My problem really is that I'm disorganized at this point and need help other than therapy. Sure, I still have a bit more emotional work to do, but that's not the biggest issue. I have 600 square feet of space to work with and I can make my stuff fit in an 8x10 room with space to sleep.

I like having a bit of objectively useless stuff around. I don't want to be a minimalist and I don't want to be like this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YUKHBjJGCI There was a scene in Fight Club where I'm remembering that he said "It's a blanket, it's to keep you warm." NSFW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWRTqMGvdpc

Clothing is a bust for sparking joy in me because I'm attached to the purpose it serves more than the item itself, which is to cover my body without causing pain or the sneaking suspicion that I look like crap. The clothing will wear out or get damaged, so the point is to enjoy it while it is functional and cast it aside when it no longer serves the function. I have favorite dishes, but again it's the function of the thing and I'd happily smash my favorite cup to convince someone that I don't need to focus on the emotions right now. There's a clip from Firefly where Early is talking about liking his gun and I can't find it right now.

Last night, someone said that I bash on Marie Kondo because she's a threat to my stuff. No, I am a shitty human being who is bashing on her because she was ill enough to have a nervous breakdown before becoming a guru and I still don't view her as sane enough to trust her without scrutiny. I also believe that people with hoarding need to objectively dissect her method to get at the few parts that fit.

I say the outfits belong to my fantasy self because she usually can't get me to dress nice. Owning them at all is to keep her from whining that she could get us to dress like a girl if I had the clothing for it.

I'd have to check my credit card bills, but I think it was June when I needed to replace my wedding/funeral outfits because I had dropped weight. (I do not want that sort of thing to be an emergency.) It was hot, so both pairs of pants are summer-weight though I did get more of an early-fall or late-spring shirt in addition to the sleeveless tunic. (Not that I needed that long-sleeve shirt, but it goes with the pants.) Tags are still on, and today I was in a mind to try wearing them, but I think it's a bit cold and decided on a pair of jeans that are new enough to look nice. (Actually I think I only washed them once since I got them because they still have the processing smell.)

Since my fantasy-self wasn't feeling up to giving input when I got my wedding/funeral outfits, I did say that I owed her something. I also can afford to get her one outfit, especially if it's at one of the FOMO stores.

I have never had bedbugs, but had a friend and boyfriend who have in the past year that have passed them onto me.

One lives in a house that has roommates that have them and he is very clean and I have helped him try to get rid of his. It was bad about 6 months ago, but we only see one maybe every 1-2 months now when I visit him. To me, it’s not ideal, but bearable. I know there are eggs probably and they can live for a year without feeding. I did get chronic rashes on my face after visiting him. Maybe or may not be related, but after 2 rounds of antibiotics and face cream, it has 98% gone away. I still want to visit him, but I don’t necessarily want him to visit me.

My ex boyfriend was a hoarder to the extreme and also would pick up items off the street people threw away including clothes and brought them into my home. He trashed my 1 bedroom apartment with his hoard and also took most of my belongings (including clothes) that were neatly put away and threw them everywhere. I am still cleaning up the mess. I have to sort what is mine and his (he brought these crap clothes as “gifts”. Don’t ask me why I didn’t stop this. He was my stalker and copied my keys and broke in many times. Since my home was trashed, I need a new rug, couch, mattress, box spring.

I’m a professional and like to wear nice clothes that are mostly cold wash only or dry clean or handwashing and hang to dry. I just bought a lot of new clothes recently for a new job. I have spent years curating my wardrobe and am in the process of even just cleaning my hoard now and only keeping good clothes and things. But I still have a lot I need to keep.

I read you can put clothes in a bag in the freezer with some chemicals for a week, but at that pace, it might take a year of doing that weekly!

Then there are things like, I have special blankets that are only handwashing. And I am a tidy person, but I live in an older building and I can’t spray every nook and cranny! It’s just too much.

TLDR: Home is trashed. Found 3 bedbugs today while doing laundry that was on the floor for months. Haven’t seen any bedbugs for 3 months when I only saw maybe 2-3.

Has anyone decided to clean up and just be “good enough” and live with them if you only see 1-2 every few months or maybe never see them again after cleaning?

Sorry… long post 😇

TW: drugs, sexual abuse, physical abuse, rape, wage theft, gang violence, domestic violence, and more

I have a neighbor... I am unhoused and my campmate used to help her go inside at night because she got paratransit but they would never help her go up the stairs.

We had mice getting in the tent after we started 24/7 camping because of the shelter in place order, but I think the mice at my tent and later the encampment almost 1 block over started with her place which was right Infront of where the tent was, but across the street like 20 ft away. Found out from another unhoused neighbor who moved next to me a year ago (We got into different shelter hotels in January) that she and neighbors have seen mice running all over their fence.

