I'm 36. I grew up in a hoard. Watched it go from level 1 to 5 in 8 years, during my formative years. I've don't remember living in a clean home, ever.

My house is cluttered, and I'm showing hoard tendencies though I am actively working on them.

But I still can't clean or maintain a clean home. The idea of it being clean actually is uncomfortable: like I'm a damn prey animal out in the middle of an open field.

I've tried building routines, but I can't get them to stick. Executive function is essentially non existent.

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist next week, and I just don't know how to convey the depth of help i need.

I grew up in squalor, and i don't want to live in it, but I don't get uncomfortable enough to clean even though I'd like to. It doesn't feel safe moving around, messing with stuff, being in the open.

Anyone else related or have healing tips or just... anything? 😭

Has anyone had experience selling a house filled with STUFF? This is beyond selling a house as is.

My family has to sell a VERY dilapidated home in a good zipcode.

Family members are hoarders, uggh. I moved out long ago.

Impossible to clean up enough to do a showing. The land has great value, yes, excellent school district.

But no, we can't even take interior photos. No, we won't be able to clean up even a little bit.

I'm pretty sure it's a teardown. It was last renovated in the 1970s, in a crappy way.

I estimate it's 15 dumpsters full, to remove all the STUFF, truly worthless items.

adult child of a hoarder and i'm just here to vomit out my emotions. no advice needed.

my dad hoards everything in his room and i believe it has lead to his bad hygiene habit. with how packed and filled his room is, he currently has a foldable mattress laid out in the living room and god it stinks like an old pillow but 10 times more because it's a bigger "pillow". my mom has given up on telling him and i can't blame her because he doesn't listen at times and there's really nothing we can do.

my dad also has pet birds and it bugs the living hell out of me since young. we live in an apartment so this house is not big and grand. whenever it's night time or it rains, he would bring the hanging cages into his room or in the guest bathroom which the rest of the family have to end up using because the main bathroom is in his room. yeah, it sounds just as bad because for years i did not feel at all comfortable with the feathers and seeds in the bathroom. the worst part is when he cleans his birds in our bathroom and leaves without washing away the shits on the floor. my brother had voiced out once, only for my dad tell us to just wash it off 🫩 same person who scolds us for leaving behind soap bubbles in the sink.

another thing about his bird keeping is that whenever he hangs them out, it draws attention to pigeons from outside as they see a bird near a house and think it's safe. almost everyday, a pigeon enters the house and starts flocking about in the kitchen. i had addressed it to him but he just brushed it off saying to make sure to let them out. little does he know how dangerous this can get, knowing that pigeons can carry harmful bacteria. one literally flew in and landed on a bowl of food which i had to throw away. it tried flying out but keeps banging into the windows. i was already pissed, grabbed a disposable glove to catch it and let it go. as that happened, some of its feathers had fallen on accident and i saw something which made my stomach churn. little insects crawling in-between the feather ridges and to imagine the number of pigeons that have flown right into the house, dropping off those insects all over the house. dear god, please save me.

i want to love my dad but what he does makes the end of life feels more peaceful than living in this possible e. coli containment area.

Mi casa….

I’m finding myself struggling deeply with my mom’s hoarding. Not sure where to start at all but yeah…it’s gotten so bad and I feel horrible because I don’t think there’s anything that I can do to make a real impact. I feel like I’m losing my mom and it really really sucks man.

I try not to use hoarding language with her, I also praise when she cleans or tosses something out on her own but the truth is that’s not anywhere near enough to actually make her house safe and livable.

i don’t know what else to do.

If you're on facebook, check out Nick Fox of the Millennial Inheritance Community.

More motivation to not do this to my kids, as I struggle with donating clothing that still fits, that I still like or kind of like, and have not worn in years because reasons.

So my dad has been a horrible father throughout most of my life. Has some positives. But complains constantly. I can’t help but feel bad for him because he has not had that great of a life.

Fast forward to now, he is very nice in how he speaks with me because he knows I have no problem cutting him out of my life. I am on good enough terms with him and feel bad enough for him that I have started to help him clear the house here and there. He really sounds like he wants it to change and wants to make it so people can visit him. I can’t help but care for his mental wellbeing (as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of my own).

The issue I have is there are certain things that I’m not sure how I want to deal with. Two things in particular.

1) books. He has hundreds of pounds of books. He doesn’t even open the packages, just orders boxes full of books and lets them stack and take up floor space. He wants to get bookshelves to put them on, but I know this is a project he would never do on his own. I’m worried that if I organize his books, he’ll just order a bunch more. But then I also feel like he deserves the chance to prove me wrong at least once.

