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I've known someone close who is affected their whole life. I'm talking extreme hoarding, cramming junk into any space available. It led me to spend a lot of ti

I've known someone close who is affected their whole life. I'm talking extreme hoarding, cramming junk into any space available. It led me to spend a lot of time considering what causes their behavior. Not only do they hoard, but the process of hoarding also inflicts psychological damage against their close family. I think it is a combination of self delusion and obsessive control. Self delusion: The hoarder tends to believe each item they have kept has value or will be valuable someday. Almost as if for each item kept, it is the equivalent of having an unclaimed lottery ticket that will win eventually. Now, try convincing someone to throw away a lottery ticket before the date of the draw. The interesting part is the hoarder would not sell the item, even if it was found to be very valuable (most 99.9% is junk). It is about the items perceived value. Strangely I've seen many instances of hoarders have something of real value only stashed amongst a heap of junk and not stored appropriately (damaging the item in the process through neglect over time) Control: This aspect is about controlling the situation and those around them. They are not interested in anyone else have a say in the matter. There is a complete lack of empathy toward those affected by the consequences of hoarding (family etc) The hoarders I've met tend to be very intelligent and manipulative (and verbally abusive) if they suspect someone is going to try impress change upon them. (A situation they perceive to not be in control)

tonyarkles 3y ago
I’m curious how old your friend is. My own experience with several people has all involved older folks and this line from the article caught my attention: > Childhood poverty, interestingly enough, does not seem to be connected with hoarding. The folks I know who have been affected by this did not experience childhood poverty but rather their parents all survived the Great Depression. Generally they’ve been born in the late ‘30s, ‘40s and early ‘50s and from the stories they tell about growing up, a lot of their behaviours seem to be based on their parents’ behaviours that seem to have sprung out of young adult extreme poverty in the 1930s.
- thevagrant 3y ago
  Yes this is a factor with the particular person I know. Although I don't think the depression era or poverty as the only answer. I see the grandchild exhibit similar behaviors. There is an awareness of the problem but a disconnect in the brain to organise physical space. It is easier to cram objects (squirrel) than tidy up. And a resistance to tidy or organise physical space.
  - tonyarkles 3y ago
    Definitely agree it's not the only answer. As far as the grandchild goes, that's where epigenetics and generational trauma can play a very interesting part/confounding factor. There could be a straight up heritable trait that causes this, or a genetic+environment mix, or even just a straight environmental influence. I'm fortunate that most of the people I know who have trouble with this are capable of somewhat keeping it in check, although there are certainly some garages/basements in my extended and in-law families that are going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with down the road. At least for the folks who live on farms, it has occasionally come in handy; while a ton of it is just straight up junk, they do seem to have a pretty good mental model of where things are even though it isn't really organized and can often dig up very old obscure parts for equipment (farming or electronics) relatively quickly.
- riversflow 3y ago
  > young adult extreme poverty of the 1930’s. Sounds about right. All my grandparents were young adults during that time frame, and my family keeps a lot of stuff around. Not clinical hoarding disorder level amounts of stuff, but quite a bit more than anyone else I know. I honestly think that it makes sense to keep a fair amount of “supplies” around so that you can do what you need to with what you have, rather than having to buy new stuff. But I also struggle to adapt to (what I consider to be disgusting) present day consumerism, where most things are disposable in economic terms. I prefer to spend my money and time fixing nice things than replacing mediocre things.
nordsieck 3y ago
> The hoarder tends to believe each item they have kept has value or will be valuable someday. It makes the most sense to me to look at this from a slightly different angle. Most things have value. What hoarders can't seem to grasp is that each item they own also reduces the value of every item they own by a small amount. Every item that someone owns is an item that they have to store, organize, clean, etc. So, those "junk" items aren't worthless per se. They're just not worth enough to balance out the cost of keeping them, at least for most people.
- thevagrant 3y ago
  As the illness progresses, the hoarder will hoard anything. Even trash that is arguably a hazard and burden.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 3y ago
  > Every item that someone owns is an item that they have to store, organize, clean, etc. This right here is the crux of what defines hoarding, at least to me - when that work isn't being done. I do many physical hobbies / DIY. So the characterization that keeping anything you don't have an immediate use for as hoarding doesn't ring true - some times you really will need that 1x2ft scrap of drywall in the future, or those bits of lumber or exact valued resistor/capacitor/etc. Or wanting to get all the materials for a project in order and ready to go even though you might not do it for a few months, which then turns into even longer. But the stereotype of extreme hoarding with food wrappers and animals crapping in the piles doesn't ring true either. Because hoarding can exist long before that type of squalor, and long before the DSM would make a positive diagnosis. So to me it's about whether one is doing the effort to organize/clean/use the stuff. It's ultimately about whether that complexity is being managed or being brushed aside. Like the part in the article about hoarders being more familiar with ad-hoc organization rather than categorization. That's a necessary skill, but it also creates a precarious situation that can fall apart when things change and that information gets flushed.
