Compulsive hoarder

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I have a relative who is a compulsive hoarder. She shares her place with her husband who is also a slob. They compete over who gets to NOT clean, I think they go for days creating a mess and then not cleaning it. And then they do a bit (grudgingly) and go back to ignoring it. Their house is getting like those houses on the telly where you can't get in a room for junk. I have another relative who suggests clearing out the house.

This other relative says "She can't be happy living like that." But this presupposes my hoarding relative believes in happiness, believes that she deserves happiness, and believes she is capable of overcoming these obstacles. Does anyone have any experience of this? Is it worthwhile hiring a skip and trying to empty out the house or do you just give them more room to do more hoarding if you chuck stuff out???

IMO you cannot live other people's lives for them.

your relative may have psychiatric problems that means she hoards. If you clear her house you may precipitate an acute and severe anxiety attack or worse.

If she is just a slob she will just make it back to the slovenly state it was in before.

If she needs "saving" then you need her permission to "save" her, which means talking to her and asking what she would like to happen in her life helping her BUT crucially getting her to sign up to a different way of living.

The only exception to the above that I can see is if your relative is incapable of keeping house due to mental or physical disability or illness, in which case she may need social services to assess her needs and either relocation or a care package which may include her relatives stepping up to the plate.

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They probably will not allow you anywhere near them with a skip and you probably cannot begin to imagine how traumatic throwing things away is for a hoarder. This is a good recent website.

www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/

My Mum is like this. My sister has actually gone to her house and thrown stuff outside in black bags only to find that the next time she visited, Mum had gone through the black bags and redistributed the crap around the house again!

But it is her mentality, possibly stemming from a childhood where cash was scarce. She keeps thing that she "might" need or keeps projects that she "might" finish. One example was a part of a food mixer she used to own but which had broken. She kept the part "in case" someone else had the same food mixer and theirs broke! As the food mixer in question was out of production and all her friends had newer versions, quite who she was saving it for was not clear! She also kept a partially knitted jumper for over forty years in the hope that she would eventually get hold of the wool she needed to finish it!

After a lot of nagging encouragement by us and my aunt, she is slowly improving. She does want to sell her house and realises that if people are going to view it, she has to declutter. So most of the house is much better. Apart from her bedroom which is full of clothes, there is a narrow path from the door to the bed, though!

Thanks for everyone's comments and the link. I will discuss that link with my relative.

I find it hard to imagine throwing things away and finding it traumatic. When I have a clearout I find it cathartic and much prefer having space to having clutter.

FlyLady is also very good for decluttering but it's slow. You declutter for 15 min a day, every day. Possibly less scary than doing it all at once?

Hoarding is not a crime. And it's not up to you, or anyone else, to enforce your standards of how to live on another person.

I hoard, but am making progress with it: between a general culture of recycling and the amount of money I am making with some of my formerly-hoarded stuff on Ebay I am doing OK - but being bossed and bullied and 'helped' by someone forcibly throwing my stuff away would not do any good. It would make me bar the person from my house and probably from my life.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooh solidgoldbrass. Well aren'tcha glad I'm here discussing it on the internet rather than jemmying my relatives' locks right now? Sheesh. Lighten up. I'm here to discuss cos I don't know what to do and I never said it was a crime.

But you seem to think that you are entitled to change the way your relatives live because it's not the way you would like to live. You don't live there. You are not (or at least you haven't mentioned it if you are) the owner of the property they live i. WTF has it got to do with you in the first place?

Put the gun down and nobody needs to get hurt. I don't intend to do the skip thing, it was suggested to me by the other relative, I'm wondering whether it's worth tentatively, maybe, suggesting it to my hoarding relative to possibly help her deal with something that's overwhelming her and making her (seemingly) unahppy. BUT I COULD BE WRONG, hence I'm asking the good people on here to tell me more cos obviously there's people out there that know more about this than me. Is there really any need for that F in WTF? Can you just calm down a little?

Sounds like they are living the way they want, they're not going to change because you don't like it

Everybody look at the bad person.

I have read stuff on the hoarding site linked and others because of a friend with this issue. The general advice given seems to be there is absolutely no point in doing a clean out for the person. Generally what happens is after someone has cleared it out, within a few months it is back to the state it was in.

