Another Friend Who Is A Secret Hoarder

[SiouzQ.]

I've been helping a casual friend get ready to move two times in the past month and only yesterday did I get a complete picture of how much of a hoarder (and procrastinator) she truly is. She has known she's had to move for at least four months now and is now surprised at how much she needs to get done to be out by Friday (tomorrow). She truly has no capacity to see what a bind she has put herself in. I was helping her yesterday and the chaos of stuff to be packed/tossed/stored is pretty bad. When I went into the bedroom to take care of it I was very saddened to see all the her clothes in heaps on the floor of the closet in drifts, and on the floor of the bedroom mixed in with dust bunnies, dirt and other detritus; a virtual pigsty. She has horrible asthma and psoriatic arthritis and the conditions in which she has been living are kind of sad.

The rest of her house/gallery was a chaotic mess; she was just throwing stuff willy-nilly into boxes to be put into storage. Then during this all this, it was
suddenly time to go through drifts of papers and unopened mail that had been sitting around for several years...

That being said, people never cease to amaze me. I was proud of myself for keeping my boundaries and not taking on more physical work than I can handle these days. I told her I could work from 10-2 on Wednesday but was busy Thursday and Friday and wouldn't be able to help. And I got $50 out of it.

[iris lilies]

Ugh, I feel for you.

[KayLR]

It was very kind of you to try and help her. She sounds quite troubled.

[Tybee]

I've been going through photo albums and having a really hard time throwing anything out. I need to think long term here.

[catherine]

I've been going through photo albums and having a really hard time throwing anything out. I need to think long term here.

Yeah, photos are my "hoard" too. And ephemera and documents.

Today we're going to make a trip to the storage shed with some of the boxes we brought up from NJ a few months ago. I was trying to condense/throw out things, but my throw out pile was pretty small. However, I am happy with the fact that the sum total of my memorabilia is about 3 medium-sized boxes. (Really, I can't take total credit for that--three basement floods have helped!) I have to thank I think the kids could deal with that if DH and I died tomorrow. The pictures are harder because I have inherited my MIL's also. Like you, Tybee, I have to do something with them.

SiouzQ, wow. You should hold a class in decluttering for your community! . Problem is, the people who need that class won't sign up and even if they took it, they probably wouldn't act on it I think people get so "stuck" and if there are any mental issues mixed in, it's really hard. Sometimes the only mental issue is an inability to compartmentalize and put one foot in front of the other. You are so good to help your friends out.

[iris lilies]

I came across a set of professional photos my mother had hired of our big
victorian house before we moved. It is sad how poorly colored photos from the 1970’s age. I compare those to the fabulous black-and-white photographs taken of Campbell house Victorian museum here in St. Louis, photos taken from the 1880s, which are clear and representative of that house of the time.

But anyway, it is fortuitous that my cousin is on the board of a historical society that wants to purchase this house for their historical museum. I shipped the photos to him with notes about what was in the rooms and what the house was like at the time we lived there. He said it gave him a leg up in understanding what the house looks like because his group hasn’t even been in it yet. So the photographs got a good home, I kept scans of a few.


Oh God, now it’s eating me that I threw something away that was important. I threw it away decades ago. Oh my God.ugh. The thing I threw away was a piece of architecture from this old house, a corner piece of woodwork, a hand carved flower in wood that was a corner piece above the doors. This house had several of them.

The reason why this is important is because it demonstrates original rooms were changed. Oy vey. I mean, we all know the house was added to and changed up, but this might have given evidence to figure out the puzzle.

I seldom regret throwing anything away and out of the thousands of things I threw away, it’s probably only been 2 or 3 for which I have regret.

[iris lilies]

I gave the original photos of my parents house from 1910 to the guy who bought it. His wife is turning it into a b and b, and she is very excited about any historical stuff with the house, so I let it go to her. I'm a little creeped out that she plans to keep some of my parents' rooms as sort of a museum to them, but as long as I never go back, I should be okay. I don't think I can ever bear to see that house again, so painful, how my brother took it from me.

i am sorry your family house gives your pain. I have to ask, with your mother being an attorney, why didnt she have clear legal instruction to pass it on to you in the form of your name on the deed or her will or whatever legal instrument?

[Tradd]

I once helped a non hoarder friend move. She was, however, a massive procrastinator. I got to her place the day of moving and very little was done. I took boxes and just started dumping things into the boxes. She protested some. I told her she had no say over how I packed (breakables were packed properly) since she couldn’t be bothered to do it herself. I also said I was NEVER helping her move again. And I didn’t. It was from one college apartment to another.

[iris lilies]

I once helped a non hoarder friend move. She was, however, a massive procrastinator. I got to her place the day of moving and very little was done. I took boxes and just started dumping things into the boxes. She protested some. I told her she had no say over how I packed (breakables were packed properly) since she couldn’t be bothered to do it herself. I also said I was NEVER helping her move again. And I didn’t. It was from one college apartment to another.

I often have said this in the past, but one of the epitaphs I would like to have on my gravestone will be “She never asked anyone to help her move households.”

[iris lilies]

As an adult I learned fairly early to set limits on this sort of thing.

I helped a couple of people move and learned the hard way that you have to set limits. After that I helped, not as in “I will help you move “ but as in “I can spend two hours on Saturday to help you move. “

This latter boundary setting allowed me to be cheerful in my application of work and put up with whatever method the decision-maker wants me to carry out, and it’s not my problem if the decision-maker doesn’t get moved by the deadline. I don’t own that problem and I do not need to solve the problem.

I’m having to apply some of that boundary setting in my own household move. In the past 2-3 years I’ve been jettisoning the items that are exclusively mine, finding a way to be rid of them. There are things that exclusively belong to DH, and those are his to figure out how to move.

Unlike most normal Americans, I’m sure we will be unable to hire a moving company. That would be outside the scope of what we do because that is too normal! Ha ha! DH will control that and has already said no we’re not gonna hire a company.

I do think it’s possible he might rent a U-Haul truck, load everything on his back, load it into the truck, unload everything on his back and put it into our Hermann house. I see him doing that. Did I mention that he’s nearly 70 years old? This is not good use of his time nor is it healthful for him.

This is a circus that is not mine. While he is my dear beloved monkey of a husband, I don’t really own this problem. I do think, because DH generally honors his obligations, he will meet any closing date of selling our house. He will be moving his stuff out by that date. As long as we have at least two weeks notice I think he can achieve it.