petercooper 3y ago
very intelligent and manipulative (and verbally abusive) if they suspect someone is going to try impress change upon them This, and a lot of what you outline in your comment, reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance
- thevagrant 3y ago
  I've often consider autism or adhd spectrum to be an underlying possibility. I hadn't come across PDA before, thanks for sharing.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Hoarding is a mental disorder where the individual makes extreme connections between items, memories, and emotions. Getting rid of items is like throwing away something specials d apart of oneself. The rise of this mental disorder tracks the rise of all mental disorders in the west (eg. >60% of our communities girls HS volleyball team last year were on antidepressants). There are known microcauses for this: isolation, not enough physical activity, little vitamin D/Sun exposure, family structure, etc.
- goodpoint 3y ago
  > Hoarding is a mental disorder where the individual makes extreme connections between items, memories, and emotions. Decades of advertising might have something to do with this. Plus the fact that hoarding money, houses, cars... is highly praised.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    >> Plus the fact that hoarding money, houses, cars... is highly praised This is not at all like the type of hoarding that's described here. You're referencing essentially greed, which we've been told is good at least since the early 80's
    - goodpoint 3y ago
      It is actually very similar.
- flerchin 3y ago
  60% of the girl's volleyball team is not experiencing many (or likely any) of those microcauses.
  - wittenbunk 3y ago
    Yea what teenager feels isolated especially during lock down /s
  - 3y ago
dghughes 3y ago
I'm bordering on it. But many reasons cause it not just one. I'm a typical IT pack-rat with cables, old PCs, laptops, many old parts. Hard drives are a risk since I don't want to toss due to not know what is on it (Bitcoin?) or have my personal data stolen, or just something I may miss copying from it. My Dad died so much of his stuff is now essentially junk. But to me it's sentimental even things that I have no need for like his shoes, his clothes. My Mom tossed a lot of it out practically the day after his funeral. He has piles of tools, paint, gloves, coveralls. Recycling rules. The local company makes it very hard for people to get rid of items. Much of it means you need a car to take it and drop it off. When there you enter a large building and some guy points to a pile and you have to drag it there. Anything big like wood has to be less than four feet in length and less than 40 pounds. Any elderly or those without a car or even a truck in cases like old mattresses are out of luck. Just age and lack of stamina too or mentally not wanting to do the work of sorting through it. Mu Mom is nearly 80 and doing "The Big Cleanout" as older people do when they are nearing that time in life. But she tosses or gives away things at random without asking a family member if they want it. There can be many layers to hoarding if it is that or just too much stuff or just being lazy I'm not sure where the line is.
- flerchin 3y ago
  [flagged]
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  In Europe, and I mean literally anywhere in it, renting a van to move, or even just throwing out big useless garbage is a normal thing. You pay a bit but win much more (space, freedom etc). Having to do this additional step should not be good enough reason to no throw something out. Its all a burden, on your body but much more on your mind. I understand that it brings back memories, but you shouldn't remember given person by keeping their hoard. And that 1 in 100 items that is actually useful doesn't change any of it. I've seen it done countless times, last time few months ago my parents were cleaning whole apartment after grandparents died. We each picked few small items to keep, and literally everything else went to dumpster. So liberating. Good rule of thumb for anything, anywhere, anybody - if you can buy it with a reasonable sum, item is worthless long term and should be no burden to you. Cherish those things that are not replaceable - photos, gifts handcrafted for you. The rest, whether you have it or not doesn't change anything long term in life. Thus is largely meaningless for your happiness. Thus it can go anytime, no big deal.
TexanFeller 3y ago
Most low to mid level hoarders I know come from a background of some form of scarcity. They usually grew up poor or were there during war or something like the great depression. Their paranoia that they need to cling to every item they come to own because they might need it and never be able to obtain(afford) it again is less crazy in that light. Less commonly I see people with unusually strong attachments to memories an item invokes, or a desire to treat an inherited item with religious reverence to honor the deceased. Upper-middle and above class people who were always able to buy whatever they needed/wanted rarely seem afflicted by hoarding.
- Mezzie 3y ago