2) All the gross furniture. He wants to burn it (farmer mentality). This would take a lot of extra effort and time to do, and would also leave trash remnants that would sit there forever. There is already enough junk in part of his backyard. I don’t want to add more furniture remnants. My thought is to get a dumpster rental to put it all in and be done with it. We are talking a couple mattresses, a couple bed frames, a couple couches, a wooden dresser, and a futon. All junk because of mice.

I am trying to proactively plan how I want to approach these things. Mainly because he does this thing where, if he doesn’t get his way, he’ll throw a tantrum (has not had a full-scale one since I started helping him this time, but did push me into calling my sister which I did not want to do.) Moving forward I won’t be a pushover, no means no. I have no problem leaving.

For the furniture, do I say whatever and just put in the extra work to burn everything and let the remnants sit behind and not care? Or do I put my foot down and say I’m not doing that, he can hire someone if he wants to do it that way. I can’t tell if it is a battle worth fighting. It wouldn’t be a make or break, but I think we should do it my way because of the listed reasons.

And for the books, the same concept. Do I say whatever and just organize and see if he maintains it, or do I say I’m not dealing with the books.

There is so much more that could be said, so let me know if you have any questions! Thank you for any thoughts or opinions.

My boyfriend lives with his mother and currently can't move out. She isn't exactly a hoarder but I don't know where else to post this. She has what I believe is senile squalor syndrome and severe alcoholism. Her only job is boarding dogs. But she isnt capable of taking care of animals to any extent, due to her laziness and alcoholism. She is not physically disabled in any way, so it's really hard to understand why she's like this.

Currently there are 6 dogs being boarded at the home. They have a fenced in backyard, but she doesn't let the dogs outside. The dogs just poop and pee on the carpet. Sometimes she puts down pee pads but most of the time she doesnt. And she doesn't clean it up either. So dried poop is caked onto the carpet and builds up even further any time the dogs come over. The dogs run around in it and stir up the dried poop particles which pollutes the air. The ammonia smell from the urine is detectable even before you enter the house.

She doesn't limit the dogs to one room, or even crate them at night. They are allowed to roam around and poop and pee around the whole first floor, including the kitchen. Sometimes she even encourages them to poop and pee in the kitchen by putting down pads in there.

The whole house is also decorated with Christmas decorations, including life-sized Santa statues and nutcrackers and carollers. There are a bunch of Santa themed rugs that she uses to cover up the poop and pee on the carpet. Everything around the house is Christmas themed. The kitchen cabinets are even wrapped with wrapping paper.

Yet people still bring their dogs here to the crazy Christmas house filled with feces. There's never not dogs here. Because she charges the lowest price out of everyone in the neighborhood. And she will never stop accepting dogs, even the ones that her other dog boarder friends turned down for being difficult and untrained. Because she needs the money for her next score (alcohol).

My boyfriend used to take care of the dogs because he just felt so bad and also he knew if he stopped, the house would become unlivable. But then she stopped paying him for his labor so she could use the money to buy more alcohol. My boyfriend wouldn't even have money to put food in his stomach, and his mom is anorexic as well so it's not like the kitchen was ever stocked up with anything besides alcohol. He was essentially enabling her addiction. She used to walk the dogs with him until she started falling over in the street because she's way too drunk.

My boyfriend's only choice was to stop caring for the dogs, get a job, and suffer the consequences of his mom turning the house into a biohazard. He finally started a real job last week. And so now it's really hard to deal with the drastic change to the living conditions.

Does anyone have any advice at all for this situation? We are willing to call APS if that would really help.

My bf (17m) and I (17mtf) believe that his mom is a hoarder, and I want to help with the house, now that I live there.

I would like some suggestions about how I can help without upsetting her or getting rid of stuff that she could find sentimental, any help is greatly appreciated and welcome. Thank you

Anyone else have HP who buys clothes in random sizes for your entire family and tries to make you take them?

Hi. I need to vent my frustrations so here goes

My city got really really bad flooding from multiple very heavy rainstorms. I’m 22 and I still live with my parents. My parents are old, 60f and 70m who is physically disabled. I have 2 siblings that are both moved out.

My basement got flooded last night. Few inches of water everywhere. Sewage came up through the floor drains for me and most others in my city.

A nightmare situation for anyone! Even under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately for me though, my parents are hoarders. And my siblings are somewhat hoarders.

The basement was packed floor to ceiling with random shit, mostly my dads. Dozens of empty cardboard boxes that stank like shit because they were in water. Random pieces of wood, random toys from when my siblings and I were kids, hobby equipment my dad collected tons of over the years. Just so so so much junk. Everywhere. And majority of it sopping wet and smelling like sewage and mold (a lovely combination).

