Parents who are hoarders - anyone else?

[Mintychoc1]

Just wondering how other people cope with this.

Parents divorced since I was toddler, I’m close to my Mum, and we have lived in the same street for the past few years. She’s a very involved grandma (when we’re not in lockdown!) and we get on very well.

But she’s a terrible hoarder- she always was, but it got worse once I grew up and left home, and she had the whole house to herself to fill. She’s not really a shopaholic, but she can’t throw anything away. Even with recycling facilities, she has never thrown away plastic veg trays, tin foil, the red string bags that oranges sometimes come in, toothbrushes, jars, cottage cheese tubs, toilet roll inners, boxes of any kind, plastic bags, newspapers, magazines - anything really. She sometimes looks in my recycling bin and takes stuff out.

Her father and sister were hoarders, so it’s a family thing. And she’s 80 so she comes from a “make do and mend” generation. (I agree to an extent, I always get stuff repaired rather than buy new, and I hate consumerism). She was also poor when she was a young woman, so that’s always in the back of her mind. She’s comfortable now though - no mortgage, fair bit of savings after downsizing.

Anyway I can’t go to her house any more. It is just rammed full of piles of papers and junk. Her kitchen is disgusting - every square inch of surface is covered in tubs and jars - and of course it’s impossible to keep clean so there’s food waste everywhere too. She has 2 spare bedrooms and a garage, all of which are impossible to get into, due to all her hoarded stuff.

She’s not depressed. She has a (non live-in) partner, she has a garden she loves, she doesn’t go out much but she has lots of friends she writes to and talks to, she’s not lonely. She’s a bit forgetful but doesn’t have dementia. She’s very slow walking but has reasonable mobility.

Over the decades I have offered to help clear some stuff hundreds of times. Once she gave me a box to go through, but immediately removed it as she couldn’t bear any of it to be thrown away. All the other times she’s refused help. I’ve just learned to accept that it’s the way she is. She has mental capacity to make these decisions, and it’s her choice.

But I worry constantly, about her tripping over boxes, about mice getting in, just about her living in that way.

Clearing it is not an option, she won’t allow it, but does anyone have any tips about how to not be stressed by a loved-one’s hoarding?! I have no siblings or other family to get involved. Her partner agrees with me but isn’t really bothered by it.

When my mum, a hoarder, moved house I said to her "At least it's a chance for a good clear out, you can declutter a bit." You know, like normal people do so they don't have to transport rubbish miles and miles.

Her response? "Why would I want to do that?"

The new house is now just as bad as the old house. Unlike lots of people, when I saw the previous place (my childhood home) had been renovated I was delighted. Her ability to wreck a decent house is astonishing. I am also not looking forward to sorting it all out in the future, but I've given up now after many previous attempts.

A member of my family is a prolific hoarder, so bad that nobody has been allowed in his house for years. He won't let anyone in and to be honest I truly don't think you could get in the front door. One member of my family looked through his letterbox one time when she went to visit and there was cardboard all over the floor nearly up to the letterbox. He is a lovely lovely man and so very loving. He is also incredibly wealthy from years of not spending and having a good job but if you saw him in the street you'd strongly suspect he was homeless. It's all very sad and I don't have much advice but what I will say is it is a mental health condition and incredibly hard (though not impossible) to fight but you have to wonder whether the trauma is worth it. I know for our family we have tried for years to no avail and the kindest thing we can do is love and support and stay away from his house. I believe it will be the death of him - it's unhealthy and he has frequent chest infections. I think there is mouldy food and possibly other awful things kept. My DM contacted his doctor to explain that it could make him ill but the response seems to be that unless they want to make a change themselves and unless they are a heath hazard to the public there is not much anyone can do. Sorry

My parents were like this. When my dad had cancer, the only way he could come out of hospital was when my DH and I spent the weekend taking all the stuff from the lounge into a storage unit hired for that purpose. Even then my mum (who had limited mobility) was fretting that we would throw away her magazines.

When dad died, she couldn't cope on her own and the place got worse and worse. We would go and see her weekly to throw out the rotting food and try to clear enough space for her to get about.

We finally convinced her to see social services/sheltered accommodation, but the day of the meeting, we found her collapsed in the kitchen and she died a week later. She was so bloody stubborn, that was all she would allow us to do. She wouldn't even use a panic alert system. It took 3 months and two visits by a house clearance firm to get the house empty. You couldn't throw anything away without checking through it all. I found love letters in old magazines (from the 50s) for example. It was horrendous.