Hoarders - General Discussion

[CrazyInAlabama]

52 minutes ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

Is she really a horrible person though? We got to see the worst day of her life where from her perspective, everything she worked for was being stolen and trashed by strangers for no reason. That doesn't mean that she is normally that rude towards people. Yet another reason why this should not have been filmed.

But Sandra has been doing this behavior since the early 2000's, when she refinanced (again), and paid nothing to the bank.     And that hoard had been building for many years, because you can see how dusty, and grungy everything looked in the house.    She had been fighting the foreclosure and eviction for years, and was in court constantly for years, and the two men had owned that house for at least a year.    She had been evicted quite a while before the show filming, and the men agreed that auction personnel could take what would sell.   I suspect Sandra has been that way for a long time, before the law suit over her business, and was just showing more of herself to the world.      

[BuyMoreAndSave]

4 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

But Sandra has been doing this behavior since the early 2000's, when she refinanced (again), and paid nothing to the bank.     And that hoard had been building for many years, because you can see how dusty, and grungy everything looked in the house.    She had been fighting the foreclosure and eviction for years, and was in court constantly for years, and the two men had owned that house for at least a year.    She had been evicted quite a while before the show filming, and the men agreed that auction personnel could take what would sell.   I suspect Sandra has been that way for a long time, before the law suit over her business, and was just showing more of herself to the world.      

Meh, personally I don't think it makes her a terrible person if she didn't pay back money to a bank...the banks certainly stole enough from us in the 2000s and never paid it back LOL. The couple chose to go into it knowing that hassle and legal proceedings would be involved as they are in most foreclosure and evictions, and that was the price they paid for getting such a deal on the house.

[JudyObscure]

On 6/9/2019 at 4:57 PM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

Meh, personally I don't think it makes her a terrible person if she didn't pay back money to a bank...the banks certainly stole enough from us in the 2000s and never paid it back LOL.

The trouble is, its like people stealing from Walmart and saying, "They can afford it." It's never the CEOs of the company that bear the loss, it's the customers who pay a little more for each item or higher finance charges  to the bank.  I was a bank teller for years and if I came up short it came out of my minimum wage pay.  I lost a hundred dollars that way one day. I knew where I had messed up, it was a woman who wanted her check cashed and $100 put in checking and I had put the hundred in checking, but cashed the whole check,too.  I went to her house after work asking for it back and she refused saying, "That bank makes enough money." 

Marathon today!  Starting with one of my favorites Arline the woman in  Hawaii with a notebook fetish. Her husband with scoliosis has to sleep in the car because there is no room in the house.

Now it's Lloyd with one of those terrifying Man-hoards that takes up several acres of land.  At least women usually stop at the seams of their house.

[funky-rat]

8 minutes ago, JudyObscure said:

The trouble is, its like people stealing from Walmart and saying, "They can afford it." It's never the CEOs of the company that bear the loss, it's the customers who pay a little more for each item or higher finance charges  to the bank.  I was a bank teller for years and if I came up short it came out of my minimum wage pay.  I lost a hundred dollars that way one day. I knew where I had messed up, it was a woman who wanted her check cashed and $100 put in checking and I had put the hundred in checking, but cashed the whole check,too.  I went to her house after work asking for it back and she refused saying, "That bank makes enough money." 

EXACTLY.  I never understood the mindset that it's OK because it's some faceless corporation who can suck it up and deal, because they steal from us, etc etc etc.  When in the end, it comes out of our collective pockets.  Not the CEO.  If it's bad enough, it's the lower-level employees who will suffer for it in the form of downsizing, etc.  The system is broken, but if we went by that mindset, it would be 1000 times worse.

[zillabreeze]

10 hours ago, funky-rat said:

EXACTLY.  I never understood the mindset that it's OK because it's some faceless corporation who can suck it up and deal, because they steal from us, etc etc etc.  When in the end, it comes out of our collective pockets.  Not the CEO.  If it's bad enough, it's the lower-level employees who will suffer for it in the form of downsizing, etc.  The system is broken, but if we went by that mindset, it would be 1000 times worse.

The CEO will NEVER lose a dime!  His yacht will still sail and his bonus will be enough to finance an entire school for decades. Trust. 

A $100. Hickey will be passed to the consumer and also double dipped as a tax loss.  The game is rigged and I don't know what the solution is.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

13 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

The trouble is, its like people stealing from Walmart and saying, "They can afford it." It's never the CEOs of the company that bear the loss, it's the customers who pay a little more for each item or higher finance charges  to the bank.  I was a bank teller for years and if I came up short it came out of my minimum wage pay.  I lost a hundred dollars that way one day. I knew where I had messed up, it was a woman who wanted her check cashed and $100 put in checking and I had put the hundred in checking, but cashed the whole check,too.  I went to her house after work asking for it back and she refused saying, "That bank makes enough money." 

Not paying back a loan isn't the same as stealing. In many cases the bank actually prefers if people don't pay back loans on time because then they can get more money out of them later in interest and fees.

[BookWoman56]

42 minutes ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

Not paying back a loan isn't the same as stealing. In many cases the bank actually prefers if people don't pay back loans on time because then they can get more money out of them later in interest and fees.

