I am so relieved I found you all. I am reading you posts and just feeling a sense of comfort. I feel legit crazy when I am here alone with mom. Then I feel sane and hopeful when I am with my friends and other family. ( when I am not around her) Mom has survived 3 strokes, lung cancer, a brain stent and her hoarding was an issue before her strokes. Growing up she was a minimalist that married an awful man then the hoarding started. I am organized, logical and don’t waste or hoard. Mom is the opposite. I am her only child. We never had a relationship that was healthy (she would tell you our relationship is healthy) it is not healthy. Anyhow here I am, grateful to have found this page. She has 1700 square foot home and 3 storage units. She will not let us throw stuff out and will but the same crap we already have over and over again. She won’t tidy anything nothing. She needs me to be here but I am also concerned about my own mental health. She seems to have no sense of consequence, empathy, time, logic. She is nasty towards me and can’t remember then gets upset if I address it. I hope that was a good enough introduction.
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My mom's hoarding has really intensified in the last 10 years. We hired a professional organizer about 5 years ago who did an amazing job however it turned my mom's world upside down.
Recently I visited her and did a 4 hour cleanup of junk mail. It has filled her with anxiety. "I can't find anything!!!" and "Where is my checkbook?" and "There is money missing from my account." We called the bank together to figure it out but she forgets we did and is on a loop about this missing $44 dollars. "I was up all night trying to find a receipt about it."
Be really careful about the cleanup. Just like the show Hoarders say, "if you don't do the aftercare it can be very traumatic to the Hoarder."
With my mom's memory slipping she relies on her hoard to help her remember. I don't feel it works but there's no convincing her otherwise.
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All the comments hit home for me. My beautiful very independent aunt has lived alone for years and the hoarding got worse as years went on. We recently moved her to independent living facility. She previously hung her wet diapers up to dry in order to re-wear them! I reasoned with her and thought we had this behavior stopped. Now, in her new place, I'm finding wet diapers hanging on the heater to dry so the apartment smells like urine : (. Any suggestions?
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I am a carer for my wife who is a hoarder (mild by currant standards), the problem started affecting me indirectly (frustration, boredom) which took me away from my daily healthy routines (healthy eating, exercise) and resulted in illness (pre-diabetes ?) until I found your website which hit the nail on it's head and hopefully we will be both in recovery mode.
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I've found a Lord of food in the drier
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I'm so glad I read this tonight. I moved my mother in with me two years ago due to her Alzheimer diagnosis and it has been a challenge. Tonight I lost my patience with her because I found her purse stuffed with tissues from a box I had just bought two days ago. Not only her purse but her drawers in her bedroom. When I ask her why she does this she denies doing it. Now after reading this at least I understand why she's doing it. Still frustrating though
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We moved my mother-in-law into a more manageable setting. It is called independent living, but it's small and we can control the hoarding better. Every two weeks we go into her apartment while she goes to a friends home. We clean out her 1 bedroom, kitchen, family room usually getting 10 heavy bags of trash from the frig and her floor-newspapers, mail, whatever she has collected. She loves going to the cafeteria every morning and picking up several bananas, yogurts, crackers, cookies, peoples leftovers-it's unbelievable. I need counseling to deal with it!! Tonight I took out 25 large boxes of books crammed everywhere and put them in her shed. In two weeks, after she has forgot about them, we will donate then to the thrift store.
Does anyone know how to handle someone with Alzheimer's who is constantly trying to open up new credit card accounts?
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In connection with all the hoarder problems, my deepest sympathy to you all....we have medals, hats, shoulders pads in the house now that I dont even remember he had, dont even know what he is going to do with all of this stuff. I gave up fighting with him because he does not stop buying this stuff even after I told him none of the children are interested in what he is doing now. Must say he was quote offended but that is already fogotten now....I struggle to accept the man he became. Only he knows how he copes at work still, even his daily driving became a horror to me when I am with him, driving to the wrong places, but he still manages to get to work and back. Sometimes I wonder...are you realy stuck in the traffic or are you lost.....I think there is a lot of stuff he doesnt tell me, he said a few months ago, he keeps quite for the reason that I do get upset....this is not easy. Stongs for everybody on this site. I so do wish more people would get active here...
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I have a question? since l got a rare disease with no cure, four years ago, my once pack rat habit has become pathological hoarding?
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Very good, thank u. My husband has early onset alzheimers on 57. He collects old 2nd war clothing and equipment....at a very high price he pays for it. That was of his grandfather and dad who were both in those wars. He says it is very important to him although those two men did not play a role in his life at all before they died.
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Anne and TucsonLady I LOVED both your posts! I laughed and laughed! Amazing, because when I found this site I was at my wits end and CERTAINLY not in a laughing mood!

