# Get A Hoarder To Get Rid Of Their Stuff?



## WhatInThe (Oct 21, 2014)

Need help convincing someone who is enabling a hoarder by storing "some" of their stuff to convince that hoarder to get their stuff out of the house. For years they made excuses for them. Now, after DECADES they realize this person has too much stuff at their house. When you talk to the actual hoarder they are full of excuses, this has been going for years but now you could film an episode of Hoarders in their apt and possibly even the friends house with the volume of their stuff there. I'm happy to see they realize they have too much stuff there.  But, no one is getting younger here.

The hoarder who always had medical issues in their adult life is full excuses including their health. Yet they are consuming time combing through mixed boxes of unsorted "family" stuff which was pulled from storage AND another friend. They refuse to pay for their own storage. And the hoarder still shops at stores &  flea markets. By their own admission they have other sources of free storage as well-which ironically they want to get rid because they don't like the conditions-oh well. Good news I convinced the hoarders friend no more at their house which is full anyway. Besides the excuses they get all huffy when you mention it. They declare their independence and say they'll get to it.  And yet they need help for the simplest of tasks because they have to clear a work area and/or path. Because they are from an era where only the rich went to college they like to boast about their family heritage and 1/2 century old very generic degree even for it's time.  We are at an impasse. What do we do without a flatout intervention. 

How do you convince a hoarder to get rid of their stuff?


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## Happyflowerlady (Oct 21, 2014)

My mother was a hoarder. She and Daddy went through two world wars and the Great Depression in their lifetimes; so I can see what motivated Mom to save everything.  Nothing would have made her give up anything that she had stored away. If you came and asked her for something that you needed, and she had three of them stored; she would take you down to the store and buy you a new one of your own. That was how she was. 
After Mom and Daddy died, and I was going through the mountains of accumulation (they had a house, the old grocery store building, as well as an ancient hotel); I think I found everything that she had ever bought. There were the old-fashioned cardboard containers (from about 1953) that used to come with the leftover chop suey when we went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. Stacks of them ! 
Personally, I think there are only two ways to deal with a hoarder. One is to wait until they pass away, and then have a big yard sale (what I did); and the other is to move everything into a rented storage unit, and let them be responsible for either paying for their storage, or getting rid of some of the stuff. 
Or, at least telling them (and meaning it) that this is what you are going to do if they don't move it. They will certainly have all sorts of excuses, but , in the final analysis, they just intend to make someone else responsible for their belongings as long as they can get by with it. 
At least my folks had their own buildings to store things in; so no one else had to deal with it. Even mom usually couldn't find what she was looking for in all of the piles she had; so she still had to go and buy herself another one of whatever it was she needed.


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## Falcon (Oct 21, 2014)

I know a hoarder who won't allow anybody into her house. She has boxes of "stuff" all over the house. Hallways are packed
making it difficult to get from room to room. She buys NEW clothes rather than wash what she has on.
  +  She's a motormouth who won't let anybody get a word ion edgewise. We don't know anybody who actually likes her. Sad.


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## WhatInThe (Oct 21, 2014)

Falcon said:


> I know a hoarder who won't allow anybody into her house. She has boxes of "stuff" all over the house. Hallways are packed
> making it difficult to get from room to room. She buys NEW clothes rather than wash what she has on.
> +  She's a motormouth who won't let anybody get a word ion edgewise. We don't know anybody who actually likes her. Sad.



This sounds all too familiar. The person I know only lets in certain friends and apartment maintenance who I'm surprised haven't turned them in for hoarding/eviction. Their apartment is so bad they have currently blocked off a bedroom which is already full with the bedroom door being basically a wall now. They play up their age and disability(which is legit but no excuse for not asking for help which they been offered from numerous people just for a major clean, told we wouldn't even throw stuff out unless pure trash). They have no problem asking for help bringing stuff into the apartment but not out of it. And they too are a motor mouth about a 100 words for everyone you are lucky to get out. 

