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Original poster

Decluttering when you live with a ‘hoarder’

58 replies

ItsMyIssue · 26/01/2019 11:33

Just finished a part refurb of the house. I have now started a declutter. The massive problem is with DH, he has 3 wardrobes full of clothes, office full of computer things, hobby stuff and equipment. The double garage is full, the loft is full. His reasoning is ‘we might need it, we don’t want to pay out to replace it’. The thing is he has so much stuff he doesn’t even know what he’s got. His solution is to get more storage. I’m so fed up. The refurb was to improve our home but it’s made it worse, as all this stuff is now everywhere waiting to be sorted. I’ve offered to help but ‘I wouldn’t know what’s important’ and he had very little free time to do it. Suggestions? Please help.

OP posts:
BarbaraofSevillle · 26/01/2019 12:28

The problem is that with all the IKEA blind cutters etc we are just filling the world with plastic unnecessarily

I agree, but I refuse to live in a house full of clutter to keep things I probably won't need again out of the waste stream, and it's not even landfill in my city as all non recyclable waste is incinerated.

What I would like to see is neighbourhood sharing systems for things that you are only likely to need occasionally, like the ikea blind cutter, like the sewing machine I use about once every five years, like hedge trimmers that are used a handful of times a year, etc etc.

cantfindname · 26/01/2019 12:30

Oh, I forgot to mention the 500 DVDs, and then the CDs and even a few cassette tapes...

Hotterthanahotthing · 26/01/2019 12:30

I would start with the clothes.Empty the wardrobes.Put back in things that he does use and any special occasion things.Then let him go through and pick out a few things.Put the rest in bin bag and cram into garage,if he 'needs' an item he can get it but everything still in those bags gets thrown after 6 months.

justasking111 · 26/01/2019 12:35

My OH had four, yep four sheds in the garden. Between moves of a house we hired a rental unit storage metal type thing. All the come in handy stuff went in there. It was there for months. If your DH cannot still bear to part with it he can womble down to his storage unit to stroke and caress all his bits and pieces.

Some good tips for your partner on how to store his treasure.

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PurpleWithRed · 26/01/2019 12:39

Hoarding can be a sign of insecurity/instability, and may well be linked to a sense of having been abandoned at some stage. It's not a rational habit when it reaches your husband's level and is unlikely to be 'solved' with a rational approach. He may well benefit from counselling.

museumum · 26/01/2019 12:40

My dh doesn’t like to throw things away but I regularly sort out a box of storage area - I lay out all the eg cables on the table and say to him; what are each of these for? If we know we label and keep, if we don’t know they go in a halfway house box in the loft which if not opened for six months becomes a give away/recycle box.
Same for clothes etc. I put all his shoes or shirts out in a row one day and ask him to choose wardrobe, storage or give away. Things in storage get given away if not unearthed for six months or so.

Slipperboots · 26/01/2019 12:48

I chuck lots behind DHs back as he is prone to hoarding. He doesn’t remember/want these things until he sees them anyway.
He’s banned from buying anything new unless he gets rid of something else now.

Wordthe · 26/01/2019 12:50

It strikes me that whatever happens however it goes down the hoarder creates a large amount of unnecessary work for the other person

Wordthe · 26/01/2019 12:54

The nonhoarder has to expend time and mental energy dealing with the hoarde having to come up with clever schemes to organise the hoarder and deal with their problem
all the hoarder does is carry on as they like or perhaps restrain themselves a bit from buying new things
Locked together like the addict and the enabler unable to escape from all the stuff in the shared home

Ploppymoodypants · 26/01/2019 13:05

I live with a hoarder and slightly understand him and I have a tendency to do it too.

What I do, with his clothes is put them to wash and then leave at bottom of ironing pile for 6 months. Then if he hasn’t worn or asked for them I put in suitcase in loft. After 2 years I then donate to charity or bin. He has r noticed me doing this in 13 years!
Also it’s worth finding out why he hordes.DH hates waste and brings other people’s stuff home all the time. (If they were throwing out) and he can’t see wear and stains and thinks everything is ‘brand new condition’!
So I tell him I have given stuff to a friend. I try and choose a friend who I know he thinks of as a low earner or in need. So I say, oh can fred have that Hoover you bought home? His has broken and he can’t afford to replace it. DH will agree to this, so then I can just take it to recycling centre (I do have to tip ‘fred’ off though 😉).

