I think my mum is hoarding, what do I do?

[mummytoonetryingfortwo]

I’ve been staying with my mum over the Easter weekend and I’ve been helping her to pack up her house as she’s moving.

It’s become apparent that she has boxes upon boxes of things from when I was a child. She won’t get rid of them, despite them being of no use. Some of the things I’ve found include hot wheels cars that are broken, a Thomas the tank engine train track that’s missing half the pieces, every stuffed toy I ever had, toys that don’t even work anymore. I’ve asked her a couple of times why she won’t get rid of them and she insists that the grandkids could use them one day - they won’t.

She also keeps every pillow she’s ever bought in case the stuffing could be useful in the future, she has balls and balls of wool that she’s half used, basically everything she’s bought.

Her reasoning is that she’s spent money on the items and therefore she needs to keep them - but she’s very comfortable and they’re sitting in the loft gathering dust. She won’t even replace towels, she still has the same towel sets from when I was a child (I’m 26 now), they’re worn through and you can see the sun through them when they’re pegged out to dry but she won’t get rid of them. What the hell do I do?

One last question: did you feel shame about hoarding or really did you feel got at?

@mummytoonetryingfortwo your mother is still very young - just let her get on with stuff.

Hoarders believe their stuff has a value. My DM was a bit this way and my sister and I had an agreement that we would endeavour to take anything she would let us. For example try asking for stuff and then discreetly get ridvof it. Eg say you need some spare bedding, does she have any she could give you? Keep it for a while then bin it. Might work. She is young so hopefully she will change. Just don't ask her to throw things away. To her they have value.

Check out Lifepod Edinburgh and "clutter image rating scale" for advice / info

Hoarding and the reasons for it are complex. The brutal "bin it all" approach is counter productive

I'm concerned that hiring a skip and filling it will cause huge damage to your relationship. You think it's junk but that's not her perception. How would you feel if I filled a skip with your belongings ?

I do sympathise and understand your frustration but please tread carefully

I had therapy for my abusive childhood - not hoarding. It was about 18 months before I confessed to my counsellor I had an issues with hoarding things and we continued for another year with therapy. It was about being heard and having acceptance that I had been abused. Eg books despite a first class degree, my parents told me daily I was thick and educated people read and have books. So I kept every single book.

My parents devalued my self worth so I didn’t want that for my children. I valued every picture every single thing and I showed them by keeping it.

I knew I had a problem but I couldn’t stop.

To put it in context for you. I had 150 full large boxes in the garage, 50 in a summer house, 100 in the loft, and that’s just to get started.

Some stuff you keep for sentimental reasons, some because you spent money on it, some because it might be useful, some because someone gave it to you, it is all emotional reasons nothing logical. If someone had called it crap or shit or rubbish / I shut down and ended the conversation. Shutting the door to the garage is easy. Avoid it. You need proper professional counselling when it gets to the stage I was at.

We have moved. Although we still have the other house. It is 80% clear now. Probably 10 full van loads to the recycling centre. About 20 van loads to our local charity shop. I found one who was great and basically said we need stuff. I was like what about books, dvds, CDs as some don’t take them and he said I will take it all. So they were gifted over thousands of books. My children’s toys and cuddly toys they picked 50 each and the rest went. Clothes / bags and bags and bags of them. Every piece of clothing.

I have been away but came back today - in the last 24 hours I have had a large fridge / freezer collected, a broken huge mirror that needed fixing (just frame broken not mirror), and I have had 4 bits of furniture collected. They went within seconds on the local free group.

The children and I discovered what was important to me (every bit of art work) wasn’t to them. And vice versa. They need what is important to them.

We moved in to our new house 6 weeks ago and this I know I can do without.

Don’t help her pack. Don’t help her move until she asks you to and accepts it as a problem.

if I got upset -my husband hugged me, if I wasn’t sure and got upset he took it out of my hands and said put it here and think about it. He accepts I’m autistic and ADHD (diagnosed a few months ago) but I always knew I was. He would live with the stuff if I asked him to.

if my husband died all of his stuff clothes etc would go the next day except photos and our wedding bands and paperwork. And no I won’t hoard again. I just won’t. I won’t go shopping. I won’t buy stuff without binning something else. I have just been abroad for nearly a week I brought nothing home. All gifts are experiences now and not stuff (that started a few years ago when I met my husband).

