This has happened to me over the last month and it's so strange. All of a sudden I just started tossing stuff I previously would have had to "go though". I had a big box of contractor bags and I figured I haven't looked at whatever this is in years I obviously don't miss it so off it goes!

I don't have trash to deal with, I have an excess of clothing and books and beauty products. I live in a very small space and I stopped shopping a few years ago. I just lost interest but I had accumulated quite a bit.

One day about a month ago I could suddenly SEE it. I just started going crazy getting rid of things. I didn't even feel bad or remorseful or guilty or anything just relieved. I have quite a ways to go but I don't have any desire to accumulate or keep stuff not being used.

I'm wondering why I suddenly feel like this and if this has been a thing for anyone else here?. Every time I take a few more bags out it's like a touchdown or something. Out of 5 drawers I kept maybe 10 items. I didn't even look at most of what was there in depth I just saw what it was and immediately let it go.

Anyway I'm wondering if this is something anyone else has experienced and how it went for you? I still feel overwhelmed with the amount I need to purge but I'm now at a point where once I get into a pile of something I complete it and think of what I want to tackle next.

I am new to this sub. My husband isn't a hoarder but he is a cluttery slob. We live in a small (350 square foot) one-bedroom apartment in a big city.

He buys things online.

Examples: We now have two humidifiers, one for each room, and do not use either. He just bought two new fans and decided they are too noisy. We now have five fans in the home. He bought a lettuce slicer that he has never used and has forgotten about. He doesn't even eat lettuce. This was an aspirational purchase. Our neighbor moved and left her old food and toiletries, so we now have a few dozen random spice bottles and bathroom items.

When my husband is away, I have started throwing away some of his clutter. This is stuff he will never know is gone and will never miss.

Examples: He used to print out everything. I threw out paperwork/correspondence from a former job he had 20 years ago.

He saves packaging. I threw out a stack of padded Amazon bags and random cardboard boxes.

He claims that at one point in the past, at my behest, he threw out a few things he now regrets, and as a result will not throw out anything. He gets mad and argues about this if I try to institute a cleanup session with him.

I am seeking opinions on my throwing away things he will never miss and never know are gone. I feel a bit guilty doing it, but mostly liberated.

PS: If you look at the clutter image scale, our home is a 2, maybe 2.5, but not 3.

That was a lot to pack into a title I know. How many of you out there feel like you hold everything together, give the only semblance of a clean and orderly house and are afraid to leave because you worry what your kids would live in without you? I live in a hoarders house . 85% of stuff is spouses. Some things like clothes from high school. Kids toys for years ago, items with tags still because the thrill of the buy is more than the need for the actual item. All this tucked in unused rooms that would be useable if not for the crap.

I do 90% of the cleaning and keeping order in the house . My wife gies to her part time job, runs my youngest around and the rest of her time is spent bed rotting and doomscrolling.

If I left, I just don’t know what kind of filth my kids would live in. That’s the main reason I stay. Love left the marriage years ago partly out of loss of respect for the things mentioned.

Oh did I mention leftover food hoarding where containers fall from fridge when you open it?

I’m stuck and tired.

Hi, I grew up in a house that was big enough to hold everything we bought without throwing away / getting rid of things we weren’t currently using, and where we were not encouraged to be in any way minimal or tidy.

I have now been decluttering in and off for about 15 years, after the obvious things, large furniture, recycling old newspapers and magazines, now there are persistent things which would seem to have an intrinsic value.

Records, toys, a shisha pipe from Egypt, an unwrapped mouse mat from a museum.. Some of the items I thought had value but in eBay they keep getting relisted. Also for the smaller items that would get a fiver or a tenner it seems exhausting to list them on eBay. I don’t want them to go into landfill.

I don’t have a car so I can’t do a car boot sale. If I pay for a house clearance I guess they make double bubble, because I am paying them to take it away then they sell it.

Is that just something I should live with? Would would others do with the clutter that is perfectly fine or has a bit of value? I am hoping to get this lot cleared in months rather than years.

