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Original poster

Curing DH of hoarding....

50 replies

LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 07:10

Is it possible, or a totally lost cause? Has anyone succeeded in changing such a person?

I am not a hoarder, nor was my Dad, so I don't understand them. My Mum was a shocking hoarder, so is DH, DD is shaping up that way......

I'm not naturally tidy; I have to discipline myself to be tidy, but if I can do it, why can't they?

OP posts:
TheFutureSupremeRulersMum · 11/12/2013 07:18

Watching with interest as DH is a hoarder. How did your dad deal with your mum's hoarding?

Rooners · 11/12/2013 07:23

It's to do with insecurity and difficulty in decision making, imo.

What sort of stuff is he hanging on to? Any clues as to why?

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 07:34

My Dad was never really able to deal with it. Occasionally he would have a blow up and a few things would get taken to the tip, to be followed by recriminations about 'what a pity we no longer have such and such, it would have come in.'

When I was about 14. I sorted out a pile of old clothes - ripped, worn out, and too small, and gave them to Dad to get rid of. His eyes lit up, 'A woman after my own heart', he said.

It took me and SIL weeks of work to clear their house when they died.

With my own house, I am fed up with the clutter, and nor will I want to burden my children when the time comes.

OP posts:
tweetytwat · 11/12/2013 07:37

I am a hoarder. DH despairs of me. I don't know why for definite but think it's possibly related to not having much 'stuff' that was 'mine' as a child. partly a comfort thing. I can't see it changing soon
Our house is too small for us but DH doesn't want to get a bigger one in case I fill that up with stuff too

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 07:44

What sort of stuff? Mostly just stuff: old videos of things recorded from the TV 20 years ago - yes, they might be valuable one day. Rough notes for an OU course that he completed 20 years ago - not the written marked assignments, but the rough jottings. Old notes from a course he didn't complete. Old train and bus tickets, not of interesting holiday places, which could be put into a scrap book, but of local journeys to town. Old clothes which are ripped, and can't be worn, because he used to like that shirt, can't I mend it? If it's a button off or a pocket unstitched, yes, if it's a rip right across the back, no. Well, it will do for bike rags. How many bike rags do you need? Bits of broken bikes which he will repair one day. I did manage to get rid of one which had been cluttering up the back garden for about 15 years in a totally unrideable state.

I could go on...

OP posts:
Ruprekt · 11/12/2013 07:50

What would happen if you threw stuff away when he was out?

Hoarding would drive me mad! Shock

Rooners · 11/12/2013 07:51

It's guilt.

He is unsure how to deal with the guilt about these things, and feels scared that if he throws them away, he will be letting himself 'get away with it' - like not completing the course, like maybe wasted journeys, maybe because he has damaged an item of clothing that was good before.

He doesn't know how to process these miniature (or sometimes more significant) failings. I relate to this and it all sounds like that to me.

What helps is having a stronger sense of who you are as a person, where your life is going, and why you might have let these things happen, and forgiving yourself. Try giving him perspective by saying you understand why he did such and such, that you, and other normal people make these mistakes too and it's Ok to let them go.

Also an incentive for me is having more space,
don't force it, he needs to process this stuff in his own time or he will remember the stuff and feel bad about it for ever.

It's like a cursed item (like they exist! but forgive the analogy) you can't just chuck it or it will haunt you, you have to get rid of it in a proper, considered way...processing. That's all it takes.

Always helps me if I have a direction - so say moving house, to a good place, and I can then get shot of stuff I will no longer need there. Or finishing a project like our kitchen, then the extra wood etc can finally go.

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 07:53

You can get away with throwing some stuff away when he's not around. No good just putting it in the bin, because he'd be minded to fish it out and rescue it, but ideally, I would like him to become more disciplined and ordered about what he does keep.

OP posts:
tweetytwat · 11/12/2013 07:55

yy DH isn't bothered in the least about stuff. His own stuff.
A lot of my identity is tied up in my stuff I think.
Coincidentally he has a lovely sane relationship with two pretty normal parents. My dads an alcoholic and my mum is gone, she had severe MH issues. So probably not entire unrelated.

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 07:55

I think you are onto something their Rooners, although finishing a project would lead to the offcuts being kept in a messy, unfineable heap in the garage just in case.

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Rooners · 11/12/2013 08:01

yy I get that, I used to do it too.

It's a problem in letting go, obviously, in case something isn't good enough...also not wanting to waste stuff.

I have a huge issue around wasting stuff.

