Hoarders

[ThetaPrincess24]

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.