But that assumes that the person does in fact pay back the loan. IIRC, the situation that started this discussion was a property where the hoarder flatly refused to make the mortgage payments. And full disclosure here, I work for an extremely large bank; spent about 2.5 years in the part of the bank that deals with customers defaulting on their mortgages. When people take out a mortgage, the property is the collateral on that mortgage. So when people refuse to make their mortgage payments for long periods of time, they should not be surprised that the bank forecloses on the property and tries to recoup the money they lent. I don’t see anything inherently wrong in doing so. Most banks will try to work with customers who are going through temporary financial problems, but many people just no longer have the income to make the payments. So what is the bank supposed to do, just write off the loan as a bad investment? They have a legal obligation in many cases to try to recover the loan amount, typically by foreclosing and then repairing structural problems, then selling the property to recoup what they can. Recovering that money is what enables them to keep loaning money to other people who want to buy a house, expand their business, etc. I sympathize with people whose circumstances change and they lose their house. But it’s not the bank’s fault that someone loses their job, etc. With a hoarder house, if the bank forecloses, they will either have to sell the house as is and probably take a loss, depending on the market, or spend the money to rehab the house and hope they break even. 

[BuyMoreAndSave]

1 hour ago, BookWoman56 said:

But that assumes that the person does in fact pay back the loan. IIRC, the situation that started this discussion was a property where the hoarder flatly refused to make the mortgage payments. And full disclosure here, I work for an extremely large bank; spent about 2.5 years in the part of the bank that deals with customers defaulting on their mortgages. When people take out a mortgage, the property is the collateral on that mortgage. So when people refuse to make their mortgage payments for long periods of time, they should not be surprised that the bank forecloses on the property and tries to recoup the money they lent. I don’t see anything inherently wrong in doing so. Most banks will try to work with customers who are going through temporary financial problems, but many people just no longer have the income to make the payments. So what is the bank supposed to do, just write off the loan as a bad investment? They have a legal obligation in many cases to try to recover the loan amount, typically by foreclosing and then repairing structural problems, then selling the property to recoup what they can. Recovering that money is what enables them to keep loaning money to other people who want to buy a house, expand their business, etc. I sympathize with people whose circumstances change and they lose their house. But it’s not the bank’s fault that someone loses their job, etc. With a hoarder house, if the bank forecloses, they will either have to sell the house as is and probably take a loss, depending on the market, or spend the money to rehab the house and hope they break even. 

I am aware of all of that. I am not an idiot. So as you can see, the bank had a plan in place from the beginning to get their money back should the loan not be repaid. Not repaying a loan is not the same as shoplifting from Walmart or stealing $100 from a bank teller as someone above stated. If it was the same, it would be illegal. Not only is it legal but the behavior of the banks, especially in the 2000s when Sandra's refinancing happened, clearly indicates that they are fine with making loans to people with questionable ability to repay them. She was far from the only person who got a subprime loan during that time and the banks chose over and over again to make risky investments of that kind.

[BookWoman56]

On 7/7/2019 at 11:12 PM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

She was far from the only person who got a subprime loan during that time and the banks chose over and over again to make risky investments of that kind.

Yes, many banks chose to make risky investments at that time, although what most people don't realize is that there was a push from the federal level to loosen up lending requirements for mortgages, so that people with low incomes/less than stellar credit could more easily qualify for mortgages. With the current restrictions in place on mortgages, it's much more difficult for people with low incomes and lower credit scores to get mortgages. I'm personally unsure that making it harder for people with lower credit to get mortgages is the best answer in the long run, as those people still need housing and so are often forced to rent properties where they essentially are only enriching their landlords, rather than building any equity. But the topic of affordable housing is a bit tangential to the show under discussion here, other than just that it seems like some of the hoarders are going to face the necessity of finding a different housing solution because they've damaged the property or hoarding has taken over their lives to the point that they can no longer pay for their housing. 

My original point was that I don't feel sorry for someone, subprime mortgage or not, who has a property and then proceeds to devalue it by hoarding. If I owned a property and rented it out to someone who turned out to be a hoarder, and that person was hoarding at the level on the show, I'd probably give the hoarder a deadline to get the stuff out of the property or face eviction. With many of the properties shown, the interiors of the house have been damaged (fire hazards, rodents out of control, etc.,) and often the hoarding has spilled over to the exterior of the property. Most leases have clauses in them allowing eviction if someone causes significant damage to the property. Similarly, if I'm a bank holding a mortgage on a hoarder property and the hoarder quits paying the mortgage, I see no reason to make an exception to foreclosing on the property and salvaging what is left of the investment. I do feel sorry for some of the hoarders; in particular, there was one woman who grew up more or less wealthy but whose mental condition had deteriorated badly to the point where it seemed she couldn't comprehend that she needed to choose what possessions to keep rather than lose everything because she could no longer afford the property she was in. But for many of these people, it's hard to feel any sympathy for them because they seem to be extremely unpleasant people. And there is part of me that feels with many hoarders, they've already had time to deal with their hoarding. It's not like somebody has a normally organized house and wakes up one day, determined to become a hoarder and fill the house with junk in 24 hours. I could understand it to some extent if the person lived alone, but FFS, some of these episodes show hoarders who have spouses living in the same environment. Even if the hoarder has some mental illness, why did the spouse go along with it until it hits the level that outside agencies and so forth have to intervene? Is it just inertia on the part of the non-hoarder spouse, or are they too afraid of how the hoarder spouse will react to any efforts to stop the hoarding and get rid of the junk?

