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I don't understand why people have such a problem with hoarding. Clearly it is not a question of "too much stuff" but of "too little space". If you have enoug

by sshine 4y ago

I don't understand why people have such a problem with hoarding. Clearly it is not a question of "too much stuff" but of "too little space". If you have enough space, and you have a good enough category system to find your things, who cares what the likeliness of needing something again is? I understand that the problem is that people live within limited space, such as apartments, and those apartments get stuffed very quickly. And life in such an apartment gets very crammed and dusty. And that isn't really a problem, even. The problem of hoarding too much stuff in a small living space is that you have to share that space with your family, and your family does not appreciate the things you hoard as much as you do. So their quality of life goes down at the cost of your quality of life going up. It seems to me that hoarding as a "disorder" is not sharing your limited space reasonably.

dexwiz 4y ago
The author admits to feeling shame for his father as a child and pride as an adult. The only true difference is that he no longer lives with his father.
- sshine 4y ago
  Yes, I’ve undergone the same shift, and I cherish my mom’s hoarding. I even named my holding company “<X> Hoarding” (since another family member has “<X> Holding”). This is with a degree of irony, but also an acknowledgement that desiring to gather things is a slippery slope when you don’t require things to be used with any real probability. I mostly hoard small, rare objects of similar kind to manage, but I’m afraid the definition of rarity is both subjective and sliding. For example, I found a piece of scratched up ornamental wood broken off a piece of furniture that looks like a snail while I was having a conversation with a friend, and when I see that piece of wood, it takes me back to walking on that street: the trees in the picture get greener and the red hair of my friend gets redder every time I think back. I don’t care if I don’t see the piece for years. It is very frustrating to share the space with a collector when you don’t share the dopamine rewards of acquiring the things, since the constant upkeep detracts every day.
AussieWog93 4y ago
Does this "good enough category system" exist, though? At some stage, regardless of your system, everyone seems to eventually crack the shits, after tripping over crap one too many times while looking for the stuff they actually need/want. And this is in middle class Australia, where your average house size is something like 200sqm (floor space, not land).
lloeki 4y ago
> Clearly it is not a question of "too much stuff" but of "too little space". Not too sure about that. In my anecdotal experience of people I have met or known, and barring extreme pathological cases, there seems to be a specific level of clutter per individual, irrespective of available space. This becomes apparent when said available space varies, e.g when moving to another place. Have more space, get more things, until "desired" clutter level is reached; conversely being faced with less space would result in some things being thrown away without that much concern, until "desired" clutter level is reached.
- benj111 4y ago
  This. It's why I don't get why people rent storage or buy big houses 'for the space'. You're just going to accumulate until you've filled it.
  - Doxin 4y ago
    Similarly: I try to keep the amount of horizontal surfaces (floor excluded) in my house to the minimum I can live with. Any available horizontal surface just accumulates clutter. Minimizing that means it never gets to the point of overwhelming.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Hoarding isn't like collecting where you have a good category system of finding your things, select objects to add to one's collection, maybe even curate the collection ie. getting rid of things no longer needed. Hoarding is a compulsive disorder that is irrespective of someone's capacity to manage their objects. It's someone who cannot stop acquiring and cannot manage their own collection of items, not even long enough to organize their space or their collected objects. Consider the example of someone who is unable to throw away food long after it's expired, even if it's clearly no longer good to eat (like a molded over fruit). Or someone who is unable to stop acquiring clothes, not even only for the length to categorize their current clothing collection into something more reasonably organized.
- sshine 4y ago
  > Hoarding is a compulsive disorder that is irrespective of someone's capacity to manage their objects. It's someone who cannot stop acquiring and cannot manage their own collection of items, not even long enough to organize their space or their collected objects. That makes a lot of sense. My mom collects records, and she will buy the same record two or three times, and will not care if she ever has time to listen to them. For her, the pleasure of discovery and acquisition is what matters. In her case, her records fit nicely on one giant wall. But her only limit is how many records she can drag home at once.
cercatrova 4y ago
It seems you really don't know what hoarding is. It is not having too little space, it is feeling anxiety throwing stuff away. This is an accurate picture of a hoarder's horde: https://i.imgur.com/Gw9pfd7.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Gw9pfd7.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/Dh1JYc9.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Dh1JYc9.jpg. From this post: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/x887b1/oop_is_a_hoarder_living_in_squalor/ https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/x887... See how there is a layer of trash on the floor such that you can't even see the bare floor. Thankfully the OP in this post cleaned it up after significant support from Reddit, but generally, the people who live like they did have more than enough space.
- sshine 4y ago
  > It is not having too little space, it is feeling anxiety throwing stuff away. But if you have enough space, you never need to throw things away. So why not say that it’s space problem rather than a problem with gathering things? > This is an accurate picture of a hoarder's horde You’re showing me pictures of very small homes where things are stacked on top of one another, as if the hoarded objects are the shelves of other hoarded objects. I just see poor inventory management, no wonder it gets dirty, too. > the people who live like they did have more than enough space. Either they don’t, or their category and shelf system is not very good. You could say they have too many things. And I could say if they had more space and/or a better archival system, you never have enough things.