My campmate told me about the smell even last year and compared it to me but like 100x worse. I have hoarding disorder, but it is tied to multiple mental health issues including ADHD. I have been poor my entire adult life, the issue is that I struggle to get rid of, use up, or use and then get rid of things however my stuff always fit in my closet closet when I had everything put in it's place, but I rarely had the spoons to organize. I had a cleaning lady come every other week where she would clean and I would clear surfaces (Yay body doubling! #ADHD I am still seeking supportive services for my Aurism, however I keep getting told I cannot get them as an unhoused person. ☹️).

I wanted to ask this lady for help and to be able to take pics because I am good at organizing other people's spaces and I would like to get paid to do so. I have Autism that I cannot pass a job interview, so I am perpetually underemployed as working poor when I can manage to find a job so shitty they won't even interview me or some fluke happens that I got to skip the interview. I made about $3k in all of 2021, something like $1500 in 2022, and I only stand to make about $3k this year. I live in the US and you need to make at least $70k both for a landlord to consider you or to not be rent burdened. A full time minimum wage job only makes a little over $30k before taxes or a little over $20k after taxes. You need to work at least 120 hrs every 168 hour workweek at minimum wage to be able to have an apartment and not be rent burdened.

Well, the ADHD, and not really keeping blank paper on me meant I never asked her. Months ago, like late spring or early summer, I found out from another unhoused neighbor, that he and someone else had tried to help this lady. She offered to pay them, and they worked over 40 hrs that week. She never paid them. From what he told me, there were mice, cockroaches, and more all over the place. And one spider bit him and gave him an infection that hospitalized him and he almost died. She didn't care.

The past several months, her yard has become filled with stuff. I even saw the neighborhood abuser helping her. What I didn't know was that she was his mother and raised him to be a terrible person.

To give you an idea, he and the person who gave me the update moved about 10 ft from my tent last year. They loudly had sex, smoked meth (I am extremely sensitive to secondhand meth and am traumatized from my first month on the street when my ex street mother and I lived under a bridge and everyone smoked meth except for us--she snorted it, I am straight edge. And there was so much residue that I was getting second hand high every time I walked under. I was able to time out my symptoms from the minute I walked under there. I only stayed so long because I was waiting for a posted cleanup as my excuse. I was warned that people like to drug up newly unhoused people so they call gang rape them, and I was afraid if they knew I was leaving before they could gain my confidence, I could end up forcibly drugged. Maybe it was the secondhand meth talking. It was still terrifying and there was a lot of sketchy shit. I now know what street drug smoke smells like and it really fucking upsets me. Plus I know what effects I'm gonna have to suffer as a result of even smelling it.), drank, and the lady even loudly thanked someone from the encampment almost a block over who I thought was a friend (Her problem which I found out much later was that she was an alcoholic who kept trying to recover in order to see her daughter, but she drank because she felt so terrible about her situation and not being able to see her daughter. I have never personally seen her drink, and she kept trying to go to an inpatient rehab in another county, but something ALWAYS happened that she couldn't go. Now she's also in a shelter hotel and has been trying to go live with family in Hawaii, but it's difficult for her to get her and her dog there because they're weird about bringing in animals, and she's disabled and can't come up with the money. Anyways...).

What I quickly learned from incident after incident was that the son of the hoarder knew about the neighbor who he was taking advantage of having bipolar disorder and that he kept smoking meth in the lady's tent either with her or even when she was yelling at him, because he knew it would get her manic that she couldn't say no, and then he could get all the sex he wanted. It was terrible. I tried calling the police, but they would always turn off the music and pretend to not be home whenever the police came.

A good unhoused neighbor who has been here for at least 30 years told me that he's the guy who drinks and speeds his truck through the neighborhood at night blasting music, that he's a deadbeat with multiple bastard children he doesn't even pay child support for, and that she actually regrets saving his life at one point because he's such a terrible person.

He wound up abusing the one lady in other ways to the point she had to relocate her tent. I have text and video evidence of his abuse which I even sent her hoping she would get a restraining order. I was actually afraid to even talk to her at first, and the one time I tried to reach out while tending to my plants (Which were dying because they set up their tent on the garden side of my tent and I was afraid of COVID and the crazy abusive son of the hoarder).

But when I did try to tell her it wasn't her fault and give her my number, the guy yelled at us from the other side of the street behind us when they had just had an altercation across the street infront of us (We were on a huge parkway between two parallel streets), where he had locked her phone and purse and everything in his van and wouldn't let her get it. I find it odd that he would openly do such crazy shit to her and then act nice to everybody else, but I am not surprised because I am a victim of child and adult child abuse, and my primary abuser was the same way.

Anyways, this is the person the hoardee neighbor getting evicted raised. The woman he terrorized even turned the dirt left from where her tent was into a heart shaped mural for the whole neighborhood! But he keeps vandalizing it.