Edited July 13, 2019 by BookWoman56

[BuyMoreAndSave]

1 hour ago, BookWoman56 said:

Yes, many banks chose to make risky investments at that time, although what most people don't realize is that there was a push from the federal level to loosen up lending requirements for mortgages, so that people with low incomes/less than stellar credit could more easily qualify for mortgages. With the current restrictions in place on mortgages, it's much more difficult for people with low incomes and lower credit scores to get mortgages. I'm personally unsure that making it harder for people with lower credit to get mortgages is the best answer in the long run, as those people still need housing and so are often forced to rent properties where they essentially are only enriching their landlords, rather than building any equity. But the topic of affordable housing is a bit tangential to the show under discussion here, other than just that it seems like some of the hoarders are going to face the necessity of finding a different housing solution because they've damaged the property or hoarding has taken over their lives to the point that they can no longer pay for their housing. 

I feel like this is off-topic so I spoiler tagged it because there is no off topic thread:

Spoiler

Unfortunately there is a symbiosis between the government and banks and there especially was at that time. Most of the people making financial policy came from the world of big banks and were beholden to them. They encouraged each other to keep these bad investments possible. Frontline "The Warning" is a good documentary on this and they have a few other documentaries on the financial crisis as well.

My husband and I could afford property but we choose to rent -- we don't see it as enriching landlords rather than building equity. It saves us money to not have to pay for maintenance, luxuries which every house has like a backyard or basement, and higher utilities. It also saves us a ton of time to not have to worry about upkeep, repairs, upgrades, damages, "curb appeal," etc., and time=money. The only maintenance we ever have to do is maybe 2-3 hours total of cleaning per week. We can invest that extra time and money into other investments, and learning new skills that will increase our earning potential. We have a ton of savings which we would not have with a mortgage.

Most importantly we also have a lot more freedom. If we needed to move for a job we could do it with a few weeks' notice. If an area had declining property values or increasing crime we wouldn't have to worry about losing any assets and could just move out whenever we felt like it. If the next Hurricane Sandy came along and we lost everything, we could easily replace everything and not even have to worry about the insurance check (see Frontline "The Business of Disaster" for more information on that). This is SO underrated with all the societal and environmental changes that are expected to come in the next few decades. Flexibility is key.

I think the idea of property always being a good investment is something of a falsehood and renting and owning are about equal. So many people are stuck in properties that they don't want, can barely afford to keep up their properties, or are bankrupted by unexpected home repairs.

1 hour ago, BookWoman56 said:

My original point was that I don't feel sorry for someone, subprime mortgage or not, who has a property and then proceeds to devalue it by hoarding. If I owned a property and rented it out to someone who turned out to be a hoarder, and that person was hoarding at the level on the show, I'd probably give the hoarder a deadline to get the stuff out of the property or face eviction. With many of the properties shown, the interiors of the house have been damaged (fire hazards, rodents out of control, etc.,) and often the hoarding has spilled over to the exterior of the property. Most leases have clauses in them allowing eviction if someone causes significant damage to the property. Similarly, if I'm a bank holding a mortgage on a hoarder property and the hoarder quits paying the mortgage, I see no reason to make an exception to foreclosing on the property and salvaging what is left of the investment. I do feel sorry for some of the hoarders; in particular, there was one woman who grew up more or less wealthy but whose mental condition had deteriorated badly to the point where it seemed she couldn't comprehend that she needed to choose what possessions to keep rather than lose everything because she could no longer afford the property she was in. But for many of these people, it's hard to feel any sympathy for them because they seem to be extremely unpleasant people. And there is part of me that feels with many hoarders, they've already had time to deal with their hoarding. It's not like somebody has a normally organized house and wakes up one day, determined to become a hoarder and fill the house with junk in 24 hours. I could understand it to some extent if the person lived alone, but FFS, some of these episodes show hoarders who have spouses living in the same environment. Even if the hoarder has some mental illness, why did the spouse go along with it until it hits the level that outside agencies and so forth have to intervene? Is it just inertia on the part of the non-hoarder spouse, or are they too afraid of how the hoarder spouse will react to any efforts to stop the hoarding and get rid of the junk?

Also getting back on topic, I think that renting is also a good option for hoarders. My MIL is a hoarder and trashed her house, but now that she's in an apartment she has to be at least reasonably clean or else she will get kicked out and lose her security deposit. Of course it's not neat/clean by my standards but it's much better than it was. My building does quarterly inspections so they can see if any problems are arising.

I agree with you on the hoarders often being unpleasant to be around, especially if they are confronted on their hoarding. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily bad or immoral people overall, but they are difficult, as we can see. I don't feel sorry for them either. They made their own choices. I have/had a lot of hoarder relatives and usually the people around them suffer way more than they do as a result of the hoarding.

