Hoarding - A New Start

This_Year

I agree, what is it about Avon boxes? I didn't even have this many when I was an Avon rep! :rotfl:

Thanks GQ, I do sometimes feel that I'm going slightly mad, that the walls are closing in and the ceiling dropping on me! :eek:
I've decided to declutter a glass of wine or two and relax - tomorrow is another day (and I know where the bin bags are!)

I intend to (as someone suggested?) reclaim small areas at a time and hope they will join up to make bigger areas. I want and need to be able to access my dressing table freely so that's my focal point tomorrow.

Sadly my partner doesn't suffer the same aaargh! that I do in regard to these bloomin' boxes!

espresso21

lostinrates wrote: »

Two truisms help me maintain sanity. Starting really is the hardest part. But also, 20 percent of the effort is the first 80 percent of the job, tyhe last twenty percent is 80 percent of the effort. Remember that when you feel desperate near the end of this job...it's normal to find the last bits the hardest and it's ok to feel like that.


Well done you.:T

Thank you. I am trying but it's going to take a while!

msgnomey

have finally influenced OH to throw away a coupe of empty iPad boxes!! He wants to move to a bungalow and I've said I refuse to move quickly as I want to gradually declutter and get down to only having things we really need or love....and he has started to take notice yipee...sadly it mean we will eventually have to move and I like living here

vikki_louise

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I wonder if forcing a partner or family to live in a way absolutely alien to them and, quite frankly, endangering them from trips, crushing, fire, etc, counts as either a) domestic abuse or b) unreasonable behaviour?


I wasn't allowed friends round because of the house. I wasn't allowed parties because it would mean people in the house. I wasn't allowed to get rid of tatty, smelly cat hair covered clothes. Any clean clothes weren't ever ironed, they were dumped on the stairs to collect more cat hair. I wasn't allowed to wash or bathe more than a permitted 30 minutes once a week. Or change clothing. All of which made me very appealing to the other kids at school - as a target, naturally. It also made it difficult for my brothers to keep girlfriends 'what do you mean you don't want me to meet your family?' or 'Oh. My. God. You live like this?' [sounds of hasty footsteps in the opposite direction]. Even I've had grief from partners about why I don't have a proper family Christmas or New Year or see family all the time - some have even said that, because I won't do it, I must not be committed to the relationship.


After all, by hoarding things, it makes it impossible for somebody to have a normal social life - so the hoarding isolates them from friends, family and support outside the relationship. It controls them, because they are not allowed to make decisions regarding disposal of items. It endangers their mental and physical health in isolation, tripping, disease, food issues, medication, maintaining personal hygiene (hard to be socially clean if the bath and sink are full of Stuff that must not be touched, for example). And they cannot leave because the home cannot be sold in such a condition.



There's a thought. Could hoarding be abusing somebody you love?

There are a lot of support groups now for children who grew up in a house with a hoarder, if you google them there's a lot of info and support

greenbee

This_Year wrote: »

I agree, what is it about Avon boxes? I didn't even have this many when I was an Avon rep! :rotfl:

Thanks GQ, I do sometimes feel that I'm going slightly mad, that the walls are closing in and the ceiling dropping on me! :eek:
I've decided to declutter a glass of wine or two and relax - tomorrow is another day (and I know where the bin bags are!)

I intend to (as someone suggested?) reclaim small areas at a time and hope they will join up to make bigger areas. I want and need to be able to access my dressing table freely so that's my focal point tomorrow.

Sadly my partner doesn't suffer the same aaargh! that I do in regard to these bloomin' boxes!

How about knocking the dregs of the bottle of wine over some of the Avon boxes so they have to be thrown out? Or would they just end up being soggy, smelly boxes that still have to be kept?

Patchwork_Quilt

GreyQueen wrote: »

If we were to direct a movie of a 50-something woman clearing out her late mother's home, we might frame her sitting at Mum's dressing-table, gently touching her things, reminiscing of her own young girlhood playing with these feminine things. We might imagine her finding a bundle of faded love-letters tied with ribbon, and tentatively reading them, as she reprises the early days of her parents' lifelong love affair. They'd be something soothing in the background, classical violins, perhaps.

We don't see what is often the wretched truth of clearing up; grubbing around, dusty, filthy, hot and sweaty, inside cupboards and attics and sheds. Thinking !!!!!!?!? as we drag out things which were useless decades ago yet were somehow still left on the premises. If you soundtracked this, you'd probably choose something along the lines of Death Metal.

We'd perhaps had an unworthy little thought that It's All Mine when we learned that we were the beneficiary, but the reality isn't cabochon-cut diamond necklaces in Tiffany boxes, just an endless stream of tat. We fill box after box and binbag after binbag as we try to contain the detritus of someone else's life when we can barely-organise our own homes.

Could you write a book please? This is wonderful. It describes my summer exactly, except that Mum was there, arguing because her life was being boxed up or thrown out.

Patchwork_Quilt

DH has just confessed he put the empty box from the new bit of hi-fi behind the sofa! He was congratulating himself on the fact that I hadn't noticed!

Grr.

whitewing

I used to have a Pippa doll too, tiny, dear little thing. I had forgotten all about her.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

babyshoes wrote: »

Jo jo, that description definitely does sound at least neglectful of your basic needs, such as clean clothing and regular baths or showers, or possibly even abusive, despite being clearly unintentional. As a TA in a school, if I became aware of a child living in such conditions (perhaps by picking up on the bullying and trying to find out the reasons behind it) I'd definitely flag it as a potential child protection issue. That wouldn't mean that the child would be immediately removed by social services or anything drastic like that unless there was evidence the child was in immediate, life threatening danger, but it would be passed up the chain and in theory (though I'm not familiar with the practicalities of the system) could result in calls or visits to the parent to provide advice and support to the whole family as needed.

I have a 'training day' at work tomorrow and we have to re-do our 'child protection' course every few years, which is basically training to help us spot any signs which could point to neglect, abuse of various types, drug/alcohol issues etc. and a reminder not to get too involved when talking about the issue with the child as it could compromise later investigations, but rather to simply tell the next person up the chain, who is more highly trained to deal with such issues, who would then decide whether to deal with it or pass it on further, depending on severity.

Thanks, but actually she was and is an abusive woman.

In the original thread I mentioned how I got smacked in the face with a rake for my trouble earlier this year, which is why I do not do anything to help her anymore.

One of my brothers is still at home, is a fully grown man with some form of autism that she would never have diagnosed and he is in all probability terrorised by her. But he cannot speak to an adult female because of her treatment of him. Including myself and my sister. So he will never breathe a word of what she has done to him.

When she dies, he will be free. But so very, very damaged.



The current system would never have been able to reach her, any more than the old systems did. She was always so very, very clever about such things. A helpful visit such as you describe would have resulted in months of battering.

Even now, to everybody else, she's a dear, sweet, slightly posh little old lady.

Who nobody should ever turn their backs on for even a second. I'd trust a velociraptor more.

blossomhill_2

This Year - Are your children still living in the house? All I could see when I read your post was flammable boxes on fire exit routes ...