What’s the real difference between being a hoarder and just being lazy?

[WavesofIrritation]

I’ve noticed that some people seem to keep a lot of stuff lying around, and it got me thinking - what’s the difference between being a hoarder and just being lazy about cleaning up? Hoarding is often talked about in the mental health context, but sometimes it seems like people just don’t want to declutter because they can’t be bothered.

Is hoarding just an extreme form of laziness, or are there important distinctions? Have any of you dealt with this yourselves or with others?

This made me think of the OP who posted about her dp giggling and bringing never ending crap into her house. Did we get an update on how she dealt with him?

I am a hoarder. I don't need to "clean up." My presentation is as an organized hoarder, and I've actually spent a lot of time learning to live with being less excessively clean and tolerating some disorganization better.
I used to be obsessively clean which I think is a result of growing up with a parent who was a disorganized extreme squalor hoarder, before she was forced to choose it over her children, and life got frankly, even worse. My past is a catalogue of how many shitty things can happen to a child and it still live, to the point I don't bother trying to explain because it's too much to be believed.

Normally you wouldn't be able to tell from walking into my home that I was a hoarder. I'm very tidy and went to extreme lengths to have floor space and normality, superficially, for the sake of my children.
I keep most of it elsewhere, as do many. It is kept in good condition, rotated and most, but not all, (the very painful part) is regularly used. If I had a large house to keep it all in you simply wouldn't know there was an issue or that 'stuff' rules me, as I have the acquiring part fairly well controlled these days, after a lot of work on myself.

I would like to be virtually possession free.
Sadly despite so much work on myself it is still easier for me to take my life quietly than just skip everything.

It is a mental health condition and very difficult to overcome and has nothing to do with laziness.
I have helped many people make inroads into what lies behind the condition and clear and or organize their homes. Most were chaotic hoarders, a couple had fallen to squalor hoarders, one like me was an organised hoarder, though lived with warehouse shelving throughout their home.

Some where 'interesting characters' others like me, where painfully 'normal' in all other respects.
I've met an awful lot of people with the condition in varying presentations, the most painful was seven years old, and in deep problems with the hold it had on them.

The shame and stigma around it all needs to be dismantled.

Hoarding tends to be a trauma response. Laziness doesn't.

Yes, the thread is still there, and allegedly it wasn't about him or hoarding.
The earlier thread remains too.

I have to say it's a new one on me to hear descriptions of giggling and squealing "I love my stuff" at someone saying this is a problem to them.

Most people including the deeply defensive, and the angry, are conflicted about their relationship and struggle to to talk about their feelings and relationship with 'stuff' beyond the need to keep it. The 'stuff' is the symptom - a maladaptive response to the damage that's being held silently inside the person.
Some of us know this, some don't, but most of us are screaming silently or loudly, "What's wrong with us, why?"

Unable to voice what's behind it, we respond in a way that eventually forces attention onto us, either from external sources, or from internally when we can finally see we need to get rid of things and discover we can't.

This is an excellent description of the difference.

Snap. We have taken the doors off our adopted DS's wardrobe. Everything lived on the floor so he could see it and find it. Behind a door or in a drawer and it doesn't exist!

So no doors on the wardrobe, and the top drawers in each of the chest of drawers are left slightly open. Enough that he can see pants and socks in that one, and favourite t-shirts in the other one, but not enough to be a hazard as he is a walking injury zone.

Actually, it very much depends on what we consider "lazy".
"Lazy" can be someone not doing something we would normally do and, therefore we label it as a character flaw. For example, I do my dishes once a day rather than after every meal. My mother thinks it is lazy. It isn't. It is simply my preference and seems like the most logical way to deal with tasks by "batching them" and, hence, being a lot more efficient and leaving more time for other tasks.
"Lazy" can also be lack of motivation to do a specific task. this can be preferential (i.e. I want to go out with my friend instead of mopping a floor. Literally, "have better things to do") or it could be a result of a medical condition such as depression.
"Lazy" can also be difficulty with task initiation. Common with ADHD, ASD, Stroke and a host of other neurological conditions.
"Lazy" can also be lacking in energy. This can very much result from trauma. PTSD comes with fatigue, for example. Would I be encouraging someone who has fatigue to spend their energy on cleaning rather than doing enjoyable things? Not really.

