Calling all hoarders out there......why?

[muriel76]

My DH is a bit of a hoarder. Some of his family are the same but particularly his mum, she seems to keep everything. They both like to also display pointless things ie books that will never be/never have been read etc.

Don't get me wrong, it is not a big deal or anything but I do want to understand why. It's hard to understand as my mum is the complete opposite and I am the same. DH and I have agreed to give the house (another!) big clear out and it would help me to hear a hoarder's view!

(Obviously I have talked with him about it many times BTW, I am just looking for other people's more neutral insights)

Thanks for any replies.

Oh TruthSweet that is so sad :(

Your poor mum :(

Truthsweet :(

I keep sentimental things and do keep some 'might come in handy things' but not many. I get very emotionally attached to things and find it hard to part with them.

However, I have a very minimalist look at do not keep utter shite/newspapers/tat/magazines etc

I can't understand people who have sacks of loo rolls/margarine containers/newspapers etc or those who collect owls/clocks/bears/mugs or whatever - I hate that kind of cluter.

Two different kinds of horders in one house must be hell!!

Oh, hoarding....
My mum and dad were both hoarders. My father died, and my mum has remarried, to a hoarder.
My dad was the "I could use this" type. He worked as a builder, so always had left over materials, scraps of wood, screws and nails, a saved window, a salvaged door.
The problem was he was so messy and disorganized, stacks of boards would rot, windows got broken, coffee cans of screws got water in them and went rusty, hammers got misplaced, and he was always talking about cleaning it up when he got a chance.
My mum is a combination of sentimental and useful hoarder. Every plastic bag, yogurt pot, piece of string, tea cup, whatever, has to be saved. Books she will never have time to read, magazines, old clothes that haven't fit for 30 years, old cards, plant pots, it just never ends.
I have tried to talk to her about it, but she gets so angry and defensive. She has other MH issues, and I wonder how much of a role that plays in it.
She and my father were both raised after the war, in super neat and tidy homes. My poor grandparents were forever saying "But I didn't raise you this way!"
I think for my folks it was a combination of things. They don't like to see things wasted, they want to be practical money-wise (although they have never had a spare dollar), and perhaps not being able to keep everything when they were younger made them rebel as adults.
I think my mum worries that if she doesn't keep a physical object, that she will forget the memory or emotion attatched to it.
I could have been a hoarder, and certainly had leanings that way.
When I look back at photos from when the kids were little, I am always shocked and embarassed by the mess in the background.
That was part of how I stopped though. I kept taking digital pics of areas, cleaning and organizing them, and taking new pics. I made my own privet before and after slideshow. When ever I started to think that things might be getting bad again, I went back to the photos. Seeing the real difference helped me stick to the changes. My house is a heck of a lot easier to keep clean, I no long feel anxiety when there is a knock at the door, and I can comfortably have guests over.
Sorry, that was bloody long

I wish my neighbours had managed to address their hoarding, just over a week ago they had a fire, and the firemen say the house was so much worse because of all the old newspapers, bits of wood and other things they were hoarding. They escaped with burns, but their house is going to be demolished and they have nothing left. If there's lots of stuff in the house, please please make sure there's smoke alarms - there's less time to get out safely, and it's the only reason my neighbours are alive.

JustFiveMinutes- Luckily I moved out of home when I was 18 so we don't live together but my mum still has all my old Kerrang! magazines from when I was a teen (she doesn't want to throw them all out together as what will the recycling men think? So she does one or two a month).

She does voluntary work with the elderly and often buys them books from charity shops (saves them going to the library) and then when they have finished with them they give them back to her so she has a bookcase full of the Liverpool saga type of novel which she doesn't read but can't give them back to the charity shop because? Well, I have no idea why.

Her 'spare' room is full of DB's stuff he threw out but mum has hung on to and then complains he won't sort them out (old Atari computer bits, manuals for obsolete programs, etc).

And then she was upset that the DDs didn't get to stay with her when DD3 was born but as there is only one bed usable in the house and the other bedrooms are too full to even have a travel cot or readybed put in them I don't know where she thought they could sleep .