  I'm someone who has had a great variety in my financial security and that will likely continue into the future. This has included great scarcity (my state's computer system errors have just lost me healthcare and food help for the foreseeable future and I will be living on free food for the next month+ which is going to suck). My tendencies towards keeping things definitely revolve around 'I can't get this again if I need it'. Especially since if I need something and reach out for it, I am likely to be shamed by society for 'not planning ahead'/'not making better decisions'/etc. The margin of error is so small at the lowest ends of society that making any permanent decision is costly. It is rational to avoid doing so.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    My tendency is 'i may need it'. Even though logically I know 100% for sure I will never need it. I have been curbing my tendency by not buying things. I put it into digital hording. Which fortunately fits on a couple of HDs. Which reminds me I have more boxes of cloths from the late 80s to get rid of (hope I have the will to do it). What helped me one day was I was hording bottle caps that had points on them. I had put off cashing them in. Then I realized they were expired. I was able to throw the whole lot of them away. It was SO liberating. I was free of that junk. I was literally running around the house going "IM FREE". I have been very careful to only buy/take things that have a shelf or box to go into. I do not buy more shelves or boxes to put more junk in, and rule #1 nothing on the floor or tables. I think I got this from my mother. That house has many closets full of stuff that has not seen the light of day in decades. Floor to ceiling full. The rest of the house is okayish. But it is one disaster away from full on hoarding. the gp comment about the burden of it rings very true to me.
jm__87 3y ago
> There is a complete lack of empathy toward those affected by the consequences of hoarding (family etc) > The hoarders I've met tend to be very intelligent and manipulative (and verbally abusive) if they suspect someone is going to try impress change upon them. (A situation they perceive to not be in control). I'm sorry, but this is just a horrible way to characterize a group of people with clear mental health issues. The reason extreme hoarders are extreme hoarders is probably because their drive to hoard stuff is stronger than literally every other emotion they have, including any empathy they have for those affected. Maybe the hoarder you know is manipulative and has low empathy, but the hoarder I knew was very empathetic and not a manipulative person. She had a ton of shame about it and refused to talk about it or address it.
- cudgy 3y ago
  Hoarding does have extremes and a multitude of rationalizations. I have several hoarders (I am the oddball thank god) in my family and the rationalizations are across the board from the “saver of past relics” to “the gatherer of all matter” to “the engineer hoarder of tools and hardware”. At the core, they do seem to be related to a sense of insecurity either about oneself or about the stuff being “wasted” and them being the “rescuer”.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    If we were to judge by the historical standards of human life, to the intuitive human brain, it all seems wasted. Everything was scarcer back then. A cereal box? Don't waste it, you don't know when your handmade clay bowl will crack. (Not an exactly apt example, but I think you got the point.)
- Nihilartikel 3y ago
  As an adult child of alcohol and drug addicted parents, I can say that the interplay of empathy and anger for a parent with a destructive mental illness is a pretty complicated and personal thing.
- thevagrant 3y ago
  That's fair, I'm not saying it's their daily persona. It is what happens when family try to intervene. I agree it may not be the same for every individual
slv77 3y ago
I’ve had a similar experience with someone who is close and was a hoarder. Hoarding can cause distress for loved ones both from the impact of simply having too much stuff but also the impacts of living with someone who has a mental illness. In my case the person passed away a few years ago and so it is less directly pressing. I finally understood that hoarding is a breakdown in the error monitoring circuits of the brain. Error monitoring is the feeling that you would get if you almost throw your passport or wedding ring in the trash. Hoarders have been found to be more creative in being able to see alternate uses for everyday objects and also to see more emotional connection to objects than people without the illness. For me it was important to realize that hoarders motivations aren’t different than mine, just stronger and in other scenarios the difference would likely have been helpful. In an age of abundance the amount of packaging produced is enough to manifest clinically significant hoarding cases which wouldn’t have been recognized in the past. Think of people whose houses are piled up with old newspapers, magazines and empty cereal boxes. In most cases however clinically significant hoarding cases also require a concurrent issue with acquisition of material goods. Often this tends to fall more towards the traditional OCD behaviors where a premonition or feeling of dread can only be mitigated through a purchase. Addressing hoarding in these cases requires both addressing the OCD behaviors and the problems with the error monitoring circuit. OCD is difficult to treat and there are no treatments that I’m aware of for misfires in the error monitoring circuits of the brain. That assumes there are no other concurrent issues such as financial pressures, physical disability or depression. Society collectively displays some hoarding like behaviors with collective misfires in our error monitoring behaviors. We tend to attach more significance to objects we spend a lot of time with which creates an interesting scenario for companies like Apple. While companies like Kellogg’s can produce thousands of pounds of packaging which gets tossed without a thought we require (demand) to Apple that they carefully recycle our tiny but hopelessly outdated device lest they pile up in our houses due to our faulty error monitoring circuits.
scrozier 3y ago
