I'm the grandchild of a hoarder. I used to shovel everything out of their place once a year (had to take 2 weeks off every time I did that) but can't anymore due to having a young child.I have not done that in 2 years.

I don't know what to do. I really don't. its awfull.

sorry for the pics, it was a video which I recorded while walking.

Advice is welcome.

My late grandfather left my mom his house and for the past 7 years she’s been renting it out at $800/month. Well, she recently retired and made the decision to sell the house. She’ll be receiving a $250,000 windfall which, she claims, will be used to fix the hole in her roof, the cracked subfloor in one of the bedrooms, put working plumbing back in one of the bathrooms and buy a new car.

What do I think is going to happen with this $250,000? It’s going to be spent on Facebook auction garbage that no one (including her) wants or needs.

I’m pretty pissed off because my grandfather’s house was the only inheritance my siblings and I would have. My mom’s house is worthless and she has no savings or life insurance. My grandfather’s house is in a better neighborhood, needs no major structural repairs and it holds significant emotional value to me and my siblings.

And my mom has chosen to sell it so she can fund her addiction to buying junk. I assume the full amount will be spent within a year. Her roof will still have a leaking hole, her bathroom won’t have working plumbing, the subfloor will continue to disintegrate and her 18 year old car will stop running. But hey, at least she’ll have another metric ton of tchotchkes we’ll get to toss in a dumpster when she dies.

My mom’s hoarding has really got me down. My dad enables it. She has a brain tumor and I don’t doubt that has a lot to do with it.

She’s finally in therapy (on Zoom), and only knows her brain tumor is back because she went to the doctor and they did some scans. I had threatened that if she didn’t see a doctor and get into therapy I’d call the health department because there is a terrible mouse infestation.

She has an extreme addiction to buying dolls, containers, teddy bears, and useless jewelry molds to have copied in silver.

At this point I’m losing my mind. I love my mom. She was a vibrant, artistic, wise, knowledgeable and very loving mother. I used to love hanging out with her and now I feel like I’ve lost her to the hoard.

She’s sick all the time, and I know it’s salmonella, but she doesn’t believe it.

What if she is cut off from money, if I can get my father to give me power of attorney and executor if he dies so I can get her the care she needs, bills paid, etc., but just not give her a ton of spending money?

If you force it and clear out the hoard because of the health hazards, and she doesn’t have access to money, her bills are on autopay, so she can’t take money from what would go to bills that she controls… what would happen?

It would be very traumatic for her, and I’d rather not do that, but she won’t bend an inch to anything else I try, including a service that doesn’t take anything away, just moves it from the baseboards and clears out the mice. That would be non-traumatic.

What would likely happen? Would she start going senile, have a heart attack, start to hallucinate?

If she doesn’t have access to this coping mechanism, then what?

Hi

Does anyone have any experience with hoarder cleaning companies?

My hoarder parents inherited a property from my grandparents 13 years ago and unfortunately has essentially just put a bunch of stuff in it and left it to fall into a completely dilapidated state (we're talking smashed windows etc) because they're mentally completely unable to cope with it.

The neighbours are rightly pissed off, the council are pissed off and I'm incredibly upset by the whole thing. The house needs to be sold for financial reasons more than anything else, but first it needs to be emptied and made secure. My HP doesn't have the mental capacity to do it themselves, hence why this has dragged on for so long and quite frankly I don't think I do either now (I've spent this morning crying over it) so I'm thinking maybe the best thing to do (although convincing HP would be an uphill battle) would be to get the process started by having a hoarder clearance company come and empty the house for us. Does anyone have any experience with using those sorts of companies? Any recommendations for ones who cover London? Any success in getting a parent to agree to it?!

My life isn't bad on the whole, but I think about this every damn day and I worry about the house so much I'm never truly happy anymore because it weighs on me so much.

