| User | Comment |
|---|
Melf    | | posted 9-Apr-2008 12:19pm |
No. |
| Galomorro |
Other: I prefer to call myself a collector  but doubt if the stuff I collect is worth much or any money since much of it was found at garage sales. Or thrift stores, or someone else's stuff they didn't want so I got it free. I would have significant impairment moving around my place, however, even if I had half the stuff I have since I live in a 9X13 room (with added tiny bath and kitchen area). One learns to walk sideways. I would never hoard animals though -- if I ever got another animal I would be sure I had sufficient money to care for it properly and that I could afford vet fees if needed. |
kcthedog  |
I call myself a packrat, most of what I hang on to is electronic and electrical parts and gadgets I can hardly move around in my garage. |
bill  |
My mom is probably one... my dad may be to a lesser degree. My mom is losing her memory now and it's a huge mess. She puts something down and it's instantly lost in the piles of stuff she has everywhere. Perhaps, because of my parents, I'm very quick to remove stuff. I'm a bit of an anti-hoarder. |
| CarlHalling |
I 'm a hoarder, but not pathological in this regard. I have large boxes, and several large bags stacked in various sites stuffed full of mementos reaching back to my childhood but they don't interfere with the running of my apartment or life. I've trained myself to throw things away. Time was I use to even hoard newspapers and magazines and would stack them high, but I've found out ways to quit this habit to a degree. |
| Bilateralkitty |
Couple up the street were compulsive hoarders and died in their 90's. Their kids had to hire a private disposal service that went thru 9 dumpster loads to clean their house out. They lived thru the Great Depression and kept everything from rubber bands on the doorknobs to nuts & bolts in baby food jars. |
Crayons  |
Not medically speaking, but I am messy and I like my room that way. |
| judgescratch | | posted 10-Apr-2008 8:37am |
Yes, oh, yes I do know 2 hoarders (a divorced couple). It's very hard and very awful how this affects people and families. |
| cerealkiller | | posted 10-Apr-2008 12:27pm |
I would fit the definition of an animal hoarder except for the part about not having the ability to house or care for them properly. |
| JessicaWoman99 | | posted 10-Apr-2008 10:31pm |
Yes I am a compulsive hoarder and it is all around me books and magazines everywhere you look yikes |
| JessicaWoman99 |
> Couple up the street were compulsive hoarders and died in their 90's.
> Their kids had to hire a private disposal service that went thru 9
> dumpster loads to clean their house out. They lived thru the Great
> Depression and kept everything from rubber bands on the doorknobs
> to nuts & bolts in baby food jars.
Wow that is a trip 9 dumpsters wow , I cannot begin to imagine! just how much fun! they will have with me , oh you
would probably believe it me I have everything on planet earth that you cannot take with you when you die
Me it could be up to 13 dumpsters perhaps? would be no surprise |
| Zang | | posted 10-Apr-2008 11:36pm |
Oh yeah. In fact, I did a similar survey a while back. I used to deal with a lot of that sort of thing in my last job. |
| Zang | | posted 10-Apr-2008 11:40pm |
|
| romkey | | posted 10-Apr-2008 11:51pm |
I have a friend who is a hoarder... she becomes very anxious at the thought of giving up all the crap she collects. |
| RGirl | | posted 12-Apr-2008 8:13pm |
Not to the point of pathological hoarding but my step dad without my mom's supervision would fall into this category. She keeps it in check just enough. I swear more room only means more stuff. |
| cloudhugger | | posted 13-Apr-2008 4:53pm |
I know more than a few people whoms homes have been condemned becasue of hoarding objects and things. The house was so full it had fallen into severe disrepair for years and than it had to be emptied with a ddozen dumpsters and the house condemned. One house near me years ago was filled with trash, garbage and dead things (including babies in cribs and grandma in the rocking chair). I knew the old guy who lived there...it's quite the story.
I assume the hoarding is the extreme examples and not just someone who buys half a dozen of something because it is a good deal for give-aways. And eccentric is another thing. Artists tend to always have extra brushes for example. I'm assuming this does not fit into this catagory. |
LindaH   | | posted 13-Apr-2008 10:51pm |
Nope. I'm a bit of a clutter bug, but not a hoarder. |
| LindaH |
> One house near me years ago was filled
> with trash, garbage and dead things (including
> babies in cribs and grandma in the rocking chair).
.....whoa-dang.
|
| cloudhugger | | (reply to LindaH) posted 14-Apr-2008 6:44am |
No crap whoa-dang. Some times my little friend and I would take a adventure walk along the tracks three blocks from my house (dangerous! The embankment was very steep with trees and brush on one side and a creek on the other) The backyard could be somewhat seen from the railroad tracks and there were about a dozen dogs running around barking, several abandoned cars filled completely with newspapers...and I heard there were more dead dogs back there than live ones. His name was Old Joe (I think that is what one of the neighborhood kids named him) and we were afraid of him. He was not mean or anything, just talked to himself and held his head funny like his neck had been broke at some time years ago. He wore many layers of clothes, a few less layers in the hot summer sun. The outer layer ws always an old battered suit. We could smell his stench a block away, that was the closest any of us ever got near him. Once in a while, his daughter would accompany him but she hadn't been seen in a few years, I guess her new hobby was making babies. She was in my sisters age range, but I think she dropped out of school about age 16 and her babies, at least the ones that lived were a cornucopia of colors. What is strange is it was a predominately white neighborhood. And my mom said some people met his mother. She disappeared one year, we are guessing she was the one in the basement rocking chair.
They were quite harmless, always kept to themselves. One of my moms friends would tell her she would occasionally give him a ride to the grocery store. He went twice a day getting a few things. It was a little over a mile one way.