I think oftentimes there is a folie a deux going on with hoarders and enablers. Eventually even the non-hoarder often develops hoarder tendencies or clutter blindness because it becomes normalized. I think this happened with my in-laws and my grandparents. After my grandpa passed away and my grandma moved into a retirement community, she actually stopped hoarding and her apartment was normal for the next 10+ years until she passed away. My grandparents were both hoarders when they lived together and I think their behaviors encouraged each other.

Also, my husband isn't a hoarder but he grew up with two hoarders and never learned how to be clean or organized. He didn't have much sentimental attachment to stuff but was always the kind of person who would lose everything and not know where anything was, and buy a bunch of duplicates rather than look for the original. It was only after he moved in with me, a neat-freak, that he actually got some perspective. He especially got perspective when he had to clean out my in-laws' abandoned house. He realized how much clutter blindness he had, and it was only after seeing how much stuff was in each pile and how many dumpsters and bags it filled, that he realized how bad it was. He has made huge improvements in neatness and organization since we have been living together and he is now a minimalist.

[enoughcats]

Interesting insights, BuyMoreandSave, any you have chosen a heck of a name.

1 hour ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

since we have been living together and he is now a minimalist.

Wow.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

24 minutes ago, enoughcats said:

Interesting insights, BuyMoreandSave, any you have chosen a heck of a name.

Wow.

I joined this site for the QVC forum (I don't buy from QVC but it is good studying/working background noise for some reason and also good to snark on). "Buy More and Save" is something they have where if you buy multiples of an item, you save money on each item. I thought it was a funny concept because obviously if you're buying more of anything, you're doing the opposite of saving, so I chose that name to make fun of them. It's also interesting to note that I have heard it's very common in hoarder cleanouts to find piles of unopened boxes from home shopping networks. A lot of their biggest customers are hoarders.

I think the experience of having to clean out his parents' house was the largest precipitant of him becoming minimalist because after that I noticed he started becoming a lot more mindful about his possessions. Also, we move every 2-3 years, and it's much easier if you have less stuff and can carry and load everything into the U-Haul yourself.

Edited July 13, 2019 by BuyMoreAndSave

[zillabreeze]

So yesterday, I parked next to a well dressed lady at the gas station.  She was driving a pretty new & nice Honda SUV.  When I looked, the whole thing was hoarded.  The entire back was completely stuffed to the roof, as was the passenger seat and dash. There was about a 2 foot square spot on the driver seat.

It was clearly NOT moving stuff, just mass quantities of random shit packed in.  I wondered what her family, friends or co-workers must think?  Also, lawd!!! What does her house look like?

[BuyMoreAndSave]

2 hours ago, zillabreeze said:

So yesterday, I parked next to a well dressed lady at the gas station.  She was driving a pretty new & nice Honda SUV.  When I looked, the whole thing was hoarded.  The entire back was completely stuffed to the roof, as was the passenger seat and dash. There was about a 2 foot square spot on the driver seat.

It was clearly NOT moving stuff, just mass quantities of random shit packed in.  I wondered what her family, friends or co-workers must think?  Also, lawd!!! What does her house look like?

I saw a similar mobile hoard being driven by a disheveled looking guy a few weeks ago. He also hit a trash can and drove halfway down the street pushing it with the bumper of the car before realizing it was there...I laughed.

[zillabreeze]

1 hour ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

...I laughed

I felt kind of sorry for the lady.  She was nicely dressed and made up and trying to control her hoard.   

Her hoarding is probably a mental illness or the result of issues that I hope never to experience.

Cleaning up a family members hoard is awful.  Been there, done that.  Not funny at all.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

43 minutes ago, zillabreeze said:

I felt kind of sorry for the lady.  She was nicely dressed and made up and trying to control her hoard.   

Her hoarding is probably a mental illness or the result of issues that I hope never to experience.

Cleaning up a family members hoard is awful.  Been there, done that.  Not funny at all.

It was the trash can, not the hoard, that I laughed at. After having to live with my hoarder MIL for two years -- due to her being disabled because of preventable health problems she didn't get taken care of -- as well as having to be punished due to the mental illness induced poor life decisions of every member of my immediate biological family for the past 27+ years...sorry but I have compassion fatigue (check out the family thread in "Everything Else" section for more information if you are interested).

Edited July 14, 2019 by BuyMoreAndSave

[zillabreeze]

34 minutes ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

It was the trash can, not the hoard, that I laughed at. After having to live with my hoarder MIL for two years -- due to her being disabled because of preventable health problems she didn't get taken care of -- as well as having to be punished due to the mental illness induced poor life decisions of every member of my immediate biological family for the past 27+ years...sorry but I have compassion fatigue (check out the family thread in "Everything Else" section for more information if you are intereste

"Compassion Fatigue". May I borrow that,???

Oh. No worries. Sorry. I did be over sensitive. I do get it!

My drunkass sister up and died.  Leaving a giant hoard for us to sort through.  Weeks of sorting through that shit in a hot and dusty house. 

 You can't just take a shovel, because there's jewelry, guns and important papers all intertwined...

