# Hoarding and untidiness in teenage rooms. Are they modern illnesses **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976 "2019-06-24T17:23:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/41 "2019-06-27T18:25:32Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > As far as popcorn, I wasn’t watching movies in my bedroom so that was done in the living room where food was ok. Heck, most of our dinners were eaten in front of the TV. I guess i have the opposite problem, why would you bother to carry something small to your room instead of eating it where you got it from and if it is something like ice cream or popcorn why aren’t you sitting some where with a table so you don’t drop any on the floor? I’ve got a coffee table that has a top that lifts up to a comfortable eating height in front of my tv for exactly this reason. Because plenty of people ( including children and teenagers) do in fact watch movies or do homework or use a computer or whatever … in their bedroom. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/42 "2019-06-27T18:29:13Z")
Since the factual question in the OP hasn’t been addressed for several days, let’s move this to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/43 "2019-06-27T21:56:01Z")
Messy teenage rooms have been a thing for almost a hundred years. (that’s roughly when people could afford extra possessions) It’s true there’s more electronic gadgets and accessories lying around. But very little has changed since my parents childhood. Most Kids are naturally messy and that behavior has to be monitored and corrected by their parents. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/44 "2019-06-27T22:59:45Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve heard of it, and seen it in movies. I’ve never met anybody who did, AFAIK. Some of my American coworkers may have, I guess. I assure you, the vast majority of your American coworkers have. Now, I don’t like popcorn. It’s a pointless snack to me. But it still somehow ends up in my house every once in awhile. (Last time being for my daughter’s 5th birthday, somebody sent us a dozen bags of various types of flavored popcorn.) But even growing up, to European-born parents, we occasionally had microwave popcorn in the house. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/45 "2019-06-28T01:42:07Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve heard of it, and seen it in movies. I’ve never met anybody who did, AFAIK. Some of my American coworkers may have, I guess. You don’t eat popcorn when watching a movie? Is that just an American thing? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/46 "2019-06-29T02:46:12Z")
This thread gave me a craving for popcorn, which I am sitting on my bed, eating in front of my laptop. > [@Colibri](#): > > We made [Jiffy Pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiffy_Pop) since the 1950s. And most popcorn consumed at home is probably eaten in the living room while watching TV. Never having had Jiffy Pop, I must ask – is it REALLY as much fun to make as it is to eat? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/47 "2019-06-29T03:18:01Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Never having had Jiffy Pop, I must ask – is it REALLY as much fun to make as it is to eat? 😉 Yes! That was the best thing about it! [It was as much fun to make as it was to eat!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVdMA4QHdUU) [You got a real feeling of accomplishment when the foil inflated.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X23TYsKIFlw) Making [stovetop popcorn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX8X914wNRc) with just oil and a pan is I think something of a lost art. We didn’t do it when I was a kid, but I learned to do it in college. I’ve met people who didn’t know that you could even make popcorn that way. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/48 "2019-06-29T03:35:10Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > > [@Dante Aligheri](#): > > > > Here too, I saw a nation of lost souls, > > far more than were above: they strained their > > chests against enormous weights, and with mad howls > > rolled them at one another. Then in haste > > they rolled them back, one party shouting out: > > “Why do you hoard?” > > OK, I found a much earlier reference to hoarding: [Dante’s Inferno.](https://www.smith.edu/insight/stories/disorder.php) > > See also [Hoarding in History.](https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199937783.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199937783-e-001) Bottom line, hoarding ain’t a modern thing at all. I’ve always interpreted this to mean hoarding gold or money, as a miser. From what I’ve seen and read, modern-day pathological hoarding could not exist without the mass production of cheap goods. The Collyer brothers did have a number of interesting artifacts from earlier in their lives, but most of the space in their house was taken up by things like old newspapers. Langley Collyer saved years and years of newspapers, as he said, so his brother could “catch up on the news” when he recovered his eyesight. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/49 "2019-06-29T20:16:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > If you know any Americans at all, I assure you know a lot of people who did it. Where do you think people eat most microwave popcorn? [About 70% of popcorn in the US is eaten in the home.](https://www.popcorn.org/Facts-Fun/Industry-Facts) And Americans have done that since forever. We made [Jiffy Pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiffy_Pop) since the 1950s. And most popcorn consumed at home is probably eaten in the living room while watching TV. I’m not following you here. What does eating popcorn at home have to with compulsive hoarding? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/50 "2019-06-29T20:23:11Z")
