Hoarding and filthy house of mother

[Hoarding]

My mum has always been a hoarder but it’s got significantly worse in the last 10 years. Hoarding newspapers, envelopes, food scraps (nothing is allowed to be thrown, everything will be reheated etc) tiny bits of string, foil etc. You get the idea. It’s got so bad to the point where the house is actually filthy, like properly gross (think fruit flies on literally everything, food remnants caked into the floor, maggots etc) Strangely some parts of house (the bits she doesn’t use basically) are vaguely tidy (but def not clean) like the living room.

She lives alone and to be fair used to have a cleaner but got rid of her about a year ago. I can safely say there’s not been any cleaning done on her part since.

Im pretty sure she’s got inattentive ADHD but I really don’t know how to help her.

for a bit of background into where her priorities lie, im
severely allergic to cats, luckily only if the hair gets in my eyes but my eyes basically completely close up and I get all wheezy. Well this has always been the case but we had 3 cats growing up. Yup, having cats was more important than my safety. There’s a long list of various things like that that have happened over the years.

Anyway, I’ve come down to stay with her for a week with my 2 kids as she’s always wanting us to come stay (but doesn’t actually want to engage with the kids) but my god, I’m scared for my baby’s health with the crap he’s accessing from the floor (he doesn’t crawl yet but he rolls around all over the place and obv everything goes in his mouth)

what I’m asking is AIBU for being really hurt by mum’s hoarding and filthy house? And if not, what can I do to help her? She’s well aware her house is filthy but she refuses to do anything about it.

YABU: her house is none of your business, leave her to it. Or actually try help her.

YANBU: that’s really out of order to treat you and your children like that.

Yabu for putting your mother's selfishness before your children's wellbeing. The house seem like a health hazard and you decided to please your mother over your kids.

I feel your pain. My parents are hoarders and unfortunately I dont go over if I can help it and I certainly didn't let my babies go there when they were that age. My mum is embarrassed though and doesn't try and force us to go, she'd sooner come to us.

If she wants you to go there it makes it really hard but your babies safety and health is more important than your mums feelings

You are right in that I need to put my childrens health first but even as a 30-something year old adult I still crave my mums attention/love/affection etc that she’s never shown me (and probably never will but I hold onto the Hope that she might) so I try to appease her as best I can

She has a serious illness. It’s really not personal.

You’re mother has a mental illness. It’s not about you. It’s about her. If your children aren’t safe then take them to a place of safety.

It is extremely alarming that you have brought your kids to stay in that home. I'm sorry, op, but that is a shockingly poor decision. Your children are not safe there.

Leave.

Tell her why.

Your children's safety is more important than your mum's feelings.

It sounds really hard, for both of you really. This website may help you understand a little what’s going on, and that it’s not usually an active choice.
hoarding.support

There are obvious issues with your relationship which is one set of problems, and then there's your mum's mental health issues and your choice to place your children at risk if it's genuinely filthy?

I grew up in a squalor hoard with a sibling struggling for breathe daily. Suggesting that our mother should have just stopped having mental health issues to improve siblings chances of surviving is as pointless as suggesting sibling should have stopped having breathing difficulties so our mother's mh wasn't further damaged.

She's mentally I'll so short of forcibly cleaning the house and hiring a slip against her wishes I'm not sure what you can do .
I wouldn't be taking your children to visit and tbh I'm not sure your mother will ever be the mother you want .
Very sad

I just wouldn't visit with the DC again tbh

my Mum is a hoarder. I don’t take me child there(although my DD LOVES ut there because it’s like Aladdin’s cave!)

literally won’t chuck a thing. Lives only in 1 room & all the other rooms are full from floor to ceiling. Never food, always books, dr martins, irregular choice shoes, bedding, cleaning aids like steamers/stain removers etc & given half the chance, pets too…at 1 point she had 7 cars & dogs.

after speaking at length with hoarders U.K. & a psychiatrist, it always almost dates back to some sort of childhood trauma. It’s an Illness - 1 that I don’t understand & I get endlessly frustrated with. But it is an Illness, she’s not being selfish nor difficult but this ‘stuff (shit!) is a comfort to them.