My FIL is a major hoarder. You can barely even get in his garage, let alone the attic. The house doesn't seem too bad at first glance, until you realise all the hoarded stuff is just packed neatly away in boxes under beds and in cupboards. MIL doesn't help either; she doesn't hoard rubbish but does seem to have an attachment to furniture - you have to move tables to get to chairs etc. and she is always buying more!

I think FIL's hoarding is down to genetics - his father was a hoarder and got into a terrible state in the few years before he died. He was living in filth (like Mr Trebus *sp?) by the end and no one knew because he wouldn't let anyone in his house (he also lived overseas, so no chance for relatives to help him). His cellar was so full FIL couldn't even get down the steps when he went to clear the house out and had to leave it all in the end.

FIL's hoarding could also be down to the fact that his mother took the children and left his father, taking nothing with her .

I am DREADING having to clear out FIL and MIL's house beacuse all their kids are hoarders too (DH not too bad) and I know they'll want to keep everything!

Not sure about the displays of pointless stuff. I can't be doing with that.
However I have trouble getting rid of things, not because I like to have loads of crap, but because I genuinely find it very difficult to know what to get rid of.

It's the decisions that are the hard part and you cannot force it, or you end up getitng shot of stuff you really want. It has to come naturally...I build up to clearouts. Something major has to happen in my life. If I know things have changed, for instance I know where my future is going in some respect, there is an event or a new person in my life or whatever, it gives me permission to get rid of certain things as I know I shan't need them.

Also buying more furniture, well I look to furniture to make life better - so if I find a really good, large cupboard that will hold loads of stuff, it means I can get rid of two smaller ones I don't really like.

But then I feel guilty at having paid so much for the smaller ones so I hold on to them till I find a good home for them, which might never happen...or ebay, or whatever. A lot of the stuff I keep is through guilt, knowing I made a mistake buying it, and being aware that I wouldn't get the money back if I sold it.

Be sensitive to your DH and encourage him to think in terms of what he actually feels is important...who he is, when he looks in the mirror, and what that person needs in terms of stuff.

He may not know that though, not yet. He might never know it.

Ghoullasher what you said about personifying things made me think of my mum. She is a bit of a hoarder but not too extreme. She had a very old sofa and had ordered a new one. However, she didn't want to skip the old one as she felt sorry for it! It took quite a lot of convincing to get her to get rid of it as the sofa had no feelings and wouldn't mind!

Oh poor Mr Trebus - poor old sod! What a life - after all he'd been through!

Nice to hear John Peel's voice again, though.

For lots of blokes it's about keeping stuff that might be useful. I can be a bit like this. I have wood stacked above a shelf in the cellar because it might come in useful. Some of it has been useful so I feel a bit justified

I'm not sure why you'd display books that you have no intention of reading, unless it's to impress people. We have lots of books but they've all been read or are going to be read.

My mother is a historian, so it got dinned into me that you should save all paperwork and stuff so future generations can study your life more easily (cos obviously I'm going to be worth studying as a prime example of my generation...)
Add both parents being rural war generation - where my mum grew up, going to the store was something done twice a year, so everything had to be saved and reused. Waste is a SIN! (somehow, this is the only bit of Catholic guilt I inherited)
When I grew up we were also a lot poorer than most families round us, so there was a strong element of getting bargains (mainly clothes) and saving them until needed so it didn't look so obvious.

My ILs are much worse - FIL would save newspapers because there would be an article that he meant to read one day. Thousands of them. Luckily, papers are now archived online and my dad has a supscription to the newspaper libraries, so I managed to reassure him that any article he missed could be tracked down if really necessary. So now, especially now they can be recycled, he only keeps papers for a month before chucking.

SIL and I clean the fridge out every couple years for them despite protests, and recycle excess jars/plastic bags etc that are getting in the way, and offer to take any books and bric-a-brac off their hands (usually straight to the charity shop). They are much better than they were having downsized to a new, clean, practical house and gone through boxes when unpacking, but the tendency to hoard is still there.

