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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/18/2008 7:24:43 AM | I am at my witts end. Honestly my mother is driving me crazy......She's a hoarder.
She asked me to come and help her clean her home (she's 76years old). No problem. Firstly I entered her home which smelt like a dead cat, then gasping for air I went to her backyard. There I saw scattered clothing soaked from the rain and mildewed.
I went back inside and looked around at the cluttered home full of dusty plastic ornaments and noticed that EVERY space was filled with some make shift shelving which held more crap.
I had cleaned this house a year before however she had brought the 'rubbish' back into her house.
I advised her that 'we' were going to come and sought her house out as she is aging and needs room to move. She has declined the offer after having said she wants a clean up, now refuses after previously blaming her husband for the hoarding.
How do I make her see that her living conditions are now a health hazzard? She has 3 small dogs that piss and crap on the carpet (which has lovely floor boards beneath it) and you cannot see her wardrobe because her clothes hide it.
Should I leave her to live like this? If not then how can I make her understand? | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/18/2008 8:13:21 AM | juliet... If I remember correctly, you work with elderly home care. Your mother is showing signs of Dementia. The lack of judgement, lack of insight, poor decision making skills. And YES hoarding is part of it!!! Her cognitive skills are suffering. You need to consider a possible dementia diagnosis, and meds that could help with her judgement skills.
My mother was a shopoholic hoarding pack ratter all her life. Then it got God Almighty Worse!!! It took 5 UHaul trucks to move her to my house. 3 Trucks were pure trash. 1 Truckload I gave away to Goodwill. It wasnt worth the hassle of me putting a garage sale price tag on.
That leaves me with 1 Truckload of stuff that I continue to deal with the last 3 yrs. Some things I have sent off to auction. Some I kept for myself. The rest will hopefully end up in a garage sale, when I have the freedom to pull off a garage sale.
If your Mother has always been a hoarder, the Dementia will make it worse. Best to get a grip on it while you still can. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/18/2008 8:14:30 AM | Hmm....this can be a tough one to deal with. Years ago, when my mom and I were on vacation in Scotland, we stopped in for a few days to visit my uncle's mother, who was early 80s. She was still very spry and no real health issues, but I'm thinking she probably had a mild form of dementia or something similar. She had no pets, but her house was in a similar state, and (she was a smoker) she also now had a very bad habit of walking around her house just flicking cigarette ash anywhere she happened to be...on the carpet, on the counters, just anywhere. Well, we started gutting the house from one end to the other cleaning, and when we got to the fridge the only things in it were some crackers and a few very old, hard, mouldy bricks of cheese. We washed all her clothes, cleaned the house and tidied the yard, then took her out for groceries. As we were putting them away, we discovered another habit she had....she'd quietly snuck in and taken things out of the grocery bags, and had squirreled them away in her bedroom so that she'd have them for later. Now, this lady wasn't poor by any means, but she explained she was doing this because of the cost of groceries, so that she would still have them for later. In the end, and mainly because of the danger with her smoking habits, my uncle ended up putting her in a retirement home. (He lives in Canada).
If I was in a similar situation to yours OP, or my uncle's, I guess I would either have tried to get my mother to move in with me, or found a house where she could have a little suite downstairs or something, and cut out the cigarette smoking. If that's not a viable option for you, I guess in your shoes I would just keep coming over every week and doing my own thing cleaning my mom's house, no matter what she had to say about it. Tough love, I guess. I don't know if there's any way you can actually convince her about the health hazards with the animal urine and mould at this point. If she's got hardwood under the carpet, maybe rip up the carpet so it's an easier cleaning job than shampooing all the time, things like that? I hate to say it, but it sounds a little similar to my uncle's mom's situation...does your mother maybe have the early beginnings of something like dementia as well?
Best of luck to you.  | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/18/2008 8:34:44 AM | and juliet, just to forewarn you... I also posted a parent hoarding situation in these forums back some time ago. Many people on this site pretty much attacked me for wanting to go against Mothers demands.
Newsflash... Psychiatrists and Social Workers will tell you it is NOT your job to keep mommy happy.
It's your responsibility to do what is in HER BEST INTEREST, whether she likes it or not. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 12:42:05 AM | Thankyou all for your responses. I never actually thought for one second that my mother could be in the early stages of dementia, however it's all becoming quite clear to me that this is very possible.
