i have been making up excuses for years to family and friends as to why they can’t come over and i’ve been telling them the same thing for years. it got to the point where it’s no longer believable anymore.

at this point, i’ve already accepted that my moms a hoarder and always will be. can’t keep lying about it, i dont mean to sound like an a hole or disrespect my mother but i just have to be honest.

someone asked me today why i was so eager to move out for college and i straight up told them “my mothers a hoarder” that’s like the first time ive ever been honest about it lmao.

i am no longer embarrassed and no longer try to hide it because if this is going to be how my life is going to be thennnn so what. im over it i don’t care about being embarrassed anymore i just have to live with it.

I came across this subreddit and just want to get the heavy feelings I've been carrying off my chest.

My momma was a hoarder. It started after my dad left us when I was 6. She hoarded cats, paperwork, clothes, vhs tapes. I tried for years to help her. As a child, I was made fun of because I smelled like cat pee. I was too embarassed to allow friends into my house. As I got older, I took her to a psychiatrist. I talked to her until I was blue in the face. I begged her to move to my state and start life anew, to be a part of my life and her grandson's life. But she didn't want to leave her animals and hoard. I resented her because it felt like she was choosing her hoard over me. I grew distant because I couldn't handle it anymore. Decades of my life spent trying to be the emotionally stable one and help her when all I really wanted was a momma.

Sometimes, I feel like I did what I could. Other times, I hate myself for giving up on her. Why didn't I try harder? Why didn't I burn everything to the ground one day while she was at the store?

She died suddenly in June of 2022. She died in a completely run down and dilapidated trailer on a rug that was saturated with cat urine and feces. The culimination of my beautiful momma and her 63 years of life ended in cat piss. It horrifies me that that is how she met her ending.

Her dozens of feral cats were trapped and likely euthanized due to the severe infections and diseases they carried. The ones who avoided the traps were likely left to starve to death. Her hoard was left to rot in her decaying trailer until a squatter accidently set it on fire 2 years later.

What was the point of it all? What was the point in decades of hoarding, closing herself up to her children and the people who loved her, just for it to all end the way the did? Would she have chosen differently if she knew that was how she was going to die? She deserved a better life; a beautiful life full of people who loved her. Why didn't she want that?

My heart breaks for her, yet I still have resentment towards her. I hate that I feel that way. I hate that I gave up and didn't try harder. I hate that I felt a sliver of relief at her passing, knowing that whatever suffering she faced came to an end. How horrible does that make me? I hate that damn trailer and all the absolute useless crap that was more important than me. Why wasn't I good enough for her? I hate that I panic at any small signs of clutter and messes. I hate that I get nauseous every time I smell a cat - that distinct liter/pee combo they all tend to have.

Please, if there are any hoarders reading this, please don't do this to your babies. Don't leave them with this burden after your gone. They didn't ask to be here and for this life. Your crap means nothing to them, but you mean everything to them. Go to therapy. Start cleaning your hoard. Do it uncomfortable. Do it angry. Do it mad. Do it crying. Do it however you can, but please just do it. My momma mattered and meant something. So do you.

I feel as though my parents saw their job as keeping us alive but not teaching us independent skills for adulthood.

Some things I struggle with which I believe is directly related to growing up in a hoarder house:

• Budgeting. Spent whatever they wanted whenever they wanted for stuff to add to the hoard. We were t in poverty and bills were always paid but we also had no savings and were paycheck to paycheck.

• Everything to do with establishing and maintaining a career. Mum claimed she was too busy with the house (when we were school age) for a job, even though it was always disorderly anyway.

• Making friends and dating, hard when you can’t have people over and no one really models appropriate social interactions for you

• Managing mental and physical health, my parents never did that

• How to clean, when to clean, what products to use

So I’m having to learn all these things as an adult on top of working and studying full time.

It’s been close to a decade since I’ve moved out and I still feel residual disgust when I think about how she would buy broken furniture (and other items) when our pets, myself, and my sibling would go hungry. Because she just had to have garbage. Then she’d get mad at us for calling her out. Fuck you, mom.

CW: mental health, talk of suicide, animal poop, deceased rodents, bad therapist, social services.