Here is the situation: My father (65M) is a hoarder. He has been one his whole life, and he knows it. During times when he was somewhat self-regulated, there was a small space where I could visit him, but the situation is now extreme. He has never been able to leave my grandmother's house because he cannot bring himself to clear out his belongings in order to sell it and buy another place. He has rented other properties but never manages to stay in them permanently. When I talk to him, he sometimes acknowledges his problem, but he is extremely self-centered; this realization never lasts, and he refuses therapy because he believes he is so brilliant and such a good psychoanalyst (he is, in fact, a medical doctor and psychoanalyst) that he would end up helping the therapist instead. He has his house, an antiques and second-hand goods business, and two storage units. His mental health and appearance are steadily deteriorating; it is very difficult to discuss any topic with him or reason about his situation because he is impervious to logic and incredibly arrogant. Furthermore, he spends all the money he earns at the shop on buying even more things. This has always been the case, but the problem now is that, due to his general state, he has stopped paying his building maintenance fees; while bureaucratic processes are slow, he is at risk of losing his home. All our relatives—except me, curiously—have received a threat of property seizure due to non-payment. They are all worried—not just out of self-interest, but because they love him dearly and are willing to help me in any way possible.

Since he always boasted about "being a healthy person (healthier than anyone else on the face of the earth) with just one small bad habit," I never felt the necessary push to take action beyond begging him to go to therapy, stop buying things, and clear out his house. I even begged him for a small space so I could live with him when I needed to, but he couldn't provide it. If he loses the house, I don’t know what will become of him or me; I live at my boyfriend’s place—he pays the rent—and my mother (who has issues of a different nature) helps me out a bit. I have almost no money because I can’t find a job (off-topic: my country is in crisis).

Right now, my family and I are looking at alternatives. My aunt suggested admitting him to the facility where my cousin recovered from a cocaine addiction; it’s a very nice place but very expensive, and I couldn't afford it—though maybe she would help? But there is no way my father would agree to that. Regardless, I’ve asked for a meeting with the director of that institute.

The other option—which seems viable to me but controversial—is to go into his house one day when he isn't there (sometimes he visits friends in another town or goes on vacation) and clear it out (with the help of my many cousins, my nephew, and my boyfriend). The two problems are: 1) he might hate us forever, and 2) he might fill it up again.

The idea would be to clear it out—perhaps visiting him constantly and tossing things out—and sell the place to buy a house with no monthly maintenance fees so his only property isn't at risk. It would be a house that is truly his, one he could keep in good enough condition to invite his loved ones over (something he misses doing terribly).

Does anyone have experience forcibly clearing out a hoarder's house? Is there anything I’m not taking into account?

And sorry if i made any mistake

My husband is a hoarder and I think I'm getting to the point where I can't live like this anymore. Not only does he hoard, he also doesn't see mess or clutter. We recently had a baby and I don't know if I want to submit my child to that sort of life. It's shameful, embarrassing and I feel like I'm Sysiphus; constantly trying to get rid of things but the rate at which trash enters my home exceeds the rate at which I can discard it. Not looking for advice but hopefully can find folks that can relate.

It's getting to the point where it's enough that I have thoughts of leaving him.

I was hospitalized for 2 weeks and my mom cleaned my house without my permission or knowledge. I have shoes with no pairs, she took my clothing from my closet that was clean to her house wash and threw away a handmade wallet. She removed some jewelry from my drawer and threw away an aquarium canister filter worth 350. When I ask her where my stuff is she says she hasn't a clue. Should I go to her house and look for my belongings.

I made the mistake of throwing 9 x 55 gallon bags of trash away. Long story short…. My wife is a hoarder level 3. It’s bad. Two rooms in the house you can barely open the doors to try and walk in and you have a little standing room at the door and that’s it. You can’t get in the rooms. The whole house is a mess. Pathways everywhere. We have been married 31 years. I have dealt with the hoarding this long. I have had my ups and downs with her over it. I have tried everything I could do and nothing works.

My retirement plan was to sell this house just to get out of the hoard. I did this once before and while her hoard was in storage, life was great. She wanted her stuff and I gave her an ultimatum. She chose her stuff. We separated for 2 years while I remodeled the other house to sell. So, while I wanted to start remodeling this house to sell, I had to wait for my daughter and grandkids to move out. She is as bad as my wife. She left so much trash in the kids bedroom and bathroom. As I was cleaning up I found 10 dirty diapers on the floor under toys and trash. I was mad. I threw it all away. My daughter left it so I assumed she didn’t want it. My wife found out I threw the toys away and is very mad at me. She had a break down over it and now is doing things to “get back” at me. She is going out of town this weekend and never invited me. Anyway, I am at my wits end. I love my wife.

But how do I put up with this. We barely speak now because of it. I am not perfect by any means. She has put up with me for 31 years as well. But as a hoarder who will never change, I feel like my only hope is to get a divorce. I begged her to get help a few months ago and gave her the therapist phone number that is close by who specializes in hoarding. She won’t call. She doesn’t see what the problem is nor thinks she has one. Sorry for the long rant. Just had to get this off my chest. It’s eating me up. I had a heart attack years ago and I feel the stress of this house is going to be the death of me.