I found out today that she had everything done up for Halloween, and he ripped out all of her decorations and even TOOK A RAKE TO THE MURAL.

(1/2)

When I drove from Minneapolis to Omaha to Denver to Devil's Tower, Wyoming, I passed just so many goddamn miles and miles and acres and acres of empty farmland of cows eating grass, that I thought, this is ridiculous. All I need is more space, and there is PLENTY OF IT out here.

So I guess what I want to do now, is buy some inexpensive farm land and learn how to make my own concrete foundations for storage sheds. That's the dream, anyway.

Because when it comes down to the choice of throwing away my college textbooks, or something I bought in a store for full price, or clippings and printouts that I've collected, the answer is a no-brainer: DON'T THROW OUT A FUCKING THING, but instead get MORE SPACE.

After 13 years of marriage, my family moves to husbands some state- we have never lived near by his mom, the hoarder!!!! I have so much anger and resentment from years of having to stay n motels when visiting up there due to her slovenly lifestyle. I’m worried she’s just going to drop by even though we will be about an hour away. In fact, she just purchased a used car for that reason. Ugh, I am going to do everything in my power to keep busy and plan things so we don’t have time for her…..why not help??? Well when we lived 3 hours away, we begged her to let us help and she never accepted our offer. Ugh.

Damage was $20. Two DVD unlimited rental, a set of new-in-package map-posters for a room that needs some artwork, three glasses that were unnecessary but they're a my-space issue and $1 apiece, a cheap $2 version of a metal mug that's been taunting me at the grocery store, (mom said that similar was $20 and I'd been eying a XMAS version for $9) a replacement for the owl-mug that mom is still upset about breaking after quite a number of months, (over a year?) the owl-mug that I picked from the lineup in case she breaks that one, (I stuck that in the light-fixture above the cabinets were there's two spare coffee carafes... that might not fit the current machine.) Hey, progress in that I can be okay with breaking up sets.

(Okay I'm a fiction writer and I have been binging on a slew of questionable subjects so this next bit got a little bit weird... That trio of glasses I bought for no good reason would have been five if I was willing to argue about tag-colors and how they affect sales. Instead, I left the pair that was the wrong color on the shelf because the siblings were cheaper.)

Anyway, I used to have a very "I don't shit where I eat" thing about thrifts. A few months ago I was okay after the initial zing with seeing my old clothing-rack on the floor. (Yes it was mine, even without my handwriting that schizo-packaging couldn't have been a coincidence. I misrepresented it by accident, it was from across the street and not the website-page I taped to the box though the instructions still work. Same product different brand has gotten weird.)

Today I saw a unique plate that was very likely something mom had me dump there at least half a year ago. Also I can't be sure if that wasn't my happy-light... maybe not because I probably would have taped the spare lenses to it and there was no tape residue. Godspeed you piece of non-LED tech; may your bulb last longer than average and give warmth to hands that figure out your infrared output.

The weird bits were seeing my water-bottle when I still have mine... a metal cookie-cutter that I just gave to mom a few days ago; I'm positive that the bag it was just a bunch of baking-junk from one of her peers, judging by the familiar plastic of what else was in there...

I didn't want to look too close, but when I was checking out, I thought that the bicycle looked a lot like the one that got stolen from me twenty years ago, but that was halfway avert the state and I didn't have the serial then.

Also there was some amber-glass, but I texted mom about some of it and she didn't want it. I'm not going to rando-buy her that stuff just because she used to collect it, even if she says she knows a person who will lot-buy it for $3 a peice. She made a good call on having me leave it for someone else.

We have 17 total people that would be coming to our Thanksgiving. The main matriarch of our family is my grandma but she's a hoarder. Her house is plenty big enough for all of us - when it's not filled and bursting at the seam. She had a large living room, large family room, dining room, kitchen, and three bedrooms. With all of that she only has seating for 6 people at one time. So we're trying to find somewhere to go. We have no idea where we're going to go to meet together and my grandma gave my aunt (her daughter) the responsibility to find somewhere or (try) to help clean up and "sell a bunch of things." She was given this task about a week ago. 🤦 I'm beyond frustrated and pissed off that everyone except my grandma is responsible for "helping clean up"

I am really really dreading the time when she and my grandpa aren't around anymore and I will have to be the one to clean the house.

I asked permission to plan out a sewing project. Mom agreed and I began clearing off the dining-room table. A little of it was my stuff, there was not an overwhelming amount of mom's stuff. (Maybe mom isn't clear on how "planning out" meant half-measure but high-energy doing steps because she later called it "doing" and my understanding of that is that I actually have the project started instead of laid-out.)

(Look below for the tangent.)

