Claire needed a couch, her 19 y.o. couch was shot and looked bad.

Claire's good friends offered her a 14 month old ($1,200.00 )couch in great shape.

three days after the offer , she declined the offer.

Since it would take two people four hours to make a path to the front door and to get the old sofa out, she was not interested.

and , AND! she did not have anywhere to put the old couch

The people with the new couch offered to find a good home for it

All I want to know is... who shot the couch?

I've seen enough of those hoarder shows.

It's pretty sad that people can be prisoners by their own psyches.

My aunt was a hoarder, there were "aisles" through the stacks of stuff in every room of her house. When she passed her three kids had a large dumpster put in front of the house. I think they filled it three times.

At the bottom of the pile find something with a date. Ask them who died that year and you'll know the cause of the hoarding. Sadly, it's always linked to trauma (true hoarding as opposed to just 30 years of slow accumulating clutter).

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Since it would take two people four hours to make a path to the front door and to get the old sofa out, she was not interested.

Being from Minnesota, I re-read this three times, a bit baffled, thinking shoveling snow to make a path to the front door.

A few homes I've been in for work purposes: 1. Newspapers stacked to armpit level with 2' aisles. Newspapers, nothing else. I had serious worries about the floor joists holding in that place and thought I would be crashing to the basement at any moment. 2. Debris 3' deep in the ENTIRE HOME, both levels. Dirty clothes, toys, dirty dishes, fast food wrappers, dog shit, shoes... all of it mixed in at 3' deep in the entire home. Interior doors could not be moved from the debris. 3. A higher end two-story duplex filled with boxes and boxes of unopened stuff ordered online and never opened. It is truly sad that people chose to live like that.

Many years ago now, I had to deliver a Side by side frige to a widow in Phoenix.

He had been a very prominent judge for 40 years,
well when he passed away , five years ago , her life went off the tracks,

Her 4 kids had all moved out of state , many years ago.

I had to leave the new frige in the garage until
a path could be made from the front , double doors, through the entryway , through the formal dining room to the kitchen.

it took two and a half weeks and four roll off containers for me to be able to get the old one out and the new frige in

Back when I was a Co0Op student one of the employees in the maintenance shop had is grandfather pass away. The house was filled with stacks of newspapers and magazines dating back to the mid 1930's. He had his wife with him when he as trying to put together an approach to clearing the house out and getting it ready to sell. While he was just standing looking at the situation his wife picked up an old National Geographic and started thumbing through the pages when she found a 10 dollar Silver Certificate. Further checks revealed more cash stashed between pages of magazines and newspapers. It took them nearly 6 months of daily checking and sorting to get the ground floor cleared and that yielded over 78,000 dollars cash value. With the value of Silver Certificates on the collectors market it was over 2 more years before they had a good grasp of the final value. After the first floor was cleared they then moved to the basement where they found heaps of old lunch boxes and cookie tines filled with coins with nearly all of the dime, quarters, and half dollars being solid silver. Never did find out the final total because I had graduated and moved on to a different plant. However I suspect the final total in that house probably ranged in the 150-250 K range.

Tip here is that if a bulk of the hoarding is magazines and the like check between every single page before you throw any out. I'll also note that many of those who went through the bank failures in the post 1929 crash can be cash hoarders in the extreme.

Every now and then I see a car, usually at the library, with every seat except the driver's seat completely stacked with books, mail, newspapers, etc. I can't imagine the fuel economy lost, the smell, and the fire if it went up. You can't ration with these people, you just get out of their way and if they are close to you figure out a way for it to not harm themselves or others.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
At the bottom of the pile find something with a date. Ask them who died that year and you'll know the cause of the hoarding. Sadly, it's always linked to trauma (true hoarding as opposed to just 30 years of slow accumulating clutter).

Yup. I only know of one hoarder. Like a switch was flipped, started hoarding after the passing of his wife. Photographs of happier times clearly show a clean and organized house. Currently the man resides with his sister. He has hoarded himself out of his own house.

I've a terrible problem with acquiring stuff and never letting it go. I'm trying to learn how. I'm slowly getting there. E.g.: When I acquire a new checked bag for longer-term travel, the old Samsonite hard-side stuff is going to the charity donation place right away.

When you don't have much, everything is of value to you.

You wouldn't throw 1K out the window and a hoarder won't throw away a .10 cent 'anything'.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
Every now and then I see a car, usually at the library, with every seat except the driver's seat completely stacked with books, mail, newspapers, etc. I can't imagine the fuel economy lost, the smell, and the fire if it went up. You can't ration with these people, you just get out of their way and if they are close to you figure out a way for it to not harm themselves or others.

In Tucson I sometimes see people who live in their vehicle. Usually a car with piles of clothing and what not.

quote:

Sadly, it's always linked to trauma

per Strambo

now that you mention it;
her 21 y.o. son died in "91"

Hm m m m m

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Sadly, it's always linked to trauma (true hoarding as opposed to just 30 years of slow accumulating clutter).

Often, but not always. Studies have also linked hoarding to genetics and to underlying medical conditions such as diabetes or dementia.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
Every now and then I see a car, usually at the library, with every seat except the driver's seat completely stacked with books, mail, newspapers, etc. I can't imagine the fuel economy lost, the smell, and the fire if it went up. You can't ration with these people, you just get out of their way and if they are close to you figure out a way for it to not harm themselves or others.

Hmm. I’m not sure I agree. My dad is a collector. He does this with his cars..none have smelled, he’s extremely rational, showers and heads out every day to “work” (he’s in his later 70’s and “retired”). He was raised by parents who went through the Depression, and by god we kept our bread wrappers and reused them, and I can’t remember what else.
He collects watches, knives, coins, engine parts, and anything unusual or interesting. And yes, paper items, too. Many of our friends and acquaintances go straight to him when they have something unusual, rare, or hard to find that they need- his usual response is “What color?”
He is a character and an extremely helpful person if he realizes you need something, and will go often go to great lengths to get it for you.
That’s not to say we haven’t had our tragedies, but his main house is neat and organized. I’m interested to learn of the genetic component. I’ll have to look into it, as I see tendencies in all of our family.

When my mother died it took 50+ dumpsters to clear her house out (Old Large Farm House). Every weekend for months till it was done.

We recently rented a large storage locker for work, storing samples, catalogs, give-away swag and such. The owner did the paper work and mentioned we got the last one and he had a call-back list of 5 people waiting to get a locker. I asked what's with the demand...he said 90% of the demand is private people holding onto too much stuff. Every month, he averages about 5-lockers well past due and up for auction. More often than not, the lockers are full of useless, worthless things. Items that are so far out-of-date they have zero value, items held onto for sentimental value but, look like hell and stored with not a care, along with ungodly piles of newspaper/magazines. Bicycles that are of the Montgomery Wards/Target/Wal-Mart variety, electronics that are obsolete, stacks of VHS/DVD's, bags of stuffed animals.

As we're driving away, my boss mentioned his brother owns a similar storage facility in Alabama, and say's it's practically a mint and they're getting ready to survey and build-out an extension.

I have assisted cleaning out hoarded garages and houses on more than one occasion. Some of the things I saw, disturbed me very deeply. Stuff involving animals gone years before still haunts me. I have been working on keeping my living and work places free from useless junk.

I will not deal with another hoarded house ever again. Not gonna watch that show about it either.