Just spent the last 9 hours cleaning my parents filthy hoarded house….

[HairyBananas]

And made so little progress that I could actually weep.

Quasi hoarding conditions combined with shopping addiction, chain smoking and an no cleaning done in the last 5 years. Thankfully no resistance to throwing things out 🙌 I was fully armed with cleaning stuff and large packing boxes for paperwork, which there is A LOT of.

I spent the first 4 hours tackling bedroom and small spare room, before moving on to the kitchen diner. Made so little progress there in 5 hours thanks to sorting paperwork and wires/other shite for packing. There’s very little maneouvre room which didn’t help when moving things about.

Need to get back there early tomorrow to make another stab at the remainder of the kitchen diner and the bathroom, which is totally vile.

Theres an adult social worker calling Monday and there’ll be trouble if it isn’t at least habitable by then.

I thought I had a good plan in chucking all the dirty clothes into bags and paper into boxes as these are the 2 biggest issues but it turns out that my mum has literally been repeatedly buying toiletries and other items as these ones she originally had became inaccessible due to the hoard.

I love my parents, they are good people so I don’t want to bash them, but I am just so sad at how they live.

Any advice is welcome for tomorrow!

Can anyone else help you?
It’s an awful thing to deal with, although at least they aren’t being aggressive or obstructive I guess.

Having had a family member that lived in hideous conditions I would say that it is not a job for you.

Let them get into 'trouble' - if you clean it all out now they will just fill it faster and do even less.

If you really want to help get them to pay for help, not rely on you. If they cannot clean up after themselves they need professional help anyway.

This sounds like too big a job for one person OP.

Would it really be the worst thing for social work to see how they have been living? More help might be forthcoming instead of you staving things off just in time.

It's a huge stress and responsibility on you. What's the end point here?

I cleared out my parents hoarder house after my mum died. my dad has dementia so wasnt able to object really which helped.

It's a big 5 bedroom house with utility, office, double garage etc. all of it crammed with stuff.

I tacked it by starting with the very smallest room- the downstairs toilet. Once that was done I felt a little bit better because I'd gotten one of the rooms done. Then I moved onto the utility room. Eventally cleared the house but took many months and skips.

But yes, it definately helped clearing one room at a time starting with the smallest.

You can get companies who specialise in this. Sometimes it's easier to let someone else with no emotional connection do it.

I think you taken on a lot /too much for one person . Can you hire a cleaning company? And a skip?
Elderly relative house not hoarded took foyr full weekends with x 4 people asisting. No way you can do full hiuse on your own in two days.
What do you think ss will say? What "trouble" are you thinking? Have they given some ultimatum? What?
Why are they expecting you to do all this alone?

Why can't the SW see the real conditions they are living in? They usually can help. It sounds like they have been living like that for a long time so why are you only just stepping in now? (This is not a dig I promise just curious to how it has got so bad). i work as a Community Nurse so go to some appalling houses and SS are usually pretty good. Hoarding is a recognised mental health condition these days.

I feel you. My dad was a lovely, kind generous man who we all adored but to be honest he lived in squalor. He died last year and clearing out his garage and house was horrendous. We saw him regularly but he always came to our houses and we didn’t grasp quite how disgusting his house had become. He had plenty of money but started hoarding quite specific items (potentially outing) after my mum died a long time ago. Luckily I had siblings and other family to help but I have vowed never to let my house get like that.

Also wondering why now and why there will be trouble if the social worker sees? What will happen? Why can’t they see how they are living?

I’m also a community nurse, as pp said we see all sorts sadly.

It’s great that you want to help but it is a lot.

Maybe it's a condition of hospital discharge?

Why would they get into trouble? They are clearly not coping and need support workers to help. Masking the extent of the problem might not help in long run. Let social services see they are at risk and so SS need to act as it’s an adult safeguarding issue.

The social worker needs to see it as it is. Cleaning will just make it look like they are coping when they are not.

I think that your initial plan with some adaptations was right. You have a very limited window so cannot sort, you just need to clean. So papers and clothes into boxes and bags and just bin everything else. Don’t sort wires and toiletries, they’ve been buying replacements of everything when they haven’t been able to get to what they’ve already got, so just accept that these items are lost and that once the house is empty some things may need to be replaced.

If there’s anyone else who can come to the house a couple of times over the course of tomorrow just to pick up bin bags and take them to the tip so they’re out of your way then that would be handy.

Ruthlessness is needed here, empty it quick then focus on scrubbing everything down starting at ceiling level and ending with sweeping/hoovering/mopping the floor.

Agree with the others, what trouble will happen? Chances are that it might help get proper help to clear it out if the social worker sees it. Still worth doing as much as possible because it doesn't sound like it will all be done.

You really shouldn't be trying to deliberately mislead the social worker as to how they are living day to day or how well they are really coping.

I have to admit, when reading your post I felt a little jealous. I have a fantasy about cleaning my dads place. It doesn't sound as bad as what you describe, but he won't let anyone touch it and absolutely will not let items be removed. He takes things out of the bin and puts them back. My sister was trying to clear some stuff from her room so I had to pretend she was passing clothes on to me, and left with a suitcase full of rubbish like broken hairdryers, gone off toiletries, old shoes etc. When he had a stint in hospital and a space had to be cleared temporarily for a bed in the sitting room, I had the carpets professionally cleaned and steeped all the kitchen utensils and ornaments/ vases to remove years and years of grime. It was exhausting but satisfying. It's a horrible issue to have OP I understand, so many of us do

This. Honestly you should just leave it so the SW can see the reality. Unless you are planning to be a full time cleaner and declutterer indefinitely.

You’re setting yourself up for problems here, OP. You’ll end up doing this regularly.

They need a proper plan, really. SS may need to be involved.

You are a good and kind person for even attempting this OP, but it's too much to fix on your own. It will likely take a professional team, and you shouldn't try to hide it or mislead the social worker because that could stop your parents getting the help they need. It sounds like there could be mental health issues leading to this hoarding behaviour and that will need to be looked into.

My Dad lives in poor conditions - not due to hoarding but addiction, neglect, laziness, smoking, etc. Beyond calling in a professional team if he agreed to it, I wouldn't even consider clearing it for him. It's his mess to deal with, its his life, and a terrible, unsanitary, unhygienic thing to burden someone else with sorting out. It's selfish, at the end of it all, to let things go to that extent and then expect an adult child to come in and slave away for weeks to clean it up.

From experience with my own parents it doesn’t matter how many hours , days , weeks you put into helping them , it will go back to the same within a few months . My parents lives are totally affected by their inability to stop spending money on shit . Stuff they don’t need , I’ve had countless skips , they’ve had professional help in and it’s back to how it’s always been . My Dad won’t even hear of the word skip now even though they sleep in the living room when they have 2 bedrooms that they can’t get into.

It’s down to mental health and maybe declining health too . My Mum now I’ve noticed has a list in her head similar to your “favourites” list online and everytime she goes out she buys off that list . So she’s ends up with 4 bottles of lenor , 2 boxes of washing powder , 15 bottles of shower gel , 4 boxes of tea bags but yet she runs out of sugar and comes home without it but yet she’s got another bottle of shower gel 🤣

I’ve give up !! It’s starting to affect my own mental health now . They can’t be changed .

I genuinely wish you well coz it’s hard work dealing with it . I often wish I had “normal” parents . I’ve been given a section 21 eviction order atm and I can’t go back to my parents even though they have 2 bedrooms they don’t use coz you can barely get into them . You’re going to need lots of patience lol.

Can they afford to pay someone to help? Age UK have Some branches of Age Uk have specialist teams/ cleaners who will help specifically with hoarding.
Your parents are not alone op, this type of living is so common amongst older people and all ages really. I regularly go into older people's homes and need to fill out forms and there won't be one spare seat in the whole place where I can sit to write, everywhere piled high with clutter. Went to one home and the whole dining table was sprinkled with fag ash and filthy take away trays, others have bags of hoarded recycling, piles of newspapers. I've seen carpets so filthy that they sort of turned into disintegrating black spots. It's very sad .

I'm dreading this when my mum dies. 5 bed bungalow with a huge garage and boiler house stuffed to the brim with stuff. There are even rusty tools that my late dad inherited from my granuncle over 5O years ago. Every single large wardrobe stuffed full of clothes and papers. Cabinets full of junk and Waterford crystal, Cavan Crystal and Galway Crystal, mostly prizes my late dad won playing golf. China cabinets with china from when my late granny married, nearly 9O years ago! One of my sister's is also a hoarder. No one has been in her two bed house for decades at this stage. Nothing in her house works, the oven, fridge or washing machine. The gas has been turned off as she didn't any the bill. Her shower doesn't work. She uses plug in electric heaters for heat. She showers, washes her clothes and eats at my mums house. And yes she has serious mental health problems. My mum has mental health problems too but not as severe.

Thanks all, it’s sad to hear that this situation is not entirely uncommon among older people.

Those if you who asked why I haven’t helped til now - I have offered repeatedly but have always been turned down until now. This coupled with a similar case to a pp who said they didn’t realise the dire extent of the issue as their parents always visited them. I knew it was messy and packed but didn’t realise the extent of filth until about 6 months ago when I went about clearing one small room on my mams request. Even then I wasn't allowed to go near the kitchen diner and bathroom.

Sadly I agree with could write a book. You won’t solve this by cleaning up their mess.

This. I am wondering what the hoarding means psychologically? It’s very common in older people and I do wonder what it indicates . Is there a need for safety?