One thing that I did think about was the fact that my mother was 16 years old when the war broke out (she's Polish) and times back then of course were very tough. Nothing was wasted so I guess this has something to do with her behaviour.
Living with me is just not a possibility due to several factors.....one is she will never move from her home.
I will try and sit and talk with her and explain how bad her situation is and that she MUST stop going to second hand shops and MUST stop accepting 'free' stuff that she doesn't need. (Currently she has 4 beds outside in the rain complete with mattresses).
I don't know how she would react if someone from the Dementia Society came around....she probably would'nt like it as she can see nothing she is doing as wrong.
Again thankyou, and 'sweetness' it she does sound very similar to your uncles mother. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 4:25:47 AM | | You are in Australia. I am in USA. So I'm not familiar with your laws, etc. Might want to start considering POA (Power of Attorney) issues. She might be causing herself financial destruction. Best of Luck with your situation. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 5:07:28 AM | This is a mental health issue. What makes it really tough is that hoarders can't see any problem with what they're doing. To them it makes perfect sense. That makes it hard to get them the mental health treatment that can get them to stop hoarding.
The only thing you can do is contact not just a mental health professional, but one who has experience in helping hoarders.
This is one of the most difficult things to address. I'm so sorry for you and your family. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 6:34:01 AM | springazure..... Thankyou for your advice. I do agree that Power of Attorney would be a good thing, however getting it will be impossible. My mother is married and unfortunately her 4th husband is exactly like her (a hoarder) only he doesn't speak English!
EMSGranny..... I also agree that this is a mental health issue, but where to go from here? Mum thinks there is nothing wrong with hanging onto things that are special to her that she believes she has had for years (plastic ducks bought from the secondhand shop?). She once gave me some very 'special' wine glasses that she claimed came from Venice (we went to Venice 40 years ago). I turned the glasses over to find "AVON" stamped on them! It's all good I still have the glasses cause they are pretty.
I'm afraid that IF I tell her to get some help she will go off her nut and that's basically my dilemma.
I would be very interested to know if anyone else has experienced this type of thing. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 7:13:30 AM | It would be tragic if this behavior stemmed from a misconception, an old sign she read where the paint was faded, that said Boarding House but looked to her as Hoarding House, and somehow that planted the seed in her mind many years ago. I see a short story in this. Fetch me my cat's pipe and slippers, and a new parchment scroll. I shall be up half the day.
The filth is one problem, the clutter is a second, the excess a third. Clutter that is clean happens because people lack the ability to find things except if they can see them. They cannot use filing systems or other systems based on abstract principles of organization. They would need things to be put away in containers that have pictures of what goes there. Open shelves, glass doors, transparent bins, picture labels. "Too much stuff" is from never throwing anything out. It is a fear of poverty in some cases, and in others just a quirk. The filth problem can be a disorder but sometimes it is dementia, as the immediate environment becomes an outward manifestation of inner decay. Lacking the ability to manage personal hygiene extends to the residence. Disorganized mind, lost in thoughts, lost in noise, and so the world within reach slips from grasp.
Part of this whole life span thing we do is go from being the dependent child to the care taking one, as parents decline. Some cultures provide kindly social services, others have ice floes built into the landscape. There is hope in the form of help. Expand the team of helpers from being just you to being you and several other people, including any professional services that are affordable. Think not so much of changing her mind to agree with your views, instead think of presenting her with choices that guide her to accepting the realities of her needs and abilities. In the things where she is clearly unable to lead her own life you can hook her up with guidance, be it yours or from others. How much of her own self-determination she can retain is a practical matter. It might seem like independence is the obvious goal but really in times of weakness what people want is support for the weak part, so they can remain strong otherwise. Such are the adjustments to be made in life when there are more candles than cake. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 7:50:20 AM |
It would be tragic if this behavior stemmed from a misconception, an old sign she read where the paint was faded, that said Boarding House but looked to her as Hoarding House, and somehow that planted the seed in her mind many years ago. I see a short story in this. Fetch me my cat's pipe and slippers, and a new parchment scroll. I shall be up half the day.
