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Thread: Recovering hoarders?

  1. #31
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    The cardboard box discussion is interesting to me. I have been working on eliminating cardboard as a storage option because it was horrible when my basement flooded, because of silverfish, because mice an chew through it, and because it is very damp here. Also, you can't keep a cardboard box on a concrete floor because of moisture. So over the years I have bought a lot of bins. I do however have a bin full of small cardboard boxes suitable for gift wrapping.

    I have only had a rat problem once. A litte brown rat made it's home under the concrete stoop to my barn and then tunneled up so it could chew into my feed sacks. I solved the problem with trash cans for feed and cutting the vegetation around the stoop to under 2". We do get mice in the house. Again, they are mostly a problem in the pantry, but I worry about them making homes in my stuff - especially blankets and yarn. Our cat seems to only like outdoor mice.

    If you have roaches, they will hitchhike to your new home in corrogated cardboard.

    Jane, I'm not going

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by shadowmoss View Post
    Ummmm... Doesn't everyone keep the 'good' cardboard boxes, you know, just in case?

    /me slinks off to ponder the cardboard boxes that have crept in since she last got rid of 'all' of them.
    I think the three little words "just in case" pretty much sum up the thinking of people with hoarding problems. I certainly am not judging just trying to understand....

  3. #33
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Libby:

    "Just in case" is more of an instrumental hoarding issue. This style of hoarding is when people see infinite future uses for things. Like think of a plastic bottle cap. To you or I it is just a plastic bottle cap or a piece of garbage. But to an instrumental hoarder they might see it as a little milk bowl for a kitten or a place to put tiny screws or tacks. They can come up with so many uses that it makes "just in case" seem even more plausible.

  4. #34
    Senior Member Simplemind's Avatar
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    My dad saved the foil that he used to wrap around pot pies to use over and over. Geez dad, you can afford to spring for an inch of foil each time you make a pot pie. He also didn't want me to throw away broken rubber bands because they made great cat toys. When cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen we found the plastic tear off tops from snack type items, about 50 of them. We couldn't figure out why you would save any let alone 50. I didn't see anything around that made sense to save them. I went through a lot of emotions cleaning out that property.

  5. #35
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Simplemind: That sounds like instrumental hoarding. The interesting thing is that people often say things like: "That person lived through the depression" or "That person grew up in tough times." But hoarding has no correlation to poverty or growing up lacking things, according to the research.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler View Post
    Simplemind: That sounds like instrumental hoarding. The interesting thing is that people often say things like: "That person lived through the depression" or "That person grew up in tough times." But hoarding has no correlation to poverty or growing up lacking things, according to the research.
    My MiL grew up in a household of extreme hoarders. That is what she learned. My husband also struggles with that issue. I think it is a learned behaviour so why is it so difficult to unlearn?

  7. #37
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    libby:

    The research shows that it is partly, if not mostly, genetic. There is something wrong with chromosome 14 that makes people hoard. While the study of compulsive hoarding is very new, they do know there is a large genetic component. They also know that emotionally troubled kids are more like to grow up and be hoarders. Another interesting factoid is that only Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has thus far been shown to work at all to help hoarders.

    But heroin addicts are more likely to overcome their addiction than hoarders are. It is an incredibly difficult to disorder to overcome.

    One other thing, most hoarders are just cluttered or shopaholics, but then there is a trigger moment. Maybe it is the death of a child or spouse, maybe it is an illness or injury. But suddenly the person goes from cluttered to full on extreme hoarding.

  8. #38
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    I wouldn't have called my parents hoarders, at least not proper hoarding as I have seen first hand. They did grow up with little and in my dad's case, extreme neglect. He has told me of a home he was in as a child that struck a note with him. He vowed to have as nice if not nicer. In fact, many of the things in the home I just worked on for the last several years were duplications of that home he admired. I swear he did a Scarlet O'Hara and said "As God is my witness, I will never be poor". He went from the kid who envied to the man to be envied. I swear to you we had everything except a giraffe. Don't get me wrong, they had an amazing home filled to the brim with beautiful things but at some point things started to get weird. My dad was a neat freak and at some point it changed. To say my mom was a relaxed housekeeper would be an understatement. A little over 10 years ago I started to get antsy going over there. Things weren't being cared for, cleaned or put away. I knew what was in my future. Dementia was a big part of it. My dad is still alive but I moved him into assisted living in February and then jumped into taking care of the house. I had been working on the outer property for the past three years, not touching the house. I worked my tush off for four months before I had to raise the white flag and call in a pro. Even after I went through several dumpsters and flat beds, what wasn't garbage was still too overwhelming to get through. If my dad knew what it sold for it would break his heart.

  9. #39
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Each person's relationship to "stuff" is so individual and intriguing. Thanks for sharing more of yours and your family's story.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    ...

    Jane, I'm not going
    I know--I want to see how this turns out!

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