Disgusting.

Get her out of the house and bring industrial cleaners in to get rid of all the crap. I've no patience for people who favour their "hoard" over their family.

I would have a heart to heart with her.

My next door neighbour is the same but with 8 dogs and OMG the smell that comes out of her house. I feel sick thinking about it, it's horrendous and over run with rats.

@ChagSameachDoreen unfortunately that approach is pretty much the worst thing you can do with a hoarder. I wish it did work!

@ChagSameachDoreen its a mental health problem, her mother isn’t just choosing a dirty house with no regard for others. It’s like taking a bottle of vodka off an alcoholic & saying “there you go, job done, fixed”

it’s simply not as easy as ‘cleaning her house’

Go home, concentrate on those that love you and not the ones that don't.

But you need to put your children first, and worry about her later.

I understand the concern for her, of course. But there is absolutely no way I would have put my children into that. And I live on a farm, where they are up to their eyes in mud all day. But it's not crawling about on my carpets with babies. No. Absolutely not.

This is a hard one.

You want and need a mother who is there for you and for your children just as so many other people's mothers are.

It's got to the point in your where the hopelessness of it all is smacking you between the eyes.

I think you could do with grief counseling, and therapy to deal with the 'present but absent' element of the relationship. I say grief counseling because the mother you thought you had up to the age when you started noticing reality isn't there and hasn't been for a long time. You need to grieve the loss of the mother you need.

You could report your mum to the elder care officers of her LA, or to the health and safety office. Her home is a health and fire hazard. Social workers might be able to nudge her into treatment, but hoarding is a horrible illness that makes it very difficult for people to break through the massive barriers and reach the afflicted individual.

Your mother has a mental health issue, she doesn’t choose to hoard.

i would book into a hotel.

Seriously, if it is genuinely dirty the first thing you do is remove your children.

You can only help your mother if she wants help. Removing her stuff or forcible cleanups wont 'fix' her, because it's dealing with the symptom ignoring the illness that has got so bad untreated that the symptoms are forcing attention.

Hoarding is a mental health issue. I've been battling it for years. But, it doesn't have to be dirty. I and plenty of others have clean, maintained, organized hoards.
I suspect I clean my skirting boards, dado rails, and light fittings rather more frequently than many non affected MN's.

Our issue is in our relationship to things and getting rid of them, (true of disorganized, and unclean hoarders too) not over maintaining them. You wouldn't be easily able to tell from my home that I have a serious hoarding problem. But it does take time and energy, and it's easy for some people to either not see it, not care, or give up.

Part of my hoarding behaviors is a sense of needing to have serious amounts of household and personal cleaning materials so I can keep everything clean, to feel secure. the amount I need is embarrassing.

The stuff, (including my excess cleaning materials,) is the external symptom of what's wrong with me internally, that I desperately tried to keep hidden.
The more I tried to bury and hide that I wasn't actually OK, the greater the compulsive behavior became.

It's easier for me to end my life and leave money for a contractor to clear everything out afterwards, than to just throw it away and keep my life. It really is a painful madness and not something people choose.

as other posters have pointed out, hoarding is a mental health illness. She doesn’t choose to hoard anymore than someone chooses to be depressed or anxious.

doing some reading about hoarding disorder, contacting support agencies etc may help you understand and help her, but it is almost impossible to stop someone from hoarding.

if your children aren’t safe, stay elsewhere. Visit her, but don’t stay there.

Erm, inattentive ADHD alone doesn’t result in this.

Hoarding is an entirely separate, severe MH issue.

Your mother put herself above your safety by having cats. You're now doing the same by taking your DC to her house.