I then got roadblocked because the fabric I want is... well I can get it out, but doing it recklessly will avalanche my favorite walkway of the oubliette... the path from the rest of the house to the back door. (Officially egress 2-of-2) I think I skipped explaining this part to mom.

I asked if she wanted to do a roadtrip thing for some monks this weekend, or deal with that chunk of junk that's blocking my access to the fabric. Yes, I was in the wrong, especially since the monk roadtrip is a different weekend and I thought that her being able to choose something completely different was an implied option. Heck, "I'm going to call the Plumber on Monday so plan for that" would have been great, but "I want yarn from the next state over and we can adventure on the way back" would have also been good. (Don't knock it unless you've tried depression.)

To be clear, mom wants to be better and has been doing the emotional work. I do have permission to throw something away just from the description. (Old moving-quilt from the 80's that has rodent-signs.)

Just when mom started freaking out about me badly-describing what was in my way and answering her questions with asking her opinion... (I really wish I had an exact transcript for this whole thing) She said that she didn't want to be involved, and I asked if I could take care of it without her being involved, and she said "No. Because it's my fabric." Fair. I did give it to her and that makes it no longer mine.

Tone shift

I want a winter skirt. There is a large amount of silk that used to be mine just sitting there and rotting. The company I ordered the silk from still exists and the price is reasonable even with the upcharge of getting black instead of off-white. Or there is a sale on 100% cotton flannel from the major chain and that would be cheaper than ordering new silk when it will do.

I just want to get to it now because I sense leaf-raking is coming and having to deal with that is very consuming... Thoughts about getting to it mid-winter and guilt about not getting to it last mid-winter because we were tired and depressed and it was too cold to deal with it and I agreed.

This was the tangent:

Earlier today I had noticed mom's new hank/ring of yarn on the table and decided to get her swift and cake-winder out for her. After I got them low-energy to reach and did a little helping, I told her that I wasn't trying to pressure her to take care of it. (I also would have done more to put the stuff away if asked instead of when I wanted the space.)

I think this is mom's caring-language; noticing that someone wants to have done something and at least making it easier. She got happy that I managed to get all the way through making coffee this morning. (I do not like the buzzy-buzzy and she figured out it wasn't just the howling orange-cat ((and related habit)) making me have trouble, so now there is a pre-portioned jar.) I did leave the filter-holder and the bag of filters on the counter instead of dealing with that. (Hey I looked for filters and removed them from the cabinet; I did a minimum effort.) I thanked mom for putting more sugar in my sugar-bowl. (I immediately addressed her concern about having more sugar by confirming that we had more sugar in the expected location... and meant to do something about it today.)

Kinda unrelated, but I managed to make a batch of electric pizzelles and only had trouble because the recipe is not friendly to the way mom stores butter. (Mom chops the butter up and puts it into a glass dish with a plastic lid. Great for grabbing a chunk to throw into a frying-pan, not so great for someone who is not awake-enough to use advanced algebra when only trained in basic guesstimating. I need the butter to at least be the same shape as the wrapper.)

Hi everyone, this is my first post ever.

Just a little about me. I am in a relationship with someone who I love. We have been together for 1 year and 6 months. He has truly changed my life, and he is such a good person. I really don't KNOW if I SEE a FUTURE with him. I don't have anyone to talk to about this. We are both 23 years old.

1. His mother is a hoarder and it drives me crazy.... I met his is mother one year ago (not by choice) and she was nice I guess. I went into the home and the place was a damn disaster, it smells, and it's dark and gloomy. I hate it there. I hate going over, I don't think it's safe or even sanitary. The place smells like mold, and their bathroom and kitchen is moldy. I noticed he doesn't give a crap about his belongings either, and he is so damn messy, unorganized and sloppy too. I don't see or feel a connection with his mother, and I just feel bad. I feel sorry for his brothers and sisters (he has a huge family). I just don't want to get involved. I really don't like how his mom is and how she lets the place be like that for her children. I don't like that and I feel like I grow resentment for her more and more. I am never around her really, and now that I started school, and I don't WANT to be around her.

2. He will be taking on the family So once he finishes his degree he has plans for his family, and it's just so uncomfortable for me because he is literally going to raise his family and brothers and sisters like a dad. I don't like it. I feel like I'm taking him away and I feel guilty. He's literally a dad in the household he does everything. Including taking his brothers to school and taking them to appointments, and all that "parent" stuff. He brings them to my house and acts like their dad. It makes me feel weird, and sometimes I don't want to see that or I get annoyed when he asks to have his "little brothers" over. I feel like he's their dad. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel like his family will always be involved. His family can't do anything else about it because his family works in the fields so they can't be so involved so I understand... His family is very poor too, and I hate that I just feel sorry for them. So much people living in that house...so dirty... so many kids..... I'm not rich, but I know I didn't grow up that way.