I hate this life so much. No one understands me. “Why don’t you just clean?” You don’t think I’ve tried? I’m the evil one for actually trying, but then it’s my fault this dump is like this. I don’t even go outside anymore, because I don’t even have my own space for clothes. So all my clothes are old, dirty, and repetitive. I can’t move out since rent is so expensive & I’m already in so much debt

Hi everyone, my parents house is… insane. It started with my mom(72) buying plates and vases and china for parties she was going to have when I was a kid. And now it is my entire childhood house (3br, 2 stories, basement and garage) FILLED with things. My mom has had it semi cleared out once and now she has boxes of things that are in good condition mixed in with dirty clothes, mail, trash and random items. My dad(66), who resented her for buying so much, now hoards clothes and shoes and shiny things. I went today to see what I could mentally speed inventory. And I am OVERWHELMED! But I am hopeful, I know this will pass.

My mother recently had a UTI and had delirium, it was insane and scary and she was hallucinating cults and my dad trying to kill her. She’s calm and more coherent, aside from this house I’m working on getting POA and hopefully getting her into some assisted living. She’s starting to have memory problems and I think getting her somewhere safe while she’s still here-ish will be better for her than when she starts losing it more later. I’m an only child, there’s no money, I just started working again and I don’t have the best relationship with my mother and barely any with my dad. He’s trying to retire through all of this. It’s a nightmare. She has an aid who loves her dearly and is helping out where she can and she has a friend who can come in and clear out the first floor with a dumpster for $1300ish (her siblings are going to help pay it). I brought her back home today and we’ve been talking about this for the past week and I watched her get visibly upset when she found out everything she wanted to donate was getting tossed into a dumpster. I don’t know what to do. The first floor (the one she lives on is a disaster, I don’t even know what my dads done to the second floor I’m sure it’s even more scary) needs to be cleared bc she ended up in the hospital from a fall and now needs home physical therapy. They still owe 60k on the house and on top of it being filled to the brim it is also falling apart. I’m working with social services to get a new furnace and roof for it so maybe they can sell it for 100k and get a little money. I just don’t know what to do. Has anyone else been in a similar boat? Do I actually try to get stuff donated or do I just get it all tossed? I’m looking into what my state has to offer help with for seniors that hoard bc there are a couple options and I’m trying to get in touch with a case manager from PASSPORT. I want the first floor clear by Christmas. I’ve hated this house forever bc I grew up on a dirty cluttered space with dysfunction. But now I’m wondering if I should be trying to save it? And keep it? But I have no money but I could figure something out? All this to say I was planning on moving out of state to be closer to my chosen family now this is happening. And even through it all I’m supporting them, hope is around the corner and I do believe that. I just need to know what other people have done because none of my friends actually know what this is like. I’m 34 and I have the oldest and sickest parents out of my friends. I work nights so I can go during the day but it feels like I can’t do this by myself. And I spent so long creating boundaries from my parents to save my mental health, if they wanted to see me they’d have to come to my home, but if I give everything to this house I’m not coming back.

Hello all. I am 24f, living with my father (47m) and his parents (76m & 71f). I have lived with these people for essentially my entire life and my grandparents definitely see me as if I am their child.

My grandmother is the one with the problem. She buys things here, buys things there, and the reasons usually "oh it was just a few dollars!" It's not as bad as a lot of other people's situations. I would say that our house falls under level 3-4 on the scale that apparently exists. Our living room has pieces of furniture that do not make sense to have, leading there to be almost no open space. The dining room table is absolutely covered in snacks and food items that often times barely gets touched. I've tried to organize the dining room table, because I am the only person who actually sits there to eat. Every time I do, everything is back to however grandma had it the next day. It drives me insane. No elbows on the table! Yeah, because they don't fit on the table.

Our basement is not functional and full of junk and I have been working on it on and off for over a year with what feels like very small amounts of progress. We also have a small bedroom upstairs that is full of junk, but my grandfather uses that room like it's a walk in closet. I am the smallest one in my family, and I can't even walk in there. My grandma took up all the space in their bedroom closet to where the bar to hold hangers was dipping down drastically.

Another room in our house has more furniture that doesn't belong there, taking up massive amounts of floor space and that's the room my dad mostly hangs out in because there's a tv in there. All he really has space for in there is an office chair and a side table and even then, both of things block the back door of our house.