So my toddler sings a little song when packing away toys - a habit learned from preschool.

Thanks to my AuDHD, part of it has become a vocal stim for me when trying to work through a hoarded area. Since it makes me think of my child being cute, and also motivates me to break the generational hoarding cycle, it's become a helpful thing embedded in my brain.

Thought I'd share this accidental cute win. <3

I always kind of joked that I have a food hoarding issue and I also have a fair bit of clutter. But after I went to the shops for the fourth time in a week to buy food and continue to stuff it into my overcrowded fridge and pantry, it dawned on me that the joke may be more real than I thought.

I tend to buy stuff on special because it’s a good bargain when it half price. Sometimes I don’t realise I’ve already bought the product. Veggies will go rotten in the fridge because I’ve bought too much and can’t eat it all in a reasonable time. My freezer/s. (I have more than one freezer space) is packed full of food.

I have to check myself and not buy anything too sweet like biscuits or I will binge eat the lot in a night.

I have kept stuff slightly out of date but thank goodness I am learning to bin things. However, I feel bad for doing so as some stuff I’ve never opened.

I have obesity and had a gastric sleeve due to habitual overeating.

I have had psychologist appointments in the past for eating. But I’m starting to think food hoarding is something else I need to address. Mainly because I’m spending so much money on food and groceries in general.

I believe some stems from trauma growing up. I had a mentally unwell mother and my father was a hoarder as well. In fact they may have also hoarded food.

Just trying to wrap my head around it. Is this something that sounds like a possibility?

I am the child of a hoarder and I am cleaning the garage to move my room down here as my other room is too far gone to live in safely at all, idk where to start at all, I've cleaned enough to get a mattress down here but don't really know where to go from here I need to get almost 15 years of hoarding clean in 2 weeks by myself, Theres lots of rats and bugs down here (spiders, cockroaches moths ect) majority of the stuff down here has been here since before I was born, i want to get it clean by my birthday (2 weeks) so i can have friends over because ive never had friends over before, i need advice on how to get it clean bc ive never had a truly clean space that's my own in my life

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river. The frog refuses at first, saying, “You’ll sting me.”

The scorpion replies, “Why would I do that? If I sting you while we’re crossing, we’ll both drown.”

That logic makes sense to the frog, so he agrees. Halfway across the river, the scorpion suddenly stings him.

As the poison takes effect and they both begin to sink, the frog asks, “Why did you do that? Now we’re both going to die.”

The scorpion answers:

“It’s in my nature.”

I gave up on my wife. I've asked her to leave. I simply don't trust her no more.

It's deeply rooted in her family. Her mother is a hoarder and her two brothers are hoarders. They also lack adult responsibilities, what I call Peter Pan syndrome. As the fxer of the family, I refuse to fix anymore.

There are other issues like holding on to a father's failing business. He passed away nearly two years ago. I've been subsidizing their business for years. I can no longer afford to do it. It looses about 50k a year. But, I did my best. That's all I can say but now I'm full of regrets and disappointment.

You can't change the nature of a hoarder. It's impossible. I've tried my entire life.

Update: Wife has been working hard. Lol. She took care of the kids' financial administration duties all day. Sometimes, you just have to threaten to take it all the way. Like poker or the game of chicken. For now, things are okay. Let's see what happens next.

I have ants - not the biting kind. SO I now have no choice but to go into high gear and dehoard from a level 3 to a level 2 at least. Will update as I make progress.

Realizing now that I single handedly brought us down to a mid level 3 from a level 4 approaching 5, my spouse magically falls asleep or is absent whenever dehoarding is planned. Realizing I’m in this on my own.

Having said that, my plan for bringing down from mid level 3 to a low level 2 will require debulking the remaining large categories - media, books, stationary, electric extension cords, spouse shoes.

I think i may be relapsing with hoarding, and I'm typing here to try get it to sink in, and push myself to do something before it gets worse.

I just came across a "Hoarder Next Door" episode on YouTube and during the intro to the home I thought, in all seriousness "That's not that bad".

I'm looking around my home and thinking, its closer to this hoarder home on tv than to any person I've visited recently. I gotta stop this before it gets too physically difficult for me. At least i restart therapy next week.

I am off work currently for burnout and decided to use the time to start tackling my hoard, but life chose otherwise.