I reconnected a couple of years ago with an old love interest after 44 years each of us living separate lives.

He was about 6 1/2 years older than I, though the difference back in those days was not so apparent. However, now it certainly IS!

It has been becoming more and more apparent ESPECIALLY in mental faculties. He is a hoarder and is also so forgetful he cannot remember from one 5 minutes to the next!

He has been getting worse and worse it seems weekly of late and it has now become quite stressful to me. I feel like I am responsible for a young kid all over again! My actual son is 38 snd very independent, thankfully!

My old friend, however, seems to be heaping more and more on me and I am really feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. He has been exhibiting all sorts of strange behaviors and though I don't actually see him more than maybe two or three days at a time once a month, he is on the phone (which I had supplied him with) to me constantly. He seems to ignore any advice I give him for various situations he gets himself into and just goes merrily on his way no matter what the consequences end up being.

This morning, I was going through a walk-in closet I assigned him here at my house to keep some of his things in as all it held before was my safe and an empty old chest of drawers. I walked in and found a couple of paper grocery bags of canned goods, boxes of pasta and bags of chocolate chips! I had not seen those in there the last time I had gone into that closet so when I was talking to him on the phone, asked him what the groceries were he put in there.

He didn't know what I was even talking about! He said HE certainly didn't do that! I asked him who he thought would put all that stuff there if it wasn't him and it wasn't me. He said he thought that possibly someone broke in?!? WTH!?

I just let the matter drop and when I got off the phone I started Googling and here I am!
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Tucson Lady, your mom and mine are twins. Loved reading your posts and your sense of humor about it all.
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If a person was a hoarder in their 30s, they will just be a worse hoarder in their senior years. I don't think our basic personality tendencies really change - but certain things get "magnified" when a person develops dementia. My husband is a hoarder. His mother was one of the worst hoarders I ever knew. As she became elderly and started to develop a bit of dementia, the hoarding became worse - piles of paper everywhere with narrow paths to walk through, and nowhere to sit down for visitors. I am convinced that there is a genetic predisposition towards the tendency to be a "hoarder," just like there is likely one for a person who is compulsively neat. A recent family reunion with my husband's mother's family revealed that several of them are also hoarders. Sometimes we just have to accept that when the person dies, or must move to a nursing home, that we will just have to hire a company to remove all of the clutter so that the house can be shown and sold. Hoarding is a compulsion and we cannot make anyone "stop it." We can throw out their stuff, but new stuff replaces it almost immediately. Been there, done that.
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Many yrs ago, (About 25) my FIL passed away. At that time we knew that there was "something" going on with MIL, but not really what. FIL had already done the hard part, moving her closer to us and getting rid of the 20 yrs of old newspapers in the basement (or maybe he just left them there). He had somehow gotten her to sign the house over to him, so he was able to sell it without her permission (sly old dog). anyway, after his death, we realized just where Mom was with this disease. I'm remembering now, how he must have tried to cover for her for so long, and I wonder how he got her out of that house. My DH is an only child, but I don't remember him being so involved when they moved. They actually moved into our home when we bought a new one. Of course we had to clean out that home when FIL passed and MIL moved in with us, but by that time the bulk of the hoarded stuff was gone. What a blessing.
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I thought that moving Mom 200 miles closer to me and her husband would give me the opportunity to clean out her house. Until 2 weeks ago, when she was diagnosed with Cancer. We are driving down today to meet with her Cancer Surgeon, who will be operating asap. I will discuss living options with her as we find out more... Rather than move her like we were planning, I am waiting on the circumstances to present their own options. If she needs to be in rehab, radiation, chemo, it will be difficult for her to maintain a huge home and living so far from us. Don't think it will be easy, but moving Mom will happen in the not too distant future, as the situation unfolds. I want to see her health stabilize before adding that stress on both herself and us. Thanks for your advice, Tucsonlady. I had it all planned out, about moving her, and God had something different in mind for Mom and for us. This may make her move to Assisted Living more palatable.
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"...I see it happen time after time, and the 'only child" of a group, is usually not the 'favorite ' of the family either, just the most responsible."

cmrjr - Truer words were never spoken! I became an "only child" when my mother's health began to deteriorate. When she chose to move in with me (because we'd always been close) & give me POA - well the hounds came a callin'. Not to help their ailing mom, min you, just to sniff around for their share of the $$ (there was no money - but you'll never convince them of that!) After being called every name in the book, I magically became an "only child" again. It was so bad that unfortunately, I was the "only child" at my mother's funeral & I've heard nothing from either of them since.

