Anyone else's DH a hoarder?

[BroccoliRob]

Title may be slightly misleading...but was struggling to come up with a concise one.
Anyway...DH isn't a hoarder like the horror programmes on TV, but he is constantly coming hone with things that someone has been throwing away and he thought it was too good to ditch. I am all for recycling and I hate to think of perfectly good items going to the tip, but I just don't want them in my house/garage when we have no use for them whatsoever!
Latest item is a fish tank - we don't have fish, no-one in the family is interested in fish, including him, but he thought it would be nice for the kids. All kids adamant that they do not want it in their room.
What's the best way to handle this? Just accept it?

In my experience the answer is to put your foot down and challenge it. Also to hire a skip and be ruthless for him.

Yes!! Exactly that,! He jokes that the tip is his favourite shop. Always comes back with something I then have to try to get rid of. (sometimes some bargains though like trunkis or scooters)

I come from a home where other peoples random thrown out (and often dirty) rubbish magically became our furniture. I now have a severe aversion to anything second hand. Nip this in the bud pronto.

There is no way you should be tolerating this. This is how major hoarding problems often begin. Tell him the fish tank goes NOW, and get rid of any other useless crap while you're at it. If you turn a blind eye to this, I guarantee you'll wake up one day to a hoarded house.

Occasionally I have tried throwing out small and completely useless items and he has not been happy. I just don't think he can bring himself to get rid of anything. I bought him a new washbag as his old one was falling apart and he is now using both.

My DP would be a hoarder given q chance, and was before we met.
I am pretty ruthless with clutter, so try to tone it down a bit as I realise how extreme I am, but I just don't let it build up.
He's a bugger for taking over corners of rooms, and that would inevitably spread, so I jump on everything straight away.
I regularly make piles for the tip, and rather than ask him what to take I lay it all out and ask him if he wants to keep anything. If he says yes we talk about if / why we need it...99% of the time he's being ridiculous and agrees we can get rid. I also give stuff to family, away on FB or whatever.
Honestly you need to be ruthless, otherwise the shit will just build up before you've had chance to blink.

Occasionally I have tried throwing out small and completely useless items and he has not been happy.

Too fucking bad. Remind him as often as necessary that he's not the only person who lives in the house and that no one else wants this useless crap around. You simply can't tolerate this for a minute.

@Aquamarine1029

There is no way you should be tolerating this. This is how major hoarding problems often begin. Tell him the fish tank goes NOW, and get rid of any other useless crap while you're at it. If you turn a blind eye to this, I guarantee you'll wake up one day to a hoarded house.

I honestly feel like it's already going that way. I literally cannot move in the garage for the amount of useless crap in there - some of it hasn't been touched for at least 20 years. I kid you not. How do I sort it out though? I would be furious if he threw out any of my possessions without asking and I know he would feel the same.

Tell him to hire a storage unit out of his own money and let him junk that up to his hearts content. If all money is in one pot, then he gives something up to pay for it.

Yes. I Chuck it all away when he's not looking.

Tell him to hire a storage unit out of his own money and let him junk that up to his hearts content.

This is a terrible idea as it will only encourage him to hoard and hide even more. You might soon find yourself financially screwed because so much money is going towards storage units.

I think you need to issue an ultimatum, and mean it. Make an agreement that whatever junk does not get used within 2 weeks time gets binned. If he refuses then I’d demand he go to a psychologist to diagnose and treat whatever mental health issue he has that’s causing him to hoard 20 years worth of crap.

I remember once on Love it or List it, Kirstie took some things out of the living room and said the couple could have them back if they remembered what was missing. I thought that was a pretty good test. They couldn't remember and it was all crap anyway, so they got rid of it.

@HighlandCowbag

Tell him to hire a storage unit out of his own money and let him junk that up to his hearts content. If all money is in one pot, then he gives something up to pay for it.

Nooo, have you not seen Hoarders?!

People just buy more and more storage units and get themselves into hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt buying more and more stuff.

OP - hoarding is a mental disorder. It's not something you can fix on your own. Your DH needs professional help.

@cupsofcoffee I know, and I do think he needs help - I've told him this. But he honestly thinks it is completely normal and that I'm the strange one for suggesting that things need to go.
I don't know how I can make him understand. It's like talking to a brick wall.

[quote BroccoliRob]@cupsofcoffee I know, and I do think he needs help - I've told him this. But he honestly thinks it is completely normal and that I'm the strange one for suggesting that things need to go.
I don't know how I can make him understand. It's like talking to a brick wall.[/quote]
I don't think there's anything you can do

It's a mental illness - they have to want to be helped, and even then, the compulsion to hoard can be just too much.

I think you need to decide whether it's something you can live with or not. Remember to look after yourself and remember, you don't need to stick with someone who is mentally unwell. It's totally okay to put yourself first.

I have a friend whose husband is a hoarder. It is now severely impacting their 9 year old son - to the extent that he tells his father if his mother gets rid of anything. She is beginning to think that she may need to separate from her husband.

I feel your pain OP. I have to constantly tell DH to move stuff from the corner of the living room, or it will spread outwards.
Our garage is also full of rubbish, only yesterday I told him to get a tip slit booked & borrow the inlaws' trailer, so we can get rid of a load at once.

Does anyone know what causes it?
I have my thoughts about why he's like this but not sure if it's the real reason.

*tip slot! 😆

@Horsemad

I feel your pain OP. I have to constantly tell DH to move stuff from the corner of the living room, or it will spread outwards. Our garage is also full of rubbish, only yesterday I told him to get a tip slit booked & borrow the inlaws' trailer, so we can get rid of a load at once.

Does anyone know what causes it?
I have my thoughts about why he's like this but not sure if it's the real reason.

Often severe trauma.

Oh 🤨 that's not what I thought at all.

Massive sympathies OP but no constructive advice I’m afraid. Hoarding as a disorder freaks me out so much that I’d probably go about it completely the wrong way (ie just bin the lot and tell him to get help). Given that it is a mental health issue, though, my approach would almost certainly not be the right thing to do.

There will be reasons for the hoarding, though, it is often around anxiety and control, and finding comfort in being surrounded by ‘stuff’. There’s a book by the author Lisa Jewell called ‘The House We Grew Up In’ which is an interesting (and fairly easy) read - it’s all about a hoarder seen through the eyes of both the hoarder herself as the disorder develops, and the eyes of her family. It’s only a novel but some of the themes around hoarding disorder and the way Jewell weaves them into the story are quite insightful.

No idea how you get your DH to seek help though. Sorry you are having to live like this.

DH loves buying shit off Amazon and eBay. As soon as the parcel arrives I loudly announce ‘what junk have you bought !’

Some delights are - a treadmill he never used and didn’t have room for and various projectors and stands for said projectors so we can have a movie night. Said ‘movie night’ has never happened as we have a very large tv!

@Horsemad

I feel your pain OP. I have to constantly tell DH to move stuff from the corner of the living room, or it will spread outwards. Our garage is also full of rubbish, only yesterday I told him to get a tip slit booked & borrow the inlaws' trailer, so we can get rid of a load at once.

Does anyone know what causes it?
I have my thoughts about why he's like this but not sure if it's the real reason.

With my DH I think it comes from his mum because she is the same. She is very neat and tidy, but every single drawer and cupboard is neatly stuffed full of a load of unnecessary shit. But also! I think my DH has undiagnosed ADHD which might be a factor? I don't know.

@FlyingPandas

Massive sympathies OP but no constructive advice I’m afraid. Hoarding as a disorder freaks me out so much that I’d probably go about it completely the wrong way (ie just bin the lot and tell him to get help). Given that it is a mental health issue, though, my approach would almost certainly not be the right thing to do.

There will be reasons for the hoarding, though, it is often around anxiety and control, and finding comfort in being surrounded by ‘stuff’. There’s a book by the author Lisa Jewell called ‘The House We Grew Up In’ which is an interesting (and fairly easy) read - it’s all about a hoarder seen through the eyes of both the hoarder herself as the disorder develops, and the eyes of her family. It’s only a novel but some of the themes around hoarding disorder and the way Jewell weaves them into the story are quite insightful.

No idea how you get your DH to seek help though. Sorry you are having to live like this.

Yes I've read that book. The mother in it is like an extreme version of my MIL. In the same way that the mother in that saves the quality street wrappers, my MIL saves the plastic from loaves of bread, the cellophane from greetings cards and the paper bags that medicine comes in from the chemist.