To ask for tips to help hoarder MIL

[MyBrilliantFriend]

TLDR: any tips for sensitively but effectively helping MIL clear stuff from her home tomorrow?

MIL is a hoarder. She has got away with it for a long time by virtue of having a large house with lots of storage and also lots of reasons for hoarding some of the things (think useful 1 day kind of reasons).

She has always been able to see a use in things (eg to the level of drying out teabags to use the tea leaves for messy / sensory play for children) and more recently has become incredibly concerned environmentally which makes it even harder for her to get rid of things. She also has emotional reasons for feeling very connected to ‘stuff’.

However, she has reached a point where, for a variety of reasons, she really needs to sort things out. She has asked us to help. The level of stuff is also weighing on her emotionally and she wants things to go - we really aren’t forcing her. She says she wants us to just get rid of some things - but then wants to go through every bag that is sorted out for the bin (& it really is just rubbish…old jam jars, scrap paper but she has 5 big boxes full type of stuff) and nearly all of it comes back again because…yes, there is an environment impact to throwing it away and yes it may be useful one day but…

So tomorrow we are spending the whole day helping her. I don’t want to upset her but she HAS to get rid of stuff. Any tips for making the process easier?

TIA.

Would she be ok with starting with items that can be recycled?
Could other items be given away via freecycle/freegle/Facebook?
If she has a lot of books could these be sold to a second hand book shop?
Are there any local charities that collect specific things eg items for people setting up home such as crockery

it’s not going to make for a quick clear but it might make it easier for her.

Does your local council have a recycling depot? Near us we also have bottle banks, clothing and shoe banks, some garden centres take used plant pots, supermarkets have bins to recycle batteries etc. Charity shops will take anything clean that can be resold.

There is very little you have to actually throw in the bin these days, you can recycle pretty much everything. So if she knows that everything she gets rid of will be put to good use by someone else, then she might feel easier to let go.

By the way, you can put old tea bags into compost or a garden waste bin if the council provides households with one.

What might really help is that as soon as you have a couple of bags of things for the charity shop, put them straight in the car and take them down to the shop there and then. If you leave them in a pile by the door, she will keep going through them and take things out again!

If you are a taxpayer, then the charity shop can use Gift Aid to recover more money on your donations, so mention it when you go in there.

Animal shelters will welcome old towels, tea towels and blankets for lining pet beds. Some also take shredded paper to use for small animal bedding.

House & Garden literally just published something on this - here www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/why-people-hoard - it's more general than pertaining to your MIL's particular case, but there is some helpful advice.

You may not like my suggestion but if it is clean and in a box leave most of it.
What you could aim for is to make moving the stored stuff "easier".
Organising the items between real keepsakes, junk and rubbish.
Then start with splitting stuff into half or quarter boxes full so the volume looks the same and then seal the box with a big lable of what is in it.
So her keep pile looks massive compared to the "dump" pile.
Hording is a mental health issue and she will likely begin the process again if you do a full clearout in any one area.

Apologies that I'm too tired to write a coherent edited post.

In order to really be successful there is a lot of work that needs to be done first, which hasn't happened so I'd treat tomorrow as a 'discovery' day, where she and you find out where exactly her weaknesses are, how hard she finds it, and every bit, however small that goes out, is treated as a win.
Perfectly normal to want to sort and see the contents of every bag going out. Work with that, not against it.

All this is ideal world:
Don't criticize, don't judge, be patient, keep it light, and allow her to be in full control, even if things aren't working. Remember she's likely to be defensive, so expect that and be reassuring if needed, but non judgemental is the golden rule.
The condition is massively stigmatized and nearly always assumed to involve grime, which helps no one.

De-hoarding/de-cluttering takes practice. Each start, even if it's a false one, make the next start easier.
It didn't all come in overnight, so it isn't going to leave overnight either.

Encourage the recycling side, but also the idea that chucked is as likely to end up creating power as in landfill.
Anything she wants gone, get it out instantly, not left in her bin/recycling bin waiting to be taken. (potentially back in)
Encourage not looking once things are in bag, remove swiftly, but without drama.
Look up her local dump, recycling centers, clothes bins, cardboard recycling, charity shops, animal centers, etc, and your own. Be her expert on where things can easily go and how that helps others, environment etc. ie glass cullet is needed.

Yes she HAS to get rid of stuff, but while it may feel it has to happen tomorrow because that's when you can be there, actually it doesn't. What has to happen is the conversation is opened, trust is gained, and the knowledge that if she called you to say she had a bag of stuff she needed gone, you'd just ask what time to pick it up.

Remember, the 'stuff' is the symptom of the disorder, and she and you are attempting to deal with the symptoms, without tackling what got her there. Nothing wrong with that, but it does tend to throw up issues.Treat gently.

Wishing you all energy and luck today. Let us know how it goes?

I should probably say that unfortunately I struggle with hoarding disorder. Superficially I present differently from what's assumed, but what underlies it is the same. I'm currently attempting a major de-clutter and keeping any help I can get 'on side,' is actually one of the really difficult parts.

This is a better edited set of tips: hoardingdisordersuk.org/top-10-tips-for-helping-someone-you-know-who-hoards/

Couple of others: if it's a day long effort, take breaks if things are flagging, preferably elsewhere or outside.

Most people with the condition have beaten themselves up much harder than anyone else could or would do. It's why the fragility for many around perceived criticism - they don't hear what's actually said, just the amplification of their self view.

Work such as talking about or imagining how she might like her home to be will be more productive if done in a neutral enviroment, not in the hoarded home.

Throw in the question of the morality of hanging onto something you don’t use when someone else might actually need it.

On the environmental side, somebody once pointed out that all the stuff I owned was already going to end up in landfill one day, it was just a question of whether it was going there now or after making me miserable in my own house for twenty years first. That really helped me, I don't know if it would help her too?

I mean everything that couldn't be recycled/donated, obviously.

Thank you so much everyone - this was all really helpful.

We had a pretty productive day all in & I think MIL left it feeling ok about things & in control of what was going.

It especially helped moving stuff out straight away into our car to bring away with us, and some of the comments posted here also helped me to be ok with just leaving some stuff or putting into a box to be sorted another time (it won’t be, in all likelihood, but that’s ok, at least her living space can do what it needs to for the next little while & we can come back to it another time). I tried to encourage just one thing going from each box - sometimes she said no, other times there were more things that could go so it went well overall. She was definitely in the right headspace & wanting to sort things, so I’m glad we could help her.

Thanks for your support - it helped a lot. It feels pretty lonely sorting though 6 boxes of rocks collected in case someone wants to do some rock painting at times, and I’m just sad she’s become so weighed down by ‘stuff’ which isn’t making her happy.

Glad that it went ok
And that you did not end up feel as if you were run over by the proverbial truck as it backed in to put stuff back😅