by sshine 4y ago

dexwiz 4y ago

The author admits to feeling shame for his father as a child and pride as an adult. The only true difference is that he no longer lives with his father.

sshine 4y ago
Yes, I’ve undergone the same shift, and I cherish my mom’s hoarding. I even named my holding company “<X> Hoarding” (since another family member has “<X> Holding”). This is with a degree of irony, but also an acknowledgement that desiring to gather things is a slippery slope when you don’t require things to be used with any real probability. I mostly hoard small, rare objects of similar kind to manage, but I’m afraid the definition of rarity is both subjective and sliding. For example, I found a piece of scratched up ornamental wood broken off a piece of furniture that looks like a snail while I was having a conversation with a friend, and when I see that piece of wood, it takes me back to walking on that street: the trees in the picture get greener and the red hair of my friend gets redder every time I think back. I don’t care if I don’t see the piece for years. It is very frustrating to share the space with a collector when you don’t share the dopamine rewards of acquiring the things, since the constant upkeep detracts every day.

AussieWog93 4y ago

Does this "good enough category system" exist, though? At some stage, regardless of your system, everyone seems to eventually crack the shits, after tripping over crap one too many times while looking for the stuff they actually need/want. And this is in middle class Australia, where your average house size is something like 200sqm (floor space, not land).

lloeki 4y ago

> Clearly it is not a question of "too much stuff" but of "too little space". Not too sure about that. In my anecdotal experience of people I have met or known, and barring extreme pathological cases, there seems to be a specific level of clutter per individual, irrespective of available space. This becomes apparent when said available space varies, e.g when moving to another place. Have more space, get more things, until "desired" clutter level is reached; conversely being faced with less space would result in some things being thrown away without that much concern, until "desired" clutter level is reached.

benj111 4y ago
This. It's why I don't get why people rent storage or buy big houses 'for the space'. You're just going to accumulate until you've filled it.
- Doxin 4y ago
  Similarly: I try to keep the amount of horizontal surfaces (floor excluded) in my house to the minimum I can live with. Any available horizontal surface just accumulates clutter. Minimizing that means it never gets to the point of overwhelming.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

Hoarding isn't like collecting where you have a good category system of finding your things, select objects to add to one's collection, maybe even curate the collection ie. getting rid of things no longer needed. Hoarding is a compulsive disorder that is irrespective of someone's capacity to manage their objects. It's someone who cannot stop acquiring and cannot manage their own collection of items, not even long enough to organize their space or their collected objects. Consider the example of someone who is unable to throw away food long after it's expired, even if it's clearly no longer good to eat (like a molded over fruit). Or someone who is unable to stop acquiring clothes, not even only for the length to categorize their current clothing collection into something more reasonably organized.

sshine 4y ago
> Hoarding is a compulsive disorder that is irrespective of someone's capacity to manage their objects. It's someone who cannot stop acquiring and cannot manage their own collection of items, not even long enough to organize their space or their collected objects. That makes a lot of sense. My mom collects records, and she will buy the same record two or three times, and will not care if she ever has time to listen to them. For her, the pleasure of discovery and acquisition is what matters. In her case, her records fit nicely on one giant wall. But her only limit is how many records she can drag home at once.

cercatrova 4y ago

It seems you really don't know what hoarding is. It is not having too little space, it is feeling anxiety throwing stuff away. This is an accurate picture of a hoarder's horde: https://i.imgur.com/Gw9pfd7.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Gw9pfd7.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/Dh1JYc9.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Dh1JYc9.jpg. From this post: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/x887b1/oop_is_a_hoarder_living_in_squalor/ https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/x887... See how there is a layer of trash on the floor such that you can't even see the bare floor. Thankfully the OP in this post cleaned it up after significant support from Reddit, but generally, the people who live like they did have more than enough space.

sshine 4y ago
> It is not having too little space, it is feeling anxiety throwing stuff away. But if you have enough space, you never need to throw things away. So why not say that it’s space problem rather than a problem with gathering things? > This is an accurate picture of a hoarder's horde You’re showing me pictures of very small homes where things are stacked on top of one another, as if the hoarded objects are the shelves of other hoarded objects. I just see poor inventory management, no wonder it gets dirty, too. > the people who live like they did have more than enough space. Either they don’t, or their category and shelf system is not very good. You could say they have too many things. And I could say if they had more space and/or a better archival system, you never have enough things.