My friend is a hoarder

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Experience of living in a hoarder's house tells me you need to step right back if you want to have any continuing contact with her.

The stuff is more valuable than you are to her. Even the bits with cat turds over them. Even suggesting that there is a problem could, in the best case, result in a benign 'yes, I know' and then a concerted ignoring of anything else you say, a 'well I like it like this', 'it's all special' or a 'it's a proper illness, you can't come in and tell me what to do, everybody knows I have to decide it all for myself' or an outright attack (physical is not unheard of)/immediate cutting of ties. The risk of fire won't be seen as a threat to life, it'll be seen as a threat to take the stuff away.

It's probably why she hasn't got any more than one friend - the rest have fallen by the wayside once the fire risk/midden has cropped up in conversation.

BigAunty

I have seen at close hand the misery that hoarding causes and the denial/delaying tactics that the sufferer comes up with to protect their haul.

I helped a friend suffering from depression to move from a house to a smaller flat with virtually no storage and the very strong attachment she had to what I would class as junk was astonishing.

She did ask for help in cutting down her belongings (mainly gifts, personal items, consumer goods, childhood things rather than 'found' things) she'd hoarded in the house attic (though another bedroom was also operating as an overflow). I helped her bring them down from the loft at her request so she could sort them into items for charity, keeping, freecycling and the dump.

It included things like childhood toys and clothes, broken ornaments, every type of fitness fad equipment, flyers from nightclubs, all her school books, all her Uni books and essays.

She thanked me profusely, said she was going to be brutal when it came to paring down the items but then has seemingly moved most of them into her smaller flat, saying again she would put sort them at her new place then put the overflow in storage (she thinks she will address them in the storage unit but I very much doubt she'll do anything other than store things there).

Now you can't move in her flat for at least 35 unpacked boxes - these don't contain her clothes, kitchenware, toiletries or anything like that, all those kinds of things were already unpacked in her new flat, hence the way her hallway is packed to the rafters with cr*p. Incidentally, her property is rammed to the gills with furniture, ornaments, clothing and kitchenware. I counted 18 cushions on her sofas, for example.

So again, I visited her there at her request with a view to trying to cut down her boxes into the charity, dump, storage, freecycle options. I thought we were going to spend the whole day going through those dozens of boxes. However, she tried to cancel at the last minute saying she was too ashamed to let me over the threshold but I persisted.

I expected to spend the whole day with her going through those 30 plus boxes but instead her strategy was to occupy me with hand-shredding a box of receipts, a long spell in a local cafe and then knocking it on the head early so she could visit relatives.

Her excuses for retaining items when I question why its not being got rid of is astonishing - its being kept for someone else, its sentimental, its a restoration project, the person who gave her the seemingly unwanted gift will ask after the item and be offended if she doesn't have it, or the items were grabbed off me, returned to the box and I was told it belonged to things she was planning to sort later.

Her new flat is beautiful but its lack of attic, spare bedroom and garden shed where she can can hoard her things has exposed her compulsion to her and its visibility is distressing to her and she's too embarrassed to have visitors.

She says she doesn't like the new flat for various reasons and will probably sell it in a year or two but really, I think she doesn't like the way she can't hoard in secret in it due to lack of space.

Again, I offered to help her this week and her tactic is to say she thinks she will have cracked it by Friday and suggests we go out for lunch somewhere. So its clear she's not going to let me over the threshold.

She's been currently 'trying' to reduce her excess stuff for nearly 4 months and has only managed a minority of it, a few car boot loads is my guess.

Very painful to watch what she's going through. Logic tells her to deal with her excess stuff but emotion tells her she can't bear to part with it.

SingleSue

I have hoarding tendancies and things have got pretty bad in the past. I too have had 'helpful' friends telling me to clear things out or trying to shock me into doing it, all it achieved was me hiding myself away more, cutting myself off and the problem getting worse.

In the end, it was me who made the decision to clear stuff, no idea why my brain clicked over to clear out mode, it just did. One minute I was sitting on the sofa, the next I had a roll of binbags in my hand and was chucking stuff out....lots of stuff, being very harsh and brutal in what was kept and pretty much on my own.

The idea of someone coming in and 'helping' was and still is an abhorrent one to me, it makes me feel far too vulnerable, far too exposed as if all control has been lost...I want to be the one making the decisions, I want to be the one sorting through my personal items, not a complete stranger and certainly not friends.

Unfortunately, I am now starting to go the other way...I have to clear and wipe a table when we are in a restaurant before we leave otherwise I feel people will make judgements as to our tidyness. I also went completely OTT when eldest left his halls room, he had already cleaned but I had to go over it all over again whilst everyone else was raising their eyebrows and chuckling at the very over the top OCD mum :rotfl:

j.e.j.

Gingernutty wrote: »

Mr Trebus was German/Polish.

I think they meant Stelios Kiosses the guy from the Channel 4 series "The Hoarder Next Door".

Yes it was the Greek guy on the Channel 4 programme about hoarders. I do remember Mr Trebus, though. I felt a bit sorry for him because he'd obviously been through some shocking awful times in his life and it must have affected him. But then his poor neighbours were having to live next door to this old man whose house really had to be seen to be believed :eek:

He didn't just fill the house up with crap, it was all spilling out into the garden, too, and there must have been problems with rats and other health hazards. The council had to step in more than once.

Ames

Buffy, yes of course I remember you! I miss the old Daily Chat days.

Gingernutty

Gingernutty wrote: »

Mr Trebus was German/Polish.

I think they meant Stelios Kiosses the guy from the Channel 4 series "The Hoarder Next Door".

j.e.j. wrote: »

Yes it was the Greek guy on the Channel 4 programme about hoarders. I do remember Mr Trebus, though. I felt a bit sorry for him because he'd obviously been through some shocking awful times in his life and it must have affected him. But then his poor neighbours were having to live next door to this old man whose house really had to be seen to be believed :eek:

He didn't just fill the house up with crap, it was all spilling out into the garden, too, and there must have been problems with rats and other health hazards. The council had to step in more than once.

The 'star' of that show had to be poor Mike Cording and his warbly estuary tones of "Mr Treebuus! Mr Treeeebuuus".

The house was so overloaded that it had to be scaffolded to keep it upright.......

BigAunty

Article here about a gentleman who hoarded 144 tonnes in a small property and damaged the foundations.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2766385/Disgusting-landfill-dump-INSIDE-house-Squalid-rat-infested-home-40-years-worth-filth-piled-ceilings-took-team-six-month-clear.html

squashy

Just a thought as a possible way to broach the subject- can you say you have had a clearout and have some stuff to take to the charity shop and is there anything you can take for her "while you are going"? It might be a conversation starter.

Flossie.

Flumina wrote: »

Hmmm fancy a dip anyone? Pass the soap..

:eek: That's like a scene from SAW!!!