You’re right, that is a much better rule than the “one-year-rule” that I’ve heard in the past. We don’t have a year left in our current house, but if we get a clutter problem again in the future* I might well use that plan!
*did you see how I wrote that assuming we’re going to solve our current clutter plan by the time we move? Positive thinking!
Depending on how much stuff I end up photographing and taking notes about, I may have it printed in a photo book. Most of the photo printing companies do them and most of them run good coupons at various times during the year. My favorite is the “flat rate book sale” that winkflash.com does a couple of times a year. Usually their pricing is on efee for up to 20 pages, then something like 45cents/page after that. But a couple of times a year they give you up to 100 pages for that 20 page price. Sign up on their website if you want to make sure you get the coupon. [/end hijack/promo for winkflash. And no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way, I’ve just gotten a good deal and a quality product from them many times]
As someone who has lost literally everything they own, I can tell you that…it’s just stuff. Baby pictures, kindergarten artwork, work awards, old family pictures, etc. It’s all gone and yet I still have the most important things of all, the memories and the kids that made them.
It’s just stuff.
This is true for you, and for those of us who do not have the condition that leads to hoarding. But people who hoard have a different emotional relationship with their stuff, and as hard as it is to understand, telling them “it’s just stuff” isn’t going to help. To them, it’s NOT just stuff - it often has deep emotional meaning, even things like dog hair and garbage. Tell them “it’s just stuff” is the equivalent of telling someone with anorexia “just eat a sandwich.” It doesn’t get to the deeper issues.
In terms of the show, there have been a few times when I’ve seen the hoarder express a breakthrough in understanding the dysfunctional relationship they have with their stuff. It’s rare, though. The show does report that some of the people continue to work with aftercare, either organizers or therapists or both.
Like any mental disorder, hoarding doesn’t lend itself well to resolution within a 60-minute TV show.
I wish it were ‘just stuff’ to me, because it would make my life a lot easier. It’s been over five years since I had my car stolen and an entire lifetime’s worth of Christmas ornaments were lost. And I still feel anger and bitterness and just plain hurt over thinking about it. It makes me so angry and even typing about it now just is ripping my heart out thinking of all those memories I lost. Three months ago, I was moving out of my place and had to dump a lot of stuff, more from necessity than choice. As we were throwing the stuff from the back of the truck to the dump ( about 10 feet below us), I saw my dad throw a bag that I knew wasn’t trash but had no idea what was in it. He had to stop me from climbing down a 10 foot wall of compacted trash to get the item and still I’m upset at him for that. Same thing as him accidentally burning something I thought was trash but realized too late wasn’t. In those cases not knowing what I lost is the worst part. Sure, if I still don’t know at this point they clearly weren’t important things, which is what people tell me. But I don’t believe it. In my mind I’ve clearly lost something valuable and I’ll never even know what it was.
Thanks, that sounds great. I signed up. It looks like they store images, too. Have you used that function?
That’s assuming that the memories are accessable without a prompt and that they’ll stay intact. Having the memory and being likely to experience the memory are two different things. I know there were things that I’d never have thought about again without the pictures or objects to prompt the memory. And I’ve gone through pictures with older relatives, so I know that after three to five decades everyone is guessing, not only about which child that is, but which generation. Label your photos.
That said, I have maybe a manilla folder’s worth of kid’s art and papers, and that’s for three grown kids. I wouldn’t grieve if all the photos were gone, but I would see if other relatives had copies of a few of them - mostly to be able to show to any eventual hypothetical grandchildren.
I live a pretty boring life really and I don’t get a chance to be smug that often, but I’m going to go ahead and be smug here.
Cory Chalmers friended me on Facebook because he thinks my insights on Hoarders are hilarious. And Matt Paxton and I have traded friendly shots at each other about poop jokes during Hoarders airings. So there…if I have nothing else to crow about, I am at least a mini-star amongst the people who clean up poopy diapers and sailcats on TV for money.
No, it’s true for everyone. It’s just stuff. What is different is how much of myself I invest into this “stuff”. I’m not trying to cure or fix anyone, I’m just stating a fact: It’s just stuff.
My mother is a pretty bad hoarder. Feces, animal bodies, trash, garbage, the whole nine yards. I’ve tried to help. Once about 20 years ago I sent her to Florida for 2 weeks, took vacation time and cleaned out the kitchen, living room and bathroom. It looked like the wonderfully clean house from my childhood. I was so proud.
6 months later you would never had known I did that.
In August I had social services do walk-through. They told her “you might want to tidy up”, but because she qualified as competant, they told me there was nothing they could do.
