Rescuers cut thru roof to get to dead hoarder

[LikeASista]

We are learning, more and more, that there are people living like this every single day in America. It's like a crisis or something. I can't help wondering if there were hoarders back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The reason being is that people took classes in Home Economics, Industrial Economics, etc. thus learning how to take care of their homes, their surroundings and themselves. We've lost something along the way, and I wonder how it happened.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by LikeASista

It's like a crisis or something. I can't help wondering if there were hoarders back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

There were. I thought I posted about that in a thread about the hoarder reality shows.

I will try to find the website with the list of famous hoarders from the 1950s, etc.

ETA: Found it http://www.squalorsurvivors.com/squalor/famous.shtml

Hoarding, as with most things, has existed for generations. We simply have more access to information now because of the Internet and reality television, so it looks like things are "new" when they aren't.

[DrPhil]

Beyond the "fact" (some of us consider it a fact but not everyone does) that this is a form of mental illness, LikeASista now knows that hoarding existed generations ago and we simply have quicker and more encompassing ways to disseminate info now.

[LikeASista]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Beyond the "fact" (some of us consider it a fact but not everyone does) that this is a form of mental illness, LikeASista now knows that hoarding existed generations ago and we simply have quicker and more encompassing ways to disseminate info now.

I just finished reading your link, and thank you for this. This is quite interesting. I chuckled only a little bit when I read about Beethoven, as I know many musicians and composers, and while I hesitate to call them hoarders, I have referred to them as packrats. However, with the images we've seen from A&E (which is not a laughing matter), I assume hoarding would involve much more extreme cases. But then again, as I'm sure I will learn, there are probably degrees of hoarding.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by LikeASista

I just finished reading your link, and thank you for this. This is quite interesting. I chuckled only a little bit when I read about Beethoven, as I know many musicians and composers, and while I hesitate to call them hoarders, I have referred to them as packrats. However, with the images we've seen from A&E (which is not a laughing matter), I assume hoarding would involve much more extreme cases. But then again, as I'm sure I will learn, there are probably degrees of hoarding.

Yes there are degrees , and quite possibly social restrictions in the past- wealth, servants, fires, size of homes - that kept some of the worst type of hoarding we see on TV today from reaching those depths. And at least in some cases - the Great Depression, poverty in general - keeping many things may have been a positive adaptation, although you would still need to get rid of them to benefit.

TLC also has a hoarding show that I like better in some ways and not as well in others.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

TLC also has a hoarding show that I like better in some ways and not as well in others.

I like TLC's "Hoarding: Buried Alive" more.

I watch A&E's "Intervention." A&E's "Hoarders" and "Obsessed" are too much like "Intervention" for me.

I like "Intervention" more than TLC's "Addicted."

[33girl]

I wouldn't even call the Beales hoarders. They were just messy as hell.

One hoarder I remember was (I hope I get this right) a child when his family was put in one of the internment camps for Japanese-Americans. He of course lost everything, and ever since then has been afraid to throw anything out. Same with people brought up in the/lived through the Depression.