Again they play up their hoity toity background but a cheap skate who frequently pays rip off prices. Frustrating, infuriating and quite pathetic at times. No pity here.


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## GeorgiaXplant (Oct 21, 2014)

Gee, I could be a hoarder. My place is tiny, but I only have a very few pieces of furniture so plenty of room to keep my trash and bring home treasurers from Goodwill and other thrift shops. Maybe I could even be on TV! Those hoarder programs last for an hour. I've already had my 15 minutes of TV fame; now I'd like to shoot for an hour. Whaddaya think?


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## Twixie (Oct 22, 2014)

I am not a hoarder but my partner is...boxes...old dvd's..old dvd players which don't work..lots of electrical coily things..

Throw them out I say...''they might come in useful'' says he..

They don't...We've moved this rubbish  from house to house!


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## WhatInThe (Oct 22, 2014)

*tiny is not hoarding*



GeorgiaXplant said:


> Gee, I could be a hoarder. My place is tiny, but I only have a very few pieces of furniture so plenty of room to keep my trash and bring home treasurers from Goodwill and other thrift shops. Maybe I could even be on TV! Those hoarder programs last for an hour. I've already had my 15 minutes of TV fame; now I'd like to shoot for an hour. Whaddaya think?



This person doesn't have a few pieces of furniture they have a lot of furniture, much more than an apartment's worth. If you count all the storage at other locations I'd say they have another 3 stuffed bedrooms worth of stuff at least. The blocked off room  includes a 5 foot high pile of stuff in the middle of room and along the walls are piled to the ceiling. If you ask this person for a pen it would take them 5-10 minutes to find you one.


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## Vivjen (Oct 22, 2014)

I personally, find it difficult to know how people live like that.
i have too much stuff, and am not as tidy as my Dad; however; I could find a pen!

I could not live with stuff piled everywhere...


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## WhatInThe (Oct 22, 2014)

Happyflowerlady said:


> My mother was a hoarder. She and Daddy went through two world wars and the Great Depression in their lifetimes; so I can see what motivated Mom to save everything.  Nothing would have made her give up anything that she had stored away. If you came and asked her for something that you needed, and she had three of them stored; she would take you down to the store and buy you a new one of your own. That was how she was.
> After Mom and Daddy died, and I was going through the mountains of accumulation (they had a house, the old grocery store building, as well as an ancient hotel); I think I found everything that she had ever bought. There were the old-fashioned cardboard containers (from about 1953) that used to come with the leftover chop suey when we went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. Stacks of them !
> Personally, I think there are only two ways to deal with a hoarder. One is to wait until they pass away, and then have a big yard sale (what I did); and the other is to move everything into a rented storage unit, and let them be responsible for either paying for their storage, or getting rid of some of the stuff.
> Or, at least telling them (and meaning it) that this is what you are going to do if they don't move it. They will certainly have all sorts of excuses, but , in the final analysis, they just intend to make someone else responsible for their belongings as long as they can get by with it.
> At least my folks had their own buildings to store things in; so no one else had to deal with it. Even mom usually couldn't find what she was looking for in all of the piles she had; so she still had to go and buy herself another one of whatever it was she needed.



I can see older depression era people hoarding because it might come in handy, don't waste etc. I get that. This person wasn't a depression baby and to this day uses her family having money & status by neighborhood alone..

They will always have excuses and will make other's responsible for their stuff is about a perfect description as you can give the situation. To me having others store their stuff is the most troubling. The one house where they are storing stuff will have to pay for a dumpster or they will be taking out extra small loads trash for a year or two.


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## ClassicRockr (Oct 22, 2014)

My wife wasn't a hoarder, but was a pack rat..........until she met me! Past garage sales and trips to the Goodwill and Salvation Army sure have helped. She has even told me, "if you find things that you know that we don't need, get rid of them and don't tell me." There were a few things that I done just that with. We've still got some stuff to get rid of, but nothing like it was when I first met her.


