AIBU, to think these pictures were staged

[60sbird]

Would anyone actually allow their children to make a mess like this, I know I wouldn’t
metro.co.uk/2020/10/05/these-are-the-uks-messiest-bedrooms-of-2020-13371611/

@Handsoffisback @JenniferSantoro thank you, I've mostly made peace with it and life is really good now I just wanted to share here in case it made someone think twice instead of dismissing it if they see it in real life.

Child neglect and abuse is everyone’s business ⬅️ Very much so yes.
Do Report concern.Often after an event people will disclose they had a hunch

@keeprocking

A bunch of soon to be hoarders I suspect.

With their own TV prgramme and a host of excuses for their slobbish behaviour that will absolve them of all responsibility.

Hoarding disorder is actually recognised now as a psychiatric illness. A TV decluttering show is a quick fix which doesn't address the issues

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t29/

Hoarding is the physical manifestation of trauma. It’s very hard to treat
Amounts to more than a blitz clean

I’ve rented houses out in the past. I’ve seen loads of rooms like this and worse.

Yes, not really messy so much as health hazard - not the normal teenage tip. Intervention required before things got so bad.

I’ve seen halls of residence and student flats look like this. No mental illness just how they lived

When I was a teenager my room was pretty bad, glad to say I don't live like that now.

@Handsoffisback

Does anyone on here have any personal experience of hoarding? As in, are they a hoarder? I only ask as I’ve known one and never really understood (not for want of trying). I watched an episode of call the midwife ages ago where this poor lady wouldn’t even throw away her own faeces, she was wrapping them up and storing them. Knowing this programme was based on Jennifer Worth’s experiences I wondered whether it was true and fell down a very upsetting internet rabbit hole. What I’m trying to say is, does anyone have any personal knowledge of why someone gets to a point that they can’t throw rubbish and excrement away?

Thankfully not excrement. But yes, I have personal experience of someone who won't throw rubbish away. And by rubbish I mean empty milk cartons from many years ago, receipts from many years ago, shampoo that might be 30 years old and smells of plastic, food that is a decade past the use by date. All sorts of things that are undeniably rubbish.

Yes. Professional experience.visited multiple hoarders. Way worse than anything on this page
I always think if you can see a floor it’s not so bad
The thing, they don’t view the item as tat,they have emotional attachment the items.or feel compelling need to retain the items. Usually Suspicious of services and decline offer of blitz clean etc

Retaining faeces, and urine yes I’ve encountered that too
Taking items from skips, foraging in bins,taking builder waste etc

The success rate for treatment and management of hoarding is low
There are private companies and organisations who charge a fee to work with client

I’ve known clients to be evicted and rehoused due to hoarding
Hoarding can also be accompanied by other mental health diagnoses

@Handsoffisback

caughtalightsneeze that is very sad 😢 and must be so difficult to deal with. Was it a particular incident that started it off? (Please don’t feel you need to say if it’s too personal)

I'm not sure actually. Our mother was a bit of a hoarder in the sense that the house was cluttered and she hated to throw stuff away. But it was cluttered, not a health hazard. But even as a child, my sister was obsessive about not throwing things away. I vividly remember her giving me a broken ornament when I was a small child and she was a teenager, because she wanted rid of it. I said I would be putting it in the bin and she immediately said that meant that I didn't love her and wished she was dead. Which was pretty extreme over a broken ornament.

But there was no trauma but there was undiagnosed autism...

Trigger usually social isolation
,impaired mental health, eg OCD , schizophrenia, depression.BUT being a hoarder doesn’t mean one is automatically mentally ill
emotional and compelling need to be in control.
Suspicious of services, limited contact with others
live alone

unmarried

have had a emotionally or materially deprived childhood, with either a lack of material objects or a poor familial relationship

have a family history of hoarding

have grown up in a cluttered environment never learned to prioritise and sort items. Normalise the Mess

It’s not about the items in itself, it’s the ritual behaviour, the reinforcement derived from hoarding. It gives a purpose

My understanding is that it's connected to OCD. Which I can see in my sister's case. She considers herself to be very fixated on tidiness and routine, obsessively so. She would fixate on all the handles on the mugs facing exactly the same way but find it such an overwhelming tax that she decides to leave it until tomorrow. Except that tomorrow never comes because it's even more overwhelming the next day. I know that makes no sense but that's how it manifests itself.

Or she would have 30 different measuring jugs in the kitchen because she feels that measuring jug A can only be used for pouring things into saucepan Z, and if she wants to pour something into bowl Y, it can only be done from measuring jug B.

I views a house that looked like that

@SentientAndCognisant
Is that true ? That hoarding is a result of trauma ? In what way ?
I have a family member who hoards and I would be interested to understand that

I hear and see you with all that @Tarantallegra. You’re not alone in what happened to you

Sadly my 11 year old daughters room would rival some of these. I'm sick of bailing her out. At least three times a year I spend 3/4 hours mucking out her room and she gets it into a state once again. We nag, we bribe, we punish but nothing seems to get her to clean and tidy or even keep it nice after I've gutted it,

@Cooltalkin there's a great doc on this on prime I think it's just called hoarders. It goes into the social care support devised in Chicago iirc to tackle this in a trauma informed way. There is also a show still on YouTube that's similar that's in Britain. Both are really sensitive and not focussed on the reveal

People do end up living like this due to depression/hoarding/other mental health problems but they are generally very ashamed of it (as some posters have mentioned here in their own experiences). They're not entering photos in contests! I have utmost sympathy for those people. The fact that these people are showing off their clutter and filth is just unbelievable to me.