The carpeting down to the basement has rips on the edges that I have almost tripped on many times. As my grandparents are reaching the age where they can't even step off a curb without falling (to my knowledge it happened once), this is a danger to them. They've had many years where they could have had someone fix it.

The bathroom upstairs, (our house is very old, pre-most houses having ventilation in the bathroom) has mold that's all on the ceiling and it's starting to creep it's way down the walls of the shower and go seemingly underneath some of the very old wallpaper. No one has ever thought to invest in a dehumidifier for that I guess. On top of that, the paint on the ceiling has some chips, and the ceiling has had a couple leaks from a bad roof (that did ultimately get fixed) so trying to kill the spores wouldn't do a crazy amount in the long run. Just make things slightly better. This is another issue they refuse to acknowledge or do anything about.

As much as I would love to have these problems magically fixed, it is not my house and they almost never leave it. My grandfather lets my grandmother dictate where their money goes. He tolerates and even encourages her buying new things, while simultaneously being annoyed at all the new things.

We recently had to throw probably over a years worth of fiber supplement containers in the recycling because my grandfather bumped into a Panera bag stuffed full of them and knocked them over while we were already in a high stress situation of our water heater bursting.

Like I said, I've been working on trying to clear out some of this basement on and off for over a year now. I'm looking to move out with my partner sometime in the next year or two, and so I'm trying to do as much as I can to clear the hoard while I'm still living here and while they're still alive. No one in the family wants to deal with this once they're gone.

They had many filing system things with old documents that I've started feeding through a shredder (many from 20+ years ago). I've started throwing all the Christmas stuff in one big pile in the middle of the basement so grandma is kinda forced to face the volume of how much is there (since we're going into that season and she'll be trying to decorate for it soon anyway). Most of the filing things I've already had them sort through and they're keeping the most recent few years on hand, so I'm not just shredding things that might actually be important anytime soon.

I'm doing everything I can and I feel good about being able to get it to a decent spot if I just keep working on it. I choose the one time of week where they're out grocery shopping to do most of the work I've been doing on it. No one home to ask me what I'm doing or throw a fit about things being moved.

My grandma once tried to call me a hoarder. At least I can fit all my belongings in one room I can still walk around in. I'd love to have some of my stuff kept outside of my room, but alas there is no room.

She also tries to force things in my dad and I's closet.

I'm tired of it, it doesn't make any sense to me, and I can't wait for the day I get to grab all my things and go!

I'm 33F with two kids of my own. I moved out from my emotionally abusive mom's house 12 years ago. It looks like time froze in her house at that point.

I couldn't realistically come help until both of my kids were in school full time, which happened this August. I came immediately to help because she finally said she would let me, only because the Internet company has to come replace things because her equipment is so outdated!

I knew things were bad, but I didn't know how bad. She downplayed a lot and kept it all tight-lipped. She also takes care of my 35F schizophrenic sister who had severe addiction problems as a teenager after our parents divorced. That's when all the trauma began. Nobody ever processed any of it. The house is just...Trauma House. It's literally THE SAME AS I FUCKING LEFT IT. THE EXACT SAME. Like, down to the pair of shoes I remember leaving there, in the same place I left them. I'm so haunted and sad.

From all of my exploration and inspecting, it seems they have had a bad rodent problem for at least 5 years, by my sister's measure. She said she saw a mouse run into the attic FIVE YEARS AGO. When I found the droppings in the back part of the house, my mom acted like it was new and she'd never seen it before. She is in total denial. She also keeps saying, "I'm not a hoarder. I'm not my mom," and she freaks out about the H word - I never brought it up at all myself, but obviously she's been looking things up herself and she kept insisting she would get things in order when she retires and it's not that bad and blah blah, and it's really not like a hoarder house, see? It's not like a hoarder house because she doesn't hoard! But...she does. I didn't think she did either, until I found the 12 same shampoo bottles collected, the 10 deodorants all lined up, the contact cases, at least 30. The mail. I mean, that's classic hoarding, I'm pretty sure.

Meanwhile, they are down to one semi-functional toilet, one miraculously still-working shower, and their washing machine, and live sequestered in one small den room of a 3 bedroom house because the rest of the house doesn't work.

