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.

I need to join in here - discussed some of my issues on the feminism/flylady/hoarding thread but need to keep engaged with the process, have a long way to go. Is this the self-help thread I need?

I am in an ebay-selling phase of getting rid of obvious, large-ish, clearly useful things which we know we do not want.

I am also handing back kit issued from the Army as I haven't been (TA) for a year. Except it's at the back of a room and I can't actually access it until I've got rid of significantly more stuff, including perhaps furniture.

DH and I both have a pair of easy chairs which I think we are going to eventually have a face-off about. His are 20 years old IKEA brown leather and grey metal, mine are 30 years old Parker Knoll beige upholstery and solid wood legs/handles. They would both need re-upholstering at the very least. Thing is, he brought far less belongings as a whole to our partnership, so in a way his things seem to not count as clutter? (Hmmmm to an entire packing box full of cables though...)

I'm a hoarder - I just get unreasonabley attached to things. No idea why but the littlest things mean something to me and I really struggle to shake it. It drives DH up the wall especially when I have a hormonal sob over the cardboard box he tore up.

Now, don't call me crazy, but it is a little bit like the inanimate objects have feelings and are sad to be put in the bin....

Why am I a hoarder?

Because you never know when somethgin might be useful.

Because I like pretty things, especilly collections of things.

Because in order to be cresative, resourceful, and make stuff, you need ample supple of materials to hand. If I have an urge to do some sewing, art or DIY, I don't want to have to put it off until I have bought the supplies. I was resources available.

I'll tell you what IS good discipline, not having a loft OR a shed. My parents keep buying new sheds to hoard all their crapola, rather than actually chucking it out

It literally makes me twitch

My DP got annoyed the other day because I gave a bottle of his home brewed beer (with his permission) to a colleague to try and I didn't get the bottle back.

It was a plastic bottle ffs!

Dp really is a classic case of the more space you have the more you will fill it. He has a file with old tax discs in it, they go back years..... and computer manuals for computers he had in 1990.

Just useless, useless junk

Another reason why MrNC ends up with shedloads of paperwork is that he's severely dyslexic and never gets round to reading things to figure out if they are vital or junk.
I moved in with him in 1999 and I think I've finally got rid of the last folder of unsorted stuff from before that. I signed him up to the Mail Preference Service and deal with all letters, and it's a lot better!

Oh geez, i gotta read all this but must get the tea on...... Back later (big hoarder)

I have hoarder leanings, but I have LEARNT to become fairly ruthless. TBH I DO think it's genetic in my case. My Great-nan and Great-grandad were terrible - My G-GD lost a leg in the war. Every time he got a new prosthetic leg, the old one was added to the pile in the corner of the living room. . When they died, there was a stack of 50 years worth of daily newspapers FILLING the spare room.

My Grandad's house is a lovely 4-bed. Or would be if you could MOVE in the house (quite literally). My DC went to see him this week, and they had to have a meal in his field because the house is practically uninhabitable (think faberge-type eggs in the bathtub!). My DS1 reckons the kitchen is about 50% smaller than last year. I mean you REALLY can't get into the house, it'd be a health hazard if he had any neighbours. He is in his mid-seventies, and still goes to auctions every day. His friends are trying to help him clear the house, but he's still buying from the auctions at a quicker rate than they can sell the bleeding stuff.

My mum is no better, she has teachests full of stuff from when I and my db were little, her study is FULL of craft stuff that she can't even get into to use, and she's still buying more. She has a shopping channel addiction too. She cleaned her tins cupboard out last week, and found tins of soup that went out of date in 2002(!).

I AM a bit of a hoarder, but only sentimental stuff, and have spent the last 3 months 'culling' everything else. I now have 2-3 underbed plastic boxes for 'memory stuff' for myself and the dc in the loft. I can't bear to part with birthday, christmas or new baby cards though! I think part of mine stems from the family history, and it being seen as 'normal' in my family, but also because when my dad died when I was 10yo, I wasd living with him. I was sent to my mums in the clothes I stood up in. I wasn't allowed to have any of my toys (my S-mum sold the lot, even my huge Hornby train set), OR any of my dad's belongings, which she gave to my stepsisters, who promptly TRASHED everything my dad had ever owned that would have helped me to remember him. . It takes a lot of work for me, and I agree with the poster who spoke of the photos - helps me too!