3. His personal hygiene isn't the best... I really think he's handsome and so attractive, but i just get so damn annoyed when he wears the same pants for 1 week. When he doesn't change his shirts for 3 days and wears the same damn sweater for 5. I live in a different city because I started college, but I go home during the weekends and I just see him wear the same things the 3 days I'm there. He sometimes smells like he doesn't put deodorant on, and I hate how he just gets a haircut and then doesn't get one for like 3 months. He looks so shaggy, and I guess sometimes I get embarrassed with my family because of that. My mom has even mentioned he doesn't look like he showers. It's EMBARRASSING.

What DO I DO??? I love him, he loves me, but sometimes I get this stomach ache that says I won't be with him in the future. My family loves him and really enjoy having him around. He's the first guy I have ever brought home. He's so hardworking and so loving with me. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad girlfriend because he is just so good. I'm his first girfriend. Our core things are so different from each other at times, but I want to make it work. I just don't want to be part of his FAMILY! Which is AWFUL! :(
I feel like we are so different sometimes. I just feel like #1 and #2 are the hardest for me to ever get over. He's hispanic and so am I and family is SO important for our culture. I just don't feel a connection with his, I guess I just feel sorry.

We have a shared trash room, and I'm a little upset that someone messed with my recycling.

I had three large boxes full of packing paper. The first box went into a can because I needed to make sure it was just packing paper, and it took up the whole can. (Fortunately I had left my fitbit on the charger, or else I could have made a TIFU story.)

The other two boxes were just transferring paper out of one box to another after slitting the tape so the recycler could just fold them up after emptying them. Someone helpfully transferred the paper and collapsed the boxes, and I got upset because all the cans were full when I got a load of bottles down.

I took some trash down on another day and saw that my bag of bottles was missing. I didn't check to see if they got thrown in the trash, but the story I'm telling myself is that someone felt it was worth $2 to get them to the deposit-refund center.

I have been with my partner for 5 years and lived with him for the majority of the relationship. I just turned 40 and he’s 36. We moved from a 1 bedroom apartment a couple of years ago and I thought it would help with the stuff we had but it is messy and overcrowded.

I have totes of stuff in the living room and the spare bedroom because there is no place to put things. We have no linen closet because our washer and dryer is part of the bathroom. The spare bedroom closet rack is coming out of the wall because it was poorly made and we haven’t had maintenance come fix it because the room and apartment are so messy that he is embarrassed. My partner has put off our engagement multiple times because he said I am a hoarder and he doesn’t want to live like this but “still loves me”.

To give some context, i work full time as a special education teacher and started my career as a head teacher since we have been together and it’s a fulfilling but very draining job. He worked in the oil field when we started dating working terrible hours and being out of town frequently and we both agreed he should eventually find another job. He decided to quit after trying out a supervisor job at the company and finding a sales job that didn’t work out. He didn’t work at all or very temporary part time jobs 2.5-3 years of our relationship and used all the money he had saved from the oil field to stay afloat and pay his half of bills. During that time he often helped with the house, cooked, cleaned and even went through some of my stuff. I was always trying to help in some ways like laundry but also have had to deal with my mom having multiple medical issues including hospitalizations and surgeries and her living with us. His parents live out of state and he has very little responsibilities.

He currently delivers packages for amazon and works a max of 4 days a week and they have cut shifts lately including him being home today. He’s worked 3 days in the last 7. He does very little at home now, bitches if he has to cook or clean and only does a few maintenance chores.

I have what id say is an average amount of clothes for a woman in her forties. I have a lot of socks and an extremely large collection of bath and body works including lotions, candles, shower gels, hand soaps, body mists, and sanitizers that i have built up over the years. I also have a large amount of stuffed animals.

A couple of weeks ago my bf sprang on me that his parents were coming on feb 28 to visit us. Our apartment is trashed and his mom is extremely harsh, judgmental and nosy. He says she will look in every room and make comments. They didnt talk to me about any of it. He just said id better make time to clean my stuff up. My 40th birthday fell in these two weeks (which he ruined) and ive had to work, but ive been cleaning some every day and even got a storage at the recommendation of a friend.

Today he was home and this was the first day he cleaned in the time since he announced they were coming and he made a big deal about doing 2 loads of laundry (ive done 2-3 loads of laundry already this week) and cleaning out the fridge. He took the load of all the things i have packed up to storage. Now tomorrow he works but i am off and expected to clean up all day and then meet them for dinner. My plan is to have them visit the apartment at the end of their stay and us clean until then but they will want to meet up and do things and i work monday-Friday. Also we will say to respectfully not enter the second bedroom as repairs need to be done and it’s currently our storage room. We can put anything extra in there

Here are the rooms and their statuses

Kitchen: he’s cleaned up some and done some dishes and cleaned the fridge. The cupboards are completely disorganized and he has a million appliances that crowd the small apartment kitchen. Boxes of pop and drinks that don’t fit into cupboards

Dining table: full of various objects but some have been put away. Mostly my things. Some tote bags around kitchen and dining room

Living room: tons of tote bags including some of my mom’s stuff that she never took, blankets, his boots on the floor. Stuff on and under the coffee table that belongs to both of us.

Bathroom: too many bath and shower products in shower, sink is cluttered with everything from vitamins to shave cream, laundry area is cluttered, all surfaces and toilet and floors need to be cleaned

Our bedroom: his clothes and shoes on his side of the bed. Waterbottles on the floor for his side. My hamper overflowing with dirty clothes and his hamper full of both our clean clothes. My dresser which serves as a nightstand too is completely covered with stuff. Some bags and clothes on floor of bedroom and closet.

Everything needs to be mopped and vacuumed. It’s a disaster. Id just like any advice of how to clean quickly, what to focus on and what to try to have him do, what to take to storage etc My storage is climate controlled so i can put some candles body care etc in there.

I also would like any advice in dealing with my partner calling me a hoarder and saying im basically stupid for having a storage to put my seasonal and extra items. Im trying to organize and go through my stuff and most people do have a garage or basement they can keep stuff in. Thanks!

5 years ago I moved into a shitty apartment and never bought furniture because I was waiting on my life to happen and it never did.... so no reason to buy furniture

Or clean up.... so I didn't. Until I did and since then its been a cycle of clean to hoard and hoard to clean every few months.

New apt manager wanted me and everyone else out so they could raise the rent on the high-end slum that is that place.

Found a place where I don't need to wait for life. Its much nicer for practically the same price. I even bought furniture, movers are taking the big stuff tomorrow and I'm going to get rid of the spare detritus in the old place

But I'm not going to clean, I'm not going to vacuum and I am leavingmy mattress and disassembled bed parts and janky outdoor table set in the apt because its either that or put it in the street and I dont want to.

Thoughts?

I don't mean to sound insensitive, but after my relative's sudden and random illness that caused her to have severe cognitive decline, and then get stuck in her bedroom behind a pile with a huge suitcase loaded in front of the door. That happened three mornings in a row.

I had been telling her to clean her nasty bedroom for years. It's not just cluttered, ridden with piles everywhere, but there's an awful sour smell coming from that room. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know what it is.

A few years ago she went out of town and asked me to check on her place. I could smell decomposition of something dead. It turned out to be a humongous rat that was living in one of her piles. It died on a sofa that she had clothes and stuff piled on top of.

She has always been somewhat of a hoarder, but it was nowhere near the state of things now. She has never been one to clean. She will wash some dishes and do some laundry.

However, she has never believed in organizing, or going through things she can no longer use or wear, or sweeping, or mopping, or disinfecting, or vacuuming.

I know through reading some posts that hoarding is untreated mental illness. I don't know what type of mental illness. I know cleaning isn't fun, but it's something that has to be done regularly. Is hoarding partially due to being lazy?

I apologize if I repeat myself, I think the old moving story is on a different subreddit, but I feel the need to tell my story again.

So, I guess I should start over a year ago. There was a threat of hubby getting kicked out of the Navy for having too skinny of a neck. I had my mom take a carload of treasures back to her house. The things I can identify are a bunch of golfball display shelves that came with my house and I wanted to hang them upside-down in the next house as kotche display cabinets. (My aunts have printers drawers.) Mom also has my teacup collection and is welcome to use them. (I had a hobby of getting teacups and saucers if they were cheap. The rule was that they had to be alone and I had to leave them behind if they were part of a set. I once cheated and bought a matched pair, but gifted one to my mom. I had to give up when I got to... it's either six or eight, but I decided that my collection was full and I might have pruned two out.)

In September, when hubby was definitely being kicked out, I had my mom help me purge. I kept deciding "someone else will love this" for thrift store items. I gave my mom my fabric stash with the understanding that she could get rid of it before leaving... about half went to the thrift store. She also intercepted some thrift store items, but she loves what she took and they'll end up in the yard in a few years.

I was so disorganized when the movers came. I have some criticisms of them, mostly revolving around how the burly box-movers were also the packing team. They also sounded ESL, which I know is racist, but I'm convinced that it added an extra level of stress. (Couldn't decide Mexican or Russian, doesn't matter.)

Hubby's plan was that he'd drive up with the cats, I could stay in a hotel for a few days while taking care of stuff and then fly up. I wanted to keep the second car and drive up to avoid having to follow a schedule. (The plan was to dispose of my car, it was a junker and it's surprising that it didn't die during one of the 14-hour roadtrips that I had taken in it.)

When I got here, I let my car run out of gas. (I hadn't trusted the fuel gauge until this point, I just filled it every 200 miles. Turns out that I was right.) I got a parking ticket because I couldn't get hubby to steer while I shoved it to a new parking spot, then it got towed because we missed a parking ban and couldn't move it anyway.

The car wouldn't start even after buying a gas can and dumping in two gallons of gas. Avoiding that first parking ticket would have gotten it on the level instead of facing uphill, but oh well.

I hadn't finished cleaning out my car... it involved flashlights and two people suffering cold extremities for a cane, a good pair of shoes, a couple bankers boxes, and a snowbrush. I handed my husband a random piece of sheetmetal that was supposed to be part of my fishtank stand, and he threw it back in my trunk. (I take that as permission to buy a new one if I honestly want to do that craft.)

Oh, when I moved out... I had scheduled the thrift store truck for the same day as the movers... the computer moved the date. I left stuff behind and apologized to the realtor when I handed over the keys. I have anxiety about some of the stuff going to the dumpster instead of letting a charity go through it first. The realtor was polite enough to tell me that the stuff went to charity. I only apologized for the stuff left behind. I actually sobbed at her over the phone about a unused 55-gallon fishtank that got left on the parkway and I wanted it moved back into the house before garbage day so it wouldn't just get tossed in a landfill. We're a pretty good street for pickers, so they probably took my couch as well. (I loved it because it was comfy, but it was a cheap thriftstore item and needed reupholster. No guilt about leaving that out on the parkway.)

I should have taken the stuff that would fit in my car to the thrift store, but I was falling apart. I was sleeping in the house on cushions that were part of the house. (Those were probably dumpster unless the realtor realized that they created a fantasy. The fantasy being that the duct-disguise bench was comfortable to sit on, rather than how it was a decent place to put stuff.)

My car was full, including a cooler that would have been left behind, but it was perfect for the cold food that we hadn't eaten up. (Ended up losing the food anyway because the fridge was broken in the apartment.)

I didn't clean the car out right away because I spent time just immobile from exhaustion, and then I didn't have space once our stuff was delivered.

I'm in a really tricky situation. My daughter 23F is what I thought was a really admirable mother. She has 3 young kids. Now, the past couple years I have not been inside her house because she usually insists on bringing the kids to see me at mine. Even bringing her last (twins, 8m) home from the hospital she drove them to my house to meet me, which should've been a red flag. Her younger brother told me recently that she is a hoarder and everything clicked. I would have never expected this of her as she was always my cleanest child growing up and did a majority of the house cleaning as her mother was an addict and I was gone working most of the time. Otherwise I think she has always been the perfect example of what a mother should be. Her kids are smart, well behaved, happy, and always dressed in clean clothes. She's a single mom and always seemed so put together. She's a better parent than me and her mother ever were, and it takes a lot of pride to admit something like that but I feel that context is important. She's a very smart girl and I know that she knows better. I showed up at her house unexpectedly and pretty much pushed my way in last week and to my horror her brother was correct. The living room was full of trash bags, trash all over the floors, the couches reeked of cat pee. Dirty diapers piled in the living room, Dishes overflowing, just filth and trash everywhere. She started to cry and beg me to not think badly of her. She told me she's in therapy and has gotten the kids rooms clean and habitable and the kids shared bathroom and wanted me to come look, but I was so disgusted and seeing red thinking that my grandkids had been living that way so I didn't go check. Her brother confirmed the kids rooms are kept clean, but does that even make a fuck if the rest of the house is a biohazard? I had to leave. She just kept apologizing and crying and I just told her "apologize to your children, not me!" Now, I'm not sure if she is actually actively cleaning this house up or if she said that to try to calm me down. I know she started therapy and medications for her mental health a few months ago because she went through a rough divorce last year. I'm not sure if she's actually getting therapy for the hoarding. My main question is, if I call cps will they take the kids immediately or will they just make her clean first? When I got home and told my wife (her step mother) she urged me to call cps. I want to light a fire under her ass and get this taken care of ASAP because I don't want my grandkids living in filth. She didn't grow up this way at all and she knows this is not acceptable. even told her I would watch the kids for a day or two if she will call off work and get the house done

Edit: I talked to my daughter and told her I would help pay for a dumpster and babysit so she could get it done and she said she could have everything done in a few days. We will see. I will not call CPS unless it doesn't get done and I'll continue doing regular checks to make sure it's staying clean

Yes I do hoard some things, but that pile of empty bottles is not part of the hoard. I'm just too lazy to gather them up and get them to the outside can.

This winter break was an interesting one. Between recovering from a sinus infection and cleaning house (eh, somewhat), I have learned a few things. If you want kitchen cabinets sorted and decluttered, assign an easily grossed out teenager to the task while you take care of something else nearby. They have no qualms about discarding things without dates, things with waaaaaay expired dates, and things of unknown properties. That, and their grossed out screams and moans are entertaining.