This is insightful. My father died 2 1/2 years ago, leaving my siblings and me with 6 houses and 3 commercial properties, all full--basement to ceiling--with junk (except one of the commercial properties, which was rented). "They are not interested in anyone else have [sic] a say in the matter," is exactly right. My dad wouldn't even have a conversation about it. He didn't get angry or anything, he just passively refused to engage. It's a gigantic mess for us to clean up now. It was coupled, for my dad, with extreme frugality. He seemingly willfully deprived himself (and his family) of any fun or comfort by acquiring cheap versions of everything, or rigging up odd simulacrums of things, like the whole-house "air conditioner" he made from a cleaning bucket and some coffee cans. He bought a boat, then put such an underpowered motor on it that it was a joke. We had water skis, but they were rotted and just sat sadly against the wall, unusable. Oh, my time's up? See you next week, doctor.
- whstl 3y ago
  I know some people with similar stories. The frugality ends up being a cause for purchasing too much cheap stuff, with the hopes that "the next" will be as good as something top-shelf. Or it's stuff for their DIY project. The reality is that they don't need any of those things, it's just aspirational. Throwing them away kills the aspiration. I know some quasi-hoarders who are similar, too: I know a person who has 30 guitars but they're so cheap and badly maintained that they're probably less worth than a high-end one. And the "next guitar" they buy is only good for a couple days.
- glonq 3y ago
  Oh, boats and hoarders are a bad combination. My buddy's dad moved his boat from the water to his driveway to do a bit of work on it. Over the course of a decade, it went from "we can probably sell this for $15k" to "we can hopefully still get $5k for the engines" to "we gotta pay somebody to haul this away now".
  - scrozier 3y ago
    Dad had 6-8 boats of various descriptions, but one part of the description of each was, "unusable." He also collected outboard motors, which sat on stands in the musty cottage basement. Never thought to combine the two, I guess.
glonq 3y ago
I'm not sure if they are innately manipulative or abusive, or if it's more like a "cornered animal" thing where the claws only come out when they are backed into a corner. I've seen some genuinely nice people who only turn vicious when their hoard is threatened, but I ascribe that reaction to their illness.
tensor 3y ago
My mother is an extreme hoarder and can confirm also obsessed with controlling others. In fact, she seems to have a severe lack of empathy for people, even her family, while having tons of empathy for her belongings. Hoarding seems to have a large overlap of traits with narcissists.
saltcured 3y ago
I suspect it varies by case, and expands if you try to analyze too much and wade into what may be rationalization after the fact. People don't always plan their actions logically, but come up with (sometimes plausible) explanations as part of coping. I think some (much?) hoarding is driven by a basic emotional loop that seems adjacent to agorophobia. Acting on an impulse to gather things around and live in the resulting "warren" seems to give them comfort. In hoarders in my family, I've also seen something like the "self delusion" you mentioned. They fail to acknowledge the time-varying value of most things, decay processes, negative externalities, or sometimes even opportunity costs. They almost seem to think they can avoid realizing a loss by never disposing of an item. Kind of a HODL (hold on for dear life) investment plan applied to material objects.
ROTMetro 3y ago
My mom left me a home packed to the gills. She was the most empathetic person I ever knew, to the point of paralysis. She purchased things to be gifts for family, to show she had value. So yes, if someone is hoarding to try and have value, and you tell them they have zero value, they will get defensive. It might be you that is controlling and lacking empathy. And I don't think it's obsessive control they have but rather obsessive lack of control so they purchase these things as protection/armor. If you had empathy, you would see that attacking their hoarding is both devaluing them and trying to remove what they perceive as safety so yeah, they are going to respond as such. If I pushed hard for you to give away your bank account and that you are crazy for having it you would probably push back in the same way. Maybe approach from empathy instead of judgement and you'd get a better response.
- thevagrant 3y ago
  It's easy to judge without knowing the situation. I can assure you, I am empathetic as are the rest of the family. The person in my life (my father) is not forced to do anything and they continue to do as they please. They don't want help, so we do not pressure them needlessly. I believe people have their habits and we must accept them to an extent. Unfortunately sometimes ones way of living can negatively affect others close to them. My mother is the one who had to live with this. She is the one most deserving of sympathy. I did write my original comment in a distant and judgmental tone. It was to write what I had observed through experience about the behaviors related to hoarding. It may sound negative but, my father is my father. I don't dislike him.
therouwboat 3y ago
My aunt was a hoarder and I'm currently emptying her apartment. Its really weird how you can find random ads and newspapers from 30 years ago, handful of egg shells and family photographs in same plastic bag, right by exterior door. Whole apartment has been like that, trash and important items in same bag, stuffed behind cabinet. She always said that she can't throw anything away because there might be something important in there, now I'm thinking that she did it on purpose.
- thevagrant 3y ago
  I think the brains ability to organize items becomes overwhelmed. hence you get this strange situation like you described. They don't seem to be completely aware to the problem of decay (water damage, perishable item mixed with valuable item etc). Perhaps their brain remembers the 'original state' of the item and glosses over the decay happening in front of their eyes.
  - FreshStart 3y ago
    It will sort itself out, once the tribe breaks camp and moves to greener pastures? Dad has the same emotional attachment to things.. It's all connected to some wild future plans that never gonna happen..