I could write so much on this topic. Have OCD and think that is a very common thing with hoarders.
In reply to original post though, its a security thing. Like a big security blanket. You feel safe surrounded with what you know.
You have emotional attachments to items.
You hate waste.
Things come in handy......

Please just be kind to DH about it, be understanding even if you dont understand and dont ridicule. Let the hoarder have some private space to keep things where they dont have to justify it. Help the hoarder focus on what is gained when space is made.

Some amazing stories here.
Love the photographing problem areas and then sorting and rephotographing.
My intention has been to try to classify my stuff and then reduce each section by half.
Starting in sock drawer or somewhere low anxiety.
Decide on chanels of disposal and try to itentify candidates : recycle, charity, carboot, ebay, burn. (i strangely found it cathartic to burn things after my Dear Granny was cremated, ashes to ashes n all that) Its easier to get rid if its going to have another life. Landfil makes me shudder.
I'd be great at sorting others peoples clutter issues, but why is it so difficult when its your own.

I bought an expander file and some plastic crates today. I moved in April 2010 and there are four boxes in the garage I've not really touched since...anything worth hanging on to is going in a plastic crate in the loft. I also have four places I keep paperwork instead of just one and that needs dealing with too.

I moved out of the marital home with nothing and into a much smaller house...exDH moaned that I took the baby albums (he still has the ones his mum took though). I said I'd sort them out (ie give him the pics with him in because I don't want them anyway, and there aren't many of those because he hardly spent any time with the DC) so that's a job for the summer hols too.

I couldn't be a hoarder...but there are a few piles of things that need sorting out now I've got the time to do it.

There are some sad stories on this thread...
I think it's very often genetic. My immediate family are hoarders and clutter bugs, we're untidy and lived in. It's horrible and I hate it but can't seem to get out of it. I've got worse by 500% since the 80's, but in the last 3 years, it's been the worst it's ever been.
I had cause to call the police some years ago and pretended that I was sorting out and packing as I was trying to move away...that was in about 2003. I don't know what I'd say nowadays...maybe there was a cyclone through my house ~ didn't you see it?!

Ooops! I should say that I didn't call the police because I was hoarding! but because someone was throwing their household rubbish into my garden! (TV's, microwaves etc) and I had to take them through the house!

Hoarders Anonymous join here!
Step 1. Admit you are a hoarder and that its become a problem.
Step2. Write down as much as you can about it. I keep ....... because........ I think its a problem because...... I would prfer my living space to be like....... Etc etc. Then read it back to yourself. Write as much as you can.
Step 3. Indentify low, medium and high anxiety areas.
Step 4. Focus on one low anxiety area, sort it out as though you were normal/ in the manner of someone who is rational and then get rid of an agreed proportion. See this one section through ie. Actually put the stuff in the bin, put it in recycling or burn it.
Step 5. Congatulate yourself with your small step in the right direction and focus on the space and clarity you've achieved.

Repeat.

Remember only small steps at a time and only tackle areas that can be completed in one day. One box, one drawer, one shelf. You will get stronger as you go, but start with low anxiety stuff.

Nice steps Poshbaggirl but most real hoarders hit the wall at step 1!

Even now, knowing that it has taken me the best part of a year to sort everything out, my Mum (who is currently in a nursing home and already building up piles of newspapers!) is in complete denial that the amount of stuff in her house was a problem.

I haven't really gone on about how many times I have gone to the tip as rather than make her realise how much rubbish there was it just makes her feel that I have been throwing away treasures. I have focused on the things I have found that are useful/valuable/sentimental.

I have tried to involve her in decision making about the best way to dispose of items that are collectable but most of the time the response is "can't you just hang on to it for now?" and my response is "No, I have my own house now, which has lots of your things in and I already have a large garage full of things we do need to go through and make decisions about soon"

I have tried to talk about it many times and the effect it has had on me and her ie she is very sociable but her and Dad never had people round, dinner parties etc, I never had friends for tea and used to come up with all sorts of excuses why people couldn't come and play at my house when I was little. Mum's response is just that I had a wonderful childhood (which I did in all other ways) and that I am being mean and making things up.

Its a difficult one.

xx

I would love to train in this field and help people. I have so much empathy for the hoarder, but totally understand the effect on other peoples lives. When it becomes overwhelming you can only do it with help.

A hoarder might be convinced to throw out the worthless things in order to appreciate the treasures.

My kids artwork a case in point. I SHOULD frame and treasure the best bits, but they are lost in the boxes and boxes of every single bit of artwork.

