I'm at my wits end

Hi I have some understanding of this myself and would say it causes great distress if someone gets rid of things surreptitiously
Why not offer to help
I heard that starting small eg sorting things for say 15 minutes then gradually increasing can work
Hoarders suffer anxiety about making the wrong decision about ‘ things ‘ and avoid doing this
There are organisations that can help

Hoarding is absolutely considered a type of mental illness. He can't explain to you why he needs all of his things, because he probably doesn't know himself. All he knows, likely, is that if they are taken away he will get very anxious.

The problem with doing a forced clean-out is that while it will get rid of the hoard, it will escalate his anxiety and he will probably just start hoarding again.

I'd see if he is willing to see a therapist who specializes in hoarding. The big risk is that if he continues hoarding, he might well create an environment in your new home that isn't safe for your GC. Hoards can be VERY dangerous.

Oh! This post could have been written by me in many ways.My DH is also 79 and has been a hoarder all our married life of 59 years. He collects anything that may vaguely useful, this includes things found in the street such as nails, nuts and bolts,pencils, pens etc etc. Anything left over by workmen which they would “bin” he asks if he can have it. He finds enormous difficulty getting rid of anything. To him it is some kind of sin. However, if we can find someone who needs something he will willingly let them have it although he may worry that it won’t be used! There is one “benefit” however, if you can call it that; one of our grandson’s is in the filming and events business. We sometimes get phone calls saying “I don’t suppose you have.....”. Grandad then disappears into cupboards, loft or shed. Out he comes with something or other. The trouble is that his fear of decluttering extends to my efforts to get rid of things. He could easily retrieve things from bins or question why I would want to be rid of something. I have recently gone through a room I have use for painting and tried to extract loads of old useless brushes, paints and canvases. Even these I have pleaded, threatened him with murder if he removes them from rubbish. However, there are signs of improvement. He has actually got rid of a few things and the pride he has shown in doing so makes me realise what a real effort it is for him. My worry is the loft! What is up there? I too have told him that if he doesn’t declutter then we are going to leave it as a terrible job for our family and it’s not fair. The funny thing is that he has expressed the idea of moving somewhere smaller without a thought about this problem.
I so sympathise with your problem. I no longer look into cupboards belonging to him. I won’t even put his clothes away in case I get worked up about what I find squashed among things or in pockets. I never pack his suitcase. It’s how I keep my sanity. Otherwise he is lovely and it’s all too late other than to keep chipping away at things. I should get him to box everything up and as removal day approaches he may well see the futility of keeping it all will actually dawn on him. I do hope so but whatever happens try not to stress about it as the move itself is difficult enough. When showing buyers around a house that is mostly tidy it is extremely likely that one part of it which is full of clutter is unlikely to put them off as they will picture it as cleared for their needs. Good luck and stay happy.

A shed of his own (a large one is needed from the sound of it!)to put all his stuff in!

I'm afraid I am brutal with any sign of junk being held onto to. My hubby used to say oh that might come in handy,and it never did. When we moved 11 months ago and he realised how much it was going to cost to get rid of his "junk" he realised how all these unnecessary items wee just that, junk. Even now he will collect leaflets from places we visit and stash them, but when he goes out with the dog it finds it's way to the recycling bin.

Good idea M0nica, thanks.

Fennel I would suggest to her that she holds a one day Open House when anyone (by that I mean family and friends as invited) can come and take what is in the house that they want and then she gets a House Clearer in and lets them deal with the rest.

I suggested this to DD, who greeted the idea with disgust and said that the clearing out was part of the mourning process. Fortunately all though DH is a fixer and mender and does keep things 'just in case', he is not a hoarder. His besetting sin is untidiness, so if he wants an electrical screwdriver, for example, he keeps on going out and buying yet another because he cannot find any of the other five he has already bought.

Having moved a couple of times in the last ten years, I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely NO POINT in paying out good money to transport unnecessary items from one home to another ...................... more so when you're down sizing.

I moved from a 1-bedroom flat to a 3-bedroom house and then proceeded to 'fill it' with furniture. When I retired, I moved to a 2-bedroom flat which induced a panic attack when I saw the reality of all my stuff piled high in the new place !

ps - and my Dad wasn't a hoarder, bless him.

What worries me most about our situation is that one poor daughter is going to have to sort all this out after we've both gone. She's the main one of our 4 who takes responsibility.
I remember clearing my parents' house at the end of their lives. It took me months. Only sister still working so she couldn't help.

If your husband removes things to read from the bins and wastepaper baskets, but not the kitchen bins , then why place them there? Why not wrap leftover bits of food in the newspapers etc or run them under the tap and then take them straight to the outside bin. I think in this case recycling can take second place. Also with receipts , refuse them at the till. Lots of shops now ask if you need on e or not.
I agree your husband probably has a mental health issue but you are enabling him to carry on.
You dont say how old you are, but this is your life too and it sounds as if you have tolerated this for years.
I cant imagine he will know what is in the boxes that he has kept for decades so weed some of it out.
Take control of your life for heavens sake. You dont need to put up with it.

Beware of storage units as a relative started with one and now has four. He has taken some of the equity out of his house to pay the rental of just under £600 per month for storing absolutely worthless rubbish which was mostly purchased from charity shops and is now damp and mouldy. A health hazhard both now and to anyone clearing it in the future.
As he owns his house we are told that it his own business and even the fact that he cannot find his bed to sleep in and even his bath and oven etc etc is full of stuff meaning nothing can be used is nobody's business but his. We just call it 'the money pit'

A large shed would be my answer. You need never set foot in it. You won't be paying rent for storage. He will feel that he has somewhere private to keep his stuff and he is not under your feet whenever he goes to deal with it.
I think a busy GP would take a dim view of being consulted on a borderline obsessive compulsive disorder. As the letters on this thread show, it is a comparatively common problem and maybe is a need for control? In an uncontrolled way.