The term "lazy" doesn't actually tell us an awful lot about a reason for a person not to engage with something. It is only ever used to indicate our judgement of a person's character. I would argue that nobody is really lazy.

Some people have a lot of stuff because they want a lot of stuff. It's not lazy to keep stuff, and it's not hoarding unless the result of a hoarding mental disorder.

That's a bit like asking if someone with agoraphobia is just too lazy to leave the house. Hoarders don't accumulate stuff because they can't be bothered to throw it out but because they can't throw it out, and need to acquire more. Hoarding behaviour isn't lazy, people go to some lengths to acquire their hoards. Some catalogue them and organise them, and living life around them takes a lot more effort than not. I think people misuse the term to describe people who have a lot of clutter, but the difference is that these people probably don't want to keep the stuff but can't face or be bothered to clear out. That's entirely different from the compulsion to keep it.

Hoarders aren't lazy. You only have to see the turn of speed they put on if they think somebody might deprive them of some bit of decayed crap that used to be a novelty tea tray or a mouldy paperback with all the pages stuck together to see that there's no lack of effort involved in acquiring and protecting The Stuff.

Some don't actually need or feel an impulse to acquire more, but once it has come in, can't let go of it. It is often found with older tidy people who are often seen as just 'keeping' a lot because they're tidy about it. It's only when relatives decide they need to get rid of XYZ, the strength of the compulsion to keep becomes clear.

This is also a stage with people battling HD, who have worked on themselves to be able to now not generally actively acquire, but dread being given things, because they know once it goes home, it will be effectively impossible to shift it back out.

Just came here to say you can be both lazy and a hoarder. They are not mutually exclusive. I know someone that is ridiculously lazy, never cleans, does the bare minimum at work, also just happens to also be a hoarder.

A hoarder has gone to the effort of collecting all that shit. A lazy person just can't be bothered in general.

Being lazy and tidying not being a priority are two entirely different things.

At one point I was working 14 hours a day and nursing two terminally ill pets, my house looked like a bomb site but in reality I was getting 3 hours sleep a night. Laziness had nothing to do with it, I physically didn't have the time and it wasn't a priority.

I like my things in sight.

I hate bare rooms and clear surfaces.

Yes it probably looks cluttered to a minimalist but I love my maximalist style.

there is a middle ground, i'm not lazy, and i'm not a hoarder, but i do have a lot of 'stuff' that if i were to go on 'Sort your life out' and they tried to make me get rid of 50% of it i think i'd have a meltdown because letting the majority of it go would break me.

I am lazy with hoarding tendencies.

Lazy is when I can't be bothered to go and put the things away. Like now, when I am mning to avoid putting the books back on the bookshelf that I took off to dust earlier. I can find avoidance tactics for days.

When I slip into hoarding it's when I look at something I haven't used for years, and cannot imagine ever using in the future, but still can't bring myself to throw it out.
I've got some clothes in that category. I can confidently say they will never fit me again. They're dated enough I can't see dc ever thinking they might wear them. But they have memories and I can't bring myself to put them into the charity shop bag/bin.
If I'm in a real struggle with hoarding, then if I do put something in the bin/out I get really panicky. I've been known to buy something back from a charity shop on the odd occasions.

I think my issue with hoarding was having a super tidy df who used to sometimes go through the house like a whirlwind and throw stuff he didn't consider important out. Tbf normally it wasn't stuff that was important, but that awful feeling of coming home and finding the postcard from your friend that you were using as a bookmark (ie totally not important) had gone has stayed with me.

Sorry, pics didn't post.

Oh that is so sad but also so illuminating...thank you. 'Object constancy' is an important concept. It's good to have the language for it.

A hoarder would be distressed if you came and cleared their house.

A lazy person would be grateful.

I remember watching a programme about a woman who'd been widowed twice and started hoarding after the second time. She said she felt like she was cocooned by the stuff, which makes sense. She was severely depressed and almost immobilised by the depression.