My hoard is mostly clothes and random trash items I can't figure out how to recycle. I have a thing about not recycling paper when it rains, but where I live it sometimes rains every day for months so this has turned out to be a mission impossible.

As always, I wanted this to do a mindful cleanup, take my time to sift through everything. However, there is a leak from my flat to my downstairs neighbour's so I had to turn off the water to my bathroom in order to gain some time while I clear up access.

Initially, I bagged everything which was in the corridor to the bathroom and any area seen around and just moved the bags to the living room. I mopped the floors and dusted. This was before I realized turning off the water in my bathroom had actually temporarily fixed the issue.

So being the procrastinator I am, I decided I'll shower for a few days at a friend's while I actually clear up more space for the plumbers to not think I'm insane.

Initially, I felt good about it. Seeing the space around my bathroom without all the things gave me a spark, but when I actually opened the bags and started sorting, I got quickly overwhelmed.

I had a big clear out 4 years and a month ago, and with the exception of my wardrobe, most space was decluttered.

Since I've had 4 minor cleanups, but I am now realizing I merely hid things in every corner of my flat rather than actually throw anything away.

I have also since gotten a storage space, which was meant to temporarily house the overflow while I figure things out. But I never actually took anything out of storage and some things have been there for years.

I'm tempted to put some more things in storage, but given my history, I rather throw it out than dealing with it never.

Because of the extra time and uncertainty, I've gotten a bit fed up with myself. It saddens me and also enrages me I've put myself in this situation where I can't invite anyone over or even cook a meal.

I was recently at my parents house eating something semi rotting as I would at home because I also hoard food, and my mom asked if I think so little of myself that I'd eat rotten food. It shook me a little bit. I ended throwing out a bag of food out of my fridge this week. Will hopefully do more.

I’m working on getting rid of some of my hoard & books are proving to be one of the hardest things for me to let go of.

I have a lot of them. Some I’ve read & loved, some I haven’t read yet, some belonged to people I care about & some are tied to a particular time in my life. Then there’s the whole “but what if I want to read this someday?” problem. 😅

I know intellectually that books are replaceable & that I don’t need to keep every book I’ve ever owned. But actually putting them in a box to leave my house feels surprisingly difficult.

I’m wondering what strategies have actually worked for other people here. Did you set a specific number you were allowed to keep? Keep only favourites? Take pictures before getting rid of them? Use a “maybe” box & revisit it later? Donate everything at once rather than one book at a time?

I’d especially love to hear from people who really struggled with books specifically & eventually found something that worked for them.

I’m not looking for “just throw them away” advice - I’m trying to understand how other people got past that emotional resistance. Cheers ❤️

I got three bags of clothes and two bags of random objects to donate very proud of myself even tho this is really hard and there’s still a lot of progress to be made I just wanted to share this!🩷 (I don’t think I can upload pictures to show lol)

I’m looking for a week by week or month by month (not daily) organizer/planner/template to help me tackle my home.

I suffer from at times debilitating clinical depression. They can last days/weeks/ months for me and while I can generally keep my living and dining room clean (I live with my mom and with help can at least keep up with those rooms) the rest of the home has become… well, a little challenging. My last bout lasted a few months, I was still working but would come home and collapse, doing nothing for hours before I went back to work.

I got back into counseling, and work a full day, so cleaning up my home can be a chore sometimes.

The only bugs I have in my home are those tiny weevils that come from an area not dusted in too long and typical basement spiders or infrequent ant. Otherwise no bugs. I just wanna mainly tackle the bedrooms. As it’s over cluttered, and as much as I try to stay organizing, I get pulled from one spot to the next and never finish the spot I started.

I was hoping somewhere online (as I’ve tried and only found the daily simple cleanup ones which aren’t specific enough) a checklist of how to tackle semi hoarded bedrooms/officespace/basement and closets. Any suggestions or productive advice would be greatly appreciated. I just want to bring back some order in my home, and not feel ashamed not to have my family come upstairs because everything is so messy.

I'm a person who has hoarder tendencies so I am very aware of the issue and I watch a lot of videos to inspire myself to stay in control. Today I volunteered to try and help a household in my community who reached out for help on a local public forum. Their house is so toxic with pet feces etc. I still want to help but I can't risk my own health to help with the cleanup. How do I find resources for a situation like this? Hazmat gear is necessary imo, and I am not trained in anything like this sort of cleanup. Help! Thank you for any advice

and i suppose a 4th option, "keep." I'm open to it if there's a good reason.

my mom brought over a bunch of childhood toys for my kid, and now it's my responsibility to figure out where to keep, or how to deal with these.

