Filled a 20 yrd dumpster just the start at my parents hm they couldn't throw ANYTHING away. They saved empty jars, had boxes of boxes, empty bags of bags, broken things to "fix" someday, bits and pieces of carpet, rags, etc etc etc. What is up with this type of hoarding? Why couldn't they throw anything away? When they moved to retire they UP sized. This is both my parents but mainly my dad. They were young kids in the depression but please this is loads of junk and broken items. What do you do with a broken & taped up 5 gal bucket?!! Junk mail not even opened from years ago. And really who saves carbon copy paper?!! This is just the tip of the iceburg. Can anyone shed light on this and tell me why all this junk was saved?
I have OCD and Hoarder's problems myself, so I went through every piece of paper I could for him. I found two letters he had started when he knew he was deteriorating, one to me, one to my youngest brother, in amongst receipts 20+ years old, and letters and cards we had sent him, going back 40+ yrs. There are probably 4 other letters started, but no one else has the patience or OCD to look through every piece of paper to find them, and things were swept away fast after I left.
I took a lot of grief for not accomplishing much during my time there. OK, fair enough.
To get to my point, and I have one, I'm only 61. I don't hide $$$, but I have trouble concentrating, things get jumbled into piles. I was starting in on the piles because I don't want to burden my kids more than I have to (!), and in fact I found $200 cash in an envelope, unlabeled, in the middle of a pile of papers.
It shook me up, and makes me even more reluctant than I already am to just sweep things off piles into garbage bags. I was getting ready to do just that, and I'm inclined to say "What, God? Was that a test? Were you playing with me, as in Just Kidding!!! ;-)" ???
So, there you have it. It won't stop me, but that money found will slow me down some. I can't imagine how awful it'd be to try to dig out from Hoarders at an even older, more vulnerable time, which is usually just when others get involved, right?
If appliances and desires keep changing, perhaps in a few years we'll be able to sell our relics as antiques!
I agree with the pressure for always new things - I can't believe how much is wasted b/c someone wants to "upgrade" to granite counter tops, add a firepit (what's wrong with the old barbeque and grill?) complete with fancy decorating and designer couches and chairs surrounding (but where are the guitar players to serenade the gathering of friends?).
Of course the GNP benefits, but that doesn't necessarily benefit me. And as an aside, I've just read the SS is not going to increase by even $.01 for me in 2016. Someone must be playing games with the CPI again. Egg prices have doubled, hamburger is $4.49 a pound usually....guess it's time to add some cattle and chickens to the old garden.
I was thinking today that I need to learn how to fish again to save money on the whopping cost of fish.
How do you keep you 20 year old Jeep running. Every time my cars have hit 18, they've had so many problems my repair shop manager just took me aside as if he were telling me someone had died. And he told me that my car just wasn't worth saving.
I'd save the food that goes for the squirrels or they might become so used to the food that they move in!
I thought the scene from Gone with the Wind when Scarlett is standing in the field affirming that she'll never be hungry again was one of the most powerful in the firm. Sometimes I've tried to imagine myself in that situation, and I honestly don't know what I would do.
That's one of the reasons the current crop of "reality" shows when people compete in preplanned exercises or so-called survival modes is so hilarious. With cameras just out of sight, it's impossible to believe these people really are as hard up as they pretend to be. But some of them are good actors, and that's just what many of them are, even if they do practice survivalism in real life.
Well, thank you, and it's a pleasure to tell everyone here that you're all God-sends, and you're all how I survived those months.
BTW, my Dad was a peach, but everybody seemed to have a different idea of how things should be done, etc...fair enough. That's why I needed to be able to come and read here. They're getting to do it their way now.
I'm lucky I had that time with him. He kept trying to place this little old lady who called him Daddy, but I got to meet him as the man he was in the workplace, as the chief of surgery forced to retire before he was ready; as the mid-career surgeon hiring an old lady who called him Daddy but didn't know how to take dictation; as the new Resident who wanted to go home to his wife and young kids, but not until he put the little old lady who called him Daddy on report for vacuuming and keeping the patients awake; as the student practicing his surgical knots.
These diseases, dementias, and dilemmas are heartbreaking.
Up until a couple months ago, my Mom use to put her clothes in the dryer for a few minutes, take them out, carry the basket of damp clothes down to the basement to hang the clothes to finish drying... she did this until she was 97. The basement also had my Dad's workshop. No wonder their clothes always had that spray paint and oil smell to them :P
Your mother had amazing strength; carrying clothes up or downstairs is tricky when someone is older. I used to wash downstairs and hang all my clothes up outdoors on the clotheslines...until the neighbor got a dog, and well, didn't clean up as she should have. From then on I decided to let the clothes dry inside.
But paint and oil smell.....ummm...don't think I'd care for that too much!
I remember asking my father one day why he had so much of a food reserve. He said, in all earnest, that one day something might happen and an interruption in the food distribution system could occur (especially with the trucking industry) that prevented food from getting to stores. Then at least he'd have a supply of food.