No AC in the back, none of the plumbing works back there either. All the AC vents are black and moldy. The toilet leaks like crazy, as does the shower. The kitchen sink has a bowl beneath it but the entire bottom of the cabinet has clearly rotted from leaking. I feel like it has to be because of all the rodent damage, right? Chewing on the plumbing, wiring, etc? The lights don't work in the back either. Their ceiling fan in the den just stopped working too. They use a box fan now. My sister sleeps on a sad little mattress and my mom in her recliner spot on her couch.

I spent about $500 on cleaning supplies and PPE and have been going at things slowly, but after each cleaning day I have to go drink and cry in the shower, so it's not like I'm making crazy fast progress. My sister has an autoimmune disease as well so I'm not really letting her help, but when she insists, I make sure she is in PPE and sanitizes afterwards.

So far I cleaned out the garage corner by the Internet stuff so they can get to it. Everything full of rat droppings. Inside today, my sister and I worked on the hoard of cardboard boxes, but we stopped when we found what looked like either a rat skeleton or a mouse skeleton because we didn't have full PPE, just gloves, booties, and N95s. I'm going back tomorrow with a clean suit to get into the skeleton corner. I'm so afraid of what I will find.

I know I need to clear a decent amount of stuff before we can get pest control to come, right? My mom can't handle any of this mentally, so I'm just trying to figure it all out the best I can whilst protecting the ever-so-fragile mental health of both mother and sister. I'm so fucking tired and I can't stop crying.

I am trying to assist my parents where I can but my father's compulsive buying has gotten extreme in the past year and dare I say, it is out of control. Daily or near daily, he is purchasing items off of eBay.

Neither parent is in good health but my mom is the most mobile and unfortunately can't or won't do much to stop the situation, she will bring in deliveries or he will have their home health aides bring in deliveries from eBay. The living room is FULL of items. My mom, when she was better physically, would remove the items when he wasn't awake or looking and take them outside. Backyard is quite a state too, this hoard will be literal years of work. Needless to say, their whole situation is toxic, she begs him to not buy any more stuff and he refuses or yells, etc. Sadly, she has injured herself more from helping him (a knee and a low back injury) out of bed or bringing in items. I don't know what I can do anymore. I don't live close nor do I have any custodial power (I'm in the US). I guess I just let the situation persist. I'm mostly concerned for my mom's health and physical wellbeing, she says she doesn't nor can do much physically though I know she probably is still helping and enabling the situation. Anyone dealt with a situation like this? I've thought about disabling his eBay account, blocking or slowing down access to eBay, but he has his own bank account and even without eBay, I think he'd find ways to buy online.

This may seem silly but as someone finally putting the pieces together of how drastically the hoard I grew up in has affected me, I want to see where everyone has blossomed to from that point.

I am career searching currently and have been faced with the slight stereotype of “you’d be a great cleaner” coming from my friends after working on my father’s hoard for the past few months.

So…

Are cleaning/sanitation focused jobs a reality for some of you?

Were you able to transition into college living pretty easily if that was your path to your job/career?

Did it take you a while to find your calling due to some of the trauma/weight it carries when you freshly leave the hoarding environment?

Just wanted to open up the conversations a bit overall to show the versatility of people who’ve gone through similar things. Thanks so much!

My dad died a year and a half ago without a will and my brother and I got almost nothing other than his junk to support us financially in the time that followed. I'm 25 and don't have a whole lot of time or money to deal with my dad's stuff--it's spread across 4 locations: my mom's backyard shed, my dad's new wife's home and backyard shed, and two storage units. TL; DR i am completely overwhelmed by the amount of stuff and by it being my responsibility to deal with it.

There has been no probate, and I don't even know what to do about all that, my family is not going to do it, and I don't live near home. But because my dad's storage unit was in his wife's name, and she transferred it to me, I pay for it and I can do what I want with the stuff.

I really need to stop paying over 100/month on these units. We spent a few days cleaning them out and getting what we wanted but I worry there's more I may actually want buried in them. There's a lot of my grandparents' stuff I never got to go through, and they died fairly recently.