tonyarkles 3y ago

I’m curious how old your friend is. My own experience with several people has all involved older folks and this line from the article caught my attention: > Childhood poverty, interestingly enough, does not seem to be connected with hoarding. The folks I know who have been affected by this did not experience childhood poverty but rather their parents all survived the Great Depression. Generally they’ve been born in the late ‘30s, ‘40s and early ‘50s and from the stories they tell about growing up, a lot of their behaviours seem to be based on their parents’ behaviours that seem to have sprung out of young adult extreme poverty in the 1930s.

thevagrant 3y ago
Yes this is a factor with the particular person I know. Although I don't think the depression era or poverty as the only answer. I see the grandchild exhibit similar behaviors. There is an awareness of the problem but a disconnect in the brain to organise physical space. It is easier to cram objects (squirrel) than tidy up. And a resistance to tidy or organise physical space.
- tonyarkles 3y ago
  Definitely agree it's not the only answer. As far as the grandchild goes, that's where epigenetics and generational trauma can play a very interesting part/confounding factor. There could be a straight up heritable trait that causes this, or a genetic+environment mix, or even just a straight environmental influence. I'm fortunate that most of the people I know who have trouble with this are capable of somewhat keeping it in check, although there are certainly some garages/basements in my extended and in-law families that are going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with down the road. At least for the folks who live on farms, it has occasionally come in handy; while a ton of it is just straight up junk, they do seem to have a pretty good mental model of where things are even though it isn't really organized and can often dig up very old obscure parts for equipment (farming or electronics) relatively quickly.
riversflow 3y ago
> young adult extreme poverty of the 1930’s. Sounds about right. All my grandparents were young adults during that time frame, and my family keeps a lot of stuff around. Not clinical hoarding disorder level amounts of stuff, but quite a bit more than anyone else I know. I honestly think that it makes sense to keep a fair amount of “supplies” around so that you can do what you need to with what you have, rather than having to buy new stuff. But I also struggle to adapt to (what I consider to be disgusting) present day consumerism, where most things are disposable in economic terms. I prefer to spend my money and time fixing nice things than replacing mediocre things.

nordsieck 3y ago

> The hoarder tends to believe each item they have kept has value or will be valuable someday. It makes the most sense to me to look at this from a slightly different angle. Most things have value. What hoarders can't seem to grasp is that each item they own also reduces the value of every item they own by a small amount. Every item that someone owns is an item that they have to store, organize, clean, etc. So, those "junk" items aren't worthless per se. They're just not worth enough to balance out the cost of keeping them, at least for most people.

thevagrant 3y ago
As the illness progresses, the hoarder will hoard anything. Even trash that is arguably a hazard and burden.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mindslight 3y ago
> Every item that someone owns is an item that they have to store, organize, clean, etc. This right here is the crux of what defines hoarding, at least to me - when that work isn't being done. I do many physical hobbies / DIY. So the characterization that keeping anything you don't have an immediate use for as hoarding doesn't ring true - some times you really will need that 1x2ft scrap of drywall in the future, or those bits of lumber or exact valued resistor/capacitor/etc. Or wanting to get all the materials for a project in order and ready to go even though you might not do it for a few months, which then turns into even longer. But the stereotype of extreme hoarding with food wrappers and animals crapping in the piles doesn't ring true either. Because hoarding can exist long before that type of squalor, and long before the DSM would make a positive diagnosis. So to me it's about whether one is doing the effort to organize/clean/use the stuff. It's ultimately about whether that complexity is being managed or being brushed aside. Like the part in the article about hoarders being more familiar with ad-hoc organization rather than categorization. That's a necessary skill, but it also creates a precarious situation that can fall apart when things change and that information gets flushed.

petercooper 3y ago

very intelligent and manipulative (and verbally abusive) if they suspect someone is going to try impress change upon them This, and a lot of what you outline in your comment, reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance

thevagrant 3y ago
I've often consider autism or adhd spectrum to be an underlying possibility. I hadn't come across PDA before, thanks for sharing.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Hoarding is a mental disorder where the individual makes extreme connections between items, memories, and emotions. Getting rid of items is like throwing away something specials d apart of oneself. The rise of this mental disorder tracks the rise of all mental disorders in the west (eg. >60% of our communities girls HS volleyball team last year were on antidepressants). There are known microcauses for this: isolation, not enough physical activity, little vitamin D/Sun exposure, family structure, etc.

goodpoint 3y ago
> Hoarding is a mental disorder where the individual makes extreme connections between items, memories, and emotions. Decades of advertising might have something to do with this. Plus the fact that hoarding money, houses, cars... is highly praised.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  >> Plus the fact that hoarding money, houses, cars... is highly praised This is not at all like the type of hoarding that's described here. You're referencing essentially greed, which we've been told is good at least since the early 80's
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    It is actually very similar.
flerchin 3y ago
60% of the girl's volleyball team is not experiencing many (or likely any) of those microcauses.
- wittenbunk 3y ago
  Yea what teenager feels isolated especially during lock down /s
- 3y ago

dghughes 3y ago

I'm bordering on it. But many reasons cause it not just one. I'm a typical IT pack-rat with cables, old PCs, laptops, many old parts. Hard drives are a risk since I don't want to toss due to not know what is on it (Bitcoin?) or have my personal data stolen, or just something I may miss copying from it. My Dad died so much of his stuff is now essentially junk. But to me it's sentimental even things that I have no need for like his shoes, his clothes. My Mom tossed a lot of it out practically the day after his funeral. He has piles of tools, paint, gloves, coveralls. Recycling rules. The local company makes it very hard for people to get rid of items. Much of it means you need a car to take it and drop it off. When there you enter a large building and some guy points to a pile and you have to drag it there. Anything big like wood has to be less than four feet in length and less than 40 pounds. Any elderly or those without a car or even a truck in cases like old mattresses are out of luck. Just age and lack of stamina too or mentally not wanting to do the work of sorting through it. Mu Mom is nearly 80 and doing "The Big Cleanout" as older people do when they are nearing that time in life. But she tosses or gives away things at random without asking a family member if they want it. There can be many layers to hoarding if it is that or just too much stuff or just being lazy I'm not sure where the line is.

flerchin 3y ago
[flagged]
saiya-jin 3y ago
In Europe, and I mean literally anywhere in it, renting a van to move, or even just throwing out big useless garbage is a normal thing. You pay a bit but win much more (space, freedom etc). Having to do this additional step should not be good enough reason to no throw something out. Its all a burden, on your body but much more on your mind. I understand that it brings back memories, but you shouldn't remember given person by keeping their hoard. And that 1 in 100 items that is actually useful doesn't change any of it. I've seen it done countless times, last time few months ago my parents were cleaning whole apartment after grandparents died. We each picked few small items to keep, and literally everything else went to dumpster. So liberating. Good rule of thumb for anything, anywhere, anybody - if you can buy it with a reasonable sum, item is worthless long term and should be no burden to you. Cherish those things that are not replaceable - photos, gifts handcrafted for you. The rest, whether you have it or not doesn't change anything long term in life. Thus is largely meaningless for your happiness. Thus it can go anytime, no big deal.

TexanFeller 3y ago

Most low to mid level hoarders I know come from a background of some form of scarcity. They usually grew up poor or were there during war or something like the great depression. Their paranoia that they need to cling to every item they come to own because they might need it and never be able to obtain(afford) it again is less crazy in that light. Less commonly I see people with unusually strong attachments to memories an item invokes, or a desire to treat an inherited item with religious reverence to honor the deceased. Upper-middle and above class people who were always able to buy whatever they needed/wanted rarely seem afflicted by hoarding.

Mezzie 3y ago
I'm someone who has had a great variety in my financial security and that will likely continue into the future. This has included great scarcity (my state's computer system errors have just lost me healthcare and food help for the foreseeable future and I will be living on free food for the next month+ which is going to suck). My tendencies towards keeping things definitely revolve around 'I can't get this again if I need it'. Especially since if I need something and reach out for it, I am likely to be shamed by society for 'not planning ahead'/'not making better decisions'/etc. The margin of error is so small at the lowest ends of society that making any permanent decision is costly. It is rational to avoid doing so.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  My tendency is 'i may need it'. Even though logically I know 100% for sure I will never need it. I have been curbing my tendency by not buying things. I put it into digital hording. Which fortunately fits on a couple of HDs. Which reminds me I have more boxes of cloths from the late 80s to get rid of (hope I have the will to do it). What helped me one day was I was hording bottle caps that had points on them. I had put off cashing them in. Then I realized they were expired. I was able to throw the whole lot of them away. It was SO liberating. I was free of that junk. I was literally running around the house going "IM FREE". I have been very careful to only buy/take things that have a shelf or box to go into. I do not buy more shelves or boxes to put more junk in, and rule #1 nothing on the floor or tables. I think I got this from my mother. That house has many closets full of stuff that has not seen the light of day in decades. Floor to ceiling full. The rest of the house is okayish. But it is one disaster away from full on hoarding. the gp comment about the burden of it rings very true to me.

