Had a baby with a hoarder but I can’t cope anymore with him moving in.

[Onetwothree45]

We have been together 3 years and have a 6 month old. We lived in separate houses. His house was always a mess and full to the brim. I then got pregnant and he has moved into my house. His house is going to be rented.

I can’t cope anymore every drawer and cupboard is getting filled with things he has never used or did 15 years ago. He brings empty packages and rubbish. He won’t sort through and organise anything. I can’t put his clothes away as his drawers are full of crap like memorabilia or wires and old tablets etc. He has clothes from childhood in them when he’s 33 now. There is shit absolutely everywhere. He keeps going to charity shops and car boots and getting more when his house is probably only 30% empty. He gets quite angry when I put my foot down. We’ve got 5 bookshelves full of dvds now and several drawers. So nothing can be put in them.

I can’t cope anymore and have been crying all morning. He’s thrown a strop and filled up his car and taken a load back to his house. I can’t see this working. I’m really unhappy and don’t like being in my house. The baby will be crawling soon so it’s dangerous. Every time I speak to him he has an excuse or say Im just moaning again. It’s never going to end we will be surrounded by rubbish.

He got upset yesterday as I threw away a chocolate fish that was 6 years out of date but he wanted to keep it as a memento.

Seven Hoovers though?!

I think that respectfully your story makes me feel sad. Imagine what you could have done with the money you would have saved if you had lived together.

Nothing wrong with having hobbies and collecting and restoration is very skilled I wish I could do it. However at the point a collection is dictating your method of living and quality of life it becomes a problem. OPs dp is obviously at the point where it is a problem.

You cannot put your children through living with a hoarder who has no intention of getting help for himself. It will ruin their lives.

Sorry that was to tonyatotter upthread

You are not trapped. There are always options. You are going to be extremely unhappy staying with this person and it would drive me insane to live like that (not to mention its a completely unsafe, horrible environment to raise children in). I would rather sell my house and live in a tiny uncluttered flat than live with someone like that. There is also help with childcare (people on here will know more than me but you can get advice from womens charities). Millions of women work with children your age (many of whom are single Mums) and he will have to pay his share aswell ofcourse.

If a hoarder is living in council property you need to notify them as it’s a fire risk to the other tenants. They generally send the fire brigade to do a fire risk assessment.

In 2022 London Fire Brigade dealt with 1,040 hoarding related fires with 180 injuries and sadly, 10 deaths.

Ioh dear. My DP has hoarding tendencies. His parents are similar. They cannot bear to throw stuff away. We have been offered stuff they've had for 40+ years.

I fantasise about living alone. Every drawer is stuffed full

Cupboards full of electronic equipment that's not been used in over a decade

Hi, I am so sorry you are going through this. Hoarding is a mental illness- I have a family member who is very similar- he gets extremely aggressive when challenged. Hoarding can be exacerbated by periods of stress or changes in circumstances- either way, it’s not your fault. Giving in to your partner will not help, but ultimatums/understanding of consequences might, combined with counselling. If he genuinely believes you will remove him from the house, he might, (and I do stress might), get help, if he knows where to access support. Your local authority may have a ‘hoarding’ team who can help.

@Mirabai . I didn't know that. Thank you that is interesting.

@tonyatotter
My husband was a 'collector', yes he had lots of interesting, valuable items, but he was still hoarding. I couldn't walk around the house without falling over/into or onto something. I didn't enjoy walking crab like through rooms, or finding that he had bought duplicates or triplicates because he didn't remember that he had bought an item or had bought it but couldn't find it. It impacts the whole family, it's sheer hell.

It doesn't matter why. Stop trying to understand it

Send him home with his stuff. Tell him you'll talk about living together again once he's sorted out therapy for his issues and stick to it.

Oh OP, I feel for you and my partner is only a tiny fraction as bad. It gets me down though (surprisingly so!) and we argue about it a lot as I don’t keep anything I don’t need, have a capsule wardrobe etc as I’m a minimalist. I think he needs to move out, including all his shite; get therapy and when he is ready to come back with just a normal amount of stuff, consider that. With hindsight, I wish when I moved in with my other half I helped him pack and divided what he actually needs from his crap and conquered it at the time. Now it’s here, it’s harder for him to be ruthless about it and get rid. Good luck.