Edited July 14, 2019 by zillabreeze

[AZChristian]

6 hours ago, zillabreeze said:

"Compassion Fatigue". May I borrow that,???

Oh. No worries. Sorry. I did be over sensitive. I do get it!

My drunkass sister up and died.  Leaving a giant hoard for us to sort through.  Weeks of sorting through that shit in a hot and dusty house. 

 You can't just take a shovel, because there's jewelry, guns and important papers all intertwined...

I, too, love the phrase "Compassion Fatigue."  

I had to walk away from my hoarder brother several months ago, and I'm actually seeing peace and joy in my life again.  Hubby and I have had several conversations about how we will handle the mess when the bro dies.  Since we've got that figured out, it's just a matter of waiting until someone notifies us. 

I'm listed as his next of kin on his medical records, so a doctor's office or hospital will occasionally call me if they can't get the info they need from him, or if he refuses to return their calls because he doesn't want to actually participate in his own care.  Last call was from a physical therapist's office.  Another doctor had referred him for PT because Brother Hypochondriac always complains about falling.  (We refer to it as tripping over the crap in his house.)  Bro doesn't want to actually DO anything for himself.  Had the doctor prescribed MORE medications (he takes 20+ per day already), or - even better - suggest surgery, he'd have loved it.  But to actually WORK on his problems by exercising?  No, we can't have that.

[BooksRule]

I was watching a couple of old episodes on A&E while I did some housework (the episodes are over, but the housework continues!) and laughed at this remark from Matt: 'One of my biggest challenges is Grandma. She's copping an attitude.' 

[AZChristian]

1 minute ago, BooksRule said:

I was watching a couple of old episodes on A&E while I did some housework (the episodes are over, but the housework continues!) and laughed at this remark from Matt: 'One of my biggest challenges is Grandma. She's copping an attitude.' 

Matt needs to quote Judge Judy:  "There's only one attitude allowed here, and it's MINE."

[zillabreeze]

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

But to actually WORK on his problems by exercising?  No, we can't have that.

I feel ya'.  My sister had years to turn her shit around, didn't even try.  Gawd help you if you called her out on her nonsense.

I see your future in my crystal ball.  All I can say is head to Costco and buy triple the trash bags, dust masks, rubber gloves and bleach than you think you'll need.  

Watching my 80+ year old parents shoveling through that shit was heartbreaking. Two years later and they are still shell shocked.

Her house was in a wildly desirable area.  Should have sold for over $300k.  We had to let it go for half that.  Dog urine and neglect had soaked through to subfloors.  

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

(We refer to it as tripping over the crap in his house.

My sister had a two story house.  She was always tripping up or down the staircase.  Once carrying a brand new laptop that was destroyed.  BUT it was the slippery Pergo steps fault!  Had nothing to do with the daily fifth of vodka!!!!  

I have ZERO sympathy for the Hoarder whiners.  Their families should quit the molly coddling and save themselves.

[atlantaloves]

Oh yeah, Hoarders that have cars always hoard their cars as well, every hoarder I know has their car packed to the ceiling, they can't even see behind them when driving. It is disgusting and dangerous. I have a friend who got a new car, and kept her old hoarded car parked down the street from her, and goes to visit her hoard that is inside her car.  I am dead serious! She is paying for insurance on two cars just so she can keep her HOARD CAR.  God! 

[zillabreeze]

3 minutes ago, atlantaloves said:

Oh yeah, Hoarders that have cars always hoard their cars as well, every hoarder I know has their car packed to the ceiling,

We used to have a hoarder house in my neighborhood.  There was a carport in back with a fairly decent Mercedes sedan that was stuffed full.  WTF?  

[BuyMoreAndSave]

4 minutes ago, atlantaloves said:

Oh yeah, Hoarders that have cars always hoard their cars as well, every hoarder I know has their car packed to the ceiling, they can't even see behind them when driving. It is disgusting and dangerous. I have a friend who got a new car, and kept her old hoarded car parked down the street from her, and goes to visit her hoard that is inside her car.  I am dead serious! She is paying for insurance on two cars just so she can keep her HOARD CAR.  God! 

My husband (back before he was neat) and MIL trashed two cars (they switched the titles on the cars between each other multiple times, and he had to look after her car for months at a time when she was in Florida or sick/disabled, so it was caused by both of them). They weren't packed with trash to the ceiling but both of them were absolutely covered in disgusting mystery stains, to the point where it looked like a murder had taken place. There were literally coffee splatters covering the ceiling. There were crumbs under the seats (not only crumbs but for example I once found an entire salad's worth of dessicated years-old crispy noodles scattered under the seats), trash everywhere, completely random items that had nothing to do with the car ending up in there, etc. I once saw MIL leave a cup of coffee with milk in it in the cupholder of her car that she left with us and it stayed there for two weeks until I made my husband get rid of it. It was nasty. I begged my husband for 7 years to do something about it, and sometimes progress was made, but it never got to the point of not feeling like you were driving around in a mobile dumpster.