And guess who was the one solely responsible for going through & sorting my mothers "valuables" from the clutter? You guessed it - Only child! What fun that was.:O

I myself have just one child & he will remain an only because I never want a child of mine to go through what I went through with my older siblings. It was awful & so sad for my mother to witness.
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You are so right, Just tonite, my DH was gathering together the brochures and sales circulers to bring into his den and save as "referance" material. Excuse me, Lands End, Woman Within, ???? what reference will you ever need for women's underwear????? so I'll sneak into his den when He's sleeping and throw them out, the oldest first so he won't notice.
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BillT, you should check out different websites on alzheimers/dementia. I have learned so much about the different things that they do, that are symptoms of the disease. It helps me to read it many times, and explain this to friends and family members when they see them exhibit strange behaviors. Take Care! Nauseated
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Wow, I didn't realise this was such an issue. I thought I was the only one going through this with my mother. She hoards and takes things that doesn't belong to her. I'm glad I found this article, it explains a lot of things I didn't realize.
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Anne: Both my mother and mother-in-law had trusts set up. We used the same law firm for both. My mom was fully rational and that went well. My mother-in-law is considerably older and hard-of-hearing, but she pretty much went along with everything. What I liked is that the law firm just didn't do the estate planning...they had an RN on staff and other resources to help the family. I also checked with the Council on Aging for my mother-in-law because I thought, at first, that her living with us WAS temporary and I wanted to find some free services for her since she has a limited income (she used to be well off but after her husband died, that changed....but she still thinks she's got money...sad.).
The ideal situation for your mother (and you!) would be assisted living in a more or less lock-down environment. If she's already been declared incompetent, the delicate matter of actually getting her moved is something the attorney may be able to help you with. She is not being at all cooperative, so all I can imagine are the "men in white suits" coming to take her away...is that an exaggeration or is that the way you see this happening? I know I'm preaching to the choir, but try not to let this consume YOUR entire life any further. I know when you're in the middle of it, you might keep saying "OK, as soon as I accomplish this and this and this, I'll do something for myself...I'll finally get to relax...". You need some other breaks along the way. One day, as I was toiling away at MY inheritance (a triplex rental), I finally admitted "Hey...I'm 56 years old and I want my life back". So, we're selling that place. Life is too short to let it slip away with "have to's". But, who am I to talk? I still always seem to be at everyone's disposal, too, because I'm the "responsible one".
I hope a good estate attorney can shed some light for you because this is daunting. That kind of hoarding is catastrophic. There was a time when I wanted to be a Personal Organizer...your mother would be quite the challenge. That organizer would have to be a shrink as well!
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Thanks katybo. Unfortunately, we're already Probate controlled. But I've been thinking myself that a trust is the way to go. One to protect her assets for her future needs, and two, to prevent the bickering. But nothing will really protect that. They don't have a good relationship with her, never did, but already want to claim the inheritance. That's a different thread, though... My Mom is in a too-big house, with too much stuff, and if she had her way, she'd buy more stuff. That's the issue. My job is to prevent that, and to preserve what she does have to take care of her present and future needs. Period. Not wants, desires. Because of their choices and decisions and denial, and debt, they now have a crisis. Or soon will. Her too-big house is too much for her to maintain and support. She'll need help downsizing and must be prevented from accumulating more. I am the intervention. The court declared her to be incapacitated, and for me to take control. I report to them, but they will not counsel. So I have to find advice from others. Legal recommended. I've talked to so many lawyers, I dread the next, because each thinks they have the answer, but the court has not agreed with all. Discernment is paramount. Most of the lawyers have an agenda, which is me giving them a sum of Mom's money to "help" us out. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone knows all the particulars, and wants $$ just to listen. Not all the advice I've gotten has been good.