With me, I'm getting better at judging what is worth taking up space versus the cost of replacing it. And taking time to get rid of stuff. DP is now realising that while the kids will indeed be interested in some of the stuff he made as a kid, most of it just isn't worth keeping and is now chucking a lot more - though there's some models he insists can only be got rid of by a ceremonial pyre in the garden that gets filmed...

i hate hoarding! my mum does this! she has 3 3 suites in her living room atm! bags and cupboards full of bedding and rugs and tat it makes me feel ill just thinking about it..

i on the other hand.. have some jelly bangles, bead necklaces, and a business card for my fave pub from ibiza c.2003. a small box of DDs old baby clothes and a baby box with DDs photo albums, first outfit, birth cert and welcome baby cards etc.

thats it for sentimental crap hoarding everything else can/has GTF

Reasons for hoarding (some partly defensible, some not at all and some patently bats):

Stuff is relatively cheaper, and more accessible. We have more of it. This has changed within all of our lifetimes so it is hard to adjust to the fact that things will be easily replaceable when you need to. If your clock (picking an example from earlier in the thread) breaks it might not have been easy to afford another, or to fix it; it might have been the only timepiece in the house. Therefore finding and keeping working cheap clocks from China might be irresistible.

"decluttering" is pernicious pro-consumerist, pro-capitalist propaganda, mainly popularised by magazines whose job is to sell us more stuff. If you get rid of everything that has not been used in a year (as these articles always advise) you will replace a lot of it. Who has babies more than a year apart? Who takes longer than a year to lose a couple of stone? Most of us. Some stuff - fashionable clothes for instance - won't "keep" that long, but you can't tell which necessarily. And other clothes will come back. I loved wearing real vintage 60s stuff (my mum's) which was being copied in the shops in the 80s. If you want to keep buying everything you need, new, in real time, then declutter away. If you like having original looking things and if sustainability concerns you, maybe less.

If you can hold in your hand the dress you wore / the concert ticket / the wooden spoon from the tub of ice cream from your first date with the love of your life, the molecules transmit magic into your body which revitalises everything you were then. This is even true of mediocre events with people you were only mildly fond of. This is true even of university open days to places you didn't even bother to apply to in the end. This is true even if you never get out the box and hold them in your hand. An important effect of owning these things is that while they are in your possession, part of you - in a sense - in a completely invisible sense - is still as thin as you were then. [bonkers emoticon]

I have just spent a year sorting out my mum's house. It is the most soul destroying task imaginable, she had kept every card she has ever been sent, every item of clothing, every book, every newspaper, every ticket, brochure, all my toys, my grandparents things, you can not imagine how much stuff was in her house. I did know as I had been forced to live like that when I was younger but it was only when going through it all that I experienced just how much was there.

Several friends said I should just get house clearance in but I felt I owed it to her to go through everything. Some family things are lovely and I have found some fab and interesting items but the volume of stuff I have had to go through has almost outweighed the pleasure.

I have learned from Mum to keep everything and find it very hard to throw things away but I have promised my dcs that I will not leave things for them that are not sorted out.

I still have about 20 large boxed in my garage that I can't face doing just yet.

This is a warning! Your hoarding effects other people in ways that you can't imagine.

xx

That's the other thing though isn't it - doing what you have had to do Grem is so much harder - throwing out things that meant something to someone else - I find that very, very difficult to do.

Vezzie - good post :)

Great post Vezzie but to me decluttering is actually about being less consumerist - since starting Flylady over a year ago, I have not only got rid of a lot of stuff, I have also actively tried to stop bringing stuff in so I now spend less money on nick nacks and tat. I stop and think "do I really need this? Will it be useful on a short or long term basis?".

Decluttering also means that you can find the useful stuff you kept and not being forced to go out and buy another one of something because you can't find the first one because there's too much stuff!

Not a hoarder - in fact very much the other way. I find clutter makes me feel a bit depressed. Think I take after my Dad in this - he is a great declutterer.

My DSIL on the other hand is hoarder from hell. I understand people would want to keep things like first baby shoes, or christening gown etc (don't do this myself, have photos of DCs in christening gowns etc, don't need the actual garment, same with my wedding dress). however, DSIL keeps such things as first dress DN ever went on a plane in, first dress she ever went to a birthday party in, first paid of wellies etc etc - they are gradually being hoarded out of home! Their home always looks a mess, not dirty, just a mess.

Old friends used to haord everything - old newspapers, had all files etc from Uni 25 years previously, every single piece of artwork their DC's ever created. Love them, but got to the stage where i couldn't spend time in their house so now we either meet out or at my house.