Thankfully one of the cars broke and was scrapped, and the other one needs $5K in repairs, so last month we got a Prius. It's so nice and refreshing to be able to go into a clean car! My husband has actually become somewhat fanatical about keeping the car clean -- he takes it to the car wash every couple of weeks, cleans any dirt from the inside weekly, promptly removes any trash in there, and doesn't leave random items like papers or electrical cords in there anymore. There is hardly anything in the trunk so we can actually transport laundry and stuff in there. Turns out my husband doesn't need 90% of the crap he was keeping in the trunks of the other cars just in case. MIL is still forcing us to keep the second car "in case she ever drives again" even though she has not driven since 2016, still has balance and mobility issues, and has no plans to practice driving in the foreseeable future. As I said, it needs 5K in repairs, so it would be cheaper just to scrap it and buy a decent used car if the day ever comes when she wants to drive.

[enoughcats]

21 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

it needs 5K in repairs, so it would be cheaper just to scrap it and buy a decent used car if the day ever comes when she wants to drive.

Don't scrap it.  Those 5k in repairs are going to cause a breakdown.  Let it, with her at the wheel.  

Not a hoarded car, but my FIL's dementia (one iteration) lead to his forgetting how to get the car in reverse.  This was after he took out a tree at the local donut shop (he was a retired police man).  He proclaimed it an unlucky car (3 brake jobs 10,000 miles) He never got around to buying the junker he had hidden cash to buy. 

We put a note on top of the engine and it said that the family had chosen, for the safety of the community, to disable the car, and keep it disabled.  (We had seen him drive through a red light on a drive that he knew well, having lived there for seven years.)

Keep that car that she knows.  That way she can't logically blame you.

Edited July 15, 2019 by enoughcats

[BuyMoreAndSave]

3 minutes ago, enoughcats said:

Don't scrap it.  Those 5k in repairs are going to cause a breakdown.  Let it, with her at the wheel.  

Not a hoarded car, but my FIL's dementia (one iteration) lead to his forgetting how to get the car in reverse.  This was after he took out a tree at the local donut shop (he was a retired police man).  He proclaimed it an unlucky car (3 brake jobs 10,000 miles) and sold it to us for half of what CarMax offered him.  He never got around to buying the junker he had hidden cash to buy. 

Keep that car that she knows.  That way she can't logically blame you.

She already manufactures enough crises without us manufacturing one for her. She will most likely never drive it and hopefully in a year or two my husband can convince her to get rid of it.

[enoughcats]

A similar story from Wales, with a dead body and mother daughter tag team hoarders

Comments on the story indicate, to me, that a whole lot of people think that "just a little help" would do it, that the government can make people change, etc.  Only a few comments fit with what we think we've learned.

[enoughcats]

A family member worried, but didn't know the right questions to ask authorities for an elder check.  And the hospital only notified one family member, not the one who might have made a difference.

Spoiler

and was partly eaten by her dog, who also died.\

In Detroit, two sisters.  One went to the hospital with a stroke, the other went home and died in her hoard.  

Edited August 2, 2019 by enoughcats

[BooksRule]

I caught a few minutes of a couple of A&E's episodes this morning, and at least two of the hoarders said (while the camera panned around rooms packed feet high with stuff), 'there's some clutter' or 'it's a little cluttered'.  I just pictured Inigo Montoya saying 'You keep using that word.  I don't think it means what you think it means'.

And this gem: 'I'm not a hoarder. I just have a lot of stuff.'

Finally, I had to laugh at the situation of the hoarder (the one who said she just had a lot of stuff) whose new boyfriend (a neat freak) commented that the first time he visited her place he 'had never washed more silverware before in his life'.

[BookWoman56]

It’s hard for me to imagine a neat freak and a hoarder staying in a relationship for very long. Sooner or later, the neat freak is going to get tired of the piles and piles of stuff, and/or the hoarder is going to get tired of the neat freak trying to straighten up and throw away junk that the hoarder considers valuable. I’d like to see a follow up 6 months or a year later on that couple, to see if the neat freak has ended the relationship. 

[BooksRule]

On 8/4/2019 at 7:00 PM, BookWoman56 said:

It’s hard for me to imagine a neat freak and a hoarder staying in a relationship for very long. Sooner or later, the neat freak is going to get tired of the piles and piles of stuff, and/or the hoarder is going to get tired of the neat freak trying to straighten up and throw away junk that the hoarder considers valuable. I’d like to see a follow up 6 months or a year later on that couple, to see if the neat freak has ended the relationship. 

I think he bailed before the episode was over.  If he had stayed, though, I would definitely have wanted to see a follow-up. 

[FormerMod-a1]

Did you see this from Cory?  I'd definitely watch this.

[atlantaloves]

Ewwwwwwwwwww I love Cory, but that is just too gory.  I bet it will be on the ID channel!

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I am watching Season 8, episode 1, Judy.  The compassionate part of me understands she is severely mentally ill.  The rest of me wants to slap her upside the head.  She does not have a chance of ever being successful.  Mouse infestation.  Relieving herself in diapers.  Needs to unfold each piece of paper and rip paper bags apart to make sure nothing is hiding in there.  Infected wounds on her legs. And yet she's a germaphobe.  She needs to be hospitalized. 

