It's really embarrassing and hard to live with. It's not something that's so easy to stop doing and "just getting rid of things" doesn't stop it from happening.

The maintenance it takes not to start filling space again is not something most normal-style packrats even can really understand. It's rough.

 Reply

One of my close friend's parents are hoarders. They have a fish tank in the basement in which all the fish died. They scooped out the fish but let the rancid water just dry up, and when it did, started storing other crap they hoard in said fishtank. I want to send my roommate to live with them for a month.

 Reply

I get sick when I go home at Christmas, because of all the must and dust in the house.

She has bags and bags of children's clothes from the 80s and 90s. She says she doesn't have time to go through the bags, so I suggest just taking them to goodwill, but she refuses (something she might want could be in one of those bags).

I hate going home.

 Reply

Another rule: if I haven't used it in a year, bless someone else with it." I had about 5 new sets of Christmas cards that I had bought with the intention of sending them out... 3 years ago. So I gave them to my neighbor, who is very diligent about those things.

Problem is, I also tend to throw away important things like bills, tax receipts, even cards.

Is there a name for this?

 Reply

[flylady.net]

[flylady.net]

 Reply

I used to be pretty bad when I was a kid. Everyone called me "pack rat". Interestingly I had an uncle on my father's side die a few years ago and heard that he was a major hoarder. He filled my grandmother's house with junk and filled his "camp" (N.H. lake place) with stuff. So maybe it runs in the family.

My worst thing is books, but I think my daughter is prepared to deal with books 'cause she loves books also.

Her dad's worst thing from my point of view is whenever something mechanical or electronic breaks he takes it apart to see what it's like inside and then keeps all of that. The other thing is that his hobby has been photography since he was a kid. Fortunately digital cameras were invented before we could be buried in slides.

 Reply

I also don't like cleaning but don't like living in a dirty house, so the house can't be full of stuff otherwise I'd never clean it!

 Reply

Now that I live on my own and basically just own a mattress, some area rugs, and a desk? I throw things out so compulsively that I sometimes almost miss them later (like shoes that don't fit quite right but I can't return them and they're mostly unworn, so I give them to the Salvation Army and then miss them.) I sometimes sit on my freshly-vacuumed rugs on my totally empty floor and just sit and look at the empty.

I don't think I'll ever be a hoarder.

 Reply

While I worked for him, I managed to empty seven file cabinets and one office, plus two full sized dumpsters worth of things from the barn, but there's no way he's going to change this behavior. I feel sorry for his son who will have to deal with it after his death.

 Reply

However I've known elderly relatives of friends and friends of relatives, etc, who had giant huge IMMENSE rooms just full of STUFF. As they got along in years, they just kind of stopped using their basements or dens or guest bedrooms and started using them as junk repositories instead. Whether they were deliberately hoarding or just forming "junk rooms", I've helped clean some of these areas during moves and such, and it's always oddly sad.

Easter baskets from 20 years ago. Broken remnants of board games. Stuff that was once bright and gaudy and intended for amusement, now crumbled into junk underneath a rotting ottoman or ruined mattress. It's a giant sad fire hazard.

 Reply