I think it often stems from your parents - my Nan is a hideous hoarder/collecter, so was my great grandad.

They seemed to find something they like and just keep buying them (my nan has filled two large rooms with one particular collection!!) my mum is the same and the sad thing is I know it really upsets them that where the live is sooooo unbelievebly cluttered but its like and addiction that they just cant deal with.

My mum keeps things that I just dont understand - she moved recently and the things I found were , she cries and gets stressed but it doesnt change

Funnily enough I am very much the opposite now - every now and again I have a mass clear out and just throw all kinds of stuff out, if my mums about it actually stresses her out watching me get rid of stuff, tis a bit sad really.

I've read page 1 so far and I'm in tears. I am all of the different types of hoarder and I can't move. I'm trying really hard to sort it, but now have 5 bin liners full of clothing which I want to take down to a place that pays a pittance buys clothing as I'm really strapped for cash, but the bags have been sitting there (well the first two anyway) for 5 weeks. The box of V Tech toys that I want to sell on has been there for about 18 months! it's ridiculous!

I hate being this way, but my parents are much the same...and I've typed that even though my Dad has been deceased for 2 years next week. My Mum still had her Mum's 'funeral coat' up until she gave it to me.........Grandma died in 1980. I've still got the coat
My parents cleared out their loft (well I did with my brothers help) when they had it insulated and down came my Grandads sewing machine. It was an 1881 Bradbury that he's converted from treadle to electric and it sat on a Singer cast iron stand. It stayed in one of her bedrooms for a while and then my Mum's brother came over to help her 'get rid of some stuff' and they took the Bradbury to the tip!!! I still haven't forgiven Mum for that. Totally gutted.

I have to get rid of stuff as I have no storage space to speak of and not enough bedrooms, but I find it really difficult to do :( I'm emotionally attached to so much and I might need it some time...and I'd never get rid of a book. No way!!!

I'm a hoarder too.
I just can't bear to get rid of things.

My mum encouraged this - most things were kept and if they weren't needed, they'd go into the loft.

Like one of the very first posters said about mugs. Every mug I bought was special in some way - I didn't like to have mugs that didn't mean anything (matching set of 6? yuck!). But that meant that if one broke I hated it. My mum used to put the broken ones on display on the pelmet above the patio door. :)

cyb "Warning though- lots of Mners feel getting rid of books is on a par with leaving your children out for the dustman "

you called?

Scratch a woman and find a rage!!

Yep - my DP is a hoarder. He has filled the attic, the study, the garage, the greenhouse, every drawer and cupboard.

I am fighting tooth and claw to keep the spare room free of his shit and failing.

He knows it makes me very, very unhappy but just will not acknowledge that half used tins of paint, empty coffee jars, video cassettes (that even charity shops class as unsaleable crap) and clothes he hasn't worn in 30 years is just junk.

It is causing serious problems now and I can only see it escalating - his mum is exactly the same. She has an eight bedroomed house with rooms you cannot even get into.

I'm finding this thread a real insight. My neighbours loft caught Sunday last and took most of my roof with it. We had nothing in our roof; they had a over 30 years of stuff. The firebrigade had to make a hole in the roof and throw it out to get to the fire. I just couldn't understand why they had so much stuff up there. I would just hate the thought of all those boxes untouched for years and years.

Q for hoarders of the sentimental kind - if a part of you is contained within the item do you need to get the item out or be able to see it or is the very fact that it is there (in a box in the loft) if you really wanted it enough?

We lost clothes and stuff in our fire, my wedding dress will be cleaned and looks as if it will be fine but I thought - oh I would have preferred the money!

I don't understand the hoarder mentality either. We have moved house several times and will undoubtedly move again and I don't want to have to cart a load of useless tat around.

I have a box in the loft filled with sentimental stuff and a load of family tree stuff, but I hate a house filled with clutter - it makes me feel claustrophobic. We do have some "this might come in useful someday" stuff in the garage, but I don't get attached to inanimate objects, I prefer people. Friends and family know better than to give me useless tat ornaments for birthdays. I prefer gifts to be either edible , practical or something I want and can make use of.