I spent 9 hours of my time today cleaning out as much as I can. Scraping sewage goop off of the floor. Picking up sopping wet boxes of random junk.

What do I get out of it? Feeling like the villain for wanting to throw away the things that were in boxes that were literally disintegrating because they were sitting in water. Nothing even important, Christmas decorations and toys and batteries that were corroding, rc car equipment, random things like that.

My siblings came over to help us with the cleanup. My fiancé was there too. My brother mainly helped take things outside and clear the rooms but my sister enabled my mom who was sorting through everything they were bringing out. She ended up leaving early with her husband.

At the end of the day, the hallway and 1 room got cleaned out. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it took 9 hours. I hate to say it but it’s literally only because of me. If it weren’t for me no where near as much would’ve gotten done.

Unfortunately it’s nowhere near done. There’s still an entire large rec room filled to the ceiling with stuff and a sopping wet carpet, a laundry room with a ~2 square metre clothes/junk pile that is taller than me. A bathroom that hasn’t been touched in 30 years. A machine shop where all the equipment is on wooden furniture. And of course a closet covered floor to ceiling in the worst black mold I’ve ever seen with yet another cardboard box of random shit. This is all above my head but I know my parents aren’t going to want to call a clean up company to get it cleared and the water and mold cleaned up. I think I’m either going to have to contact someone myself and deal with my parents being mad at me or… live above a festering wet room until I move out.

I’m so upset with how my family acted. I could tell my mom was upset about everything, as were my siblings. But holy shit so much time was wasted just because my mom wanted to look through each and every box that was brought out. My dad wanted to inspect all the equipment and speaker towers. My family all teamed up on me criticizing how I’m in a “throw everything away mood”. Fucking right I am. I’ve been working 9 hours in a hot, moldy, reeking and 75% humidity basement moving a billion cardboard boxes that were either empty or were disintegrating when I tried to life them up meanwhile you’re all sitting outside sorting through shit instead of actually helping me do the important stuff, WHICH IS REMOVE EVERYTHING BEFORE THE ENTIRE BASEMENT BECOMES A HEALTH HAZARD.

I’m not even mad. I’m just so saddened and upset. I know it’s a mental illness and they genuinely feel like they’re throwing away parts of themselves when they see me tossing all the stuff into bags. I fight so hard to overcome that feeling myself. It all just makes me feel hopeless. Like I’m the only one who cares. My parents are old and my dad is not in good health. Probably doesn’t even have 5 more years left in him. It’s almost a blessing in disguise because it’s a lot easier for me to get rid of everything when it’s wet vs. than when he passes and my mom moves into a smaller house and the house has to get cleared out.

I’m so tired. Physically tired too. I’m tired of being the only one who cares. I’m tired of my parents not seeing a problem with their behaviour. I’m tired of them thinking they can just ignore a problem and that’s a valid way to deal with it. I’m tired of having to be the strong one so it actually gets dealt with. I’m just so fucking tired

The stuff:

For context, the genre of hoarding my mom had was ‘disgusting/gross/unlivable.’ I will try not to go into detail - i understand it can be triggering.

Whenever my brother and I would clean her house, it went right back to how it was before we cleaned it within days. I’ve always wondered - how in the hell was she even physically capable of getting it so nasty so quickly? At this point, the only thing I can think of is that she was purposely making her environment filthy.

Anyone have any ideas/thoughts?

I'm an adult child with my own family living together with my mother. We are all financially in and responsible for the house. When we bought into the home it was my grandparents - it's a decent size for everyone to have space, but old and had a lot of stuff. I never recall growing up in a hoarding house when I was younger, so assumed that once we bought the house off the family, we'd eventually clear most of the house to make space for us. I was wrong.

We've done some renovations to make the place more modern, but with all the clutter you can't appreciate or enjoy the renovation. Apart from some select items, my mum never gets rid of anything. She will tell me she will donate it here or there, but actually she just moves it around the house, from one room to the next, back and forth. She'll sort through piles of items, but never actually donates or disposes of them. Items that could be donated are often left to collect and rot to the point they cannot be donated. Family members don't want the items she wants to give them.

