Crap...

gosh im thankful for all the civil and humorous replies. @ christina.
my mother had a mental crash and spent 3 months in AL about 4 years ago. she instructed grandkids to have a yard sale and sell everything, then the house. we didnt realize she was NUTS, we just blindly followed her instructions. well she got better and wanted to come home. home was 4 feet deep in trash that had been picked thru by all the family and the leftover yardsale still occupied the front yard. it was all up to son and i to restore housekeeping. mom being NUTS decided to take advantage of the situation and instructed us to empty out hundreds of pans and bowls from every cabinet, wash them then the cabinets and replace everything. thats when i figured out she was effin NUTS. we instead had one of those bonfires of biblical proportion and we cleaned this crapfest out. had her home in 3 days. ive never heard the end of it and she will never comprehend the horriffic task that we were faced with because shes friggin NUTS. does anyone know how many bibles two devout ( yard saleing ) nazarenes can accumulate in 80 years? the answer is none. there werent any, nobody saw us and you cant prove a thing..

I used to feel the same way when I visited mom. The clutter/piles/messes made me cringe. She was the knickknack queen. She had so many clothes they wouldn't fit in the closet. Size XS to 3X. Huh? A woman on oxygen who had limited outside trips didn't need 17 pairs of navy blue pants.
Because of this chaos I can't tolerate clutter. It also prompted my son to adopt the rule, bring one thing in, one thing leaves. I agree with Christina, it is a mental disorder.
The thing that made me laugh my rear end off was when mom died, my sister got the privilege of cleaning out her condo. Yes, the sister who never wanted to get involved in caregiving. I still get a good chuckle when I think about it. Bet she is still cursing me!

Hey Cap, at least once a day I sneak into her room and take a handful of useless crap and look around for anything dangerous (she spilled straight pins all over the floor and had no idea) and anything I need to have (bills from the mail!). It drives me crazy, too. I have to be careful, tho. She knows what is there....

Yes!!! I think it is a form of mental illness and becomes worse with stress. I hate it. I threw out almost everything of Mother's that was junk--to ME-- when I got her out of her house. It was cathartic and very healing, a sweet revenge, so to speak.
All those things she was obsessive about and made me dust as a small child I was able to toss with a snicker. Oh, it was better than therapy. Of course, I asked everyone in shouting distance, first, if they wanted it.
There is very little left, and some things I will keep for posterity.
Cap, you have to sneak out bits of the junk mail. It can be a game for you to enjoy.
Ooh, am I being very bad this afternoon? A few things like this make me loony! :)

My bedroom was beginning to look like a hoarder's place. I tried really hard to get rid of things but I always said that I might need it later on. It was so frustrating that I couldn't find anything in that mess. I actually had a narrow path from the door to my dresser drawer on the opposite end. I decided to be ruthless and asked fave sis for help. Fave sis idea of cleaning is: Throw, throw, throw. What you haven't used in a year? then throw it!

So, I called her for help. Her and her daughter came and actually cleaned out my room. I would walk in and could not believe how uncluttered it was. Uhm...my junk is building back up. I think this is an emotional issue. I have never been a hoarder until recently - when father had his stroke and I became both parents' caregivers.

Cap - my suggestion is to tell your sons that you are giving them a set time limit (one or 2 months) to come and take their stuff. Or to go thru it and throw what is not needed. Then YOU will go thru the garage and Throw what YOU think is not needed. They can always rent a storage locker. If they can't afford the cost of the locker, then they will learn to be ruthless and keep what is most valuable to them.

Mine, too. There is so much stuff here that I can't even bear the thought of cleaning. It is better now than when I first moved in. You couldn't walk through some of the rooms when I first got here and the kitchen was stacked with things up to the ceiling. It gets me in a foul mood just to look at clutter. It is an uphill battle to get rid of it when dealing with hoarders. You have my sympathy.