Recovering hoarders?

This is a particularly interesting article about the difficulty of recovery.

Hoarding negatively affects all aspects of life

http://www.tctimes.com/living/hoardi...190a7f528.html

"He held a perpetual yard sale in his yard, for which he was regularly in trouble with the township. His yard sale was far from organized. There were several stacks of “stuff” piled 3 to 4 feet high in most cases. Other items were spread across the grass."

"Lynn lived in the small travel trailer — at least that’s where he slept and kept out of the rain. The house itself was packed so full, every room, top to bottom, that there was no pathway through any door."

Apparently the township stepped in and cleaned the place for $25,000.

When dude passed away his son was able to sell it for $50,000.

Actually, the article doesn't have anything at all to do with the difficulty of recovery. There is no indication in the article that the man ever had or sought treatment or assistance or that recovery was ever something he was interested in.

i wouldn't say my grandfather had difficulty recovering from alchoholism, I'd say he made a deliberate decision to drink himself to death. And he did a damn good job of it.

Yesterday when I was working in the studio, I confronted the styrofoam pile.

this is a large pile of styrofoam packaging pieces that protected our windows and dh new tools in their shipping boxes. There used to be a place an hour from here that would recycle them, but it closed.

the idea of throwing them in the landfill makes me feel shaky and sick, but where else are they going to go? I can't keep them indefinitely hoping for recycling services, it's a big pile. And Sandy, I hope you don't take this badly, but I thought about you and how your need for a consignment shop is blocking you from cleaning out your closet. Continuing to search may be the best option for you, but it wouldn't be for me in your place, and perhaps you wouldn't give the styrofoam a second thought....

i took a ok a deep breath and I filled three trash cans with styrofoam (I had to break up some of the pieces to get them in, which was messy and made me angry) and took them up to the curb. I wish I could have taken it all and gotten it over with, but one trash can was full of trash, and dh is using two others to store small, potentially usable pieces of aluminum flashing and siding until we finish this job (then the flashing can gets recycled and the siding can gets burned)

i was was worn out and emotionally exhausted last night, and when I tried to explain to dh why my day was so hard, I cried. He was baffled but sympathetic. Instead of saying something like "it's just styrofoam!" Which he might have before, he gave me a hug and said "I'm really sorry that styrofoam is so hard for you."

Cl, I see your frustration. We've never had a place for styrofoam so I always put it in the trash but keep thinking there must be someone who would LOVE these huge big pieces of sturdy stuff for something. Glad your husband is seeing you now.

more progress. I'm glad your husband supported you

I HATE styrofoam.. In addition to my environmental concerns about it, for some reason I'm really, really sensitive to the sound of it squeaking. I will not permit DH to buy styrofoam coolers or eggs in styrofoam cartons, and if something we buy comes packed in molded styrofoam, I cover my ears or leave the room while DH gets the thing out of the box. I could never have done what you did in terms of breaking up pieces!!

And there IS no better way to dispose of it, so I think it's great you got it out of your house. There are bans on it in some places. I don't know what on earth it could be recycled for. It's evil!! Be glad you've rid yourself of that cursed material!!

I am also happy your husband was supportive. You've done good!

Well, recycling styrofoam--my garden club lady friends make floral designs with styrofoam towers. The trick with styrofoam is that it melts with regular spray paint, so you've got to get special paint.

But even then these are one time uses and then the styrofoam goes into to the garbage.

No one will pay me for pieces of styrofoam but they will pay money for perfectly good clothes.

If it is worthless and has no memories, it won't bother me to get rid of it.

We don't have any recycling centers here so everything is dumped in the trash.

My closets aren't packed tight either and less so since the massive purge.

Clothing in good condition (even if it doesn't fit) is the only thing that I hang onto.

My weight goes up and down and I have pulled things out of a box 3 years later to wear it.

I buy classic stuff so it doesn't go out of style

If I do move, I wouldn't want to move all of the clothing though.

My furniture is mostly worthless so it isn't worth moving that either.

The clothing thing is probably from childhood when I had one outfit to wear everyday to school and was bullied for it.

Those skinny clothes are in inspiration to lose weight too.

My home is looking really bare and when the time comes, I can live in a smaller place too - just haven't found an affordable place yet.

I donate my clothing to thrift stores. It is not worth the time/$ to take to a consignment shop.

Sandy, I do get the clothing, it's a ymmv issue. When I was making $6 an hour and not paying taxes because I didn't work enough - I took clothes to a consignment shop. Since most of my clothes were hand me down or cheap yard sale, I could often make several dollars on an item, and it made a big difference in my budget. Now, given a choice between (random numbers) making an appointment, driving to the shop, waiting around, taking back the refused items, coming back for my check and making $20, vs donating the whole lot and saving $8 on my taxes, it's not worth the $12 difference. For the same reason I am going to stop taking cans to the recycling center after the next load and just put them in curbside. (The next load will probably be when dh is ready for me to take the can of aluminum flashing pieces.)

if you have very nice clothes or a budget where $12 is a big deal, you choose the consignment shop.

also, I am not one to be critical of anyone saving a non hazardous anything they have room for (moldy, broken and sharp, rusty, flammable, etc I might argue with.)

the parallel was that someone, somewhere, would probably like to buy the clothes, but you can't find an accessible venue to make that happen right now. And someone, somewhere is recycling styrofoam, but how long a I wiling to wait/how much time and effort am I willing to expend to find them?