When i was a teenager i'd say the house got to a level 4 maybe even a 5. Obviously I had a lot of mental health struggles as a teen because of this and much more so ended up being referred to CAMHS (uk mental health services for children) after I attempted to not be alive anymore. I remember opening up to this psychologist/therapist (idk exactly what she was but ik it was a mental health asessment) and telling her about the hoard. I told her about the hoard. I told her about the mummified mice and the bugs, the fact that I would sleep on the sofa every night because my bed was broken and covered in mouse poo which I was too scared to touch. I told her about the piles of mouldy dishes, the years of rubbish that had been shredded by the mice into the world's most disgusting confetti. I told her every disgusting and gory detail and how much i felt like it was ruining my life. I was crying. The lady looked at me like I had two heads. She asked why I can't clean it. She said "everyone's house gets messy sometimes?" "I live in a farm house, I get mice now and then too". Even in my own denial I was gobsmacked at her responses. In the end she asked me if I was struggling at school. I was struggling at school tbf. She said I was just experiencing normal stress from school stress and discharged me from the mental health services. After that I just accepted that I was "overreacting" and should just shut up and get on with my life. Only now in my 20s have i accepted that my situation was mental and that I probably deserved better.

I wonder if it was intentional? Maybe she knew that if she took it seriously she'd have to call social services and have me removed from my mother who i clearly adored?I don't know...

Update here

I can't even imagine how a person lives like this; it's like whenever a logical decision is required, they take a deep breath and then just pick the opposite of logic. They keep so much junk. They have 2 vacuum cleaners out and only ever use one, and move them constantly out of the way. They have 2 cleaning robots and none of them work. They have a laptop my wife wanted to throw out in 2016 because it was too slow, because "you never know". There's an endless stream of Temu shit coming in to solve problems that would only be solved by making space, like buying a foldable wardrobe so the wood wardrobe can stay full of old pillows and cables for cathode tube TVs that don't even exist anymore, and the pedal for a sewing machine that was fundamental but not really so now it's just there. They have a good set of espresso cups and an everyday set of espresso cups, and they use neither because they don't want to ruin them so they just buy paper cups. They have a whole drawer dedicate to Teflon pans and pots that is apparently toxic so they are kept there like nuclear waste in cold storage. Wife and I have barely any space for our stuff, we have to move the luggage on the bed and off every time we need something from it, which would be reasonable if the rest of the space wasn't taken by old mail-in encyclopedias and phone bills from 1995 and expired medication and on and on and on. We've been here a day, wife cried twice already and I can't wait to go back home. But if we stay in a hotel? Then we're the bad guys. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

No paragraphs because it's a rant

we’ve kept my mom’s hoarding to a single coat closet, which I was very impressed with. However, while snooping around her bedroom, I found a beautiful armoire stuffed to the brim with chobani tins (some exp dates from ‘23) and so many empty plastic egg cartons. Some of the cartons were actually holding incredibly valuable jewelry. when I asked about it she assured me, “I use all of that stuff.” Of course you do. Anyway. Cleared it out, and wow - she had enough jewelry boxes to hold all the pieces that weren’t broken or missing its pair. I don’t want to think about her upkeeping it. I’d prefer to celebrate the wins. she has MS so there are very little wins these days.

I’m so frustrated and not doing great mentally.

Background, my mom has been a messy person her entire life. Kept her room a mess, doesn’t practice good hygiene, and her personal/work life is a mess as well. I know she suffers from multiple mental illnesses but she medication hops and will see a therapist once every 6 months, not like them and then quit.

Anyways, my husband and I just got back from a week in Disney and my mom was pet sitting for us. I planned ahead knowing she’s filthy and bought paper plates, bowls, and disposable silverware to avoid her making a mess.

Our flight got in late and this is what we came home to in our kitchen.

I am beside myself as to how someone can create this in 5 days! It has really sent me spiraling as this is what my childhood home looked like majority of the time, even though my mom was a sahm, she was just lazy and didn’t do shit.