jm__87 3y ago

> There is a complete lack of empathy toward those affected by the consequences of hoarding (family etc) > The hoarders I've met tend to be very intelligent and manipulative (and verbally abusive) if they suspect someone is going to try impress change upon them. (A situation they perceive to not be in control). I'm sorry, but this is just a horrible way to characterize a group of people with clear mental health issues. The reason extreme hoarders are extreme hoarders is probably because their drive to hoard stuff is stronger than literally every other emotion they have, including any empathy they have for those affected. Maybe the hoarder you know is manipulative and has low empathy, but the hoarder I knew was very empathetic and not a manipulative person. She had a ton of shame about it and refused to talk about it or address it.

cudgy 3y ago
Hoarding does have extremes and a multitude of rationalizations. I have several hoarders (I am the oddball thank god) in my family and the rationalizations are across the board from the “saver of past relics” to “the gatherer of all matter” to “the engineer hoarder of tools and hardware”. At the core, they do seem to be related to a sense of insecurity either about oneself or about the stuff being “wasted” and them being the “rescuer”.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  If we were to judge by the historical standards of human life, to the intuitive human brain, it all seems wasted. Everything was scarcer back then. A cereal box? Don't waste it, you don't know when your handmade clay bowl will crack. (Not an exactly apt example, but I think you got the point.)
Nihilartikel 3y ago
As an adult child of alcohol and drug addicted parents, I can say that the interplay of empathy and anger for a parent with a destructive mental illness is a pretty complicated and personal thing.
thevagrant 3y ago
That's fair, I'm not saying it's their daily persona. It is what happens when family try to intervene. I agree it may not be the same for every individual

slv77 3y ago

I’ve had a similar experience with someone who is close and was a hoarder. Hoarding can cause distress for loved ones both from the impact of simply having too much stuff but also the impacts of living with someone who has a mental illness. In my case the person passed away a few years ago and so it is less directly pressing. I finally understood that hoarding is a breakdown in the error monitoring circuits of the brain. Error monitoring is the feeling that you would get if you almost throw your passport or wedding ring in the trash. Hoarders have been found to be more creative in being able to see alternate uses for everyday objects and also to see more emotional connection to objects than people without the illness. For me it was important to realize that hoarders motivations aren’t different than mine, just stronger and in other scenarios the difference would likely have been helpful. In an age of abundance the amount of packaging produced is enough to manifest clinically significant hoarding cases which wouldn’t have been recognized in the past. Think of people whose houses are piled up with old newspapers, magazines and empty cereal boxes. In most cases however clinically significant hoarding cases also require a concurrent issue with acquisition of material goods. Often this tends to fall more towards the traditional OCD behaviors where a premonition or feeling of dread can only be mitigated through a purchase. Addressing hoarding in these cases requires both addressing the OCD behaviors and the problems with the error monitoring circuit. OCD is difficult to treat and there are no treatments that I’m aware of for misfires in the error monitoring circuits of the brain. That assumes there are no other concurrent issues such as financial pressures, physical disability or depression. Society collectively displays some hoarding like behaviors with collective misfires in our error monitoring behaviors. We tend to attach more significance to objects we spend a lot of time with which creates an interesting scenario for companies like Apple. While companies like Kellogg’s can produce thousands of pounds of packaging which gets tossed without a thought we require (demand) to Apple that they carefully recycle our tiny but hopelessly outdated device lest they pile up in our houses due to our faulty error monitoring circuits.

scrozier 3y ago

This is insightful. My father died 2 1/2 years ago, leaving my siblings and me with 6 houses and 3 commercial properties, all full--basement to ceiling--with junk (except one of the commercial properties, which was rented). "They are not interested in anyone else have [sic] a say in the matter," is exactly right. My dad wouldn't even have a conversation about it. He didn't get angry or anything, he just passively refused to engage. It's a gigantic mess for us to clean up now. It was coupled, for my dad, with extreme frugality. He seemingly willfully deprived himself (and his family) of any fun or comfort by acquiring cheap versions of everything, or rigging up odd simulacrums of things, like the whole-house "air conditioner" he made from a cleaning bucket and some coffee cans. He bought a boat, then put such an underpowered motor on it that it was a joke. We had water skis, but they were rotted and just sat sadly against the wall, unusable. Oh, my time's up? See you next week, doctor.

