Yes. I tend to think of him as an 'accumulator' rather than a hoarder, only because hoarding to me implies some sort of thought and decision behind it. I know that's not the definition of it - but I think DP's accumulating is a mix of keeping things for some vague, unspecified future purpose (thus giving what it basically rubbish some sort of value, which keeps it from the bin) - it is partly that he does not sort through or organise things. So things that have real value (bank statements, family photographs, receipts) are lost in huge piles of old newspapers, empty envelopes, old fliers, notes, old invitations, broken electrical items etc etc. This stops him from easily just putting things in the recycling or the bin.
He also tends not to put clothes away, dumping them in heaps. And he has a lot of clothes.
I think he also has some intention of getting round to it all one day. When I challenge him about why he is keeping things, or why there are just great heaps of rubbish in his room, he always gets angry and tells me he's just been too busy to sort it all out. But he has boxes of things from college days 20 years ago that he has just moved from one address to another. No time to sort through it all in all of twenty years?
The 'not letting people upstairs' is something I've experienced. I too have tried to limit the accumulating to DP's work room, and the shed - but it just takes over. It happens on a 'micro' level as well as largescale. So surfaces are littered with scraps of paper - receipts that don't need to be kept and should go straight in the bin - handfuls of loose change, as he does not use a wallet so constantly empties his pockets whenever he walsk into the house - odd scraps and lids and pens and screws and batteries and endless, endless pieces of paper. A leaflet for a church someone has given him in the street, a charity letter he hasn't opened, etc etc. It just gets left there, and then more things arrive next to it or on top of it, and then it becomes a Pile Of Stuff, and apparently part of the architecture of our home.
We have been together for ten years and are in our second house now. The house move was extremely traumatic, as I made it clear that we were not just moving heaps of rubbish from one house to the next. I think I was only able to insist on this as nearly all of the money behind the move was mine, IYSWIM. He did throw some things away - he also just boxed up a lot of things, and they are currently sitting in his new work room. Where new piles of stuff are accumulating on top of them.
DP has a history of chronic depression but always refused to go for counselling or therapy, preferring just to take high doses of antidepressants. A few years ago he decided he was not depressed anymore, and stopped taking them. I think he is probably right, but who am I to know. I do think that he still has many 'habits' and thought patterns/responses etc of a depressed person, and I think the inability to manage his possessions and environment is part of that.
Which does leave me with a big problem - if he never sort help for his depression, he won't go for help with hoarding. As he doesn't even recognise it as such. It's just that he's 'too busy' to sort through things and throw stuff away.
I tried a few years ago to help by buying him some storage stuff from ikea. He was complaining that he didn't have anywhere to put things, and if he did then it would all be tidier, and he'd be able to find things. So I bought him the units he wanted. He started trying to sort through things ihis room, which admittedly was a huge task - then ground to a halt. Weeks later, I opened a drawer in his storage units, just to see if he had put anything in it. It was full of rubbish. As in, he had just scooped up some of the piles of crap lying around his room and stuffed it in the drawers. Hadn't sorted or thrown anything away.
I wish I had seen this problem for what it was earlier. I believed him when he said it was just lack of time, or that he was going to get round to it. But after ten years, I can see this will never happen. It isn't a containable problem, either. It's like a creeping fungus or damp, that comes out of his room and into every living space. I wish I knew what to do. As it is, all I do is periodically lose my temper, or scoop up a load of things, and just dump them in his room. Which can't really hold much more, it is crammed as it is.
Any thoughts? anyone else manage to do anything positive about this problem?