Sometimes (though it seems unfair) you can get somewhere by pointing out that stuff is getting wasted anyway as it goes mouldy/rots/gets moths if it's kept. And you're kind of wasting time and life and space by holding on to it.

Took me years though to get far enough to chuck offcuts away..I only keep particularly nice ones now Grin

Rooners · 11/12/2013 08:02

Go through stuff with him. Gently. Don't try to persuade. Just ask why he's keeping it, discuss the feelings around it.

When keeping it is less helpful practically than chucking it then you might get somewhere.

MissMarplesBloomers · 11/12/2013 08:34

Would he be better if he thought it wasnt going "to waste" ?

Loads of things can be car booted, recycled specifically so a charity benefits, or given away on Freecycle.

Our local hospice will take any old clothes as they have a deal with a ragman, decent stuff gets put in the shops. Books get pulped. etc

Would he be amenable to having a session with you every so often ( set a aside one a month maybe) where you have a black bag for rubbish, a box for charity & a recycling box? Fill one of each & stop there, so its controllable, not too distressing but an achievable target that makes you feel you;re getting somewhere?

whereisshe · 11/12/2013 09:16

I wish tidy people wouldn't pathologise this kind of behaviour - it sounds perfectly normal to me. Hoarders have bin bags of rubbish piled to the roof, this is entirely different.

He just happens to have the kind of personality that doesn't neatly compartmentalise the world, so things can serve multiple purposes and there are multiple possible futures in which those things could come in handy.

Suggesting strategies for how to get rid of it is not going to help - he doesn't conceptualise the stuff in the same way you do. If you insist on tidiness then try setting straightforward rules about stuff being hidden from view but don't bother trying to make him see your viewpoint on this, he won't.

Rockinhippy · 11/12/2013 09:23

Book marking, I married Mr Treebus Hmm

expatinscotland · 11/12/2013 09:28

I would never be able to live with someone like this. I would hire a skip whilst they were out, tip their shit in it, and then have it away for when they came back.

lottieandmia · 11/12/2013 09:31

My dad has an entire wardrobe full of empty shoe boxes and drawers full of the cardboard tags cut off clothes Confused

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 09:33

My husband is 'bin bag full of rubbish' type of person though, e.g. the other day a lamp blew and all the lights downstairs went out. The garage is so full of stuff that I couldn't get to the fuse box to reset it. Even if I had been able to get to the fuse box, it's high up on the wall, and the steps were hidden behind a pile of old boxes of stuff, bent bike wheels etc. - so it was pretty useless trying to get to them in the dark, with only a hand torch for illumination. That's not me being a tidy person getting upset.

I'd not have a problem at all, if the garage had shelves with things in boxes and labelled - it's the mess inside bags and boxes, which he hasn't a clue about which is annoying and which means he can't then lay his hands on things he needs (and then gets annoyed with everyone else because he can't find things).

OP posts:
lottieandmia · 11/12/2013 09:37

So is the issue that he doesn't want to throw stuff away or that he hasn't got around to it yet?

MotherIsTheBestBet · 11/12/2013 09:47

What whereisshe said. And you don't hear it said very often these days.

If you start from the viewpoint that he is a rational person who may have valid reasons for hanging on to his stuff, you might find a more productive and harmonious way of organising it than by assuming that he is just a mentally disordered person who needs putting right.

Life isn't just about keeping a tidy nest until you fall off your perch. People have

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 09:47

So is the issue that he doesn't want to throw stuff away or that he hasn't got around to it yet?

Both. My mother once bought him one of those joke 'Roundtuits'. He was most upset.

BTW - we do get on, it's just that the hoarding gets me down every now and again. Like now, when we have people coming at Christmas, and it requires hours of work getting things straight, when 90% is not my mess!

OP posts:
MotherIsTheBestBet · 11/12/2013 09:49

Sorry sent too soon...

People have endlessly inventive and imaginative inner lives and the objects around us can play a crucial role in these.

MotherIsTheBestBet · 11/12/2013 09:51

Having said all that I do sympathise - it is a difficult situation and must be creating a lot of work.

Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 09:52

Yes, but MITBB - why keep broken things? E.g. boxes of dead batteries which are corroded - those are the sorts of things I am talking about.

OP posts:
Original poster
LaVolcan · 11/12/2013 09:55

Hmm, not sure how the corroded batteries can help with the imaginative inner life.

Now the old bike, which was in the back garden for 15 years which he was going to do up, except that it was completely rusted, did go to student who wanted to make an art work of it. It was a fitting end, I felt.

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