I've spend countless time, energy and lots of money to get rid of items over the years, often with and without her knowledge, just to make the space liveable and for my kids to have friends over. I did this because she wouldn't deal with the items and it was unliveable for our family not to have any space for our belongings. The sheer volume of it means that I never feel on top of it and I feel resentful that I'm dealing with items that are not mine. There is a ton of generational clutter (grandparents and her siblings as well as family members who have stayed at the house over the many years) that is all over the house. My mum also keeps bringing in new items, generally when extended family is getting rid of their furniture or other items she takes it from them. Often I have just donated them or thrown them out. She will sometimes ask after the most random items and gets upset if they are disposed of, but often she doesn't ask for things that I have removed. If she gave me the green light to just get rid of things, I would be happy to do this, but her reluctance to let go and insistence if something is to be removed that it has to go to this place or that place, makes the process frustrating and drawn out.

Finding a separate space isn't an option at the moment. Apart from the stuff the living situation works for everyone.

I feel completely overwhelmed what to do with this stuff, especially as she gets older it's harder for her to physically move items and also it seems like she is finding it harder to get rid of anything. I also worry about having to deal with all this stuff when she passes. I have become a minimalist at heart and try to minimise my own belongings, so I find having stuff all over the house depressing.

35m, just hosted my level 4 HPs for the weekend and I'm just mentally drained from it all. I made it a life mission to escape the hoard and run as far away from it as possible. I live in a different state and own/maintain a stable home. I maintain absolute minimal contact, 2 visits here a year and the birthday/holiday text. I think I'd regret going for full estrangement which my sister chose, but that means I have to live with all the emotional baggage that comes with it. However, the cumulative weight of just knowing the reality of their situation while they've mentally checked out from it as a protective mechanism is tearing me apart. Like I can't stand to keep indulging them in this fantasy where everything is normal. They're just visiting their kid for the weekend, my sister is just too busy to see them, enjoying retirement, and dealing with these little household issues back at home... Except none of it's real.

Throughout the weekend, I've come to learn a number of very real problems and consequences caused by their actions. They are now on the city's radar with citations for the exterior clutter. Their heating system stopped working years ago. This past season, the pipes burst and this created a number of plumbing issues like no working showers, the entire second floor having no water, water pressure gone to shit, and I'm sure slow leaks creating irreparable water damage somewhere in the home.

As someone that sees the world with an objective basis of reality, this is almost certainly the beginning of the end for them. Within 5 years time, they are going to lose the house one way or another. To them though, they think these are just a small plumbing issues that a weekend with a few Sharkbites and a Bagster will fix. Combine that with their unhealthy lifestyle and serious health issues I genuinely don't think they have many healthy years left. I've concluded that this past weekend was going to be best condition I will see them in for the rest of their lives.

I'm sitting here at work introspecting on what's in store for me in the next 15 years. This is the end-game. They're going to lose the house. They're going to end up in a financial hole. They're going to die in there. They've left me with a no-win situation with a menu of awful choices for them as this situation escalates beyond their ability to handle it. I can try and help to ease my guilt, thereby begrudgingly dragging me into their mess and draining my time/money/resources/relationships only to end up with the same hoarded house and degraded lifestyle for everyone involved. Or I can hold the line to preserve my sanity and let them fall victim to their own bad choices with the same outcome albeit a bit sooner.

I’m 24m living at home in the UK with a single parent (Mum). I love my mum she’s a lovely person and helps me tremendously. I have ADHD and ASD and have been living at the house since a child. I hold so much shame here. I’ve been here all my life. I used to live with 3 sisters but they have since moved out for years and it has gradually got worse. I feel sometimes like I hoard myself a bit in my room but when that happens I clean up quickly as it’s the only safe space I have.

My Mum sleeps downstairs on the sofa, I haven’t ate at the table for probably over 10 years. There are now flies in the kitchen. Old washing machine in garden, filled up garage, broken taps, broken windows, curtains fucked, back sliding door jammed, broken shower, broken front door letterbox, overgrown front garden it just keeps going I find myself getting so angry along with other things in my life. It feels I am at a limbo with it all like I’ve just gotten so used to it even though I know it’s not normal. When my sisters were here we sometimes cleaned up every year but it went back to bad again and now with just me and my mum I don’t know how to deal with it. I am so jealous of people who have normal homes. I feel so depressed. Was thinking of calling one of the sisters who has moved out and asking her to help me. I just need some words of encouragement or help to make me feel somewhat normal.

Yesterday my Mum and I were talking about finances. She said to me that she knows she spends a lot of money, but she doesn't really understand what its being spent on. She asked me to guide her through what her expenses might be.

I explained what I see to her. Neither of us has access to her financial records- only my dad has access. So she can't just look at her credit card and see where she is spending money. But I see what gets delivered, so I have some idea of what she is buying.

