It is largely psychological.

My mother is a hoarder. Just like the shows, a lot of hoarders will realize they have a problem but are so ashamed they will not let family & friends help, and such was the case with my mother.

I wont go in to her long history of physical & mental health issues, but my mother for years would not let family come to her home and once her health got to a point where she had no choice but to allow people into her home, it became obvious why she wouldnt allow anyone to come over. She had garbage everywhere--in and out of bags piled, dishes obviously hadnt been done in awhile as there was mold & mildew growing there, things would get spilled and didnt get cleaned up, she let her dog poop & pee all over and didnt clean it up, she had laundry piled up against her heating unit--a gas unit with a pilot light and the cover off, etc. Her landlord I guess never made visits because I honestly dont know how she wasnt evicted or how a fire didnt get started. There were issues the duplex had as well that the landlord would have been responsible to fix, but with the condition of the place, obviously she didnt call the landlord to fix it because she didnt want the landlord to see what was going on. We came in and did what we could, but we could never seem to get ahead and when we felt we were making progress, in a matter of 12 hours my mom would have a new mess piled up and it looked as though none of us had ever been there to clean. When we moved her the conditions were so bad, the movers had to call and get special permission to move stuff out. Just like in the shows, we all had on a double layer of latex gloves and a mask. Almost everything went in the trash, few things were able to be salvaged.

Long story very short, my mother is now in a one room, one bathroom assisted living facility. She cannot collect "stuff" because she has no place to put it anymore and we pay someone extra to come over and clean once a week. We have told her regardless of her issues, we will not go through such an ordeal again.

I can't imagine how hard that must be for your family, I appreciate you sharing. I dated a guy who had a great grandmother who they had to clean up after twice, there were dead animals mummified against the wall of the trailer. Someone else I know had a mother in law who hoarded brand new items and kept them in boxes. Most of it came from home shopping and the like as she saw values and deals, but also was lonely and liked talking to people. She also gave things away as gifts and gave a group of people similar or identical gifts but more came in than went out.

My AAA membership has a discount to 1-800-Got-Junk which sounds like a great company if someone is just cleaning up or has a situation related to hoarding. They take the stuff away but will recycle or donate useful items and sweep the area when they are finished. No dumpster in front of the house and it doesn't all become garbage, so for some hoarders they can handle items leaving better if they aren't just thrown away. I have to go through my family home so we can appraise and settle my father's estate and I'm considering calling them to do the hauling.

Out of sheer curiosity - because my hubby used to hang on to magazines that he never looked at ever again, and I couldn't stand piles of magazines - why do you keep them all? Are they of sentimental or collector value? Can you scan in articles you like then get rid of the rest? Does it disrupt part of your house?

I get nervous around too much clutter. I think it's bc I am claustrophobic.

I was pretty sure we'd had the conversation before, that's all.* The DSM-IV doesn't recognize hoarding as a separate disorder IIRC, but you're right that it's typically an expression of other psychological issues. I'm curious about how the DSM-V will address it, if it does.

*and work/personal issues, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

I think it's not a disorder of its own because there are different underlying causes for it. I worked with depressed adults who essentially "hoarded" because they didn't have the energy to deal with anything because of their deep depression. I worked with schizophrenics who were simply too psychotic to take care of anything. I worked with OCD people who were hoarding because of the OCD.

My mom had hoarding tendencies which got worse the more disabled she became. Some of it was understandable. She stockpiled food because she was afraid that something would happen and those of us who brought her food wouldn't be able to get to her place. She stockpiled things like empty jars and plastic containers because she had a hard time throwing things in the garbage that were useful. She did keep all of her professional magazines/journals, even after she was on disability for 10 years. Part of the problem was that she couldn't physically do things the way she wanted. With the jars/plastic containers, she would have recycled them if she could. I get the food thing because she couldn't go out and get her own. But, she had always been a bit of a pack rat. It was just better stored and organized when she could physically do that herself.