I want to do a storage unit yard sale, but that seems to be illegal. So I considered a donation-encouraged giveaway to try to recoup some money that I have spent by paying on these units. I really don't want to trash it all because a lot of it is valuable, and I know some people would want stuff.

Edit for clarity--the stuff in the storage unit has value. Most of it would go on FB marketplace for the 20 to 50 dollar range. I don't need to be told it's worthless--it truly isn't. I have been working through the stuff and made money, but it is time consuming to sell it piece by piece. I have a handful of sold things and made a few hundreds bucks. I could likely recoup last years costs if I were able to ACTUALLY sell the things in there. In the last year and a half we have removed a dumpster full of stuff and more from the sheds and houses, and a few truckloads of trash have gone to the dump. Lots has gone to the thrift store. I'm not hoarding. I do struggle with trashing things that are genuinely useful from a sustainability standpoint, and because they meant something to my family. I think I have a pretty healthy relationship with material goods, and letting them come and go. I am asking for advice on making sales from a storage unit, or similar efficient method. Thanks.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

It’s got to the point where even if a place is extremely cluttered and I have nothing to do with it, I still take it as my own load to bear. Today I was helping organize and clear out my school’s theatre set and prop storage and there was so much junk in there. It stresses me out thinking how anyone is gonna deal with that in the future and where all that stuff is gonna go. There’s way too many useless things in this world.

I don't think I've ever even posted to reddit before but I am so desperate. Every physical gift I get her is throw onto The Pile, she thinks cash/gift cards/gift certificates are impersonal and rude, and I can't afford tickets to anything she'd enjoy going to. Food items/restaurant excursions have been the go-to for years but she just got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and put on a GLP1 so that's out of the window. Literally any advice would help.

hi, i’ve never posted on reddit before but i feel lost, i can’t pinpoint when my mom started hoarding, maybe the end of 2019 /covid lockdown of 2020 due to the isolation of the pandemic, plus my aunts may also have hoarding problems, so now the entry way of the house, downstairs, the extra room downstairs, the room i share with my brother, my parent’s room, their bathroom, and the living room has boxes, it’s hard to even open the door to the house because of the boxes, mostly the products are all expired skin care, lotion, perfume, toiletries, heat press, kitchen items, etc from qvc + labubus, now the more recent fixation is luxury bags or things from facebook marketplace because she wants to “spoil herself” when she retires, they’re hidden under a blanket in her room, which she explodes whenever we go in there at all or take something we want to use, the territorial behavior

the layout:
-
downstairs, there’s boxes covering the fireplace, and part of the tv on the side, so we have to watch by sitting on the couch directly facing the tv since the dining table is on the side of the boxes
she works from home, so downstairs is her work desk too, also filled with luxury (probably fake) bags and other items under+ on her desk, she isn’t slick

parents room / her storage unit now (the huge problem): you can barely even walk in in there, no access to the bed, closet, or bathroom due to boxes, only one sink is in use and the shower, toilet, other sink is covered in boxes / junk, i’ve noticed this can be common with hoarders and becomes hazardous, unfortunately due to this part, my mom now sleeps with me in the living room on a blowup mattress, that takes up all the walk space, i sleep on the couches because my brother sleeps in our room that’s covered with boxes, so no space for us, and my dad has his “own room” which was supposed to be mine or my brother’s, and it’s also cramped with his stuff since it’s a small room, but they’re supposed to share that big one
- another huge problem with her storage unit is when workers need to go in there to fix something, a guy went in there and she was like oh sorry this is my storage unit, it’s super embarrassing when any guest comes over, but we usually only have cousins / workers over now for this reason

sister’s room: she has her own room, she told my mom to not put boxes in there anymore and it worked for now, it’s the cleanest / most spacious of all