You have to address the cause of it and find out why. Mine was my extremely abusive childhood and then a divorce with a bastard ex who took every penny we had so I clung on more to my possessions. I don’t need to do that anymore. I have everything I need, DH, our children, our animals, our health.

Chucking someones stuff will potentially push someone mentally over the edge.

The OP said about 15 suitcases. So say ok pick your best two - there are loads of students who need a case can I put 7 on free cycle and then we can see, let’s help someone else. Back off if they say no.

My ex best friend (that is another story) is a 10/10 hoarding to the extent I didn’t visit her for 10 years as you couldn’t get through the front door and she wouldn’t invite me. Her children left her and both have been mentally unwell due to her hoarding. One is now a hoarder herself and won’t leave the house. She used to give me stuff eg smelly jumpers it was awful. I was also a counsellor to her and eventually about 6 years ago I with the help of a counsellor cut ties with her (other reasons too as she was very abusive to me) and I went no contact with my abusive parents. At that point the hoarding stopped but we didn’t cull anything. When I met DH I started because I wanted to. I wanted him to have space in the wardrobe etc but I had already started.

That’s about it really. Timelines might be a bit out. But I changed after therapy but before DH. But he is a total and utter rock.

this is a ‘ting’ moment for me, really resonated, my inlaws, in 16 years of knowing them, never bought anything new -mean as muck -nothing redeems meanness, its pervasive in all aspects of their miserable pinched mean spirited lives

Both. I didn’t like how claustrophobic it made me feel but I loved my stuff around as it gave me calm.

if someone needed a ladder I was handy I had 4 so I was proud of some things.

Only therapy and acknowledging the cause and pain helps you to let go and start to heal

I would have said 6 years ago I was a 7, after a year of therapy a 6 and then a 5 and so on - it was gradual I was much much lower when I met my now DH. I had started dealing with it long before I met him - about 6 months after therapy started but that was a long time (years) before I met him

I will not have anything in the loft, we have one box of Christmas decorations etc it did give me joy to give away 6 spaces a while ago and have them collected. It was nice when the pram went etc

I have spent the past week clearing my parents “hoard”. It’s horrid. I’m so cross. Literally rubbish hoarded. I’ve hired a skip and it’s filling up quickly. I’m 50, do I want my 1970’s baby toys, no. DM wants to keep them or donate them to a charity shop as someone might like them.

Most of it’s been stored badly so mould has set in. Lots of things are unrecognisable. It’s been a really tough job. I’m not there yet, but the skip can’t take much more and I’m done.

I can’t get DM to listen to me. There’s value attached to everything. It’s really sad, She deeply believes that this rubbish is going to be well received or can be sold for a small fortune.

We’ve put a few things on freecycle and no one wants it. It’s tough. I could take a month off and it would still be there, I think professional help is needed but I don’t know how to implement it.

@DobbyTheHouseElk my partner and I are on skip number 5 clearing my inlaws house and sheds.

It's making my feelings I had for them when they were alive feel quashed by my feelings of anger and frustration. I'm so annoyed that we've been clearing all the literal rubbish and junk, that when I've come across nice things with labels saying "I leave this to X" or "For X" I've charity shopped them instead.

^ this

It’s not your stuff. You don’t decide what she bins. If you are struggling to help her then a removals company will help her pack and move.

She’s not hoarding for a laugh or to piss you off.

Oh and I will never be ‘cured’ all hoarders have different reasons. Saying I’m cured is a bit patronising. I’m not but I am a survivor of some pretty extreme physical and other types of abuse both by parents and my ex husband. I am not cured of that. And I’m not cured of ADHD either. In fact, I’m not medicated yet although I will start medication in 6 weeks time.

