To ask for support with ‘hoarder’ parent

[ABigSalad123]

Coming on for a bit of a handhold and advice. Sorry for the awful thread title - I couldn’t think of another way to explain it.

I’m heading back to see my family over Christmas, and have just found out from one of my parents that the other has just bought another freezer (to add to the 4 freezers in the house already). Don’t want to say which parent as people I know are on here, and don’t want to identify myself. Sorry if that sounds precious - I just want to be a bit careful.

Anyway, my parents have 4 freezers in their house already, all filled to the point you can’t really open them easily. The house itself is a small terraced house, and it’s just my parents living there.

I think the whole issue is not really about freezers and stocking up on food because of wanting to have enough food in the house, but more related to hoarding-type behaviour. The parent who decided to buy all the freezers also keeps a lot of other stuff, and has filled the house with lots of it e.g. Knick knacks and furniture. It gives them pleasure to go shopping for that sort of stuff (they get it cheaply too), but the issue is more that there’s not really any space in the house for anything anymore. Every surface is covered with stuff pretty much. The same goes for newspapers and magazines - the surfaces in the house are covered in them. They’ve also got another much bigger house which is even more filled with stuff. Both parents are elderly, and although they’re healthy for now, I don’t know how they can continue living in this situation with 2 houses filled with lots of stuff.

I don’t really know what I can do about this, if anything, as I’ve never really tried to talk about it with my parent who’s doing it. Whenever I have tried, they just airily dismiss it and just say they’ll get rid of the stuff one day or they’re in the process of getting rid of things. I don’t want to hurt or upset them by bringing up the issue or digging deeper, and I also find it quite painful to think about it myself.

I just feel at a bit of a loss, because practically, I want to do something to help and support my parent, but I don’t know how I can do this. I’ve never really spoken about this apart from to my other parent (just along the lines of what I’ve said here - that I don’t really know what to do about it). I just feel quite powerless, frustrated at all the stuff piling up and sad for my parents.

Any advice or help appreciated.

If you google hoarding disorder uk there seems to be some useful info & organisations

Thanks CherrySocks, I’ll have a look.

I did a very short course on this as part of a counselling qualification.

There are many ways you can help them but unfortunately unless they recognise its a problem there is nothing you can do.

Best advice is to watch out for the issues it's causing them and be curious, try to ask questions without sounding judgemental eg if they say their energy bill is high ask what appliances they are running, wonder aloud whether it'd be possible to reduce the number of freezers, offer to help them get rid of expired or unwanted frozen food (to the charity you know that takes frozen food).

No answers but just sympathy. My dad died about a year ago and we had to pay a house clearance company to empty the basement, it was packed full of random stuff including 11 computers (not functional). My parents also kept their washing machine in the basement and it had broken but there was so much hoarded stuff that there was no access to replace it so they hadn’t done any washing for 6 months. It’s so sad and it’s heartbreaking to watch but I’m not sure you can fix it.

oh dear...tricky...my mum hoarded...would check bins to see if we had chucked anything out etc....you cant reason with hoarders....your situation is worse ...very similar to a friends mum...she even bought house next door and knocked through and filled it up with over 20 freezers of food and clothes etc....when she died the lot went to a skip and charity shops etc...such a waste of money !