Hoarders

DrPhil · #1 07-25-2011, 09:26 PM

We have talked about hoarding in the "what do you feel like saying now" and another thread. I wish I could find those posts which also discuss hoarding throughout history.

Being a hoarder is an extreme of being messy or being a collector. Are you sure you have hoarding tendencies, 33girl?

As for these shows, not all hoarders are "gross." Some are clean people who just can't stop collecting items and have so many items that they can barely walk around their house. Unfortunately, many and perhaps most hoarders are "gross" in that they have things like feces on their bathroom floor; and have a packed refrigerator filled with rotten food and maggots. It's messy to the extreme because it is an obsession and (according to some people) an addiction. The woman in this episode is a "gross" hoarder. It is quite sad.

*winter* · #2 07-25-2011, 09:30 PM

Not all Hoarders are messy...agree...my dad "collects"-'well, everything. It's crowded but not dirty...

However.....nothing has motivated me to clean like a "bad" episode of Hoarders! There was one with a lady who hoarded food...I scrubbed my kitchen after that one! It's been very helpful to me in that regard

33girl · #3 07-25-2011, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Being a hoarder is an extreme of being messy or being a collector. Are you sure you have hoarding tendencies, 33girl?

I have pretty much every magazine I've ever bought or subscribed to (I did get rid of the Tiger Beats when I cleaned out Mom & Dad's house). That's the main thing. Oh, and the makeup and beauty supplies, although there are people online WAY younger than me with WAY bigger amounts of it. It reminds of the joke that I think Richard Jeni told about the Internet making you feel normal - that if you type in "sex with goat" it responds "specify type of goat."

It's all neat though, one of my friends said one time "your makeup is SO organized!" I was like hello, I couldn't find anything otherwise.

preciousjeni · #4 07-25-2011, 10:26 PM

My husband is a pack rat who could become a hoarder, given the opportunity. I can't stand clutter. My solution is to occasionally get really pissed off and start throwing things away, which is usually precipitated by thoughts of burning down my house and moving. CANNOT.STAND.CLUTTER.

Love the show though. lol

rhoyaltempest · #5 07-26-2011, 01:59 AM

It's interesting how no one has mentioned the psychological issues behind this disease. For these people on "Hoarders" on A&E at least, it's not just about collecting things, it's about much more. I collect things too but it's not destroying my life and burying me in a deep depression. Being deeply depressed can make one be "gross." And I do believe addiction is part of it at the extreme level. Actually anything can be an addiction for those who are prone to it.

33girl · #6 07-26-2011, 09:51 AM

There are some that are so easy to understand...on this one hoarding show (it wasn't either of the 2 mentioned) the guy doing the hoarding was the son of Japanese-American parents who'd been sent to an internment camp during WWII. Obviously they didn't get to take anything with them and when they finally did get back to a normal life, they never got rid of anything they acquired.

ree-Xi · #7 07-26-2011, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 33girl

I have pretty much every magazine I've ever bought or subscribed to (I did get rid of the Tiger Beats when I cleaned out Mom & Dad's house). That's the main thing. Oh, and the makeup and beauty supplies, although there are people online WAY younger than me with WAY bigger amounts of it. It reminds of the joke that I think Richard Jeni told about the Internet making you feel normal - that if you type in "sex with goat" it responds "specify type of goat."

It's all neat though, one of my friends said one time "your makeup is SO organized!" I was like hello, I couldn't find anything otherwise.

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.

33girl · #8 07-27-2011, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ree-Xi

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.

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.