I really really feel for you.

replace step 1 with "identify one category of stuff which might be defined as a hoard..." perhaps?

Tonight, for me that is the makeup drawer - easy because it is all too old and is probably breeding god knows what - and tomorrow morning i will go and buy just one of each essential thing. I may even have a session at a counter in John Lewis...

I also have all the above reasons like the birthday card, might be useful, sentimental, 'it cost me x in the first place'. The only thing which I think could have set me up for these behaviours is the yard sale of things we couldn't ship back to the UK when I was 4. Not traumatic like some people's backgrounds but certainly formative.

replace step 1 with "identify one category of stuff which might be defined as a hoard..." perhaps?

Tonight, for me that is the makeup drawer - easy because it is all too old and is probably breeding god knows what - and tomorrow morning i will go and buy just one of each essential thing. I may even have a session at a counter in John Lewis...

I also have all the above reasons like the birthday card, might be useful, sentimental, 'it cost me x in the first place'. The only thing which I think could have set me up for these behaviours is the yard sale of things we couldn't ship back to the UK when I was 4. Not traumatic like some people's backgrounds but certainly formative.

For all its frustrations I am still fascinated by hoarding! I love watching any programmes about it which drives my dh mad.

I totally defend my parents right to live how they chose but it is the not realising the impacts on themselves and others that it hard.

You are in a good position because you are realising that you are doing it and you can start to control things rather than collect them so they control you!

My mum hoards, I hate it and at that level it is incredibly depressing to grow up around. It is also difficult to keep a house full of stuff clean - I don't mean people who just have a lot of bits and pieces, collections of stuff, etc, but real hoarding.

I think those posters who came up with a list of reasons (Cat64 I think was one of them) are right. And as people can have multiple reasons for hoarding - from sentimentality to mental health issues to "it'll come in useful one day, if only I could ever find it again", it is incredibly difficult to untangle the behaviours and help someone (if indeed they want to be helped! I wouldn't like it if someone told me how to live my life).

I am the complete opposite - I am unsentimental, happily chucked DS's first shoes into the Clarks recycling box when we got the next pair, regularly bin his - ahem - beautiful artwork, LOVE decluttering, sending to the charity shop, ordering skips for the broken stuff (god I love skips). I love reading but have no attachment to physical books at all (which I agree is considered something of a sin) - I love that fact that I can just download a book onto my ipad.

And one of the benefits of a minimalist house is that everyone is always telling me my house is spotless - it isn't at all, far from it, but people assume it is because it doesn't have much stuff in it.

BTW not against keeping stuff or having old/second hand stuff, I think that is very different, and I am not a fan of throwaway culture - nearly all DS's clothes, books and toys are second hand (has has much older half brothers so a lot of his clothes are 17 years old ), but once he and my bump have outgrown them they will be given away pronto.

Whoever said it becomes too overwhelming to deal with without help is probably right, but I personally wont let anyone in to help. No way!

I do get angry at myself, because I didn't always behave this way (well this badly anyway) and I do think some of it is linked to bad phases in my life. The more recent one started with Dd's father lying to me and me knowing, but unable to prove it. The really big problem started when my Dad told me he had terminal cancer and within half an hour of that news I caught Dd's father with 'the proof' I'd not had before. So basically, my world fell apart and I got worse within my house...maybe it is a security blanket; I certainly think it stops me letting anyone get close to me as I wont ask them in or round. I also have some OCD tendancies, so maybe it is all linked in some way.

Oh Cat64! I do just the same! I can so associate with the bags in the hall that just dont make it to the car and beyond. Which is why my 'theory' is that you do one bit at a time and COMPLETE the full circle process. Focusing on the empty space created.

This thread is is very theraputic! Wish i could take my own medicine.

I do the same with things!

I am okay at deciding to get rid of something as long as it is going to the right place ie someone who wants it (not absolute rubbish of course although I have to recycle everything I can of that). The problem comes with actually having the time to take things to charity shops, specialists, putting them on ebay etc etc.

In our apartment building, there are annual inspections, it tkes place somewhere between the last week of Aug and the first week of Sept, so it is coming up soonish. Plus we are moving across the country later this year. I may not be a full on hoarder, but man I have a lot of stuff! Plus, I don't want to be embarassed when they come in to 'have a little look-see'
I am going to tackle one room at a time, one area at a time, one job at a time.
My motto is "do one job, right, to the end" hopefully I don't run out of steam half way through