Sentimental value. Of course in the past few years it's been obvious that people will pay $$$ for this stuff, but I was holding onto them way before that was even a concept and my parents said "why on earth are you keeping those?" When I cleaned out my parents' house, I found that the things I just couldn't get rid of were my books (from all age ranges).

Scanner? Don't own one. And keeping an article or whatever is not the point - the point is having the magazine in your hands. (Needless to say, I won't be getting a Kindle anytime soon. The idea kind of makes my skin crawl.)

Everything's in one closet - very organized and not messy-cluttered - and if I ever needed to free up the closet so Clive Owen could come and shack up with me, it would be easy to do so. And yeah, I do go back to look for things occasionally.

I think this is part of only child-dom. When you never 1) need to make space for the new baby 2) never need to worry about siblings messing up your stuff, you tend to have more stuff. It'd be very interesting to do a study on hoarders/collectors and birth order.

This show always worries me. My grandmothers garage was a hoarding nightmare. It took about three days to get through all the crap and throw it away. And I say crap. Cardboard boxes, broken equipment, broken christmas decorations, etc. But it worries me, especially when I see the hoarders that collect clothing. If there is a fire, there is no chance. They're screwed and their house/them will go up in seconds.

Watching a rerun now. It's the one with Belinda (her husband and daughter are also hoarders..). It pissed me off when she said something like "I'm going to have to move out for my health. My mental and physical health."
1. She's a freaking hoarder but is making it sound like it's all them.
2. She said it while laying in her bed in her repulsive house while smoking a cigarette.

I wanted to punch her just a little.

DH and I caught the hoarding marathon they had showing this weekend. One that really blew my mind was the guy who was hoarding RATS!! He didn't have any junk in his house, it was just totally taken over by rats! He decided to keep 1 rat, but they must have rescued like 2,000 rats out of his house!

I have hoarding tendencies.

When I was young (under ten) my family lost our house and put many of our belongings in storage. We then became behind on the storage rental and 80 percent of my entire childhood was sold at auction.

We lived in a rooming house for a few years where, occasionally, people would open my mail and eat my food.

I know that my hoarding tendencies are learned through several generations in my family, but I hold myself accountable for:

1) Being somewhat of a compulsive shopper when it comes to entertainment (books, music, DVDs). Those are the things my family lost.

2) Being loathe to throw away or give away any of those things, because I mentally have this thing where they are MINE and nobody else can have them. Again, the loss/trauma of losing these things as a child.

I am a messy person and always have been, but I do know how to clean and stay neat. And my apartment is big enough for six Billy bookcases from Ikea and a big old shelving unit for all of my DVDs. As for my CDs, I learned in college to just throw away the cases and use the Case Logic thingies to store them.

I watch Hoarders and Buried Alive to remind myself that I am not that much different from those folks.

Dude, if you aren't using those cases, can I have them? :) In all seriousness, I am very very anal about every CD/cassette having a house and liner notes.

Ditto, except with DVDs. I made sure to stop buying them (I'm over 400 now) because I have to have the cases and have nowhere else to put them.

Mine moved from a house to an apartment (LOL) but they still have a place to live! (I keep my liner notes too)

I could NEVER part with a DVD case unless it is pornography. Gotta hide it somewhere!

I caught some of the marathon too. It's really sad and you don't want to watch someone else's misery but you keep on watching anyway. It's like a trainwreck that you can't look away from.

The rat guy...statistics are against him...the "one" rat he kept is most likely pregnant. So, probably more rats are in the future for him.

I still can't believe they filled an 18 wheeler with rats! :eek:

The recurring theme in the show seems to be loss. Loss of people, places, things. The lady who got robbed in Detroit and left her house, but then went back "to visit" was particularly sad.

The last episode I saw, with the lady and the tapes...she lost her son in an accident, and the other person on the show started hoarding after deaths in her family. They mentioned that "stuff" can fill "a space" (albeit a physical one, not a psychological one) and that "stuff" can make people feel less alone. Or they inherited someone's stuff who died and they feel guilty about throwing it away.

I always assumed it was based in poverty, but I guess it can also be caused by loss? Interesting.