FevertreeLight · 26/01/2019 13:08

It would have been much quicker and less stressful to just go and buy another one, than to look for it.

But less environmentally friendly and unethically. Have you considered how Ikea manage to sell a blind for £2- not ethically.

Original poster
ItsMyIssue · 26/01/2019 13:14

Thanks for all your replies. I think DH is also now quite clearly faced with how much money he has ‘wasted’ buying more and also multiples of things because ‘it’s a bargin’ so is trying to justify that we need it.
I’m sure it stems from his childhood, very poor, most clothes from jumble sales, toys never in boxes for Christmas etc. Now he has money through a good job and can buy things, but then needs to hold on to them because he knows what it’s like to not have much. I’m going to have another difficult conversation with him again tonight.

OP posts:
Asta19 · 26/01/2019 14:16

I agree that three wardrobes of clothes is excessive! No doubt about that. But I don’t like the way now that anyone who doesn’t get on board the declutter train is seen as a hoarder. If someone tried to get me to get rid of 90% of my stuff I’d be fighting too! I’m not a hoarder. I have what used to be classed as a normal amount of things. But everyone else has changed! Luckily I live alone so it doesn’t affect anyone else. I think when you talk to him just try and understand where he’s coming from and agree a solution together. One you can both live with.

PowerslidePanda · 26/01/2019 14:22

If a woman posted on Mumsnet, saying that she and her husband had talked about needing more storage, and he had then proceeded to throw out her belongings, that she had told him she wanted to hold to in case they were needed, people would be outraged. So why are some people telling the OP to take it upon herself to just get rid of his things?

OP - aside from the above, you've had some great suggestions on this thread. Based on your recent post, I reckon the approach that Ploppy described might appeal to him - put it to him as donating the multiples of things he has to people who don't have much themselves, just like he used to.

justasking111 · 26/01/2019 14:26

Wardrobes of clothes can depend on hobbies and the associated clothing. For instance you can have summer and winter hobbies plus work wear, casual wear.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 26/01/2019 14:41

My husband hoards and my kids do a bit too.

With DH he comes from a family of hoarders, DFIL house is full of shit. He also buys stuff that he doesn't want as it's cheap, just crap from charity shops, then hides it in our house as he knows of he said do you want this I'd say no.

I find it negatively impacts on my mental health. I am not super tidy but am organised and don't put emotional value on stuff. I want the things I need I want them to work I want them to have a home. My idea of nice cuoboard is some space so you can we what's in there. DH sees this as space and fills it up. Open a cupboard stuff falls on your head. His wardrobe is overflowing. I have no idea and don't want to know about the loft.

Occasionally I freak out and shout a lot. It really stresses me out having this shit everywhere. I think it makes him feel cosy.

He seems to be incapable of really dying anything about it and I spend loads of time reorganising, clearing out, making cupboards better then he just fucks them up again.

Feel depressed now!

Wordthe · 26/01/2019 17:39

If I lived with a hoarder I would tell him that we are incompatible and get my own place

CatnissEverdene · 26/01/2019 17:42

Can you designate one area for his hoard? Say one room or the shed/garage but it has to go from everywhere else.

And give him one massive plastic box every weekend saying he has to fill it and recycle it. Focus him on one bit at a time.

Wordthe · 26/01/2019 17:47

the problem is that the hoarder has all the power

ragged · 26/01/2019 17:52

His reasoning is ‘we might need it, we don’t want to pay out to replace it’.

That was (is) me. What helped me declutter was reasoning that if I only replaced 1/3 of it (after getting rid), I was still better off by being free of that 1/3.

In reality (5 yrs) I've probably only had to replace 5% of stuff I have decluttered. Still not natural, but much improved. I try to sell unwanted stuff on Ebay so I can't even complain that decluttering put me out of pocket.