Please, as the child of a hoarder, leave him. Now. Your child will suffer for this throughout their lives. Even as an adult I struggle being in my parents house due to the clutter fucking everywhere, it's visually overstimulating and frustrating due to how much stuff there is. Mine live in a large victorian home with 4 double bedrooms, numerous reception rooms and an attic, only a few of those rooms are accessible and they have things piled floor to ceiling around the edges. It wasn't that bad when I was a child, but it has gotten worse and it will for your partner too.

Forgot to add I also wouldn’t want my child living this environment. For safety reasons yes, but also seeing such dysfunctional behaviour and thinking it the norm. The thought of the dust all his crap gathers can’t be good either. It’d drive me mad.

You can report them if the hoarding is so bad that their house is a fire hazard.

OP I find a lot of the replies here very harsh. I for one have been there - constructed a too-charitable explanation for a partner's flaws and struggled to work out what to do once it became clear that things were worse than thought.

I think I have a hint of the hoarder about me sometimes, as in, I find things sometimes that I kept 'for later use' and shake my head at myself because it is so obvious that there's no rational later use. But the thing is, I can't really tell you how I reasoned when I decided to keep the pointless stuff. It just made sense at the time.🤔

All that said, unfortunately I think PPs are right, all the 'how on earth could you' aside, that you and your kids can't live with this man.

Perhaps tell him what you have been saying and hearing here: he's got a serious MH condition and you had not realised. He needs to move back out, get therapy, get better and then he can come back.

Wishing you loads of strength. You are still processing the realisation, don't blame yourself.

I’m sorry you are in such a stressful situation. Hoarding is a really complex condition and, at the level you are describing, it’s an illness as it’s interfering with both his life and his relationships. If he doesn’t accept he does have a problem, unfortunately it seems you would be advised not to live together.

Yes, the difference is that Tony sounds happy and like he enjoys pottering around with the items that he collects. And importantly it is not directly affecting anyone else. Yes, he and his partner may be financially worse off between them, but we all have things we spend on, and it is a choice whether to stay in a relationship or not.

OP, I strongly suggest living in separate houses. It will be less stressful for both of you and your children.

You will also be in a better financial position in terms of claiming benefits.

You can't fix this for him. Only he can make the decision to seek help for himself, and it won't be easy, even if he says he wants to change.

You have to protect yourself and your children from this, at all costs. He'll have to live somewhere else, and he can't store things in your home.

Hoarding is serious entrenched mental health issue. If people could just stop hoarding or change their habits, hoarding wouldn't exist.

It also doesn't have a quick fix. Even if he got specialized therapy (which is very hard to come by in a public system), it can take years to change the thinking and resolve the underlying emotional issues that drive the hoarding.

I would say that you should continue to live in separate homes. He can keep hoarding in his house and yours stays hoard free. You don't have to end the relationship but living together will not work and will end up creting safety and other issues for your kids.

You know what you need to do. Tell him to move back to his home.

@Onetwothree45

There’s an American tv show called “Hoarders.” Look for it on YouTube.

The psychologists explain a lot about why hoarders are like they are. Your DP no doubt needs help beyond what you can give him.
I’m deeply sorry.

He doesn't really have time for therapy. Tell him you are going to book a professional declutterer and organiser to sort his house out and that he has to pay for it otherwise it's the end of the relationship. He may even put seeing his child at risk if he doesn't have a safe home for the baby to visit.

If his hoard is decluttered away I predict that he will feel so unsafe and panicked that he immediately will go out and find stuff to replace it to restore his place of safety.
Your only option OP is to leave this poor man to his inevitable fate of being mummified in his tomb of bits and bobs.

This just won't work. As a PP said he will feel very unsafe and destabilised emotionally and it will all just build up again anyway.

I'm sorry but there's a staggering amount of ignorance about MH. That's fine but if you don't know what you're talking about then maybe think twice before offering advice which could be actively harmful.

This is absolutely the best option if you want to stay in this relationship OP.

You cannot live together as it's not healthy for your children or you.