Children of hoarders

[3luckystars]

Just wondering if anyone here is in the same boat. My parents, dad especially, are hoarders.
I have tried talking to him, but he says it breaks his heart to throw anything out. The house is full of stuff, there is nowhere to stay and sometimes nowhere to sit when we visit. It's very upsetting.

My sister has been encouraging me to watch one of the hoarding programmes on the TV to get a better understanding that it's a mental problem, but I can't look at someone else's crap, it just makes me annoyed and I don't know how it will help.

Is anyone else a child of a hoarder? Any advice?

My DF and his partner are hoarders. My DM isn't and when my parents were together she used to make him get rid of stuff but his partner is just as bad as he is. They trawl gumtree and carboots. They buy/hoard everything! Furniture, books, clothes, toys, tools, appliances etc etc etc. They never clean, or not to a normal standard anyway. I hate going round and have only taken DS there once or twice, I've never taken my DP to theirs as it is so grim. My sister feels the same way and we find it hard to understand, even though we both know it is not really their fault. They complain about having no money but spend it all on crap! Ahhh! I've never really talked about it much but it feels good to say it somewhere.

SavoyCabbage I'm just incredulous at your friend's son not being allowed to go to the park as he has to chose his future dinner service. If that wasn't so sad I'd be laughing. Watching with interest as my parents are definitely hoarders..

Kramer the pictures you show are not too bad to be honest. You say that took 3 years to get to that stage. This took six weeks from being cleared completely to this.

Deste that really is bad.

I photographed covertly to show my mother the mess so didn't get the best shots. He had over 30 years worth of carrier bags inside a kitchen cupboard with every sainsburys logo ever produced.

What a way to live. But it seems many do.

My goodness, I never realised that it was linked to loss. Both my parents would try to keep everything; my dad lost 7 siblings (not a typo) and then he and my mum lost my brother (I lost him too) :( and now Mum's died as well.

DH has taken to calling me a hoarder more and more in the past 2 years, and I'm just starting to wonder if this is an influence I hadn't considered.

to everyone here.

My ILs are on the edge of hoarding - with them it's mostly a desire to keep anything "useful" and fear of not being able to afford to replace anything (both grew up in poorer-than-local-average families)

Thankfully when recycling facilities came in, they were reasonably content to get rid of a lot of stuff, and then MIL's walking and medical problems got to the point where they clearly needed to move house.

Took a couple years, but with 6 children/cILs, we got the place emptied without upsetting them much - explaining to FIL that any newspaper article he really wanted could be found via the Newspaper Library or online, meant I could get rid of about 4000 newspapers. Carrier bags could get recycled at the supermarket. FIL eventually trusted me enough to go through papers in his study - suggesting he keep various "historical" things but put in a dedicated storage box helped him let go of a lot.

After the move, BIL ensured only a sensible amount of stuff was unpacked and its been under control since, but does require regular visits to take stuff away (gifts for the gcs, mainly). Luckily MIL can't get round charity shops like she used to, but we have to encourage car boots as it's the only way to make her exercise...

After FIL had some strokes, he gained some awareness that eventually he would die and most of their stuff would be chucked - it's getting better but now SIL is refusing to throuw out newspapers "in case she wants to do the crossword"... Aagh!

Probably just as well my dad had to move a lot - after retirement he spent a couple years sifting through unopened boxes from years before. Apparently it's much easier to tell what you need to keep if you wait 15 years first...