her elderly dogs more than for herself! And some of them *don’t *change; they go back a while later and the place is a pit again.
But the really problematic people don’t sign up for the show in the first place, IMO.
As to how prevalent this is… I had to think, but I do know of one person who was a hoarder. I never saw her actual living conditions, so I don’t know if she lived in squalor. I was really quite young the last time I saw her, perhaps around eight or nine years old. She lived in a grand old Victorian which was stuffed to the gills with her treasures. When I was selling Girl Guide cookies, I went to her house because nobody else would, they called her that crazy lady, but I thought she was nice enough. I only ever saw the front entrance foyer, but my mom explained to me that her entire house was like that, as was the one across the road. As an adult, long after she died, I went back to the town and saw the changes in the properties. Astounding. I guess that since they hadn’t needed to be torn down, then she wasn’t in squalourous condition.