I am more able to see with clarity what I need and what I don’t. I still have 20 boxes to sort in our new garage. I still brought over 2 garden forks and 2 spades. But it is manageable now and I see it. If I want stuff - my ADHD is highly impulsive I go for a walk, I play wordle I do something else. I acknowledge wanting a new bag and I say ok you have this feeling, where is it coming from? Ok you feel triggered by someone mentioning Mother’s Day ok - let’s feel it and accept it. I remove myself from my phone. I look - eg I love that bag, hang on my one in the hall is similar. Or I think to myself - you know what that is a lovely lovely bag, and I force myself to move on. I will not get it right, I will mess up - that’s human. I do have a plan eg every half term moving forward I will do something eg kitchen cupboards and cull etc

It’s also a pendulum and I am aware it is always moving as that is life.

Im sorry you are going through this too. I’ve been a year clearing the house. Not much progress. So I took a week off work to see if I could progress a bit better.

It’s literally rubbish. Today my sibling found some more toys we didn’t know about. It’s so sad. One shed was all rubbish. Not one thing could be saved.

I would agree with this: you can't control it, you can't help her, you can't change anything. If you try to force her to get rid of stuff she'll likely double down and hoard more.

But what you can do is step away for your own mental health and sanity. Just calmly explain that you're not going to help her because you find it too distressing. You could try calling her on the fact that she's clearly a hoarder and clearly not mentally well, but no hoarder will believe they're a hoarder and mentally not well; they think everyone else is ruthless and wrong. It's a horrible, debilitating condition. I would just step away OP, for the time being at least, it sounds as if you have enough to deal with yourself as it is.

Your posts are really interesting and it's so kind of you to share your wisdom. Congratulations on your journey, it sounds like you put a lot of effort into getting to where you are now, and your husband sounds like an absolute gem.

Do people who hoard not really understand the issues and the selfishness of it?

My aunt died a few years ago. We had gently asked over the years for her to sort things.
She didn’t.

She lived in rented accommodation and left no money. Clearing it cost an insane amount of money and time.

It didn’t feel right to leave it to the landlord, I felt that I should do it. I don’t know why. It ended up being horrendous.

I did understand I had a problem. But that’s not enough of a reason. Selfishness - we are all selfish. Would it have been better if she owned the house and left you a million and then you still clear it would that have made it easier for you?

You really don’t see it - you aren’t well mentally. That’s the reality of it for me. I wasn’t. Fortunately I had a therapist would I trusted after about a year and we worked through stuff together but it was hard, hard work. Painful and long.

I’m sorry you had to do it and felt like you needed to. I will ensure our children don’t have that issue - but it’s taken a long time to get there.

The thing is OP, this is her stuff. You don't have any rights to throw it in a skip. What you can do is refuse to help her move, that's within your rights. She'll have to pay for professional packers and movers if she doesn't want to declutter at all. You can set your own term for helping her but you can't decide what she does with her own possessions. If you force her to declutter the trauma of that will possibly lead to re-hoarding at a faster rate than before, so in a few years she could have twice as much stuff as she has now. Forced re-hoarding doesn't solve anything long term. The hoarder has to be on board with the decision to declutter.

Any mental illness seems to make the "sufferer" exceptionally selfish, even though it's often the people who have to deal with it who suffer more.

Thank you for responding, it sounds so hard. I think I see some of the reasons. A response to never having much money might be the reason.

There is no money to leave from anyone in my family but that’s the circle I guess. No savings, but a house full of useless or unopened stuff, which could be a reaction to never having any money, hoarded and costly to dispose of in the end.

It was really hard, we were very close when I was growing up. You don’t notice stuff like that as a kid. I don’t think I did any grieving.

Can you put it in one of those storage places for her and slowly dispose of it all. Assume she’d not go check then I can see this working until she wants something from there at least!

Ha - my mother has my brothers' GCSE and degree crap in her shed - mostly damp and rotted. They are 47 and 49, so that's a lot older than you, so many many years of keeping on to it, for what? I have stealthily binned some of this crap from the damp shed. Also binned several old pillows - they were damp and stank. Other stuff in the house, I will ask to have (ooh, I love this set of cups, may I have them?!) - and half the time it is a yes.
She is in her eighties and I will only be binning everything when she dies, and I am dreading the task. I feel it is only fair to me that I start to make little dents in it here and there.
It is actually a health hazard, the clutter.
She has cables from old computers from the nineties. She has old cassettes. Old workbooks, old boxes that the last ten kettles came in.

I feel your pain.

Good luck when it does happen 🌸It’s a horrible process.