What if I was a hoarder...

What if you were a hoarder? What if every milk carton, used piece of paper, and toilet paper roll meant something to you? What if in addition to that, you bought a ton of stuff you didn’t need and filled every nook and cranny of your house with it? What if you had so much stuff that you no longer had paths in your house, the city had condemned the dwelling, and your children were removed because it was an “unsafe environment”. Oh yeah then what if you didn’t have running water, electricity, or heat, and let’s add in a dozen or so feral cats and kittens… Well if any of these things were you then you could be on the show “Hoarders”. I recently discovered this show on netflix, Brian thinks I am crazy and “voyeuristic” for watching it, but for some reason it has sucked me in because it is just so disgusting. My house is by no means perfect, there are lots of areas that are disorganized and cluttered, and filled with random things that need to find their new home in the trash, but I am not a hoarder. I am the type of person that sees a pile and throws the entire thing in the trash regardless of what is in it, if it has been sitting there unused for more than a specified amount of time we don’t need it and if for some reason someday we do we can purchase the item again. So with that outlook understanding hoarding is difficult for me. I don’t understand saving things, or that things have sentimental value (maybe this baby will change that). I don’t understand collecting so much stuff that you have to build a path in the house just to walk around, or even worse eliminating the path idea and throwing stuff on the floor. I don’t understand how the floor can become the garbage, or how it can get so bad that animals take up residence and die in the house without ever being noticed. Most of the people on the show have to clean up their house for one traumatic reason or another- children removed from the home because of “unsafe living conditions”, animal control was called because of the smell of rotting animals, person is being fined by the city because of the state of the dwelling, house being condemned because there is just so much stuff that the house is collapsing, severe injury or medical condition caused by the state of the home, etc. Even when presented with these situations the hoarders still have a difficult time getting rid of things. When faced with those decisions I thought the people would say “take it all, I don’t need to look through it, just get rid of it”, but they don’t, they still want to look at every item (including the trash) to make sure they don’t “need” it, and not only do they look through things but they save a LOT of the stuff. Each episode starts off by saying that hoarding is a mental health issue, that generally there was some event in the person’s past that led them to be this way, but I still have a hard time grasping it. I understand saving things, but not trash. One thing about this show that I have noticed is that rarely is the person just hoarding things, but in addition to saving things, they give up on cleaning, there were homes where literally a shovel was needed to scrap the stuff off the floor because it was so unsanitary and there was just so much of it. Not only are there items with sentimental value to the person, but there is rotting food, wrappers, and in some cases even excrement because for whatever reason the individual has decided to collect things and not pay attention to hygiene. In the episodes where the house itself is still somewhat sanitary (toilet works, kitchen is okay, paths through the house, etc), the person seems to have a much easier time- in these cases it seems more like they are attached to things rather than that they have given up on life. These people seem to be able to get rid of things, understand that things don’t bring happiness, and generally get their life in order. In the cases where the homes are filthy the person seems to be either unaware of the issue or simply doesn’t care that they have to walk over fecal matter to get to the refrigerator (filled with rotting food). These people get distressed over the idea of getting rid of anything, get angry and even give up all together when faced with getting rid of trash, broken toilets, and a myriad of other frightening items.

This show literally gives me nightmares, when I watch it I feel like there are bugs on me. Brian says most people would watch it, look around their home and think “man, I am doing well”, but it has the opposite effect on my. I watch it and look around my house and think “that pile of mail (from yesterday) could turn into a hoarder pile, that might be what sends me over the edge I have got to get rid of it. So what have I don’t about it? Ehh pretty much nothing- well yesterday I washed our sheets (because hoarders have bedbugs and we cannot have those), vacuumed (although this is an every day thing), folded the laundry, mopped the floor, bought LOTS of soap (this isn’t hoarding, we really did need several kinds of soap) and organized the spice cupboard. Today I am tackling the pantry- we cannot become hoarders…