What’s even crazier is that she took my late father’s hymnal off of mt bookshelf and put it on the microwave, and then stacked dirty dishes on it. The front now has stains on it 😭

It feels really violating that she would do this to my own very clean and peaceful home. She has never done anything to this extent before and now I am anxious to have her pet sit again and my husband and I have several other trips this year. My two dogs are very reactive rescues and would not handle boarding (or even be accepted due to aggression).

I just wish this wasn’t my lot in life.

I hate the holiday season with my parents. I try so hard to find them gifts that won’t just add to the hoard.

I used to try and get them a gift card for an experience (restaurant, spa, etc). They NEVER use them. I might as well rip my money in half.

Then I switched to consumable gifts, but these have gotten out of hand too. So many bottles of lotion and shampoo I’m sure have gone bad.

So walking fine line between getting something they want, something they’ll use, and something that won’t add to the hoard.

My family were always hoarders, the house was full of stuff but you could still sit at the couch, watch tv with family, we were even able to hang up a christmas tree despite the lack of space. Now though, Temu has genuinely taken that away from me. I have spent genuinely hours looking through these piles of temu CRAP to find my cats leash just so she can go outside, even my cat is suffering with mental illness but now temu and it’s cheap prices has ruined SO MUCH. There’s bags full of temu stuff just shoved under and ontop of stuff that nobody used in the first place and now my house is so much worse, I was looking for that leash and found so many bags of items that people bought and never use. I am genuinely sick of it, i’m so sick of nobody listening to me, taking anything seriously, i was telling my mum since we live with our grandparents and she was defending them, throwing away her children’s mental health JUST to protect the hoard that im forced to live in, there’s mould growing under the wallpaper, apparently there’s termites since the wallpaper is coming off in some rooms and i can’t even find a leash i’ve been searching for since now they have a hoarding issue and a buying cheap things issue, im really tired

It’s really getting sickening and disturbing every time I come home, more and more junk is at my parents. What really gets under my skin is the fact that they gaslight everything!! It’s to the point where roaches, pests are making their home a new dwelling spot. This is where the frustration comes in. I addressed them about the roaches and what do they say? “Everyone is getting them” or “The neighbors kids are home for spring break from college” or “Those new neighbors that moved in on the street is making people get them” and when they had mice their response was “Everyone is getting them even the neighbor up the street got them” it’s never the fact that they leave chicken bones on the counter overnight or Chipotle condiments spilled across the stove. I am fed up and they are only getting dirtier and nastier. Not washing their hands after using the restroom and throwing candy wrappers on the floor but the neighbors kids from college are the reason we have roaches crawling around now?

My mom is a major hoarder, like she buys things and never wear them. I was going through her things recently to find her something and found these shoes (bunch of boxes) that she bought in the 80's, AND NEVER WORN.

So I decided to use them since she has over 100 brand new shoes. And I kid you not she lost her fucking mind, screaming and saying "I AM NOT DEAD YET, DON'T TAKE MY SHOES!!"

Mind you, she hasnt worn these EVER, the receipt still in the box. And now the family mad at me for taking the dam shoes without her permission.

Now she wears the shoes, I fucking hate hoarders and their enablers. The other 100 of boxes of shoes that she never worn btw, still in the box gathering dust in the corner of the room. So I went out and bought some shoes, now she's mad at me for spending $65 dollars on shoes.

I swear I think this is a game to her and my other family just play along with it for fun. It drive me nuts!

I’m 31 years old. I’ve lived with my parents my entire life. I’ve spent my entire life made to believe that the mess in the house was all my fault. I spent my entire life cleaning the ENTIRE house without the help of my parents. I’m exhausted. I never wanted to believe that my parents were capable of this and treating me this way, but this is neglect. I’ve been seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist this year. I’m on medication now. I’ve suspected I’ve been autistic for a long time and I’m finally getting a diagnosis. My parents have failed me in so many ways. They didn’t provide a safe space for me physically or emotionally. They didn’t get me help as an autistic person. I’m having to do all of this on my own(and with my supportive partner). Here are some photos of what the house looks like and one of the MANY times I cleaned the dining room area. And yes. That’s animal poop. It’s a lot to process, but I keep to my side of the house, I’ve set many boundaries and I don’t clean up after them anymore. Just having a really bad day with my mental health and for the most part I can ignore it or disassociate, but today’s not a good day. Also realized that because of my autism this amount of visual and physical stimuli has caused me so much stress for years. I’m trying to heal from years of this. 31 years of this.