The filth is one problem, the clutter is a second, the excess a third. Clutter that is clean happens because people lack the ability to find things except if they can see them. They cannot use filing systems or other systems based on abstract principles of organization. They would need things to be put away in containers that have pictures of what goes there. Open shelves, glass doors, transparent bins, picture labels. "Too much stuff" is from never throwing anything out. It is a fear of poverty in some cases, and in others just a quirk. The filth problem can be a disorder but sometimes it is dementia, as the immediate environment becomes an outward manifestation of inner decay. Lacking the ability to manage personal hygiene extends to the residence. Disorganized mind, lost in thoughts, lost in noise, and so the world within reach slips from grasp.
Part of this whole life span thing we do is go from being the dependent child to the care taking one, as parents decline. Some cultures provide kindly social services, others have ice floes built into the landscape. There is hope in the form of help. Expand the team of helpers from being just you to being you and several other people, including any professional services that are affordable. Think not so much of changing her mind to agree with your views, instead think of presenting her with choices that guide her to accepting the realities of her needs and abilities. In the things where she is clearly unable to lead her own life you can hook her up with guidance, be it yours or from others. How much of her own self-determination she can retain is a practical matter. It might seem like independence is the obvious goal but really in times of weakness what people want is support for the weak part, so they can remain strong otherwise. Such are the adjustments to be made in life when there are more candles than cake.
The best post I've read in these forums in my 137 years here.
Well done. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 9:00:55 AM | | I have to argue with it being caused by dementia. You have to understand the past, people who lived during the great depression, and thru the rationing during WWII, many became hoarders, my dad was Fibber MaGee, "I might need this someday'" | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 10:07:53 AM | I also agree that this is a mental health issue, but where to go from here? Mum thinks there is nothing wrong with hanging onto things that are special to her that she believes she has had for years (plastic ducks bought from the secondhand shop?). She once gave me some very 'special' wine glasses that she claimed came from Venice (we went to Venice 40 years ago). I turned the glasses over to find "AVON" stamped on them! It's all good I still have the glasses cause they are pretty.
I'm afraid that IF I tell her to get some help she will go off her nut and that's basically my dilemma.
Anything that respects her choice to hang on to things will help in terms of earning her trust. If you go and clean up she'll see you as somebody who is throwing away all her precious stuff, even if all you're doing is tossing her collection of empty cat food cans. Organizing the clutter as best you can -- "Here, Mom! Huge plastic bins! Let's fill them and put a list on each of them what's inside so it's easier to find!" So there it is in the bin, so the animals can't hide/crap in it, but she knows it's there. And recognizing that the sight of all the clutter is comforting to her. A nice, clean, spacious house looks frighteningly empty. Leave the clutter there, but in as safe and sanitary a manner as possible.
I had to deal with a tug-of-war between my sister and my mom. I was living with mom, taking care of her, and my sister would come up on weekends and clean out the fridge. After cleaning, Sis would see a beautiful clean sanitary refrigerator. Mom would see an EMPTY refrigerator and would immediately go shopping to fill it, with far more food than the two of us could eat before it went bad. So I'd get to watch all that food rot, and my sister throw it out, and another batch of food rot. I told my sister that as long as something was in a closed container and not contaminating anything else, LEAVE IT THERE. Mom will open the fridge, see a full fridge, and be content. She never ate the old nasty stuff. She would open the container, see that the food had gone bad, put the lid back on, and stick it back in the fridge. So I just set aside an area of the fridge for the fresh, edible stuff and let my mom have her shelves and shelves of containers of moldy sour cream and jars of horseradish or mayonnaise she'd bought during the Nixon administration. It worked for us -- once my sister moved away and stopped cleaning the fridge out! | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 11:02:28 AM | | Juliet... understanding that your Mother has not yet been diagnosed with dementia... but IF it turns out, that is indeed part of the problem... trying to 'talk' to her or trying to 'reason' with her, could cause you great blood pressure points. Often, trying to reason with a dementia patient is impossible. You may have no choice but to resort to being forceful against her wishes. Her having a current husband can work for you or against you. If he seems to be part of the brick wall problem, you should get authorities involved. It may be your only option. Dealing with Dementia parents is the most emotionally frustrating situation. Often they will cooperate with Authorities... but not their own children. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 7:28:45 PM | | Accompany her to the Dr for a "check-up" but before the appointment, call and tell the Doc everything you are concerned about....it may not be dementia, but It could be a combination of simple messiness and old age coupled with loneliness....if she is busy, with church, friends, you, a garden, whatever, then she wont be hoarding stuff so much. And maybe if she had company coming over on a semi-regular basis, she would clean up for them? Another thought, she could be suffering from depression, my mother in law gets like that when she is off her meds, and when she is on them, she is fine and so is her house. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/19/2008 8:50:34 PM | This is a serious problem that does not discriminate by age and it's common enough to have had more than a few studies done on it. OCD is one culprit; the need to hoard. There's another perspective on this; that some of today's elderly people who grew up during the depression have a predisposition to hoard.