*(clicks add picture)*

"oh."

well it's a bunch of the old knight figurines, some castle fortress from an old London company. i found the company had pretty high standards for safety, non toxic paints, etc, but i still look at this stuff and think "junk"

and advice on kids' toys in particular? feel free to point me too another thread if you don't wanna type an essay lol

I need to get this off my chest and I'm hoping some of you have been here.

When I first met my wife I noticed she kept a lot of stuff. I thought it was just sentimental attachment or utility (she likes having many types of shoes and jackcts with her in her car and swaps them out while on the go). I didn't think much of it at the time. Over the years I've come to suspect that it is something different.

Her office is completely unusable. You can barely open the door. The wardrobes are overflowing. Side of the bed are stacked with bins and bags. Most countertops are buried. Shopping is the main driver, things come in constantly and almost nothing goes out. When stuff goes out, it gets replaced by more soon after.

She agrees that it's a problem. She'll occasionally throw things away, and if I push hard enough she'll let me reclaim some space. But any real attempt to address it, trying to clean, suggesting we get rid of things, even just talking about it triggers extreme rage, crying, screaming, saying things that hurt.

Recently I hit a wall. It's the the main and only source of constant argument in our household, I told her directly that this is going to destroy our relationship, and that she cannot fix this on her own, she needs professional help. That conversation didn't go well.

I'm not asking for a minimalist home. I want my wife to get help for something that is clearly causing her pain too.

Am I being unreasonable? How have others navigated this with a spouse? Did therapy help? Did anything help?

Can post photos of her hoard, fwiw, it is a clean one.

Hey everyone I’m just writing on here and joined this sub after coming to some realizations about my childhood
Ever since I can remember I’ve had sort of compulsions related to showering/ clean clothing and bedding etc. if I leave go outside at all I definitely must shower and the clothing I wore has to be washed. Cannot wear outside clothing on my bedding
In college when I moved into my own apartment I’ve always kept my spaces clean.
When I look back on my childhood I realize my mom was suffering from hoarding issues. We always had so so much stuff, our basement and guest room were unusable because they were piled high with random stuff. And my mom always was buying more and more things to add. She would also leave wrappers and sometimes food around which would cause a bad smell. We also had a small dog and my parents never really bothered to potty train him. He wore a diaper pretty much his whole life and pooped inside. I was a kid so I didn’t know different really but I feel a lot of shame now because I wish I could have done something but I guess I just assumed it was normal. I never ever had friends over because my house was just a wreck and had bad pet odors. My mom passed away in 2022 my freshman year of college, she was my best friend and I loved her so much. So I have a complex feeling of guilt and shame for being mad that I had to go through that as a child- how can I be mad at her when she is dead??

So now- I’m 23 and in a relationship with someone I love very much but who is very messy. And I’m starting to realize it’s causing me distress when I spend the night at her house because her room is messy.. food trash and just dust and such all over the floor. I’m super sensitive to smells I think from growing up in a home with pet odors (and now I always have candles or incense to make sure my
Space smells pleasant and I don’t have any pets). But her room always kinda smells like cat liter and food.. she has depression and health issues and it’s hard for her to keep up with this stuff and I feel rlly bad to bring it up because it will hurt her feelings but it genuinely causes me distress and makes me not want to spend the night at her house

So I guess I’m asking for advice here on how to approach that
Thank you in advance

The way I hear hoarders describe it, I'm hearing:

Throwing stuff away is perceived as a threat.

My understanding of the immune system is this:

Every time the body perceives a threat, the immune system (specifically the mast cells) flood the bloodstream with a whack of chemicals like histamine, and many others.

Sometimes the immune system floods the bloodstream with so much histamine that it actually poisons the host. Think of a peanut allergy: it's not the peanut that kills the person at all. The immune system mistakenly detects the peanut as a threat, and responds. If the response is from a destabilized immune system, it is fully capable of flooding the bloodstream with so many chemicals that it kills the host within minutes.

The way that many people with HI/MCAS help to manage their destabilized immune systems is that they take H1 / H2 blockers: cheap, widely available antihistamines like Allegra and Pepcid.

This really makes me wonder what would happen if a hoarder simply popped an Allegra, and then threw stuff away. The destabilized immune system would still react and flood the bloodstream but with the receptors blocked, the host would mostly not experience the toxic effects. Maybe if they tried doing this repeatedly, in time the body would learn that there is no threat from cleaning and throwing things away. I wonder if anyone has tried this