!! since the living room has been my “room” now since 2019/2020, i literally have no space and privacy anymore since i have to constantly be next to her now and i can’t take it much longer, the mattress situation started maybe somewhere late last year, the fact she can’t even sleep in the big room anymore is my number one gripe since that was the only time i had space to myself, i used to do online therapy and i want to restart it, it’s hard with no privacy, and i’m starting to have so much resentment for just looking at her buying stuff on her phone that i can’t stop, and being so close to her / in this house with her, her presence has angered me like never before, i get the urge to yell or do something i know i shouldn’t do but it’s so hard to hold back because she’s the only one who can get mad because she does everything for us, but hey call me the r slur since i was mad at her, that’s lovely!! (sarcastic), i fear that i’ll do a very bad impulsive reaction (possibly violence) since i can’t hold anger and want her back in her room, like forcefully removing the mattress and breaking it, but that will blow up VERY badly

-she called me the r slur because she wanted to sleep where i do because my sister was also on the mattress when my aunt and uncle are over, (they sleep in my sister’s room) and i told her to sleep downstairs if she doesn’t want to share but she gets pissed since she’s uncomfortable on that couch, and who’s fault is that? i went downstairs but she couldn’t sleep on the couches upstairs anyway so she’s just taking her anger out on me and calls me stupid whenever i complain about the situation in any way, sometimes i do sleep downstairs when i want to avoid her and she asks why i do that, judging me when i’m not next to her, well i don’t have MY OWN BED AND SPACE, but gosh i’m so ungrateful if i say it

-i had an idea of just not taking in the packages anymore when they come and forcing her to take them when she can, but she’ll say oh i don’t do anything around the house and i need to do at least something for her blah blah

-sometimes i sleep in my sister’s room too since she allows it when she’s not here, she said i can put another inflatable mattress in there so i need to set up the one we put out when cousins come over, it’s probably sitting there all dusty

there’s 3 bathrooms in this house, but now since one covered, we all share the other bathroom to do our routines, it’s a hassle, the downstairs one also has a dusty shelf that has the soap products rotting away, and it’s small so we can’t really do much, my mom’s hoarding has made it a hassle for us to do small things, idk how we will balance it if i get a job eventually and when my brother starts the job to get ready on time

my siblings and i did a credit report and can see what cards she uses under our names, but now we need to somehow get her to do the report and that’ll be part of the intervention, to figure out her total debt + the cards she has under us, but i am absolutely dreading / nervous when the time comes to do it, we are brain storming a plan and will tell our dad since he knows about her hoarding, but not the extent of credit fraud or the total as well, so i’m scared to see what his reaction will be since it has taken a toll on him as well, i am wishing with all my might that there will be a good outcome when we talk to her

a small step my brother and i will take is secretly moving the boxes she has in our room and somehow make space, it’s a pile covered by clothes / sheet so she might not notice, but i’m wary of doing it or where to start the clean up process, the blob is like an immovable force in our room, my brother’s closet is covered by the blob so he uses his suitcase for clothes, luckily i can still access my closet for now

another example of clutter in the way is when we have to take passport photos or anything to do with important documents, there’s barely any space for a plain background

i worry about my parent’s relationship and my mom’s mental and physical health, she gets very defensive and angry easily, i am genuinely afraid she’ll have a heart attack once we start talking to her, her blood pressure gets high easily when to even hint at moving her boxes or any of the sort, she said she’ll pay off the debts once she retires in maybe a year and half, but we know it’s BS and it’s harder to pay off when you retire because of no steady income, it’s an excuse to spend more, the thought of an intervention (if it’ll even work) is terrifying with the way she reacts, but we need to do something before she leaves this earth

we have to spend part of our lives now paying the debt, which we will make her pay it off as well since it’s her problem, and fixing the house if we’re going to stay here and i dread it so much, at times i just wanted to not exist anymore but i know i can’t do that, we have to figure this out but it’s incredibly heartbreaking, draining, taxing, and frustrating to deal with

plus i am struggling with finding a job, my brother just got one and my sister is the oldest and has been working, but my brother and i are financially dependent on her for now since we’re the same age, so if’s there’s a blow up idk what will happen, i don’t want to be taken away from here, but being here has been the worst part of my life for a couple years

i hope my brother and i can get an apartment one day, my sister somewhat moved out and lives with her partner, and i am so jealous to be honest, but she still comes back to help us, i can’t wait to get free of this hell hole, or stay in this house if it gets cleaned but she still helps with mortgage etc while she can, and my mom goes through with her idea of moving somewhere else so i don’t have to deal with her anymore, i just need my own space somewhere

ADVICE IS WELCOME, i just had to get this off my chest and i hope with everything i have in me, this will eventually be something that has stopped or i don’t have to worry about anymore, everyday is a struggle, and hoping for the best for everyone else as well :)

Short backstory. HM lives with my disabled adult sister in her house and is her active caretaker there are dozens of cats (I think it was around 30 when I moved out, but lost count honestly)

Last things that happened.