My grandmother was a great hoarder. Her house was filled beyond capacity; every nook, cabinet, box, storage area, including every inch of the living area except for the tunnels for walking through. She even had things under her rug!
It was impossible for my mother to do anything about it. She refused to sort anything out, get rid of useless stuff, and/or donate some of the good stuff to an organization. After she passed away last year, my mother went into her house with a cleaning company. She rented 4 huge rubbish containers and they were filled to the top when done. Unfortunately, the wall paper and carpets had to all be taken out. The mold that was growing was horrible. . . not to mention the health hazard. Even much of the furniture had to be tossed.
I'm wondering if your mother has any friends that you know well enough to go speak to about this. Maybe enlisting one to go talk to her might help. I remember one year my grandmother went out on a vacation for a while and my mother spent the three weeks going through as much as she could to bring it to some semblance of cleanliness and order. Oh my! This is a hard one! Best of luck to you. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/20/2008 6:09:20 AM | Again thanks guys for your input and understanding . paumanok and EMSGranny and most others on this thread can understand my predicument.
springazure I would love to sit her down and talk but the chances are she will think I am mad for not thinking like her and that I am out to 'get her' and wreck her happiness. She almost hung up on my over the phone the other day when I suggested I would help her.
Caskey.....Mmmmm the war, I really do think that the war has got a lot to do with her way of thinking, as even her cooking leaves a lot to be desired. Ox tongue? Chicken feet? Nothing was wasted back in her day and it seems it has carried on to now. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/20/2008 3:00:29 PM | Hi Juliet,
If you message me, I can send you some information on resources that can help.
To generally help a hoarder, it takes a team of a Dr., psychologist, social worker, and professional organizer.
And, while her home may be private, there could be some real fire hazards going on, that could violate some laws.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best of luck.
:) Leigh  | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/25/2008 1:33:38 PM | a few years ago on the program "A life of Grime" an elderly gentleman by the name of Mr Edmund Trebus became a regularly featured person. HE had this fairly large house and it kept it FULL of rubbish and doubtless a few uselful things too hidden amongst the rubbish. Anyway the local council repeatedly harassed him and took him to court obtained powers to enter and remove his rubbish and charged him handsomely for the pleasure. No sooner had Mr Trebus an empty house he felt compelled to fill it again. This of course annoyed the council and his neighbours and the council not satisfied with just making him clean up, used the law to take his home, alter it and sell off part of it to pay for the rubbish removal, then reinstalled Mr Trebus in his remaining part of the house. Finally, the poor chap was then taken from his home and sent to a old folks home where they stripped him of his remaining dignity and shaved his beard off. Naturally he died not long after losing his home.
So op, you could try using Mr Trebus' story as a true example (albeit in england) as what happens if you don't keep a tidier home, but as other posters suggest, it does sound like there could be an element of dementia creeping in, and having a partner doen't make it any easier as a dedicated spouse will ignore any doubts of their own and stick by their wife/husband to the bitter end. Love and patience and strong support from friends and professionals is needed.
Hoarding is a habit that affects all sorts of people, people who like Mr Trebus had a hard time during WWII do it because it becomes an obsession to save what little you can lay your hands upon. Others in the younger generation do it because of how they are raised to save not waste. And I guess the very latest generation of hoarders start simply as a result of other mental health issues alone. Hoarders never see the problem as outsiders do. We hoarders (I am one) keep things because it will come in usefull one day. As a practical handyman type, I have loads of bits of lumber (wood) endless pots of nails and screws etc. Neighbours know as long as they aren't in a hurry, where to come for a single bit instead of having to buy a pack of 100, if they can find what it is for sale if it's obsolete. I have offcuts of wood cos why take a new length of wood and cut a small bit off, keep the small bits for the next time you need a odd bit. I like to think that I have my obsession under control, at least I recognise it and every so often have a small spring clean. But it's mighty difficult sometimes walking past a skip full of interesting bits of building material without recycling a really useful discarded object that is just been wasted. But as in all things there is a spectrum from those who just save a few glass jam jars to those who save every single food wrapper they use.