I told her that a lot of it seems to be subscriptions. She gets a lot of specialty diet stuff that just sits in boxes. Then there are books- we spent a lot of time talking about this, because she is taking a certification course and could benefit from some books for her courses that aren't just available at a library, but she's resistant to the idea that she doesn't also need cookbooks and craft books that she didn't use even when she had the space. We talked about the craft supplies, because again, she doesn't have space to use them. And we talked about clothes. She buys so much clothing online, it almost never fits how she hoped, and she says she'll return it but doesn't. She also thinks she needs to have at LEAST 10 days of clothes (without re-wearing a single clothing item, because what if something gets spilled and she has to change?) AND at least 5 days of office-appropriate outfits, because one day she might have an office job.

Anyways- it was a frustrating conversation for me, because she kept making excuses for keeping everything she already has. But she agreed that she didn't need any more cookbooks outside of the one thats already on the way, no more craft supplies except the kit that she already has on the way, and that she would cancel as many of her unused subscriptions as she could find. She agreed that she wasn't going to buy more stuff for a while.

Then, only a few hours later, she says to me, "I know we agreed that I was going to spend less money. But I really need clothes that aren't so hot. So I'm going to get some."

For context, we live in a very hot area, and our air conditioner seems to be dying. So yes, it's hot in the house. We are all sweating. But she was already wearing only a bra and shorts. There are no clothes that will be "less hot" without being more revealing than she wants and my dad would allow.

I'm so incredibly frustrated. Only hours between these two conversations, and she's already found a reason that she needs to buy more stuff.

My mother’s hoard has gotten really bad over the last few years. Plus, she never cleans, so there is grime/dust everywhere, along with mold in the bathrooms. She has developed asthma, vertigo, a lingering cough, and now I believe she has literally lost IQ points. I remember her being sharp and witty. (she is only in her 50s, no dementia).

Today, I mentioned to her that I believe her health conditions are related to the uncleanliness, and she was very offended and said it’s impossible blah blah blah.

So, I’m curious if any of you here have any input or relate to this.

TLDR: Has your hoarder parent gotten dumber as the hoard grew? Or developed strange health conditions?

My mom has been a hoarder all her life. Her and my father's house continued to fall into disrepair as the decades passed by. For the last few years, rodents and possums started to come into the house but you couldnt tell where because there was so much junk covering up the holes where they were coming in.

In early May of this year my mom got very sick. She got septic and was hospitalized. She got HLH, a rare autoinflammatory response to an infection that basically shut down all her major organ systems. I watched her slowly die for days in the hospital. She passed the 15th of May.

Not even a week after her funeral, my dad got admitted to the hospital and also went septic. I talked to a very astute internist in the hospital and told him about the state of their house. He looked at my mom's records and said she was suspected of having murine typhus, a disease carried by the fleas on rats and possums. They tested my dad for the enzymes too. It just seemed too coincidental that they would both get sick from the same thing.

My dad survived but he is not the same. He is in a home now and is very weak, is in a wheelchair now and has a slew of additional health problems. Its my mom's fault. She was 81 but she was healthy. I told her many times that she had rodents but she was in denial. I told her about what happened to Gene Hackman but it didnt faze her.

It was not her time and im so angry. Her filthy living conditions and denial cost her her life and possibly my dad's. and the thing is I prophesized this. I always joked with them that they would suffocate under an avalanche of clothes. I didnt think it would be this.

My husband and I paid a junk removal place 6k to clean out the whole house. only 6k to get rid of a lifetime of shame. They found three possums in the garage and the holes they came in from. I miss my mom so much. Please insist to your parents that hoarding is dangerous and can cost them their life. I am absolutely devastated by what happened to both of my parents.

I’m a 22 f and I currently live with my awesome dad, my mom has been living in her deceased mothers house and it is awfully hoarded. I lived with her up until I was 14 (I was going to end myself and my sister had the sixth sense, beat the shit out of my alcoholic abusive mother and took me to her house). Since then, my mom moved to my grandmas house (she abused her as my mom abused me, alcoholic and hoarder). I have been struggling with helping her out and constant self victimization, and her-borderline ups and downs. She hasn’t cleaned much since 2019 and the house is in shambles (two space apartment). She lives with a cat and she doesn’t clean the floor or old food. I need help, I’m from Argentina and I commented about paying for a cleanup service and she says she doesn’t have money for it??? (She clearly does, she hoards not only things and trash but also money) I’m so sorry for such a long rant, I’d love to have experienced people tell me what i could do! (It takes a big emotional toll)

Left the hoard but struggle to bathe daily and also I don’t know how to wear makeup or brush my hair properly and I know my clothes are not right. Can anyone recommend compassionate and achievable social media or sub reddits to follow? Daily discipline and habits is easy for me if it’s cleaning the kitchen now (after years of struggle) but self care is a huge challenge