Dr. Tolin actually yelled at her.  Finally Cory switched to just trying to clear paths in the house.  They did seem to haul a lot more out of the house than they said they would (it was all mouse feces and urine covered trash). Water doesn't work.  She needs to be in a care facility. I hope that was the ultimate outcome of the call to APS.    Not an episode that felt okay at all to watch. 

[atlantaloves]

Oh yeah, I agree, that one was so sad, she was so so so mentally ill. Poor Cory. 

[JudyObscure]

Sunday marathon!  We've had the lady with the house trailer full of chickens and eggs and heard her daughter say, "Get the backhoe, she's ready for us to dig her grave!"  How those funny, good looking daughters came from that woman is a mystery.  I was actually happy to see her get that nice new trailer in the end though.  Dr. Melva Green was brilliant with her.

Now it's Debra with the four nice handsome sons saying, " I never really wanted boys."  She probably only wanted girls so she could hoard hundreds of little pink ruffled dresses.  She's on my all time worst list. Most of them at least say they love their kids as much as the hoard.

[Higgins]

On 4/16/2019 at 9:28 AM, 3girlsforus said:

My thoughts exactly on all of it. I looked for current value too and couldn’t find it. I don’t know if there is a difference in the way a property is valued or recorded when it’s a business vs when its a residence. Personally I’m skeptical that they are actually going to live there. At the end of the first Hoarders the end cards said they plan to move in when the renovations are complete but it also said the same thing at the end of the second Hoarders and even after the update. The house is clearly done enough to live in but that end card makes it sound like they still aren’t so I think maybe they don’t plan to. Their website says to contact them to book a room, although provides no information on what rooms are available or prices, and there have been articles about taking a tour. Neither of those things seem like something you do in a house where you are raising young girls. That’s really kind of creepy to me. 

As far as ‘Lottery Dream Home’, I laughed hard when I saw your comment on that. I like that show too but it depresses me. I reminds me that I’m paying lottery dream home prices for a regular old home that desperately needs new siding and windows LOL. Got to love Northern Virginia real estate prices. 

Me too!

[CrazyInAlabama]

I think the latest update for the Julian Price house said that they were looking at renting during the furniture marts, the way Sandra used to.    That house is so big that you could have a corporate retreat, reunion, or almost anything else in it.     I think the one owner said that they were living elsewhere, but still in town, because the house was so big, and took so long to remodel, and decorate for the designer showcases.     

They actually moved in about June, and they had their adorable daughters 5th birthday party in the house.     My guess is if they do big rentals, like during furniture mart, that they'll lock of family bedrooms, and move elsewhere temporarily.   I wonder if there's a caretaker's cottage?   or if the basement that used to be Sandra's office was big enough and suitable for a separate home for the family.    The owners said that their part of the house is separate, and that part is used as a B & B.    

Edited September 30, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[funky-rat]

18 minutes ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I think the latest update for the Julian Price house said that they were looking at renting during the furniture marts, the way Sandra used to.    That house is so big that you could have a corporate retreat, reunion, or almost anything else in it.     I think the one owner said that they were living elsewhere, but still in town, because the house was so big, and took so long to remodel, and decorate for the designer showcases.      I can't imagine living in that house with all of the visitors or tours anyway.    

I thought it would make a cool event venue.  The grounds would provide a nice space, and you could have a bunch of people stay over.  There was a pretty older house down from where we used to live that held weddings and parties, and there were rooms available in the house to stay over.  I know several people who got married there that loved that aspect.

[CrazyInAlabama]

They should get a lot of business, and actually have a wait list for the furniture mart.   The furniture mart used to be twice a year, but I don't know if it still is or not.       It's actually in the next town over, but it's a huge showcase for furniture buyers, and others, and I'm sure they could fill the Julian Price house ten times over with people who will love staying there.  

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 8/2/2019 at 12:02 PM, enoughcats said:

A family member worried, but didn't know the right questions to ask authorities for an elder check.  And the hospital only notified one family member, not the one who might have made a difference.

  Hide contents

and was partly eaten by her dog, who also died.\

In Detroit, two sisters.  One went to the hospital with a stroke, the other went home and died in her hoard.  

I already regret clicking on that link, and I've only read the first three paragraphs. Jesus Christ.

EDIT: "According to Kajma, hospital social workers were hoping to convince Sally Honeycheck  to leave the house. But Honeycheck checked herself out of the hospital at 1 a.m. on Nov. 12, telling hospital staff: "I have to go feed the dog."" 

That is...so darkly ironic considering what happened....Also I already didn't like dogs, but this just made me dislike them even more....

Edited October 2, 2019 by BuyMoreAndSave

[BuyMoreAndSave]

OMG...saw this episode the other day and literally started getting flashbacks to my MIL. This Jackie lady is a master manipulator and reminds me so much of her.

The fake crying to control the situation, the veering into straight up delusion to turn themselves into the victim and avoid accountability for their actions, the pretending like they're going to change and then engineering the situation so that they end up getting everything just the way they wanted it at everyone else's expense. Jackie totally masterminded the situation from the beginning to get exactly what she wanted -- all the stuff she didn't want taken out and the place getting more organized for free, getting to keep all her bears, not having to go to therapy or anything else afterwards, and her family off her back because "we already tried and it didn't work."

