Cheapest ways to clear a hoarded house?

FreeBear

Cakeguts wrote: »

There is also a link between narcissitic personality disorder and hoarding.

Sorry, but need to call you out on that.


My mother was a hoarder, and she never demonstrated any narcissistic traits. Towards the end of her life, she suffered from a rare form of Alzhiemer's.

Cakeguts

FreeBear wrote: »

Sorry, but need to call you out on that.


My mother was a hoarder, and she never demonstrated any narcissistic traits. Towards the end of her life, she suffered from a rare form of Alzhiemer's.

It doesn't mean that all hoarders have NPD just as not all hoarders have OCD or any of the other traits it just means that some of them can have it. Just as some hoarders don't hoard as much rubbish as others.



Of the ones I am thinking of at the moment there is a lot of rubbish involved. Hoarders don't just hoard their houses either. Some of it can be in garages. Lots of other things can get into garages to build nests especially in paper.



What all hoarders have in common is that they don't like to part with anything. So you can have a very full house that is not owned by hoarders.

Fire_Fox

Cakeguts wrote: »

There is also a link between narcissitic personality disorder and hoarding.

Research suggests comorbidity with several personality disorders (not narcissism) as well as with certain mental health conditions.

Again as a disorder of mental health, hoarding disorder warrants empathy or compassion not 'jokes'.

Cakeguts

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Research suggests comorbidity with several personality disorders (not narcissism) as well as with certain mental health conditions.

Again as a disorder of mental health, hoarding disorder warrants empathy or compassion not 'jokes'.

That might depend on how annoying the hoarder is to the family member and the poor people living next door to an extremely high fire risk?



I would not be at all compassionate towards someone who hoarded a semi detached or terraced house with a lot of paper and rubbish. It isn't fair on the neighbours.



It is true that people can live in their houses as they wish but it isn't true that they can live in a way that poses a significant risk to their neighbours in terms of fire from hoarded rubbish and rats from hoarded rubbish.



Our local firebrigade seems to have realised the problems of hoarding in flats, terraced housing and semi detached housing.



In case you were wondering where the shovel comment came from. That is what we needed to clear out my aunt's house. It was extremely unsanitary and very dirty. So not a comment out of the blue a comment from experience.

Fire_Fox

Cakeguts wrote: »

That might depend on how annoying the hoarder is to the family member and the poor people living next door to an extremely high fire risk?

I would not be at all compassionate towards someone who hoarded a semi detached or terraced house with a lot of paper and rubbish. It isn't fair on the neighbours.

It is true that people can live in their houses as they wish but it isn't true that they can live in a way that poses a significant risk to their neighbours in terms of fire from hoarded rubbish and rats from hoarded rubbish.

Our local firebrigade seems to have realised the problems of hoarding in flats, terraced housing and semi detached housing.

Stereotypical/ ignorant/ stigmatising/ prejudiced ......

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Utter nonsense. Hoarding disorder is a spectrum, just like other mental health conditions.

Different people hoard different types of things. Some hoard books, some hoard materials for craft projects, some hoard ornaments/ nick-nacks, some (very sadly) hoard pets. For the most part people accumulate items that they feel emotionally attached to, or perceive as useful. Hoarding anything and everything, or hoarding food waste is rare.

Again as a disorder of mental health, hoarding disorder warrants empathy or compassion not 'jokes'.

Cakeguts wrote: »

In case you were wondering where the shovel comment came from. That is what we needed to clear out my aunt's house. It was extremely unsanitary and very dirty. So not a comment out of the blue a comment from experience.

Comments don't generally include the ROTFL emoticon, ignorant and offensive 'jokes' do.

getmore4less

I think the transition(for some) from collector to hoarder happens when the organisation stops.

Myself and my dad collected stamps for many years, now I hoard both collections on a shelf last moved around 10 years ago to their current location from their previous location around 10 years before that.

I am a don't throw out stuff person will find a use for that.
so have stuff I will never use again.

Will get sorted when we run out of space.

Sea_Shell

I've often wondered with collections that someone would never sell, what DO they expect to happen to them, after they've gone?? Some will have a value, but many will end up in a skip!!

As for joking...when faced with having to clear a hoarded house, a sense of humour is a must!!

Skiddaw1

Based on the OP I imagine the house in question is just very, very cluttered. I keep thinking back to clearing my parent's house which was similar . They too had lived in the same house for 50+ years and having lived through the war, found it extremely difficult to throw things away. It didn't help that they had sheds and garages as well as the main house (which also had two attics). My advice is to take it room by room and be ruthless- obviously there'll be a few things you want to keep, donate or possibly sell, but if you're ever to get to the other side of it you'll have to get in there with all guns blazing especially if you're under pressure to get the place cleared. Skips are pricey but it doesn't half make life easier (there's a limit to how many trips to the dump you can make). In our case, once we'd done all we could we hired a house-clearance firm to remove the rest (they sold a few items of furniture to help cover their costs). Good luck with it- by the way, I did like the pizza party idea!

NaughtiusMaximus

lincroft1710 wrote: »

But surely that is "collecting" rather than "hoarding"? The items mean something to you and have a purpose in your life.

I do think it's the same thought process that drive both behaviours though, hoarding can be seen as collecting taken a step too far. Our cue to have a clearout is when we reach the stage that there's no more storage space (or display space, depending on the items) left. A hoarder would just carry on to the point where every bit of floor space was covered with boxes, bags, paperwork etc.

Cakeguts

Basically I know that hoarding is a mental illness but it is a mental illness that tends to affect the people around the hoarding more than the hoarder. You cannot underestimate the danger of a flat in a block filled with paper and other flammable objects. Or a house in an area with young children where the garden is full of rubbish that attracts rats.



Or children living in a hoarded house. It seems to me that there is plenty of help for the hoarder to ignore but nothing for the neighbours or family members who have to live with it and the dangers associated with it.



If it is a fire risk to others you can't just leave a house full to the ceilings with stuff.



I am actually very pleased that the firebrigade have got involved before someone dies and that could include the hoarder because hoarded houses are often difficult to get out of. Fire exits full of clutter etc.


In the end it might be the only sensible thing to do if the hoarder has ignored all help on offer.