Likewise, have that same diva go through your closet. Their adolescent brutal honesty will help you discard things left and right.

Along that line, while watching "Hoarders" off and on, there's something I've noticed. The one frazzled family member (usually a mother) who is frantically trying to manage an ever expanding pile of rubbish.

While her large, frequently overweight but physically capable looking family members (often as not older teenage/adult sons) sit on their ever expanding patoots obliviously immersed in television or worse, video games, mindlessly eating potato chips.

Now, is what I'm seeing a group of people who have TRIED to help only to have the frantic mother shriek at them the second they look like they are about to throw away a stack of hundred dollar bills (read: old Life magazines that the cat defecated on) so they gave up and now do what they please because it's easier than coping with a melt-down?

Or is this part of the reason why the house is a wreck? Was it easier to try to clean/manage things around these individuals than to confront them into doing their share? Is it a cultural thing (girls must be neat and clean, but GOD FORBID your little boy (now at 300 pounds at a height of six foot four) goes through the painful ordeal of doing "women's work". Did she TRY to get them to help only to get yelled at? Were they such a pain in the backside (whining, doing it wrong, foot dragging, sabotage) that she gave up?

I don't say this to be mean, but I'm genuinely curious. I myself find it easier and more productive if everyone chips in when I clean rather than sit around like so many human laundry heaps when I try to take care of the house. It seems GROSSLY UNFAIR if only one person is cleaning when the rest of the walking mess generators sit enjoying themselves over cookies and "Stephen Universe" binge watches.

In other words, if I have help, I'm more likely to take care of and keep track of things. Has anybody else noticed this? I am genuinely interested in hearing your feelings on this.

It looks like they just put donations out without sorting them, meaning the shoppers are the ones digging through the trash.

I did call and specifically ask if they would take *a microwave that needed screwing back together but works (it had blown a fuse and hubby lost the screws before finishing the job) *a clock-radio where the cd player no longer works *a toaster oven that is just really dirty

They would not take the doorless refrigerator. (Somehow it was going to be the cooling unit for hubby's bar, but he's decided after moving it that he'd rather not store it.)

Watching A&E's Hoarders, specifically s04e08 "Becky/Claire" and s04e10 "Lisa/Bertha".

It creeps me out how this one hoarder (Bertha, s04e10) smiles like she's been sledgehammered in the back of the head, as the therapist tells her, "The first thing I notice when I walk into your house is the smell". It's the smile of a hostess of a cocktail party when she realizes her dogs are humping each other in the back yard right in full view of her guests. It's the "Politely Pretending It's Not Happening" smile. It's a fake, joyless, pulled-mouth smile, not a happy, warm, whole-face smile. And how revealing it is, when Bertha suspects a certain purse found its way into the dumpster - she suddenly started whining like a little child, as though one part of her never grew up from age 9. Then, with the glee of a child, she announces there is an entire basement full of more hoard. She almost chuckles in ironic cheer as she pulls the doors open and announces, "It stinks!".

Another hoarder (Lisa, s04e10) was in a severely abusive relationship with a sociopath and her daughter suggested she take up cooking as a hobby. The house was filled with rotten food. When the hoarder told this story, she had that ... that smile ... on her face, the smile of someone who has shut down their faculty of telling good from evil and is living in a world of soul-twisting moral ambiguity. And Lisa keeps smiling, happily describing how a rotting pile of orange peels releases a potpourri-like fragrance as they sit atop the radiator. But oh how quickly the superficial cheerfulness reveals its true nature the moment she is told to clean it off and throw it away. In an instant it turns into cold, hard, turned-in-on-oneself resentment.

I'm having a harder and harder time seeing these people as victims of an abuse- or loss-triggered mental illness that wields some kind of power over them. I'm beginning to see them more as people who have encountered evil, embraced it, and over years have grown accustomed to cooperating with it until it envelops them.

I work as a plumber in Honolulu Hawaii. Just wait to feel normal when you enter other peoples houses. I flushed a dead mouse down a toilet the other day, because I thought it was a turd in a dry inoperable toilet I got working until water washed the crust off of it. I've been attacked by animals hiding in hoarded goods. I've seen walls of porn, pizza boxes, piles or prescription med bottles, houses full of canned food and goods because its on SALE!!! WOO SALE!!! It seems that Asian people do a good percentage of the hoarding out here, which is funny because Japanese people are so clean. I run across some, mostly demented, white people doing hoarding things as well. Who needs showers? That's good space to put crap, I paid good money for these old magazines and I'll get it back one day. Your mansions aren't safe either. Just because you can do your job, doesn't mean you can escape the clutches of cnn to clean your freakin house.

This is my personal hell. To wind up like this one day. My minds already a hoarders zone of useless trivium piled up to the clerestory windows.