My sister was a healthy 55 year old when her husband died.
She has spent the last 24 years, yes 24 years, sorting his belongings and keeping them in storage units until suitable homes can be found for what most people would regard as rubbish. She is now unfit and unable to enjoy anything much. My advice all those years ago was to forget the sorting, do all the things she loved and sort when eventually she became housebound. What a miserable life. I do think there is some degree of mental illness in there as with your husband Lincolnimp. My younger sister is hardly any better. My husband says I must have been adopted as luckily I'm nothing like them. Good luck. Rent a storage unit and throw away the key.

I absolutely empathise. I experience a similar set of behaviours from my DH. When we sold our house two years ago I managed to persuade him that paying a removal firm to move his rubbish was pretty stupid and a waste of money. Whilst he did hang onto some ‘stuff’ he managed to clear most of it and the move was successful. The bad news? He’s started again!

There is a truth in the saying 'out of sight, out of mind'. If you can go through stuff, label and seal it then store it initially in the house - but then demote it....to the garage....to the shed....to the tip. Its what we did with an elderly relative. However, this scenario is different - you only have to watch the episode of Big Bang Theory when Sheldon shows Amy his storage unit to appreciate the agony that his OCD causes him.....but at least he has put it into storage. Perhaps storing stuff (to ready the house for viewing and selling could be a helpful half way strategy.

There IS only one way to de-clutter when you have somebody like this in your life...and that’s by force . My husband is not quite as bad as yours ...but...his thing is magazines... he will not throw them away . I had 40 years of mags in our loft and gradually I have been throwing them in the recycling bin when he’s not looking . He can no longer get into the loft so I consider I’m doing him no damage. He hasn’t been in there for 12 years.... and also the mags he keeps in his bedroom....when a new one takes up residence 1 or 2 get thrown away. He really doesn’t seem to notice that the piles never get bigger. Sorted. Be tough...don’t show or give him receipts for groceries... after checking the items off...just bin it. I’ve realised that a lot of men get like this as they get older...it cannot be tolerated . I’ve just taken control of mine at last and I’m sorry, but as I do ALL the work in and outside of house including garden and decorating ...what I say ..goes!! I must stress the magazines I’m talking about are all to do with Railways!!

Asking him won't work. You either have to just do it without his permission or have to accommodate all the clutter. How often does he actually refer to all the papers, receipts etc. Would he compromise and keep say, only 5 years worth. Or a storage unit and hopefully he will forget what is a actually in there and it can all be thrown out in a year's time.

I think renting some storage space would be a grand idea. A win win. He has a special safe place for his stuff, you don't have to live with it every day...

I kept asking if my husband really needed some of the stuff he had kept. When I actually brought down some of his treasures from the loft (not seen for 20 years) and put them on his chair he agreed that they were not even worth the trouble of sorting and took them to the tip. Once I had started the process he was quite amenable - it was the first step that was hard.

How much room will you have in your new home? Is it feasible to do as some have suggested and pack your husband's collection, for want of a better word, into boxes and take them all with you?

Secondly, does he really, seriously want to keep all these things, or is he just incapable of dealing with them?

If he does want it all, you have to decide whether to accept this and deal with it in some practical way. In the long term, a storage facility will be an expensive solution, but it might work for a limited time, until your current house is viewed and sold and you have moved into your new property. Once in it, you need to decide, whether you can afford to go on paying for storage, or will have to find space for it at home.

If he realises that the time has come to get rid of some of it, but cannot face actually sorting through it, then, you are going to have to do it.

In your place I would go through stuff on my own, and sort into categories a) things with sentimental value that are to be kept, b) receipted bills, income tax returns and other documents that are less than five years old - anything else in this category can safely be burnt, c) anything that has not been used for the past ten years (it will be a hard battle to persuade him to part with these, but if they have no sentimental value, out they go! d) junk - out it goes.

Only you can decide whether you feel it is all right to dispose of any of all this without consulting your husband. I wouldn't, because I would be absolutely furious if he did the same with things I cherish, but it is up to you.

Ask him who will treasure these things when you and he are no longer in the land of the living? You might just persuade him to pass some of it on to someone who does want it NOW.

Point out kindly that there is no point in keeping out of date bills, guarantees etc.

Good luck!

Feel for you. I hope you can get it sorted.
My question is does he ever look at this stuff? Are you able to discretely lose a few boxes, every now and then before the move,leaving enough for him not to be suspicious but leaving enough for him to do his own decluttering ?

I agree with those who say that this is a mental health problem, and wont go away with persuasion or drastic measures. I don;t know where you live but hopefully there will be some provision of help for what is an anxiety disorder, Consult you GP and also go online and look for support for those with OCD near you. There may be some support groups,not only for him but you too.
PS I admit to not reading a lot of the posts so apologies if I'm repeating what has already been said a lot!

I am in a similar position. My husband is definitely a hoarder and it is a mental illness. I do sneak things out when l can but at the moment he has made a start on his office. I insist on the downstairs being nice but l hate the state of the upstairs. It's a continuous exhausting process. I have joined a Facebook group called friends and family of hoarders support group and it's nice to know I'm not on my own.

It might be that, with the stress and anxiety of a move ahead, now is not a good time to ask him to declutter as I would guess you are both feeling a bit apprehensive about you impending house sale and move. Perhaps put all of it in storage close to your new home so that, when you’ve moved, he can go through the boxes one at a time and only store things you have both agreed are necessary to have in your smaller home. A bit of a staging post solution I know, but a step at a time approach might work...