whstl 3y ago
I know some people with similar stories. The frugality ends up being a cause for purchasing too much cheap stuff, with the hopes that "the next" will be as good as something top-shelf. Or it's stuff for their DIY project. The reality is that they don't need any of those things, it's just aspirational. Throwing them away kills the aspiration. I know some quasi-hoarders who are similar, too: I know a person who has 30 guitars but they're so cheap and badly maintained that they're probably less worth than a high-end one. And the "next guitar" they buy is only good for a couple days.
glonq 3y ago
Oh, boats and hoarders are a bad combination. My buddy's dad moved his boat from the water to his driveway to do a bit of work on it. Over the course of a decade, it went from "we can probably sell this for $15k" to "we can hopefully still get $5k for the engines" to "we gotta pay somebody to haul this away now".
- scrozier 3y ago
  Dad had 6-8 boats of various descriptions, but one part of the description of each was, "unusable." He also collected outboard motors, which sat on stands in the musty cottage basement. Never thought to combine the two, I guess.

glonq 3y ago

I'm not sure if they are innately manipulative or abusive, or if it's more like a "cornered animal" thing where the claws only come out when they are backed into a corner. I've seen some genuinely nice people who only turn vicious when their hoard is threatened, but I ascribe that reaction to their illness.

tensor 3y ago

My mother is an extreme hoarder and can confirm also obsessed with controlling others. In fact, she seems to have a severe lack of empathy for people, even her family, while having tons of empathy for her belongings. Hoarding seems to have a large overlap of traits with narcissists.

saltcured 3y ago

I suspect it varies by case, and expands if you try to analyze too much and wade into what may be rationalization after the fact. People don't always plan their actions logically, but come up with (sometimes plausible) explanations as part of coping. I think some (much?) hoarding is driven by a basic emotional loop that seems adjacent to agorophobia. Acting on an impulse to gather things around and live in the resulting "warren" seems to give them comfort. In hoarders in my family, I've also seen something like the "self delusion" you mentioned. They fail to acknowledge the time-varying value of most things, decay processes, negative externalities, or sometimes even opportunity costs. They almost seem to think they can avoid realizing a loss by never disposing of an item. Kind of a HODL (hold on for dear life) investment plan applied to material objects.

ROTMetro 3y ago

My mom left me a home packed to the gills. She was the most empathetic person I ever knew, to the point of paralysis. She purchased things to be gifts for family, to show she had value. So yes, if someone is hoarding to try and have value, and you tell them they have zero value, they will get defensive. It might be you that is controlling and lacking empathy. And I don't think it's obsessive control they have but rather obsessive lack of control so they purchase these things as protection/armor. If you had empathy, you would see that attacking their hoarding is both devaluing them and trying to remove what they perceive as safety so yeah, they are going to respond as such. If I pushed hard for you to give away your bank account and that you are crazy for having it you would probably push back in the same way. Maybe approach from empathy instead of judgement and you'd get a better response.

thevagrant 3y ago
It's easy to judge without knowing the situation. I can assure you, I am empathetic as are the rest of the family. The person in my life (my father) is not forced to do anything and they continue to do as they please. They don't want help, so we do not pressure them needlessly. I believe people have their habits and we must accept them to an extent. Unfortunately sometimes ones way of living can negatively affect others close to them. My mother is the one who had to live with this. She is the one most deserving of sympathy. I did write my original comment in a distant and judgmental tone. It was to write what I had observed through experience about the behaviors related to hoarding. It may sound negative but, my father is my father. I don't dislike him.

therouwboat 3y ago

My aunt was a hoarder and I'm currently emptying her apartment. Its really weird how you can find random ads and newspapers from 30 years ago, handful of egg shells and family photographs in same plastic bag, right by exterior door. Whole apartment has been like that, trash and important items in same bag, stuffed behind cabinet. She always said that she can't throw anything away because there might be something important in there, now I'm thinking that she did it on purpose.

thevagrant 3y ago
I think the brains ability to organize items becomes overwhelmed. hence you get this strange situation like you described. They don't seem to be completely aware to the problem of decay (water damage, perishable item mixed with valuable item etc). Perhaps their brain remembers the 'original state' of the item and glosses over the decay happening in front of their eyes.
- FreshStart 3y ago
  It will sort itself out, once the tribe breaks camp and moves to greener pastures? Dad has the same emotional attachment to things.. It's all connected to some wild future plans that never gonna happen..