Hoarders

[bruce hylton]

I only keep those items that might be 'too good to toss' or repairable at some time in the future. I am RICH in unusable, repairable items also known to my friends as garbage. At least once a month someone comes by to find that one item that they need. Ten shipping containers[40 footers] would not be enough to clean my yard and shop to other peoples standards.

[sscherin]

I can understand a collection of things safely put away but in dealing with my mom time and time again I find valuables ripped, crushed, soiled, moldy or just plan mangled from being piled 4 feet deep in junk..

Imagine what it looks like at the bottom on a 5 year old pile of dirty laundry 4ft tall and 6 feet long sitting on concrete basement floor.

Pics are her living room before and after.
Other rooms were worse..

[sparkeyjames]

The ceiling collapsed under the weight of newspapers and magazines. We had to clean up so it could be repaired. I dont remember everthing but this was in the mid 70's and my mom said there were some from the early 50's. My aunt still fought tooth and nail to keep them but there was no room for the repair to be done without trashing them.

Think about it. Early 50's magazine would now fetch top dollar in the antique magazine market. My father had saved some late 40's to late 50's Popular Mechanics mags. After one of his periodic magazine purges I found out that a couple of those issues were worth $1500 each. You should have seen his jaw drop. Followed by 'Oh well it's too late now' and a shoulder shrug. BTW he does not hoard magazine just keeps the ones with an article he really thinks he can do something with.

[drillman88]

I had a great aunt who passed many years ago who was a hoader. Her house wasnt crammed full of stuff she had it all in one or two rooms and the attic. I remember when I was a kid we had to go over and help because the ceiling in one room had collapsed under under the weight of newspapers and magazines. We had to clean up so it could be repaired. I dont remember everthing but this was in the mid 70's and my mom said there were some from the early 50's. My aunt still fought tooth and nail to keep them but there was no room for the repair to be done without trashing them.

[cabinetman]

My dad is a hoarder of tools. Never throws out a tool. Even if it's broken. As he says it can always be modified to do a different task. I'll give him this though it is neat and in cabinets and drawers.

I save old and broken tools also. It's true, they can be modified. I have an affinity for keeping cords. When a household appliance or shop tool dies and is beyond repair, I'll cut off the cord and save it. I've used several of them to repair bad cords.
.

[TCOTTLE]

Yeah, I don't hoard food or trash, just old electronic equipment, tools, etc. It was organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

[sparkeyjames]

My dad is a hoarder of tools. Never throws out a tool. Even if it's broken. As he says it can always be modified to do a different task. I'll give him this though it is neat and in cabinets and drawers. My mother however is a different story. If she had not gotten Alzheimer's she would have been a complete hoarder. She hoarded yarn and material you know the type that makes clothing and the like. Bags and bags of the stuff. The count when we finally went through it was 40 bags. Before that my dad had put his foot down and told her it had to be stowed out of sight. Thank goodness it was all in the basement. This did help to cut down on the clutter. My older sister is just as bad. She has one room in the house that you cannot even walk into due to the bags of material. My brother in law did what my dad did put his foot down and told her it has to be stowed out of sight and in one room. Me I hoard old computer equipment and books. All neatly in boxes. I'm also in the process of getting rid of all my old photography gear. So that will cut down on things by a few boxes or so. Anyone need a heavy duty Benbo tripod?

[germdoc]

I just remembered that as my grandparents declined in their late 80's, we went to visit them. I had not seen them for several years. The house was filthy and INFESTED with roaches. I stuffed my pants legs into my socks to keep them from crawling up my legs. Yuck!

My mom called the exterminator that day.

It's sad when people decline that way...

[billwmeyer]

My dad isn't that bad, but he can't get rid of anything he thinks has a value. He was raised during the depression on a farm that he still lives on. It was always amazing to me that he would need something, go to a pile of stuff, reach in and pull it out. The amount of money he saved was unimaginable. He would pull over if there was a box on the side of the highway, and unbelievably he would find something in a lot of the boxes that he could use. He would go to auctions and buy boxes of junk, and make his money back many times. He loved to scrap metal for some reason, a passion I never developed. This was one of his retirement plans. He was going to scrap the metal for extra income when he had time. Unfortunatly he never had much time, as my mom came down with lung cancer and there were days he couldn't leave her side. My dad is 89 now and failing, so I will be left to clean up the outside, and I will get only marginal help with his 2 story house. We have managed to get rid of some stuff, but there is a lot left. His house is not filthy, he doesn't hoard plastic containers or plastic or paper sacks or useless junk. But he has a lot of non-valuable stuff too.

Bill

[natausch]

In all seriousness my wife and I are not looking forward to the day we have to clear her mother out of her house.

About the only area we've been able to make any progress on has been the refrigerator. Just over half a year we cleaned it out over the course of an afternoon. One of the running jokes since then has been how some of the medicine in the fridge and a number of frozen items had voted for Obama. Even though it was frozen pulling out a slab of fish with a sell by date of 1990 was enough to turn my stomach.

Honestly I think this problem is much more widespread than people assume.

[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.

[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...

[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.)

[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.
.

[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!