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## WhatInThe (Oct 22, 2014)

ClassicRockr said:


> My wife wasn't a hoarder, but was a pack rat..........until she met me! Past garage sales and trips to the Goodwill and Salvation Army sure have helped. She has even told me, "if you find things that you know that we don't need, get rid of them and don't tell me." There were a few things that I done just that with. We've still got some stuff to get rid of, but nothing like it was when I first met her.



See, you are actually working on getting rid of stuff or thinking about it. We've begged this person to come take a look at their possessions, re-evaluate what they are storing. They refuse to deal with the fact they will have to get rid of something. We've bought them boxes of stuff to go through. It took them about a half hour to decide to put some stuff in a flea market. So they re labeled the box flea market. Still sitting there 5 years later.

J


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## oakapple (Oct 23, 2014)

Hoarding is  not about wanting all that 'stuff' but it's linked to their mental well being.The 'stuff' [for want of a better word] is a comfort to them, and represents what is lacking for them in life.
Keeping some things 'in case they come in handy' is not the same thing at all, and if you have room in the attic or garage, is not a bad idea.


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## GeorgiaXplant (Oct 23, 2014)

On the hoarder programs on TV, the stuff is referred to as clutter. Clutter? LOL!!! Sometimes it's called items. Mmhmm. Clutter. Items. To a hoarder it's stuff they need, right down to obvious trash and spoiled food.

We have an elderly neighbor who's a hoarder. She's alone except for family that lives several states away so we always invite her for Thanksgiving dinner. A couple of years ago we were talking over dinner about what we wanted for Christmas, and she said all she wanted was someone to clean her house. Hey! Something I can do, right? Wrong. We planned the day(s), and turned up armed with everything needed to clean. Nope. She suddenly remembered that she had a doctor's appointment...at 8 am on a Saturday.

A few weeks later she was in the hospital, and when we went to visit, she asked if I'd go to her house and just gather up the trash. She gave me a key, and I proceeded to empty the place of trash...used adult diapers, rotting potatoes, dry foods with weevils, moldy food in her fridge. When I was done, there were five very large trash sacks at the curb for the next day's pickup.

She was discharged from the hospital late that afternoon, and when I went to work the next morning at 7, all five trash sacks were gone from the curb. Our trash pickup is early afternoon. Her trash was so important to her that she had to go through every last piece! I swear, I only put TRASH in the trash sacks.


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## Twixie (Oct 23, 2014)

I did go to a hoarders house..it was an old guy..always well dressed..did I have a shock when I went into his house to take him to a hospital appointment..just narrow walkways and apart from that total mayhem..rotten food..and just a small sofa that he could sleep on..


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## WhatInThe (Oct 23, 2014)

GeorgiaXplant said:


> On the hoarder programs on TV, the stuff is referred to as clutter. Clutter? LOL!!! Sometimes it's called items. Mmhmm. Clutter. Items. To a hoarder it's stuff they need, right down to obvious trash and spoiled food.
> 
> We have an elderly neighbor who's a hoarder. She's alone except for family that lives several states away so we always invite her for Thanksgiving dinner. A couple of years ago we were talking over dinner about what we wanted for Christmas, and she said all she wanted was someone to clean her house. Hey! Something I can do, right? Wrong. We planned the day(s), and turned up armed with everything needed to clean. Nope. She suddenly remembered that she had a doctor's appointment...at 8 am on a Saturday.
> 
> ...



This describes the hoarder here except for the trash(that I know of) but the examining and thinking about every little thing to be thrown out-ugh. I've seen them go through "new" stuff and every item seems to generate a story, thinking out loud and lengthy pontification. This person is so bad they complain about things like bugs but won't clean the apartment to get at the areas that acting as a nest for  many of these things. Isn't that part of the signs of addiction-ignoring consequences.