Did I tell you about the 25 ceramic Mom-painted lighted Christmas trees? The list goes on... I must find a way to move Mom, eliminate some of her things, satisfy the court, and avoid fights with Mom's eager relatives. Their hoarding cost them plenty. And taught some terrible values to the next generation. Now I get to deal with more of the consequences of her hoarding, and also look to her needs and future as well.

Believe me, I throw broken, burned and useless things away when she's away. But when she returns I have _____ to pay (her wrath). She screams, "How dare you touch my things?" In a way she's right. They are her things. But they are also a tripping and fire hazard, and they are sucking the emotional life and peace out of all of us - have for years. "Her things..." It's always about that. We have made progress. Her judgment is not what it needs to be. Someone has to be rationale and responsible. If she can't be, and the others won't be, than I have to be. We figure the only way to stop her hoarding is to move her, restrict her, and guard her. Too bad about the stuff she wants to keep, save, store, and hold over every one's head! She is a control freak, using things to control others. Always has. What a sick mind! So sad. Some days I wish someone would just break in and steal everything just so I didn't have to deal with it anymore. But when her bills come due, and they want to take her house away, she's going to need something to fall back on. To pay the taxes, to maintain her dinosaur of a house until it sells. Her whole adult life has been about accumulating and hoarding. It won't last must longer, and she can't take it with her. Someone talk to her? Who? Pay someone she respects (who would that be?) to talk to her about it? No one can get through to her. It is impossible to talk rational to an irrational individual, with cognitive and emotional deficiencies. We lived this way all our lives. This too shall pass. Though in the meantime, I'm calling another Elder Law Estate Attorney tomorrow.
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To everyone cleaning out your parents' home - don't just have an estate sale. When my mother-in-law still lived in PA and her sisters died, she had to clean out their home to sell it. She had to sort through everything because her one sister had a habit of stashing money all over the house. She used to be a cosmetologist in her early years and would stash her tips in jars all over the place. She was also a petty, spiteful woman who would put birthday and holiday cards away without opening them if she didn't like the sender. Many of those had cash in them. After everything was sorted through, which took months because they hoarded everything also, the total of the cash was 27,000 dollars. Also, to keep all the relatives from fighting over the money, put her estate in a trust. You can avoid probate that way.
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Hi Mitzi lady, and Dear Tusconlady! 2nd try: To answer your questions. There's lots more written to this story already, but I'll try to catch you up, and try to stay on thread. That stunning assortment is only partial, but you get the idea. She still lives in the home, for many many reasons. One crisis after another has kept her there. Hubby's (Dad's) Alzheimer's progressed and her neglect cost him everything he every knew and loved. He is now (long story) well cared for far away. I am the intervention. Her church can't and couldn't help, and "Reverend" is new and doesn't give a rip. (Although they initially "helped" us out.) They are aware of the multi-layered problems. But when a "church" is more like a social club or service organization for "needier" causes, we look elsewhere for direction. As far as Mom caring whether she becomes ill or not, is a mute point. If 50+ years of smoking and heavy alcohol poisoning didn't kill her, I figure she's highly immune, to a point.
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Anne and others.... please make sure you are logged in first! This site does not remember you next time you log in and it has a very short memory when you post first, then log in.