Maybe the sane world needs to take a small step towards us hoarders. We landfill thousands of tons of reuseable items every year, this is a waste of natural resources and hence our money. Do we always need new this and new that. It makes me half laugh and half cry when social housing tenants complain about not having a new kitchen for the last 5 years. Providing you have looked after your worktops and cupboards etc, they should last 25 years. Surely a more important use of the limited tax dollars would be to insulate homes better, not to waste good furniture just because it looks out of date. Hell, you don't have to wear the silly cupboards, if you need to look fashionable then buy new clothes yourself. Slightly off rant? maybe but maybe I'm illustrating how a typical hoarder thinks - 'waste not want not' is our guiding mantra. Still we all die eventually so if we do landfill everything then when we get buried we'll have all modcons under the ground with us 
hug someone new today
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/25/2008 4:12:52 PM | To Paumanok (msg 10) and to fortuitousmalapropism (msg 19... why did you
pick that handle?) Anyway...
You both posted wonderful wonderful statements. Bless your souls for such
I cant not speak for Juliet's situation... here is my situation...
Mother SAVED EVERY utility bill and EVERY bank statement from 1955...
(the day they got married)... EVERY insurance policy... and sometimes...
her grocery list and 'things to do list'
I have a rather hardcore and heartless attitude on HOW to handle a
hoarding parent. Maybe my situation was more extreme? Mother actually
SAVED every article of her high school wardrobe (she is currently 74)
cause it MIGHT come back into style. WTF???
What I found was an ENTIRE ATTIC FULL OF rotted clothes, and busted
Christmas ornaments (that could get glued back together again) not to
mention utility bills and bank statements, cancelled checks from 1955!!!
OH OH OH and dont forget the clue of mouse nests etc... I have NEVER in
my life had allergies... but moving her stuff... I had severe breathing
attacks plus skin rashes. It was bad!!!
I actually found grocery store receipts from 1979!!! IF IF IF IF IF
Juliets situation even BEGINS TO RESEMBLE MINE.... she HAS TO BECOME
THE UNWANTED B*I*T*C*H!!!!!!
I beg and pray for Juliet... I PROMISED my sons, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER
put them through what Mother has subjected me too.
When you are a RESPONSIBLE adult, you take care of your OWN MESS!!!
After taking ownership of Mother's mess.... I am NO LONGER a worshipper
of materialism or consumerism...
I learned the hard way... STUFF CAN OWN YOU!!! | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/25/2008 4:20:35 PM | I'm not certain having lots of junk is a mental illness. I know people of all ages who are "collectors". We are sometimes very quick to label others simply because they don't live as we do.
Would anyone have imagined that glassware that came in an oatmeal box would someday be worth a fortune? Or baseball cards that little boys collected and traded would bring thousands of dollars at autions?
Perhaps a house is messy or even dirty, but I don't want someone to decide how I should live in a house, and it isn't up to me to decide that someone's stuff is trash. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/25/2008 9:31:13 PM | OP, so many of these anecdotes are really hitting home with me; they are so familiar!
My dad was a hoarder for most of his adult life, and this we attributed to him having to struggle through university during the depression. In the last few years of his life his hoarding reached critical mass and I found myself intervening on his behalf to the point where I lost about a year of my own life involving myself in lawsuits and insurance claims. You see, two of his main compulsions were collecting feral cats, and hoarding anything and everything - in particular - newspapers. He also wrote down almost every thought he had minute-by-minute on post-it-notes which he attached to almost every vertical and horizontal surface in the house.