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## oakapple (Oct 23, 2014)

As I said, it's a mental health issue that is hard to resolve.


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## jujube (Oct 24, 2014)

My grandmother and her sister were both hoarders, but thank goodness, "neat hoarders".   Everything was boxed up tidily.  My great-aunt had probably 60 years of phone books (you never know when you're going to have to look up a phone number of someone who died 40 years ago, you know....),  several boxes filled with old combs and hairbrushes (but very clean and hairless...), boxes of all the hair she had taken OUT of those hairbrushes (hope, I'm not making this up....) and, I believe, a copy of every bill she ever paid in her 88 years on earth.   The boxes were stacked neatly in the spare bedrooms and down the halls and every week, she would wash, starch and iron the fancy doilies she placed on top of the boxes.  There were also boxes of clothes, shoes, etc. from the 1920's on, everything, of course, clean but dry-rotted.  

My grandmother was a "shopaholic".  If it was on sale, she bought it.  She was very generous, but just couldn't bring herself to give anything up.  If someone was getting married and wanted a pressure cooker, she would go downtown and buy a pressure cooker, instead of giving the bride one of the, maybe, seven or eight pressure cookers that were still sealed in their boxes and stacked neatly in a closet.  When she died, there were over a hundred pant suits with the tags still on them hanging tidily in garment bags in the closet. You get the picture. Five electric skillets, six blenders, four mixers, all brand new still in the boxes, etc., etc.  We had one hell of a yard sale and bought a camper for the family with the proceeds.   

My uncle's wife, however, had a frozen cat in her freezer.  That's another story....


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## WhatInThe (Oct 25, 2014)

jujube said:


> My grandmother and her sister were both hoarders, but thank goodness, "neat hoarders".   Everything was boxed up tidily.  My great-aunt had probably 60 years of phone books (you never know when you're going to have to look up a phone number of someone who died 40 years ago, you know....),  several boxes filled with old combs and hairbrushes (but very clean and hairless...), boxes of all the hair she had taken OUT of those hairbrushes (hope, I'm not making this up....) and, I believe, a copy of every bill she ever paid in her 88 years on earth.   The boxes were stacked neatly in the spare bedrooms and down the halls and every week, she would wash, starch and iron the fancy doilies she placed on top of the boxes.  There were also boxes of clothes, shoes, etc. from the 1920's on, everything, of course, clean but dry-rotted.
> 
> My grandmother was a "shopaholic".  If it was on sale, she bought it.  She was very generous, but just couldn't bring herself to give anything up.  If someone was getting married and wanted a pressure cooker, she would go downtown and buy a pressure cooker, instead of giving the bride one of the, maybe, seven or eight pressure cookers that were still sealed in their boxes and stacked neatly in a closet.  When she died, there were over a hundred pant suits with the tags still on them hanging tidily in garment bags in the closet. You get the picture. Five electric skillets, six blenders, four mixers, all brand new still in the boxes, etc., etc.  We had one hell of a yard sale and bought a camper for the family with the proceeds.
> 
> My uncle's wife, however, had a frozen cat in her freezer.  That's another story....



I had a relative like that. In her stuff we found everything from jr high through college and a 50 old receipt from their first car. She was depression era. The problem with the hoarder in the thread is they won't let go of anything and ASSume everything has resale value(which probably just their rationalization for keeping it). They also buy at flea markets especially which in their minds takes the shopaholic label off them. If they had all of their stuff in their apartment or storage unit it would not be an issue but they have "free" storage in at least 3 other locations-and complains when pressured or reminded to get it out of there.

I also know so called minimalists who throw anything they can out but they have money and  can replace/buy at will. They also have thrown out hazardous material like paint out until it was pointed out to them that it was pollution problem-several years ago yet the town stopped taking paint by the 90s although the lazy sanitation workers question little unless blatantly obvious.


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