Sad. At least I keep a nice, clean house.
Yup. They let you have galleries on there, and I have several photo books that are on their server that I can reorder any time I want, exactly the same as the first time I made them.
I was drafted by a friend of mine to help empty the apartment of his best friend, who had just killed himself. He was what you might call a “tidy hoarder” with a two bedroom apartment, one completely packed with box upon box of stuff. I had only met the guy a few times, and it was a weird experience going through the man’s possessions and obsessions like an archeologist. I wound up doing it because I was a reasonably trustworthy person with a strong back and the ability to identify and evaluate most of the stuff we were likely to find. Managed to empty the place in a few days to a dumpster and a PODS storage unit, then worked later more carefully sorting the PODS to a single rental space in a storage mart.
I helped another friend who had lived in a 6,000 sq foot loft move to a one bedroom apartment. He’d lived in this place for 25 years, and even if you wouldn’t be considered a hoarder, you’d be astounded by how much crap you accumulate when you combine obsession + a large income + 6,000 sq foot of space.
The joke was that it wasn’t so much a move as an intervention. I was drafted because, again, I might have been the only other person who would know what half this shit was, and if it should be put in the dumpster, donated or moved.
Interestingly, the trigger for some people to become hoarders is literally losing everything they own. Some lost things to burglary, fire or natural disaster; others lost it because of a divorce or other life change where they had to move and leave their stuff behind. In any case, for some people, the loss was so painful that the only way they can deal with it is to never, ever lose anything again by hanging on to everything. If your loss didn’t affect you in that way, that’s a good thing, but it’s easy for me to understand how that kind of loss could create a compulsion to never feel that type of pain again.
I’m very sympathetic to your situation, which must have been devastating, and I’m glad you’ve been able to keep this healthy perspective.
But sometimes we’re not fortunate enough to have “the most important things of all.” I’ve lost my parents and my older brother, and some of things that you’d consider “just stuff” are the tangible reminders that they existed… that they were. My mom died 25 years ago and I’m afraid my memories of her have become frighteningly dim over time. (Hell, with my brother, I don’t even have any memories, since he died before I was born.)
I’m not a hoarder – if anyone diagnosed me it’d be as a clutterer – but I can understand the mindset, especially for people who have lost loved ones and for whom their stuff seems like a way to hold on to their memories. They might even feel as if getting rid of their loved ones’ things would be a betrayal. If any of 'em are like me, they may even anthropomorphize things and actually feel sorry for them. Anyway, I’ve described my other issues with throwing things out elsewhere so I don’t want to (heh) clutter the thread with it.
Truth is, many if not all of the people on the shows are straight-up mentally ill, and I can’t watch the shows very often because they sadden me too much… and maybe because they remind me uncomfortably of how close I have come to that particular abyss.
Watching “Hoarders” with my wife always results in a spirited discussion over who’s more like the people on the show. My wife cites my relative insensitivity to piles of papers, funky smells, dirty clothes, etc. (all true) and I cite my wife’s tendency to accumulate stuff that she never uses and her reluctance to throw anything away (also true).
Together, we’re the perfect hoarder!
Yeah, until you convince them that it’s “just stuff”, they’ll never stop hoarding. Plus we’re not talking about things like family heirlooms, or whatever. We’re talking out and out garbage. Expired food, plastic bags, cardboard boxes, broken toys, etc.
I just recently went through some of my old books – it was pretty easy to get rid, but for these people, old news papers are a bitch to let go of.
shudder
My mother has about twenty years worth stacked all over the living room and bathroom. 
A lot of them definitely seem to have been trriggered by the loss of a loved one, or the failure of a marriage.
Some years ago I realized I was in danger of heading down this road: I had three stacks of newspapers behind my couch in the living room, each being one month’s worth of papers. I was going to read them, really I was – at least, skim them for stuff that might be still relevant.
Yeah.
I asked hubby to get them out of the house the next time he was home and I wasn’t.
And I cancelled the newspaper delivery.
Now I only buy the paper WHEN I have the time to read it right then. I’m less informed on local news, but i figure between TV news and Time magazine I catch the important stuff.
And don’t forget, you have the Dope for breaking news!
Thank you 
The entire situation sucked badly and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it completely, if I’m honest about it.
And yeah, I can totally 100% understand wanting to hang onto things that remind you of lost loved ones - but that isn’t really what these shows are focusing on. Plastic grocery bags full of feces and rotting animals, bathrooms filled with used tissue, rooms to the ceiling with broken stuff and trash.
Actually wanting to hang on to family things is one thing, using hanging onto family things as an excuse for your 100 bags of human poo is another.
IMHO