Always always always... log in first if you plan on posting. Thanks for being here!
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Dear Tucsonlady, thanks for the hug. I just spent the last hour writing a reply, and pouring my heart out, only to find it wasn't posted. Yikes, again? When I renew my energy, I'll try again. Thank you for your comments, questions and suggestions.
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Anne: Oh my gosh. That is a stunning assortment. She still lives in the home, which is incomprehensible. Wow. When you say "we're not allowed to throw....", who is "we"? You and your siblings? (sorry, I didn't go back and read your other posts to get that detail). Someone needs to do an intervention...does she have a pastor or trusted someone who can convince her she's eventually going to become ill do to mold, dust mites, etc.? Perhaps a doctor can have a talk with her about this problem. Meanwhile, do you work at her house more or less full time? Can you sneak around and lower things from the attic into a dumpster below??
Honestly, she does have a treasure trove of things that would do well in an estate sale...but that's later. Meanwhile, ugh. A professional organizer might be a consideration, if there's money for that. I save Christmas ornaments, too, but I've got 3 boxes, not 75!!!!!! That's ridiculous. Who arethe greedy relatives? Cousins, sisters, etc.? Hang in there. My situation is a breeze compared to yours. Here's a hug.
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Mom has more than she needs. She's an only child who inherited her parent's house large house full of antiques into her already-packed home. She has every drawer of every dresser jammed packed full of things, and every closet of her five bedroom, three floor, museum of a house filled to the hilt. A few items she has in storage? One whole huge dresser drawer full of clothing for her cement porch duck, including yellow slicker rain coat and hat, and clothing for each and every theme and holiday. Antique photos from several generations fill the largest dresser. One attic full of 75 - 80 boxes of Christmas decorations. She has jewelry boxes full of more than she could ever wear, and an expanding rack holding somewhere around 200 chain and beaded necklaces (real ugly, too). A dining room with 3 silver tea sets, two complete sets of silver wear, and several sets of china, linens, and linen napkins and tablecloths. They have books and albums and videos, and tapes, as well as DVD's, and 10 TV's and several stereos and radios to play them on (lots are broken). Her entire basement was remodeled to store closets and shelves on every wall, and under the stairs, and each dividing wall in between are all packed to the gills. There are pastel polyester pant suits there in every shade and color, left over from the seventies. Care for a dose of Retro, anyone? How about some mink stoles and capes and hats and dressy gloves? Where there aren't closets or shelves, are stacks of boxes, piles of papers, and furniture and cabinets filled to overflowing, there's just a path to pick her way through. Dad stored papers including receipts, bills, and other, as well as office supplies in his cave of an office and many of his hobby Organization's info there as well. He even has a floor-to-ceiling stack of Franklin Planners collected, with last year's blank one ready to fill, (until his Alzheimer's got in the way).

The whole thing is insane! (I mean eccentric) lol! There are years worth of cleaning due to the accumulation of things there, and she has no concept of all that's involved. We're not "allowed" to throw one single broken thing away, because Mom wants it "kept in the family." Her greedy no-good relatives can't wait to get their lazy guiltless hands upon it, either! But that's another thread. However, they're too "busy" to come help her with her real needs there. With failing health and inclination, she needs a full-time maid, librarian, and organizer. Guess who got the designation? And guess who controls its distribution!!!
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My mother-in-law has a certain way of storing things that says: "This is only temporary...I'm half-packed to go back home". Her bedroom has a twin bed, two chests of drawers (total of 8 drawers), a big cedar chest we dragged from her house, an adjoining bathroom and a walk-in closet. I should have it so good! Her closet has several shelves and 2 places to hang clothes. However, the shelves are half empty and so are the drawers, but I noticed she has "things" bagged up behind a chest of drawers and behind the bed. She does not use the medicine cabinet and barely uses the vanity storage in the bathroom.
I just cleaned all that kind of bagged stuff outta there before Christmas! One day she couldn't find her cold cream. Oh! It was under the bed! "Well, I didn't put it there!", Mom exclaimed.
That, of course, sparked another conversation as to why Mom wants to go home...at least there she knew where everything was! (Faint).
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We plan to scrap the metal, shred and burn the paper, donate the clean clothing, and dump the rest. Anything that can be will be sold, except for Mom's "family heirlooms," which will be stored safely away from opportunistic deadbeat relatives, who eye the valuables with envy and greed. I'm saving the $$ and assets for Mom's care, and they can fight over them in Probate, depending on how much care giving Mom receives from her "interested parties." Mom will be set up in a new place with limited belongings and limited access to funds to buy more. Her life will be controlled to eliminate hoarding. It should be a new, freeing experience for all of us. If it wasn't so much work, I'd have it done yesterday. But, caution and good planning restrain me at present. I want to legally protect her and her assets from schemers, and see to her needs first.

Hoarding is hazardous to her finances. It takes on a life of its own, and destroys peace and contentment. More-ism has got to go!
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While my sister was cleaning out our parents' garage, she'd already filled 2 dumpsters and a mini roll-off. She snuck over to a nearby medical park and dumped some stuff in their dumpster. Evidently she'd thrown out something with my parents' address on it because someone actually snooped in that dumpster and came over to the house. They left a note on our gate to tell us we could not throw our stuff over there anymore!! Who does that??
Then, some months later (coincidentally after our estate sale), someone broke into the back door of the garage...they didn't take anything (we wish they would have!!)....just ruined the door jamb which still isn't fixed. I've cleaned the place so many times. Oh, and one summer a couple of bats took refuge in there. One flew over my head and I stayed out of there for a very long time. Bats are where I draw the line on clean-up!
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