One tip I heard that seemed stupid at first but I use it a lot now is "If I wanted this thing, would I remember where to find it?" If answer = "No", out it goes!! Also super important not to buy any new things you can avoid.

I'm ruthless in the office. It's just home decluttering that is difficult.

Catrina1234 · 26/01/2019 17:53

Oh dear - I am married to a hoarder. We've been together 45 years and h didn't used to be like this because it was a small house and with 2 children there was no space. We moved to a bigger house some 30 years ago and the hoarding gradually started and it's grown and grown. I couldn't stand the clutter in the bedroom so dispatched him to spare room, which he was ok about buy my god you should see it. If he was ill I'd have to drag him out of the landing. He has the loft and cellar full, and his music room is cluttered but not so bad.

I don't know how to tackle it - I've tried so many times and he agrees but never gets around to it. If I agree to help, we are usually arguing within 5 mins as he can't bear me touching his things as he thinks I'm going to throw them away. He always reminds me that he is nowhere near as bad as the ones you see on TV and he isn't, but if I wasn't here he would have the whole house like a tip. He doesn't put anything away after using it and doesn't try to find anything. Yes it's always "that might come in useful for something..............." I do sneak things away and he rarely notices. People say "what does he collect" but the Q is "what does he throw away -nothing, or very little. I do get totally fed up with it, but have read that it is a form of OCD, the opposite side to the person who wants everything in order. I have tried to be more sympathetic and he says he hates living in clutter but lacks the motivation to change. We are in our mid 70s so I don't think he will change now. Yes nothing on telly I clear things out and he just fills the space with something else. I did read a book about hoarders and it said "never create more space or the hoarder will fill it. They like to collect storage boxes and I remember being relieved in IKEA to see him buying all these storage boxes, but has he used them NO,

Good wishes to people living with a hoarder!

StripeyChina · 26/01/2019 17:55

It's good you can see it stems from his deprived childhood.

It will help you remain patient whilst you hopefully come up with a plan to tackle it together. If he finds this distressing then it is rather difficult. Sometimes the threat to 'get rid' can trigger insecurity and make the hoarding worse :(

Wordthe · 26/01/2019 17:58

he hates living in clutter
but it's a very easy way to keep you in a stressed and angry state so he carries on with it
I think it's just a passive-aggressive way of dominating the household

CommunistLegoBloc · 26/01/2019 18:03

God I identify with this so much. My partner keeps everything. I’m ruthless when it comes to common areas, but all the cupboards are jammed with his crap, and our spare bedroom is a write-off. I’ve surrendered it to him. Guests have to sleep in my study (I work from home) because I’m too embarrassed to make them sleep in a junk room.

There’s just so much. And he buys more. All to do with his ‘hobbies’. He gets obsessed with a certain thing and then has to have EVERYTHING associated with that thing even before he knows if he needs it or not.

I am the other end of the spectrum and my mental health really suffers when things are messy or cluttered. We’ve made a deal that when we move, he’ll get a garage to fill. But I know he’ll expand and start on the house again. Just like he did with the shed. He’s also insisting on his own room in the new house, but that just means we lose a much needed bedroom. And I’ll be giving up my work space again for guests.

Urgh sorry, total rant. Just so frustrating :(

Alanamackaree · 26/01/2019 18:21

I don’t think you can declutter for another person. It’s a personal journey. And issues with stuff go quite deep.

The impulse to solve clutter by buying more storage isn’t uncommon but
blog or this podcast tackles the problems with this reasoning.

One thing that has helped dh and I is to have a designated area for our own stuff, and designated clutter free areas where we both have to agree before putting anything in.

I’m also going to say, gently, that the term hoarder gets thrown around very casually. It’s not unusual for people to find themselves living with far too much stuff because things are so much cheaper than they were in the past. Minimalism is taking off because there’s a generation of people struggling with belongings that no previous generation could afford to accumulate. It may be more productive to discuss the issue in terms of the zeitgeist rather than jumping in with pathologies and labels.