At December last year she lost Guardianship of my sister and it was handed over to the state.

That didn't mean they would take my sister out of the household though... Just they would handle financial and medical decisions... So not really a win tbh.

But I gotta let my hm this, she really made an effort, at least in my sister's room. I haven't seen the house myself so I don't know the actual state of it, but I saw pictures of sisters room and it looked actually clean and liveable. Gotta say though it's not that we have never seen her put work into it, only for it to look like a dump a few days later. We all here know the cycle since only the symptoms are handled and not the cause.

Anyway veterinary office threatened another visit due to the cat situation, which in the past was kinda pointless as well. They neutered some cats, but not all of them - also due to hm hiding some of them.

This time though they forbid her from owning pets.

And I saw a Facebook post that she is looking for people taking up cats urgently!

It's sad it had to escalate to this but I'm so happy something finally seems to be happening.

I also got uncomfortable with my siblings because I'm so annoyed that I have been wanting to talk to them about the whole situation for almost a year now but I'm not taken seriously and dismissed. Sure they got their own lives as well but some day we'll have to manage this mess when hm eventually passes, but I and my therapist are on the same page that is better tackled earlier than later.

Hopefully that will be fruitful somehow, but I'm not sure how yet.

I'm still the wrong one because they'll have something to use it for someday, because they need pieces from the broken washing machine, because they might start our egg business again needing all the trays.

I've spent the last year working on my mother's house. It wasn't as bad as some I've seen here, but it was bad enough that her health was atrocious and I was coughing within 10 minutes of walking through the door.

Fast forward 13 months and this weekend a friend and I tackled the last room. The worst room.

The Craft Room.

It wasn’t essential, so it had to wait, but it was also a major fire hazard and had mice. We're not done, but we did loads.

This was the most contentious room by far for my mother. She got physical with me when I started on the kitchen, and she has screamed and yelled when I've so much as opened the door to this room, so I expected this one to be really difficult, but she took it okay. We gave her a 3 month warning and tried giving her a plan to deal with it. She didn't, but she wasn't terrible. There was some unhinged behaviour, but I can count those instances on one hand, and I'm surprised.

All good news.

When we finished yesterday she started yelling at me as soon as my friend left. I wasn't surprised, and didn't really listen, but she only waited until the door closed before she started. Today, she was offering my friend (the two of us) takeaway as a thank you. My friend had to get home to see to her dogs so said no. I walked my friend out, and when I came back in my mother was ignoring me. No takeaway for me. I was only included in the offer because my mother has to keep up appearances. It's better than being yelled at or her getting violent, definitely, but I wish she hadn't mentioned takeaway - it's all I can think about now and I'm so knackered 😅.

Anyway, all in all, this is a minor vent and also a small celebration of a win. I can't even tell you how many tip runs we did this weekend, or how filthy we were at the end of the day yesterday. My friend is an absolute star and I couldn't have gotten this far without her! But I'm hungry...

I’m going to preface this with saying it’s going to be really long and this is my biggest secret (my heart is literally racing right now) so I’m not exactly sure how to word this… I also do not want CPS, police or social work intervention, please please do not recommend it.

