Living with a hoarding loved one.

Shadow, my personal experience with dealing with the stuff of my hoarder mom, was disheartening to say the least. I recommend getting rid of things she will not notice are gone and regulate her being able to replace things.

My moms house was 10x worse after I helped her clean it out. It was security for her and not something I could understand. I made it worse by helping clean out.

I saw this when traveling with her and my hoarder auntie, they both brought far to much stuff and would "tuck" themselves in bed at every overnight stop with all their stuff out on their beds. It was eye opening at how much they needed the hoard. Gut wrenchingly sad but, it is how some people cope.

I pray for both of you to find a way you can both live in peace and comfort while minimizing the chaos of a hoard.

When dementia is involved, it goes into a whole next level with hoarding. I wonder if you can tell us if your wife did Hoarding BEFORE the dementia?

The DSM-5 now lists Hoarding as a separate diagnosis, and there is ever more and new research on it. Once thought to be a part of the OCD continuum it is now its own diagnosis. Like all mental illness, mental conditions, personality disorders, there is more UNKNOWN than known about how to handle hoarding.

If you have tried reasoning (the "let's do three piles, one we can donate, one we will keep and one we will recycle") and that hasn't worked you might see what happens if you quietly eliminate when wife isn't around one small thing at a time. IF this causes a lot of problems then I would seek help from a LSW familiar with hoarding to discuss.

I sure wish you luck and am so sorry you are dealing with this on top of everything else.

I don't think there is much you can do. Its part of her Dementia. She is keeping her world small because it makes her comfortable. Is there a way you can keep "her stuff" to one room or area? What is she hoarding? Maybe you can clean up a little when she is sleeping. Not everything just enough not to get out of hand. Hoping that her short-term memory doesn't remember exactly what she hoarded.

When my MIL went into Rehab, knowing she was not coming back, we started cleaning out her house. In a chest of drawers she had, she had plastic grocery bags full of junk mail.

The only thing you could say " this is creating a fire hazard and if the firemen came into Our house it would be condemned . " Something to that effect and then clean up the mess when she is sleeping .