Hoarders

[crokett]

Watching this show and it is amazing the amount of stuff people collect. The clutter bothers me a lot less than some who live in filth.

[crokett]

Fixed. Hit the post button one too many times.

[cabinetman]

Haven't seen that show yet. Hope it's not about me.
.

[sscherin]

My wife thinks I'm a tool Hoarder..

She mocks me for hunting CL for bandsaws while watching the show.

[Uncle Cracker]

My mother, rest her soul, was a hoarder. Eventually, her large 4-BR home was packed to the ceiling with practically every item she'd ever encountered, from carefully-sorted junk mail to washed and sorted-for-size plastic butter containers. There were neatly maintained corridors through the "inventory" to allow movement, but the house was otherwise unrecognizable from the inside. This was no doubt a compulsive mental disorder, but gave her later life purpose (to her) and did not hurt anyone else, so we kids resigned ourselves to let her do what she wanted (as if we had any alternative - she was one stubborn old lady!). Then, after she passed, LOML and I spent the better part of 6 months cleaning out the house (my brother decided to be elsewhere). The trash men must have thought we were importing garbage from some foreign country... Sad testimony to the way the human mind sometimes works (or doesn't).

[natausch]

Last night
Me: I'll be late for dinner, going to go look at a new drill press
LOML: Okay, do you have room for it?
Me: Yeah, no problem

Later when I got home
Me: Do I really need to keep these 12' boards that length? I hardly ever use 12' stock, and using most of one wall for lumber IS a bit excessive...

I didn't do it, but tablesaw, band saw, jointer, planer, miter saw, dust collector, and now drill press are starting to fight with the snow thrower, garbage cans, ladders and lumber in our two car.

[pelligrini]

My wife started whatching that show and has developed a fear that we will end up like that. She even started throwing out some of her s**t and said I ought to do the same to mine.

I said my stuff is off limits. I just might need that box of 386 mobos, or my old notes from a college History of Architecture class someday.

[jackellis]

My shop has a little more in it than I would like but I can move around. My wife's playroom is so crowded the only free spaces is a path to her desk. However she finally does realize shes going to have to downsize. In her free time. Of which there is NONE.

[radhak]

When / what channel does this come on?

I need to turn it on for LOML. She's not as far gone to call the doctor, but she seems to have some paranoia about letting go. eg - If I throw away older magazines (12 month or older), she gets worried that she's missing something because she might not have read it all and gets upset with me .

Of course she says I have the problem - because I have 'so many tools in the garage that the cars don't fit'! The fact that she has the 2000 sqft of the house to fill and I get just the 300 sqft of garage seems to be besides the point... !

[crokett]

Hoarders is on A&E. Looking at the time I posted this thread, it must be 10:00 PM and I guess it is Monday nights.

[sscherin]

I could have easily gotten my mom on this show..
She's had hoarding problems since I can remember. She was living with my grandma out in Indiana for the last 25 years.. She got in a fight with my Aunt over some stupid thing and mom called the cops.. Cops shows up, saw the house and called EMS to "rescue" grandma from the house..

They called the health inspector who tagged the house as un-inhabitable until it was cleaned. They were facing a $25,000 fine if it didn't get done as the inspector felt it was a danger to the neighborhood.

The cleanup was a total nightmare.. Not just the house, but my mom being a total roadblock to progress. She honestly thought she could go the court hearing and tell the judge that she had a disability the made it impossible for her to clean so they should have to do it. When we showed up to bring her back to WA the scene was straight out of a Hoarders episode.. She had posted signs all over the house and even on the dumpster stating this was her PROPERTY, not garbage and she would be back for her things.

She had had about a week to collect the things she wanted to take with her. Instead of doing it she had spent the time shopping for things she needed for the trip, New clothes, craft projects to do in the car, books to read and god knows what else.

By the time we got there she had lost half the stuff she just bought and was out buying it AGAIN! That's how she works.. If it's lost don't look for it just buy a new one.Lost her keys, get new ones, lost hr credit card, new one. lost her cell phone and her 2nd cell phone, get new ones. Lost the charger for the new cell phone. get a new one.. Glasses she just got 2 months ago for $600 missing? Get new ones!

My Sisters husband came out to help move her back.. His description of the house was the best.. It's like hitting a wall of stink. It just just overwhelms you.. I can't describe it but that smell has staying power.. It gets in your clothes and takes 2-3 washings to get out..

She's living at my Sisters house now and they have to do weekly room inspections so find what little treasures she has brought home.. She hides stuff in her car, under the bed and tries to hide it in her laundry..

I could go on for hours about all the gross nasty things we have gone through over the years with her.. Dug her out of 4 homes in all since I was 16.. This last one was the worst and the final straw.. We are doing all we can to force her into an assisted living home but she insists she has no problems at all. She fights us at every turn. Lies to her counselors and us..

There is one demented but fun side to cleaning up her junk.. Treasure hunting..
You never know what you will find in any given box , bag or pile of junk. Most of it new in the box.



Ok I'm done venting I need to go clean my shop. I feel dirty!

[cabinetman]

My wife started whatching that show and has developed a fear that we will end up like that. She even started throwing out some of her s**t and said I ought to do the same to mine.

I said my stuff is off limits. I just might need that box of 386 mobos, or my old notes from a college History of Architecture class someday.

I feel the same way. It's "saving for when you'll need it" theory. I can't remember how many times my junk (collectible) box of miscellaneous hardware has served a purpose.
.

[germdoc]

Patrick Leach (of "Blood and Gore" Stanley site fame) offered some tools for sale a few years ago which he described as being from a gentleman who apparently purchased the entire Lee Valley catalog piece by piece, as well as a whole bunch of other tools--Stanley, etc. Every piece I saw was new in the box.

I got in on the tail end of this and wasn't able to take advantage of it, but it was fun to look at. (If I had those tools they would have been USED.)

[TCOTTLE]

Confessions of a Hoarder.

I am a Hoarder, I used to not get rid of anything, but watching that show brought it to light for me. My wife was always asking me about my garage, when it would be clean etc.
Now, since I have gotten into woodworking, I have transformed 1000 sq ft of junk into a functioning shop, with ample storage with racks, and I am in the process of getting rid of even more stuff.
Why do I hoard? To be prepared.... for anything, but it if wants for my wife, I would have been prepared for the loony bin...

[crokett]

When I was 13 or so my parents bought a farm in VA that they intended to retire too. They rented the land to a farmer and the house to a minster and his family. 10 or so years later they decided they liked it well enough here to sell the place there. I went up to help them clean the place up and get it ready for sale. The filth was unimaginable. This wasn't some abandoned place, these people lived in it daily. Before we got there my dad hired a company to clean out the garage. He and I still took 3 pickup truckloads fulll, 4 if you count the freezer, to the landfill. The freezer I guess had died so they took it out on the back deck and left it, still full of food. My dad thought we should empty it, then he opened the lid. Then he closed it, went and got a tow chain and chained it shut.

They had chickens and rabbits in the garage and the way they cleaned was to move cages around. The offal was over a foot deep around every single wall in the garage. I used it to fill in the holes that had been dug in the front yard for one reason or another. One of the holes I used as a pit to burn all the trash that would burn.

I slept in the truck overnight because I didn't want to be in that house with so many cockroaches. The day we left I put bug bombs in every room. My mom said the next weekend you couldn't walk in any of the front rooms without crunching dead cocroaches.