One evening I got out of high school and heard that Old Joe was on the news. I ran home to see channel 7 reporter walking through the house and the camera was zooming in on all the trash accumulated in the kitchen, halls...the house was a monstrous house. It was HUGE! Back at the turn of the century it had been quite the glamorous hotel with a wrap around balcony on the upper floor and the ground level floor. There were I don't know how many rooms, but every one of them was full of trash. I barely remember the woman with the microphone, but she was overwhelmed at the smell and she didn't prod very deep into the piles. The problem started when they were building new homes next to the house, and the constructor had built with the promise that the hotel would be gone. It was several years before any action was taken, and than alot of people suddenly got involved. I remember thinking it wasn't fair, but after seeing the inside I thought it may have been best. The building was condemned, and I thought the city was very fair about it. They offered them a new home, offered to move them and any living people into a nice little house but Old Joe was at the front door with a shot gun for days on end not leting anyone near his home. It took several weeks, but they finally got him and his daughter out. I wish I had kept up with their where abouts and I wish like hell I could find those old photos I took. When they knocked down the house it was quick, and the neighborhood was soon saturated with rats.
Years later a new home was built on that lot. Ironically it is a huge home with fancy brick. I wonder if those people have any idea what was there before, and at night...when it's very dark and the house lights are dimly lit you can almost see the old hotel as it might have been years before. It almost feels haunted, at least with my memories of what was there, and I hold my breath as I drive past, eyes wide open in case I see Old Joe walking to the store just one more time. |
| aquawolfy | | posted 15-Apr-2008 5:00pm |
my grandma......... |
| Van | | posted 17-Apr-2008 6:15pm |
My mom's sister hoards stuff. I hate going to her house. |
| Enheduanna | | posted 18-Apr-2008 1:12pm |
Nope. There's one in my mom's neighborhood, though. The garage is stuffed floor to ceiling with plastic bags full of I-don't-know-what. |
| they |
> Nope. There's one in my mom's
> neighborhood, though. The
> garage is stuffed floor to
> ceiling with plastic bags
> full of I-don't-know-what.
Probably bodies. 
|
| Enheduanna | | (reply to they) posted 18-Apr-2008 3:23pm |
Probably. Chopped into small enough pieces to fit into plastic grocery bags. |
| they | | posted 19-Apr-2008 11:16am |
I've been meaning to come comment on my own survey, but got busy and forgot about it.
I know a hoarder family. They lived in my neighborhood growing up, and I am still very close with their family. Their daughter was my best friend and still is a major part of my life... and now their other daughter's daughter is my daughter's best friend. Mom passed away about 2 years ago... I always called her parents mom and dad... and loved them dearly.
Mom and Dad BOTH were hoarders as far as I could ever tell. They doged about each other's messes, but lived in it and never changed it. Dad still lives in the house, with his daughter and her two kids (one of whom is my daughter's bff). The 3 bedroom house is so full of stuff now, that the daughter doesn't have her own room.... She has a little cave among the boxes in the dining room for her toys and things... and she has a section of the couch available to sleep on -- surrounded by piles of clean, stacked laundry and boxes filled with what really could be ANYTHING. Mom and Dad... and consequently, all 3 of their children... have always liked pills. Oxys, Ritalin, Percosets, and so on. They were intensely paranoid that the children or their friends would try to steal their pills that they kept their bedroom door deadbolted at all times. I've never seen more than a glimpse of their room. The hallway was so full of boxes that it was half the width it should have been. The kitchen: piled high with dirty AND too many clean dishes.. and stacked with cans and cans and cans of canned goods that were purchased because of some sale ((They ALWAYS ate out)). They have found STACKS in back corners of rooms of cases and cases of Diet Rite and A&W Root Beer purchased in the 80's. They really liked carnival games and claw machines, so they always had bags and bags and bags of cheap stuffed animals. They were convinced that everything was worth a lot of money and they could be billionaires if they sold it all. Since they were heavy smokers, everything was coated with THICK dust and nicotine tar. My friend... to this day... even though she doesn't live there... STILL smells like that house. It's in her skin. It just smells like her to me.
Whew!
I wanted to comment on Animal Hoarders as well. I find the idea of animal hoarders interesting... because anyone I've ever known that fit the criteria... didn't seem to have the disposition that the media/wikipedia portrays. I don't think most people that end up in the news as animal hoarders are doing this compulsively. I have 5 cats, 2 dogs, and 4 fish. I do not feel like an animal hoarder. But I know people get that impression when I tell them about my pets. Almost all of these animals came to me by default, and if I didn't take them in --- they wouldn't be alive today. Sure, I can't afford any extreme medical care... but who can really? I try to keep them clean and fed and freshly watered and loved and it's all I can do. When do you cross the line to animal hoarder? I don't really get it. Maybe I'm just an animal hoarder that doesn't accept it. *shrug*
My aunt and cousin were the same way.... sort of. Except their problem was with spaying/neutering. They didn't do it fast enough many, many, times... and ended up with over 10 cats in a trailer. I'm positive there was some inbreeding. They were poor, and depressed (living in a pissy trailer with no money will do that). It was disgusting. They tried to burn insence to hide it, but your boogars turned hard the moment you entered the house.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is.... I think sometimes the multiple animal thing is people with good hearts getting themselves into trouble.... more often than it is compulsive hoarding.
|
| they | | posted 19-Apr-2008 11:19am |
I've always been fascinated with hoarding, and aware of my own tendancies. I compulsively DO NOT hoard objects/rubbish. I thought about making a survey about it in 2006, and found Zang's. I remember talking to him about it back then.
I read a story last week about two brothers. I found it to be very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers |