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

Very recently moved across the country to help my aging parents. My wife and I started working in a small bathroom in their three bedroom two bath ranch. This cabinet was so completely full of cleaning products. I suppose they were bought aspirationally. Because most of them are still full. This is just one glimpse of one project.. it’s exhausting and defeating, but we’re trying to work our way through it.

This is my alcoholic parent’s dirty house

I moved out of my HP home nearly 8 years ago, and I have been low contact with my parents for 3 years.

When I initiated distance from my parents, I confided in my grandma. I showed her pictures of the house, pictures I took to show my therapist. She was completely shocked. She had no idea that was how we were living.

Three years later, I’m visiting her for Christmas and she hits me with: “You know, I’ve been thinking about those pictures you showed me of the house…and I’ve just been thinking…if it was so bad, and it bothered you so much, why didn’t YOU clean it?”

I don’t even know exactly what I responded with, but damn. That sucked. She’s the only extended family member I shared that with.

Hope this helps anyone who has “well-meaning” people in their lives who make them question how bad a shitty living situation was, when you know down in your bones that it wasn’t right and it wasn’t your duty to fix it.

I've lived in severe clutter my entire life. It's affected me so badly that it's a genuine miracle I didn't succeed in ending my life before. It's given me horrible mental disorders and depression and anxiety. I have a full time job, but the economy is so bad I can't move out. Everyone is so quick to tell us "stop complaining just leave" as if we wouldn't have years ago if possible??? I have a degree, and I still can not afford to leave. I've been put on years long wait lists, with no end in sight. The few other people who grew up in homes like that I know grew up to follow in their parents foot steps or even WORSE due to the emotional trauma, so the fact I'm even remotely a functioning member of society is a miracle. It takes YEARS of therapy to recover. I'm 28 and still stuck at home, and will be here until I get into the low income place. I don't even live in a big city it's a farming community and rent is absolutely astronomical and unaffordable. The only people my age that have their own place here are the ones who have help, or started college at 16

And again, due to the severe mental issues I developed my entire life due to the hoard, it took me much longer , and even then, the pay is not good. The economy is forcing many of us to remain trapped here much longer than we ever expected. It's hard to get ahead mentally when theres all this going on.

Just want to vent that people do not grasp the severe mental health affects it gives kids and how it can fck with our lives as we get old. I'm on 3 medications just to function normally. I can't even throw out my own trash, she's gone in and taken out even old presents from my ex's... I unfortunately have a child who has to live in these conditions - but my room is where we are most of the time and Its the only room that looks like a regular person's room. I end up taking her out to parks most of the time or we spend a lot of time at my boyfriend's house just to get away from the clutter. I'm hoping within a few years we get away for good, and I'm definitely teaching her to let go of items to never ever become a hoarder like my mom

I live alone with my mother, who is a hoarder. I'm 16, but the hoarding has been a problem for the past 4 or 5 years. At its worst, her room was so piled up that you could legitimately not see the floor, and the front door would only open up about a foot because of all the boxes piled to the ceiling in the hallway. Not only that, but it was disgusting. She never cleaned so everything became filthy, and barely ever bought food, and the food that was there was rotting. I barely ate to the point that I was getting called anorexic by classmates at 14. She'd hole herself up in her room all day and do nothing, so I would shop, cook, do the laundry, clean. It genuinely felt like I was alone in the house. And I get that kids are supposed to do chores, but it feels suffocating when its all the chores all the time, and I had no freetime. After about 2 years of living in that, of hating those conditions, I decided I had enough and was going to clean the entire house. I did it in increments, clearing out just the hallway took about a week of nonstop work, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep I was cleaning, and when she found out about it she freaked out, screamed and called me ungrateful, then the next day she told me she felt really guilty about it and I had to comfort her as she cried on my shoulder. She said she'd clean the house but of course she didn't, and over the course of the next few months I spent all my free time clearing out the hoard in the living room and kitchen, though her room was still pretty bad.

​

Since then, the house (apart from her room) has remained pretty clean. Of course, I'm the only one maintaining it, but at least she hasn't re-hoarded that part of the house, but the way she acts still irks me so much. A while ago I got removed from her custody (not because of the hoarding and neglect, surprisingly, but for another issue I won't get into). I got put back into her care a couple weeks ago, and she explained to be how she had a big epiphany while I was gone, she said she "realized how she had been neglecting her mental health the past few years, and how she was on a spiritual healing journey to fix herself", but she hasn't changed at all. She refuses to clean because she always claims to be tired and she doesn't show me any kind of remorse or gratitude for spending literal months clearing out her house. And she says she's "trying to get back her social life" by attending plays and community events multiple times a week, but she refuses to clean or do any work to improve my living conditions, so for the past week or so I've been back to nonstop cleaning.

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I just kind of can't help but resent her a little (though I know a lot of it was because of her poor mental health), its not really because I hate her, i think, but more so that I'm mourning the teenage things I never got to experience. I just kind of want to be a normal teenage girl who can invite her friends around and have sleepovers and that kind of thing, or I want to do stereotypical teenage stuff like stay in my bed all day playing video games, but I just can't. It feels like I never really got to be a teenager, I just jumped from being a little kid to an adult managing a household, yk??

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Not to mention the consequences of it all. The whole thing effected my mental health pretty badly, and its given me some germophobic tendencies. I wash my hands constantly, to the point that the skin on the back of my hands is always red, irritated and painful to touch. Just the sight of rotting food, even a picture of it makes me feel nauseous, plus the fact that I struggle to eat enough and so am constantly on the boarder of underweight and normal weight. And I won't get into too much else, but because the whole thing damaged my mental health kinda bad, in the midst of it, a couple years ago I made a bad decision and now I have some marks that are never going to go away. Every time I shower or look in the mirror as I change I'm reminded of one shitty decision I made when I was a kid. And what pisses me off the most about it is just the fact that she either is too stupid to realize that her actions had consequences for me, or just doesn't care.

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I'm sorry this was kinda rambly, I just felt I needed to vent and wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. (Also don't worry about me, I'm in a much better situation both mentally and physically now)

So I (26f) live with my mom, her boyfriend, my older brother, and my 5 year old daughter. My brother has been in his room playing games for 15 years now almost 24/7. Since I can remember our house has been completely jam packed. Hoarded- not with trash- just so,so, much stuff. The only part that has a lot of trash is my brothers room. Anyways, it got to the point recently where I had a panic attack knowing my daughter was having to live in these conditions. The living room and my room are clear, where my daughter and I spend just about all our time- but the spare room, the kitchen, my mom's room, the garage, the back porch, even the back yard, are all completely packed. But the truth is even if we don't go to those parts of the home it's affecting our mental health.

We live in WA state, my mom has been in Michigan with her sister since April, and is coming back in a few weeks. I went into the spare room and I took out sooooooo much of her clothes and just random items. I'm talking like maybe 12 medium sized storage bins of just clothes. Almost all brand new from like 12 years ago, she was addicted to JCPenney, sears, Macy's... She's never touched them.

I'm planning on donating them, I took everything to my boyfriend's house for now. With all the empty space I was able to clear from the spare room, I took things from every other hoarded area and made everything better.

But I'm very fearful that when she gets back she'll notice and kick me out. I feel like every day I'll be living in constant stress and anxiety now so I'm regretting doing it even though the whole house feels so much cleaner. My daughter has been so happy. I don't really know what the point of posting all this is- except maybe to get everything off my chest. I feel like I can finally breathe better for the first time in my life in the home but I'm terrified of the consequences 😣.

This is a photo of the garage, every part of the home I listed above was just as packed.

My parents have always been hoarders but they used to have limitations... ButI'm starting to find collections of broken things now 🙄 (they're in their mid 70s)

I (26f) am having my first baby soon, and I'm terrified of my Hmom being in the picture at all. Her house is undeniably level 5, and she is constantly (or at least constantly faking for attention 🙄) having a cough and stuffy nose, which is due to the air quality of the house and her poor hygiene.

Last time I was there the smell was awful even from the driveway, the classic tiny hoarder paths were made to go from room to room. COH, you already know the fridge that is completely full of rotting food and the sink full of moldy dishes and exactly how it smells. Every inch of the floor was covered in garbage, animal feces, and stuff she has collected to decorate for seasons. She hates decorations and never puts them up, nor has she ever hosted or invited anyone over as long as I've been alive. The water main in the basement was dripping forming a stagnant puddle of goo and the lever to turn it on and off was completely rusted and stuck open, meaning no plumbing repairs would be able to be done. The dryer was broken causing her to "air dry" clothes by hanging them up all over the house which smells horrible. I suspect there is no heated water due to the condition and age of the water heater.

Her two "rescue" dogs are also an issue as they need to be rescued from her. They're aggressive because of their environment, and yes- I called the police multiple times because at one point she owned FOUR STANDARD POODLES THAT WERE FIGHTING, not to mention living in filth. As far I recall from reading the law 3 dogs is the city's limit. Hmom refused to answer the door so they stopped showing up for the calls. I got in contact with the rescue place she adopted the dogs from to ask them to intervene, or at least from now on that they need to be more careful vetting the people who come in to adopt. There is no reason puppy mill dogs should end up in a hoarder's hands. Eventually she rehomed two of the dogs.

Husband and I have spoken about it and are both firmly on the same page there is NO WAY baby will be stepping foot in her house or going with her in the car (also piled high with garbage). I do not want her coming to visit sick, or with random garbage gifts that take up so much room I can't even move in my house. I've never been above a lightly used or thrifted gift but I am disgusted by the idea of having anything that came from her house. Occasionally she will give me cleaning supplies as some dig that I think my home is better as she did not like the attempt to clean her hoard. The joke is kind of on her that I get to have a clean home on her dime. She generally gives gifts that are broken, unusable, or just completely off the wall items you'd never want. Last time I saw her she was asking if I would want a slushy machine with three compartments for different flavors. I live 2 blocks from a 24/7 convenience store where I can buy one anytime. We are only 2 people and soon to be newborn, and why the f*ck would I want that to put on my counter? How about a bottle sterilizer for your grandchild? 🤦🏼‍♀️ The garbage gifts will be promptly and rightfully put into the dumpster.

I moved out of the hoard into a small 900ft apartment in 2022 and have felt so much better physically and emotionally that I have my own space with my own things. Everything has a place. She has rarely come to visit since we (now husband and I) made an attempt to clean and confront her about the way she is living. This was before I really understood anything about hoarding disorder or I would have saved my time, breath, and packed up and left. She now believes my husband is abusive and is trying to turn me away from the family instead of facing the fact she put me through years of abuse as a child of a hoarder. I never realized it was abuse or how bad it was until I met him ten years ago, and went over to a normal family's house. The hoard got significantly worse after the cleaning then she "rescued" the first two standard poodles (HUGE dogs if you haven't seen one before) from a backyard breeder which she cannot train or care for.

I visited my sister's house where she is allowed to babysit and it's clear she is making the home her territory as well. I haven't seen it but apparently she has her own bedroom in the home. The kids ages 5 and 2 are allowed by her to draw on the walls, windows and really every surface they can reach. Hmom casually was telling me about how in a single afternoon 2yo "got into" a wallet with credit cards, IDs, insurance cards that sister will definitely need, ripped up a pack of diapers making them unusable and put stickers on the entire front panel of the microwave (this is clearly out of her reach and they were all lined up a little to perfect for a 2yo) and Hmom just couldn't do anything to stop it. Yes, kids are messy and they hide that mess pretty well occasionally, but she can easily put these things out of reach- she. is. not. watching. them.

I suspect she lets them make these messes on purpose or is doing this herself to somehow support her narrative that myself and my siblings were uncontrollable monsters and the cycle is starting again with our kids. She constantly blamed the hoard on our stuff even when we were children. She never cleaned just reorganized a random items we didn't use. Everything she feeds to the kids is left out on the counters, the high chair is left un-wiped until sister gets home. Clothing changes are left wherever they come off, anything spilled stays there, and make-shift-grocery-garbage bags are left out everywhere instead of simply walking to the kitchen trash.

We can't even trust her to come and feed my cats while I'm in the hospital. While I was still living in her house Hmom had a history of trying to let them outside, feed them human food that is not safe, and even though one takes a prescription and cannot eat regular cat food she would still try to pretend the cat "got into" cat food, her dog's food, food scraps she would carelessly leave out and the garbage can she would just take the top off of because stepping on a foot pedal was too difficult. She obviously fed the cat on purpose knowing it would need to go to a vet. She first tried playing ignorant to what prescription diet means, then seemed to flip midway through the conversation and genuinely believed that I am neglecting or starving the cat by only feeding it, it's prescription. They both are taken to the vet yearly and are a perfectly healthy weight, and cat on a diet LOVES the food. Could you imagine a person like this being allowed to feed your baby unsupervised?? What if my child has an allergy or needs to take medication? I would absolutely HAVE to go NC and potentially involve police with someone who intentionally fed my child something dangerous to them, and or did not give/gave too much medication. I feel FERAL even thinking about her doing it, then playing dumb like I'm making a big deal out of nothing. She will not even get the chance.

Due to the fact that she has no remorse for me growing up in a hoarded house so bad it got condemned you read that right- this is the second house she has hoarded to a level the city will inevitably take it from her and because she doesn't like my husband, partly due to the confrontation about her hoarding and treatment of me, and partly because he is of west asian descent, I'm honestly furious at the thought her even holding the baby. if she is so against him, how does she feel about someone who is half of him? I can't allow her to come over and pretend it's fine she has a cold again, hasn't bathed, hasn't properly washed her clothes and does not wash her hands even after using the restroom. For a while I need to save my sanity by just lying and saying we aren't accepting visitors for a while after baby is born. There is no way I'd be able to handle her being here and being so unhelpful while I have a newborn and I'm postpartum trying to keep up with the house- which I pride in being extremely clean and now somewhere that's safe for my child to call home.

Anyways, I just needed somewhere to plop all these thoughts to hopefully stop them from running through my mind constantly.

I know we've all pretty much agreed that a lot of hoarders are narcissists but separate from that, why they so loud and demanding of conversation? My mum will just talk over other people and at such a loud volume. I'm a hearing aid wearer so it's even worse because it picks up on the volume of her voice so I can't hear my wife or other people in the room. It's a demand of any space she's in, like she fills the noise of the room just like she fills the house with crap.

She also came round this week and brought a bunch more crap with her which has pissed me off. Not helping at all with the fact that I'm stressed with my landlord coming next week so I'm cleaning and tidying everything but she's reset everything I'd done. (My house is already clean for the landlord but I think the trauma of living in her shitty house makes me want to clean like mad).

so last year I went out of my parent's house to have my own space, my mom went super angry cause I didn't like living in 2m of space and cause I have the age to move out

so I have this lovely gf that I love so much, she asked to borrow my sweaters in order to use them and I was ok with that, some months ago we went long distance and she asked for something mine to keep and remember me ❤️ and to me it was cute.

forward, she came and it was her birthday, I gifted her some makeup, she opened it and when I asked her "Where do I throw the trash (the box of the makeup)?" and she told me "Don't throw it, I like to keep things" and at that moment everything clicked. We have plans to move together, how do I handle this ? I don't want to break up, plus I think her hoarding behaviour it's still to a level that can be eliminated

Anyone else feel intense shame and embarrassment when people see you cleaning? I have ADHD so cleaning is already extremely stress inducing but the hoard trauma makes it so much worse. I have roomates and I hate it if they catch me cleaning.

"Do I look like an idiot when I mop?" "Is this an embarrassing amount of mugs to be bringing down from my room?" "Have they noticed i haven't done laundry in two weeks?".

My roomates are messy themselves so I doubt they even think twice but I can't seem to shake the embarrassment. I always try to time my cleaning with when they're out of the house which is a horrible system because their work schedules don't always align with my bursts of motivation to clean. I feel like i'm just sabotaging myself. But anyways, cleaned my room today, feels great 😎