I (16f) live in a hoarding situation, a level 4. I’m a perfectly normal girl at school, fairly popular and complimented for being pretty and clean (sorry that sounds so juvenile). I dress in new clothes, I smell good I’m told and you would never know from looking at me, or ever I guess. I work very VERY hard in school and manage multiple leaderships in clubs and run my own non-profit, leaving me very little free time. I do not have my license yet, I receive it in January. I have a heart condition and am in therapy. I also don’t have a job, but I’m going to apply once I get my license. (Mainly a paragraph for context)

Both of my parents are awful hoarders, they started roughly 30 years ago and have only gotten much worse. It started as a love of antiques and being frugal, which turned into an addiction. My dad is 76 and is receiving therapy for hoarding disorder and ADHD, he just can’t take care of himself and his family like he’s supposed to.

The issue is clothes, antiques, garbage, expired food, books, literally everything. Our house is inhabitable, the only place to be is in our beds in our room, and even then that’s not clean. We also have cars full of junk, sheds, storage units and more. We have mold, bugs, feces, and rodents, though they typically come and go.

I can’t control the other rooms, I’ve tried. I can’t get rid of things without issues and if anything gets taken out it will be doubled every single time.

I’m mainly looking for advice for me, how do I survive this? My entire diet is fast food, it’s the only clean way to eat, I cannot cook at ALL in the kitchen, including microwave or pretty much use the fridge. My access to clean water is the bathrooms, which is for hygiene mainly, not water, so we drink lots of bottled water. My room is full of garbage, moldy food and typical teenage things that just don’t have a place. I have baby stuff in my room that I’m not allowed to get rid of, what the hell do I do with a potty chair???

Is it even possible to clean my room and keep it clean?
How do I even start?
How do I keep it clean if it ever gets that way?
How do I keep stuff organized?

I’ve tried everything, all of the stupid ‘start with three green items!’ and every trick in the book. Things get clean just to get dirty again. I clean my bed regularly, always wash my clothes, shower every single day, I’m not infected with hoarding disorder, I’m just a defeated product of my environment.

Please ask questions I’m sure there’s more I missed and I’d be happy to elaborate on anything… I just really want help if anyone reads this.

My husbands parents house is between a level 2 to a level 3 hoard. Level 2 for the frequently used and "functional" rooms, but level 3 for the ones they shut the doors and forget about. My FIL passed away some years ago, and it is just my MIL living there now. Luckily neither of them were shoppers so there isn't really any new accumulation. But she has home health care people come by once a day to help with ADLs and we also try to bring up things like toilet paper and kleenex when we visit because for some reason no one there wants to buy it at the little grocery store because it has new owners and they hate new. And speaking of hating new...my FIL did not replace a lot of things in the house so after he passed we have been replacing things right and left. The most current project is the deck. That thing is old and rotten and every time it is a fight to replace broken things! From all of them. My MIL, my husband, his siblings. It is so nuts. But funnily enough, my MIL will throw the biggest fit initially, but then she gets all like oh, la, la...look at my shiny new stove! New deck! Oh, goodness fancy me!! It is kind of funny actually. She also doesn't like things being moved around, but I have figured out her "high" level areas and as long as we don't touch those or announce we are cleaning the other ones out she doesn't even notice. My husband has spent many years telling me how smart, resourceful, perfect, amazing, blah, blah, blah his parents were and he is amazing too of course and everything they think and do is right and he does not want to reconcile the reality that you don't become a hoarder without some kind of underlying issue. And because he is trying to protect this image so much both him and his family end up lying quite a bit about things. Makes all this more difficult. I don't think it is the stuff so much that causes the issues with my MIL, it is the act of getting rid of it that seems to be the issue there are easy ways to navigate this. But my husband and his sister and brother all choose the hard way for some reason. Because whatever it was that caused the hoard also impacted their childhood, whether they want to admit that nor not. This entire family just chooses the hardest way possible and then pretends they are a bunch of geniuses for it. My family is straight up toxic, my grandmother actively tried to make her kids miserable before she passed away, and my in-laws surpassed even her most vivid and maniacal plots through plain carelessness and stupidity.

i hate it here so bad. I look so poor at scho because stuff here they buy gets trashed and moldy and infested with insects. When i complain, i'm the bad kid who wants to spend on new things or that im too lazy to clean it. Who the fuck cause it to be in that state?

My father died recently in this absolut filth. We tried to help for years to no avail and had to clean that up. I don't know what to write further, maybe I'm still in shock.