Hoarding

On one of the hoarder programmes they threw a video of The Princess Bride away which pained me as I treasure my Princess Bride video. And some videos are worth something now. I watched a favourite film from long ago on utube the other day, and it only existed because someone had video’d it when it was on tv and kept it.

That hoarding is a mental condition which maybe due to trauma rings true with my partner.

He was widowed suddenly in his 40s when his late wife went into hospital for a routine antibiotic infusion and subsequently died from hospital acquired pneumonia.

We met on a dating site 10 years ago and I tried living with him for six months but although he is not as bad a hoarder as OP’s post, as you can get into rooms.

In his bedroom you wade through clothes and other stuff to get to the bed and the other rooms are much the same.

The stairs have stuff to go upstairs taking over half of the stairway. Nothings moved for the 10 years I’ve known him on the rare occasion I go to his. Instead more is piling up as he can’t get rid of anything.

I’ve told him I can’t live with him, as he wouldn’t let us get rid of anything when I lived with him and it would be a gargantuan task for just the two of us. Instead he stays with me on alternate weekends.

I’d love to get Stacey Solomon to put his hoard in the hangar to sort him out. I’m disabled now so I can’t manage it sadly.

FranP - Madmeg

This all resonates with me & as the person recognises that the whole house has to be sorted , they are the one who wants to oversee it .
IE : Yay or Nay to every bit of paper , receipt , notebook , newspaper.
Not only but also we know that there are numerous garages that are full to the brim of who knows what !
Though the general consensus is that it’s all complete rubbish , we have to also acknowledge that there ‘may be ‘ items of worth amongst the hoarding.

Anyway it’s not going to get sorted in their lifetime so maybe I should leave it to the relatives who will inherit.
All I want is for the best version of a comfortable safe environment.

Cabbie21

I am just sorting and tidying my little study at the moment and I have just found a stash of cash. Now there’s an incentive!

😘💰💰💰💰

I remember Mr Trebus, too, silverlining. Such a sad case, but in his case you could understand where it stemmed from.

It wasn’t to the same extent, but a friend of ours was something of a hoarder. The house wasn’t unliveable, but there was stuff absolutely everywhere, piles of it.

After he died, while trying to clear out, his wife would come across e.g. six more or less identical gadgets for this or that. (This times many!)

I asked why on earth he’d got six of whatever it was - ‘Because he couldn’t find the first (among the endless piles of stuff) so he’d buy another.’ Rinse and repeat.
Among other things I remember a new rice cooker (boxed, never used) just sitting on the landing gathering dust for at least 6 years. Just one example.

I rather like coming across eg an old pay slip from decades ago showing how little I earned, how much tax I paid etc. It worries me that future historians won’t have any original source material to go on given that everything is just on computers.I’ve even got my GCE exam papers. A careers guidance questionnaire that I filled in. I’d love to have found my mums school reports and stuff like that after she died quite suddenly and I felt that I never really knew her.

MayBee70

I rather like coming across eg an old pay slip from decades ago showing how little I earned, how much tax I paid etc. It worries me that future historians won’t have any original source material to go on given that everything is just on computers.I’ve even got my GCE exam papers. A careers guidance questionnaire that I filled in. I’d love to have found my mums school reports and stuff like that after she died quite suddenly and I felt that I never really knew her.

I wish I'd kept some old paperwork when we moved because npm sure I've got a missing pension, albeit small.

Allira www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/tracing-and-finding-lost-pensions

Thanks Monica, I'll investigate.

Allsorts

I don't know how anyone lives with a hoarder, it would make me ill. Far from perfect but I can’t function in an untidy environment.

Neither can I, Allsorts. I am fairly minimalist in the house and feel better for it. I am using the One In, One Out rule now when it comes to clothes

Skydancer

Allsorts

I don't know how anyone lives with a hoarder, it would make me ill. Far from perfect but I can’t function in an untidy environment.

Neither can I, Allsorts. I am fairly minimalist in the house and feel better for it. I am using the One In, One Out rule now when it comes to clothes

I am the same Allsorts. But most hoarders live alone, it is often the breaking of a relationship, separation or death, that triggers the hoarding behaviour.

I also do not understand how often highly intelligent people end up hoarding to such state that they cannot access any rooms on their house except one and have piles and piles of newspapers and bags

It's nothing to do with intelligence. It's a mental illness, as I and others have said.

My friend’s older brother was a top lawyer and lived alone.
He was a hoarder but was always clean, smart and very well dressed in court or when seeing clients.

He had a beautiful house but every room was packed with stuff.
My friend tried to help him but each time one room was nearly cleared it was full by the time she visited again.

She knew of nothing in their childhood that made him act like this.