My father was a surgeon who lived in an upscale neighbourhood, so you can imagine the neighbours' consternation at having to deal with upwards of 50 or so feral cats roaming the vicinity. To try and control their unfettered breeding, my siblings and I had to regularly round them up with humane traps. My dad also went through unexplainable periods of obsessiveness where he would collect coffee cans and hot glue them together to form a "fence" around the perimeter of the house, to separate himself from the neighbours. He also collected old pieces of wood and painted them turquoise and set up a collection in the backyard. He was even working at wearing several sets of clothing all at the same time. It was not unusual to see my father in the dead heat of summer wandering about the yard in pajamas underneath a three piece suit with a cardigan sweater and overcoat over top of all that. All of this might have been laughable if it hadn't tormented the neighbours for a good 20 years or so. Eventually, critical mass was finally achieved - a house fire (fuelled by the newspapers) in what our family collectively refers to as "The Great Bacon Fire of 1999") swept everything away. The family home was almost completely destroyed and took a year to rebuild. Fire was the great equalizer that year - that which destroys can also create. In a twisted way, we thought we had some sort of fresh start.
My point in relaying these events to you is to stress that steps must be taken to protect your mother from herself. Three members of my family nearly died in that house fire because we wouldn't stand up to my father and forcefully rid him of his newspaper collection. Even having the fire marshall come to the newly re-built home to admonish my father about starting up the newspaper collection again in earnest did not work. We were only able to clean up the house a second time after my father's death, and that required having a dumpster left on the driveway while we accomplished this task. Unfortunately, it becomes the responsibility of family members to police the behaviour. Whole periods of my life as a child and an adult were hidden in secrecy and shame over these events. My self-esteem and that of my siblings was forever damaged.
Hoarding is not necessarily demetia, and hoarders are not really people without the discipline to be neat and tidy. The physical energy that hoarders put into their collections is truly astonishing! I do not understand how an elderly person has the energy. That, coupled with the mental focus they often devote to their obsession explains why they are so difficult to treat, especially when they don't want to change. I think there are often defining moments in one's life that trigger hoarding. There are however, some drugs that can help.
I would suggest that if you haven't already done so, try to have your mother evaluated by a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. Other members of the family should be encouraged to help clean up the mess. Chances are though, that they will have to "buy-into" the program of constantly protecting your mother from her collecting habit, as it may never cease. Power of Attorney is another option to which, at least where I live, people in fragile states of mine can be legally compelled to accept pending the outcome of psychological evaluations.
I wish you well in future.....I am really feeling your pain........
Hug, hug, hug | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/26/2008 7:58:26 PM | My hoard...may be valuable to someone. You don't know! Look at the retarded man in the States...collected old tires for years. The USAF bought the whole lot of them for target practice purposes and gave him over two million for his heap of rubber.
Yes...some hoarders do need help though. It can get pretty bad. Saw on a show where one couple had 7 tons of "stuff" taken out of their house. When it takes a commercial dumpster to get rid of it...you've got a big heap of junk!
check the matresses before chucking out..never know what is stuffed in them...like money!
Some thngs should be checked though...they are worth something somewhere. Like e-bay. Or "retro clothing stores". Or even a yard sale..or used furniture place.
All kinds of things.
I hate throwing things out myself...cause I now when I do I'll be needing just that thing within two weeks of tossing it out. But...out it goes. And...two weeks later...going out to look for that same thing at a second hand place or a hardware store or something. ah well...some people just don't appreciate "collectors" either.
Massive hoarding is a sign of illness though. anyone living in a "barn-like" place needs help too...can't be living in feces and animal whiz....going to get sick. I don';t care what anyone says...that Is a health hazard and shouldn't be tolerated at all by any city/town...whatever. Immediate cleanup, or the town does it and bills you. Removal of the animals too.
sure...some people may not want to live like everyone else...but they don't have the right to impose a health risk to the neighbourhood either. | |
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| Hoarders.....Is there any hope?
Posted: 6/27/2008 7:39:43 PM | I notice where you live... and wonder if you look at things all in perspective. your country in your mum's early years was much like the western US at the same time. My mothers family were pioneers, went across half the US in a covered wagon, nothing was thrown away. If your grandparents were in Stralia doing the same thing, chances are this is just ingrained into your mum. She's old, she's happy, let her be. Unfortunately for mine, some smart sob decided she had to move from the house she's lived in since 1946 and she died within a year, always asking where she was and when she could go home. If she falls down and breaks something, she lived life on her terms, the fact is old people fall in tidy houses too, break something and then they're gone...... Let her be happy as long as she can
One day, when your mum is dead and gone, and you're standing there with something in your hand about to pitch it into the trash and start thinking "i can fix this" or "i might need this someday"..... a smile will come, and a nice memory of those gone but never forgotten
Sometimes we just are our parents' children | |
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