I apologize; I seem to have taken Nava’s statement out of context, and for some reason there’s no edit button. Kindly disregard my previous post. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/51 "2019-06-29T21:26:50Z")
Extend this to automobiles when the kids are old enough. My friend’s daughter was called into the office when the school’s social worker saw her car; the SW wrote down the license plate number and was concerned that she might be living in her car, because she had so much junk in it. THAT prompted her to shovel it out. Said friend’s stepson, who is the same age (literally 1 day apart!) used to have a biohazard sign on his door. Not a poster for the band Biohazard; literally a poster with that circle thing on it. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/52 "2019-06-29T21:50:10Z")
Re: popcorn. I’ve been known in the past to have popcorn for dinner. I like popcorn. If I’m feeling flush, I’ll splash out on some Garrett’s Chicago Mix. Yummers! ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/53 "2019-07-01T23:25:30Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > For most families up until modern times teens would not have had a bedroom to themselves. > > Greater affluence and modern small family sizes would allow a kid to have a room of their own… And even in extremely affluent families of yesteryear it simply didn’t occur to parents that each child would need his/her own room. All of Tsar Nicholas II’s daughters grew up sharing a room and IIRC even Queen Elizabeth II father & uncles shared bedrooms before they came of age. > [@TRC4941](#): > > …And going back further in time, kids didn’t have the number of toys and clothes they have now. Look at the closets of an older home. They were the size of a broom closet (if that’s even a thing anymore!) People only had a couple of changes of clothes. It’s pretty hard to leave a pile of clean clothes mixed with dirty clothes and wet towels when you only have one outfit for school/church and one for play and probably only a couple of towels for the entire family. The house I grew up in didn’t even have closets in the bedrooms; they were all in the hallway. I was never really allowed to let my room get messy, and buy the time I was a teenager I kept my room very clean out of paranoia that I mother would get tempted to straighten it up herself and discover things like my pot or assorted gay literature & erotica. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/54 "2019-07-03T06:27:16Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > And even in extremely affluent families of yesteryear it simply didn’t occur to parents that each child would need his/her own room. All of Tsar Nicholas II’s daughters grew up sharing a room and IIRC even Queen Elizabeth II father & uncles shared bedrooms before they came of age. > > The house I grew up in didn’t even have closets in the bedrooms; they were all in the hallway. I was never really allowed to let my room get messy, and buy the time I was a teenager I kept my room very clean out of paranoia that I mother would get tempted to straighten it up herself and discover things like my pot or assorted gay literature & erotica. That must have been a very old house. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976/55 "2019-07-03T13:34:41Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’ve always interpreted this to mean hoarding gold or money, as a miser. > > From what I’ve seen and read, modern-day pathological hoarding could not exist without the mass production of cheap goods. The Collyer brothers did have a number of interesting artifacts from earlier in their lives, but most of the space in their house was taken up by things like old newspapers. Langley Collyer saved years and years of newspapers, as he said, so his brother could “catch up on the news” when he recovered his eyesight. I think you’re right, i.e. Dante was probably thinking of hoarding gold/money when he wrote that. But really, the principle is no different: hoarding, whether it focuses on money or material objects, is about a pathological obsession with acquiring and retaining things. In either case, the root cause is a distorted perception of the things’ value, or an irrational fear of running out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoarding-and-untidiness-in-teenage-rooms-are-they-modern-illnesses/835976.md?page=2)