And gardeners regularly plan for several months ahead, but that's not hoarding; it's just common sense and being prepared, as well as eating healthier and saving money.
I do recall the trucking strikes of earlier years, but that's been a long time ago.
My father saved the dangest stuff... my fav find was coffee cans full of pistachio shells... and tons of the styrofoam coolers that thier meds came in.. in case you wanted to keep ONE soda cold
Back when I was a child if Mom couldn't hang the clothes outside on the clothes line, then she would carry them up two flights of stairs then up the stairs into the large attic where she had clothes lines [Dad had a electrical workshop up there, so there was the combination of old attic smell with burnt electrically wiring].
I remember Mom ironing the sheets and pillow cases. She did that while watching her soap opera "As the World Turns".
A relative used to save string; I used to save and reuse aluminum foil for baking potatoes. I could get a few potatoes before it was too browned to use. Now I just use the microwave.
But coffee cans were valuable - I filled them with morning glory seeds!
Mincemeat, I think those old wringer washers might be candidates for museums. The Henry Ford Museum (attached to the Greenfield Village) in Dearborn, Michigan focuses on old things - fascinating old train engines, old autos, old restaurants and old appliances.
AK, I've found old dried up rubberbands and twist'ems as well - did you ever find someone who wanted them? I expect I may have a supply eventually!
As I go through various areas trying to downsize, I'm often surprised at what I've found - lots of buttons, enough fabric to start a fabric store (hmmm, that's an idea for making money), old lipsticks and eye shadows and remnants from working)....and lots of dress shoes with which I'm loath to part. They really are nice shoes, even if I'll probably never be able to wear them again.
Makes me feel really, really old when I think back on how life has changed so much. I'm wondering now if I really was as young as I remember, or was it all just a dream?!
As I
Both my parents were of the depression era, but neither of them were hoarders... they both kept things to be passed down in the family, but no way would my mom have allowed a cluttered house and my dads work shop was organized and tidy.... so who knows... I always feel bad for family members who will have to go in and get things straightened out..... they have a mother in law room built outside the breezeway, that is piled high with clothes.... their closets are so jam packed things have to be hung on the doors....but if it makes them feel safe, guess it only really matters to who has to clean it up...
These dox included things like credit agency reports (which I'd quickly check then file and compare when I got the next one), hospital discharge papers, etc.
When I started on sorting and filing yesterday, it just seemed so overwhelming...so MUCH paper. Do I really need to keep the discharge papers and/or hospital reports from all the hospitalizations? Actually, yes, because now I'm finding that I can't remember the reason for the first 2 hospitalizations of this year. Seriously - some real short term memory loss.
But the sense of just soooo much to go through made me decide I'd put it off for a nice rainy day when the garden wasn't beckoning....maybe the first snow storm of the season. So, back it all went into the redrope.
Expanding that to a home filled with things from WWII....well, I can now see why our parents feel overwhelmed.
One of our neighbors has a saying which she repeats regularly: "inch by inch is a cinch." Cute, and sometimes it does help. This is a woman who takes on more than anyone I know of. She has 3 houses and her own business. I can't even mange my own house!
So, folks, it's one inch at a time for me from now on!
There might even be a market for these things, but sensationalistic tv focuses on what seems to get a rise out of people more than what's good programming.
Have you ever noticed that the one program with a couple of guys who explore garages and farm outbuildings looking for good stuff have an entirely different approach than the hoarder ones? I understand the distinction, but the attitude is just so much more judgmental. Some of the garages on those HGTV shows are filled with stuff, some of it worthwhile, others not. But the slant is different - look for the gold, don't condemn.
Also have a small collection of dress shoes I haven't worn in years and probably won't in the future... guess I am hanging onto them because my feet were hard to fit being so narrow that these shoes are my hunt trophies :)
The hundreds of jars in my mother's basement were all filled back in the days everyone did home canning, and we really did need all those pie tins and margarine tubs because it was unthinkable to go out and buy those things when you could just re use what was on hand. And once all those important papers were stored in the attic they were out of sight and mind, so it was easy to just keep adding to the pile and never purging. When all those treasures start to encroach on the living areas of the house its a sign that the line is being crossed.
She grew up "weathy" during the depression, and always had a huge home filled to the brim with stuff. It's just in her nature, I guess. You can'r walk from one room to another in her little apt. But she loves it, so I keep my thoughts to myself. When she passes 90% of her stuff will be tossed or given to the Salvation Army.
This was practical good sense which is very different from hoarding which is usually an actual mental illness.
Now a days it was reusing gift bags over and over again until they got too worn to use just one more time. Heavens, I keep the white crinkle paper that is used in gift boxes as I have one cat who just loves to play with it.... I just toss a cat toy under it and let her at it.
How have you been feeling? Did everything get straightened out and are you eating on your own now? Ahhh, so many questions... going to email you right now.... love and hugs , so happy to see you here.
It's a nightmare. Whatever it is that kicks it from 'Tendencies to collect' to full-on Hoarder's Executive Function failure, it's a disaster.