They even both had high powered, highly paid careers in tech (MIL started out in tech and went into finance). Jackie even kind of resembles my MIL appearance wise!

The only difference is that Jackie at least has a modicum of sanity in that she isn't living in total squalor (it's piled with stuff but isn't a biohazard or anything, and the items were even resellable) whereas my MIL prefers to live in a pile of trash even if you give her a nice empty room to start out with, and actually openly resents people for being neat and clean.

[CrazyInAlabama]

They had a rerun yesterday with a lady that had a 4 year old little girl living in the hoard also, the woman was very pregnant with her next child, and the husband lived there too.     The only real accomplishment of all of the clean out was one truck of junk removed, and the little girl had enough room for a bed, with stuff around the sides of the room.      The mother was very disturbed, and I can't believe that the husband lived there with his two children after this was filmed.      Then the other hoarder was Roy (or Ray?) that lived in Santa Cruz county, and had fines from the county totaling $20 million.   He had so many rotten, unusable vehicles, and was given a ridiculously long extension to complete the clean up, and the fines would be cancelled.    He kept bragging about his many inventions for NASA, and others.      The man was delusional, and my guess is the second the cameras left, he probably started adding more junk vehicles.  

Spoiler

Here's a 2016 article about the court cases from the county, and how Roy Kaylor is harvesting timber, but keeping the money for himself, not cleaning up.  http://lawzilla.com/blog/county-of-santa-cruz-v-roy-kaylor/

Edited October 28, 2019 by CrazyInAlabama

[funky-rat]

I saw a hoarder van at McDonald's this morning.  It was so gross.  Garbage on the dashboard.  Garbage between the two occupants.  Driving past, I could see the fan was completely junked back from the driver's seat, about halfway up.  I can't imagine the smell.

[atlantaloves]

oh honey child, they always always always hoard their their cars to perfection, trust me I know...have a friend who is a hoarder...she has old cars that she stores stuff in, and of course her new car is hoarded to the max as well, half the time there is no room for me. I haven't been allowed in her house in 18 years...what's a gal to do.  I'm not going to report her to elderly care, she would probably kill me.  

Edited October 29, 2019 by atlantaloves
drinking while typing

[enoughcats]

8 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

Roy (or Ray?) that lived in Santa Cruz county

Thank you so much for that link to some of Roy's court stuff. 

I cannot imagine the frustration of his neighbors and even of his daughter.  

With the fires burning in his part of the world, for the health of the firefighters, I hope his property doesn't burn because going onto it would be so dangerous and it would be such a hellish source of embers for the entire county. 

this brings a un-answer to those of us who wonder 'aloud', "why doesn't somebody do something?"

[funky-rat]

16 hours ago, atlantaloves said:

oh honey child, they always always always hoard our their cars to perfection, trust me I know...have a friend who is a hoarder...she has old cars that she stores stuff in, and of course her new car is hoarded to the max as well, half the time there is no room for me. I haven't been allowed in her house in 18 years...what's a gal to do.  I'm not going to report her to elderly care, she would probably kill me.  

This was the first one I saw that was full of just abject garbage.  Takeout containers, empty bottles, mail, just total trash.  Nasty.

[BooksRule]

I just watched most of the episode with Wilma and Nora (I missed the first few minutes). Wilma was just a horrible person.  She was the one who blamed everyone else, especially her children.  She said to their faces that she would have been better off if she had never had children.  And her hoard was filthy and nasty.  On the other hand, although I wanted to smack Nora around a little (she was either a nice little old lady or a furious tiny shrew--there was no in between), she had the cleanest hoard I've ever seen.  Everything was in non-scrunched boxes or in plastic totes, neatly stacked.  The glassware sitting around looked clean, too.  The house looked clean and undamaged (and the only hoard outside was in a storage pod).  Now, I didn't see the kitchen and don't know if they showed it at all, but I'm guessing that it was clean (but stacked with boxes) as well. Nora looked like she was clean, too (but Wilma looked dirty and I'm guessing that she didn't smell too good). Nora's hoard is the first one I've ever seen that I would have no problem in sitting down and going through everything.  Nora's story didn't end successfully, though.  They got rid of about 20 boxes (out of over 3,000) and Nora's daughter and the organizers/Dr. Z. just gave up. I didn't see the end of Wilma's story, but I don't think it went well either. 

(I have no idea why this post is centered. Weird.) 

[lovinbob]

It was really hard to hear Dr. Tolin probe Wilma about her children in front of them. She was atrocious. And her hatefulness was also strategic--she was hoping if she was mean enough they would leave her and her hoard alone. The idea that the house was in any way salvageable was a joke. 

Nora's chipmunk voice did not mask her illness any more than her thousands of containers did. To a lesser degree, my mom does the same thing as Nora—rather than deal with difficult issues, she just throws up her hands and runs away. So frustrating!

[CrazyInAlabama]

Was Wilma the one who took her son to the hardware store to buy chain to tie the dog out, and used the chain to padlock the son to the wall?     She was terrible, and Nora showed that a neat hoarder is just as rotten as a regular hoarder.