Hoarding...not just on TV

BitterAndTwisted

My advice is to not start prioritising, just open a box and decide whether it either goes or stays. If you start sorting out what is oldest, you're just opening up the possibility to use the time admiring all the stuff and will find it harder to let any of it go. Honestly you don't need "some kind of order on things" you need to try and set yourself free. Unencumbered. Weightless.

Nice tea-pots can go for good money on ebay. But you have 25 of them so just start listing them at 99 pence with no reserve with a half-decent photo and LET THEM GO. They can sell quite well in charity-shops too if you don't want to see a small retrun on all that expenditure.

BitterAndTwisted

calicocat wrote: »

someone posted something about a relatives carpet needing changing..........mine does too..and put it off for the exact same reason,too much furniture and no-where to move it to .BUT it needs doing, and the longer i leave it the worse it will get...I don't want to get to 'pongy carpet' stage :eek: i will have to look at this as i tend to have a tendency to keep things too long , wouldn't say I'm a hoarder , but i think i have the potential there.

That was me talking about my mother's carpeting. She'd had two dogs in her flat and she smoked like a chimney. They were filthy. Her solution was to put a large rug over it.

When my sister and brother-in-law got the carpet-fitters in it didn't really take that long to shift all the furniture and it just went outside the front door for the duration. The removal of the old one and laying of the new only took an hour or two. Moving furniture might be daunting for an old lady but she only needed to ask and we would have been there to help, no question. I think it was the change that she feared, not the furniture.

faerie~spangles

Jojo,

I admire your wish to help your mother. You made a valiant attempt to help her amidst very personal and emotional times for you.

Your reward? A physical assault with no witness'.

Time to move on and leave her to her own devices.

lostinrates

When ever i notice a hoarding programme i watch it and if dh is near a tv, get him to watch it too.

Dh is from a hoarding family, and to a lesser degree so am i. My parents are separating nd moving, and my mother is finding it very hard to get rid of stuff so is sending lots to me to either have or take care of it for her. The latter i don't mind, and its always nice to be given stuff, but some of it is not nice stuff.

Dh and i put most of our belongings in storage, me when i was about 23, him a year later. Its horrific to me, what i find we have stored.

When i had not been with dh that long he and i were charged with sorting through his deceased mothers hoard, a hoard her family had maintained for years after her death, not months. Her hoard included her mothers hoard too, and that was from about fifteen years before we were sorting it out. In many ways that experience makes me feel tough about dealing with it, but in reality i worry i am failing.

E.g. I used to collect cups and saucers. I do use most of them, but there are only so many you can use at a time. I resolved to sell tham and it was dh who got upset at the idea of me selling my old stuff to make room. Of course, if the space in the world was unlimited i would keep tham, and yes i stull like them, but we who do not have a small space, do not have enough room for them. So...they are still there, taking up a shelve in our dining room sideboard where the plates could be (they are stacked on top because they were in a kitchen cupboard then the kitchen wall started to fall down so i took the china out of the cupboard incase it does topple and also to make the pressure of cupboard on the wall lesser.

RuthG

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

My advice is to not start prioritising, just open a box and decide whether it either goes or stays. If you start sorting out what is oldest, you're just opening up the possibility to use the time admiring all the stuff and will find it harder to let any of it go. Honestly you don't need "some kind of order on things" you need to try and set yourself free. Unencumbered. Weightless.

That's excellent advice. I am learning that clearing the clutter has to precede the organising stage - otherwise, I get overwhelmed and all that happens is the clutter gets more organised instead of got rid of. Also doing what I feel like when I feel like it is more likely to work than doing what's important first. Mind you, having said that, I do have to prioritise clearing a room so my daughter can sleep somewhere when she comes home at the end of the month

hermum

Jojo, so sorry to hear about your cat, I know what it's like to lose a much loved pet. Big hugsxx
SanFran, have you had a look at http://www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=2 I found it from a link someone else put on here, there's lots of advice & support on there as well.
My collecting really started getting out of control after my daughter left home. Maybe we try to replace people with things. With me it's definitely worked against me though as I won't have anyone in the house as there's too much stuff to keep it tidy.

euronorris

whitewing wrote: »

For some things I try to work on a 'one in, one out' approach. Good with clothes. My wardrobe has a lot more free space than hubby's side.

Mine too! Though I think OH might have some hoarding tendancies, as he is always loathed to get rid of stuff. But he seems OK with my policy of - you haven't used it in a year, you clearly don't need it, and you're certainly not enjoying it, so it's going out.

I've finally got him to tackle the cardboard mountain from all the stuff he ordered for his hobby's (model plane building etc). That was just pure laziness on his part.

This weekend, I will be listing some things on Ebay, and tidying up the paperwork piles I seem to have accumulated with the 'I'll deal with that later' attitude (so I'm not innocent myself).

JoJo - So sorry for your loss ((HUG)). And I'm glad you have been strong enough to walk away from your mother, you don't need her, or her problems, in your life!!

flippin36

Sorry about Oggy - I was hoping he would make it. It always happens all at once. I think we all worry that we are becoming like our mothers, thats perfectly normal, but you are certainly nothing like her. She has obviously been mentally ill for many years, which is why you kept going back to help her. You're a lovely person and a good mother and a daughter most of us would love to have. Hope you are ok.

I_wanna_live_for_free

So sorry for your loss, Jojo. And hugs for trying to help your mother, you are a better person than me. Thinking of you.

415SanFran

OH Hermum thanks for that link, that really is what I needed, just looked at a few photo's and with different wallpaper that is my house. I guess looking at it in the cold light of day, the moment you start thinking, I hope they don't want to come in because they will see the mess, that is the day I should have taken action.
Bitterandtwisted thanks you are totally right, I am going to open a box and think "oh I remember buying this, I had forgotten how pretty it was, I'll just keep this one"
Most of my stuff came off ebay in the first place, and was put somewhere "to be housed later" most of the teapots only cost me 99p or a little more in the first place, all this hoarding started out as me having an addiction for ebay and getting a "deal" so the money is not an issue, some boxes have not even been opened.
I have spoken to Anna and she says that she will take a box a week to her house and list everything for me and do the write ups, I think she is a little concerned that I will open a box and not want to get rid, she may have a point!
I LOVE THAT GIRL!!