What can work is helping someone to clear out their place, but they haveto be very actively involved in this. So you could suggest you are happy to help. There is a website, sorry don't have the link anymore, which is basically about hoarders supporting each other to make changes and improve their living conditions. IF they want to change this could help.

There is alos a website for families and friends of hoarders that would be worth you googling. People there understand hwo destructive this behaviour can be and will support from a position of understanding the issues and how you feel.

Ignore the negative posts. There is a big difference from a loved one having an untidy dirty houdse to actually living in swualor which is what it sounds like. As you know thsi can be dangerous and therefore of course it is upsetting.

Sorry should have been living in squalor.

Ta Lesley.

What you say makes sense. It's a shame I'm two hours drive away from my relative and have a fulltime job. But I could take time off if it was a worthwhile use of my time.

Ime it's often caused by a mh issue and forcing the issue may do more harm than good.

It took 2 1/2 years and paying 2 sets of rent/mortgage for a year longer than ideal before my dsis's husband (then boyfriend) could sort it out, it was deeply personal and traumatic. You need to understand that while it may feel cathartic to chuck things out for you, the same is probably not true for the affected person.

My advice, tread carefully.

GCP you are getting people's ire up because you assume that your relative may just say 'yes, ok you're right, everything I have collected over the last twenty years is rubbish, out it goes'! 'Fixing' hoarding is a lengthy process requiring good therapy and a 'connection' with the person in question. Good luck, try watching 'Hoarders: Buried Alive' Bio channel on Fox.

WTF just wouldn't be the same without the F.

No I don't make any assumptions about my relative. I'm honestly here asking questions because I'm looking for answers, I don't have all the answers, if I had all the answers I wouldn't start a thread about it. I start threads cos I know there are people on here who know more than me and I don't intend to rush in rashly and do anything.

WTF isn't the same, it's true, but I get wary when people start Fing on threads towards me, it's never a good sign.

It isn't always a MH issue from what I have witnessed and read tbh. It can be linked to poor mental health or past trauma but there also seems to be for some a large element of genetics. Hoarding does seem to run in some families and if you read about individual hoarders stories on websites some talk about beginning to hoard from very very young ages - 4 or 5 years old.

And with hoarders often what they keep is junk - old flyers through the door for example. They won't see it as junk, but it is.

If I was you OP I would google and find the website that supports friends and family of hoarders and post this on there. TRhey have the understanding to be helpful to you and can suggest stuff to help as well as support.

IMO lots of people who don't have personal experience of this issue, don't really understand.

I will do that Lesley, ta.

I do remember my relative hoarding things as a child like shells off the local beach- I remember at the time thinking there was no point because you could always get more shells, and where would it all end? And there are other hoarders in my family, like a male relative who kept his parents sofa set when the parents died, and that meant his living room had about five sofas and eight chairs in there, and only one seat was ever regularly used. Could well run in my family...

www.compulsive-hoarding.org/Support.html

This tells you about the different types of support available to both you and your relative.

It does sound as if it runs in the family then.

I think some of the responses here have been quite harsh. OP presumably cares about her relatives and is worried that the hoarding is going to seriously affect their lives. This seems fair enough given that excessive hoarding is associated with negative effects on health, safety and personal relationships.

As others have said, the support groups and therapy are the way to go if you want to help them. The thought of throwing things out will be very scary for them - as I understand it, it's linked to anxiety.

sgb, it's like anything. If you had a relative that was ill and wasn't seeking treatment you'd be concerned, right?
I don't know how bad the OP's relative is but hoarding can lead to filth. You can't clean if there's no surface left to clean because it's all covered in junk. I am not a clean freak myself, by the way, my own house probably falls below what many people would find acceptable but my sister and I have often been quite worried about my Mum.

I sympathise, and having worked in social housing I've seen plenty of hoarding situations of varying degrees so can understand your concern but.... I'm of the "what has it got to do with you" brigade. Its their house and their belongings and marching in with a skip may clear the clutter but will almost certsainly lead to an increase in anxiety and possibly stonger hoarding behaviour.

I have seen people desperate because they have been threatened with eviction if they don't significantly thin the hoarded property but can't let stuff go. If the threat of imminent homelessness doesn't galvanise action.......

Please be kind and stop judging your relative by your standards - ASK if they want help, offer support but otherwise back off with your binbags!