#hoarding parent

[shakethispoetoutofthebeast]

I think my mum is a hoarder? Please take in mind that I’m not professionally equipped to say that she is for certain a hoarder but please read this I need advice?

She has many many clothes, shoes and bags. Its to a point that she’s almost proud of how much she owns but at the same time ashamed due to the build up of clutter her ‘collection’ is causing. This clutter is really impacting my well-being, our at home family life and possibly even our health.

There are tons of bags of clothes in my bedroom, our living-room and generally around the flat. This makes it difficult to navigate the place. Additionally, my mum has shoes strewn around the house and an entire cupboard full of shoes she never wears. She also owns A LOT of jewellery which isn’t really impacting to the clutter but is impacting her wallet. My mom spends a lot buying things that she doesn’t really need. I’ve told her about this multiple times as our financial situation isn’t great and we’re living pay check to pay check due to my mum’s spending habits she usually brushes it off and tells me I shouldn’t be worrying about it.

A lot of the things she owns don’t fit her anymore but she refuses to throw them away. When my dad tries to encourage her to throw things away she either screams at him or changes the subject.

However, I don’t want to depict my mum as a monster here. I know she’s had a harsh childhood living in the Philippines where her family didn’t have much and she had to savour everything she did have. When she moved to England as an adult, she had always bought lots of things that she probably didn’t need. Usually, she’d be able to store these things with minimal amounts of clutter. However, when I was very young, she got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and the clutter gradually increased until it got as bad as it is today.

To be honest, i really hate this clutter (As mentioned it’s taking a toll on my mental health). I like to move around a lot, and many times I’ve tripped over bags of clothes and injured myself. I feel constricted in this house and embarrassed. The odors around the house are really strong and (although my mum tries to clean things like the dishes as much as possible) the clothe bags smell like something has passed away in them. Additionally, my parents argue often about the clutter and it breaks my heart to hear. I also feel even more ashamed as my friends ask when I’ll be able to invite them to my flat but I always have to tell them that my mum doesn’t let people come to our flat due to the state of it.

sorry for the long post but here are some images of the clutter, I wasn’t really able to take many or capture how severe it actually is (it’s definitely not as bad as some others people clutter but it is hard to live with) but i tried and you can probably get a basic idea:

[shinra33459]

My father is a hoarder

Ever since I was a kid, my dad has hoarded tons of comic book collectibles and memorabilia. In my childhood home, it was relegated to a room in the basement, and later, when we used to live in a mobile home, it was only relegated to his bedroom. However, ever since we moved to a new house in August of last year, it has spread from far beyond his bedroom. Now, we have boxes for his collectibles in the living room, the upstairs hallway, the 4 seasons room, the guest room is filled halfway to the ceiling with the boxes for his collectibles, the crawlspace under the stairs in the basement is filled all the way up with boxes, the laundry room has some boxes, and half of his room is filled 3/4 of the way to the ceiling with more boxes of the same statues and busts with the only walkable spaces in his room are to his bed and to his television.

He always talks about how me and my brother need to be more cleanly while a solid 1/2 of the house is filled with boxes for his collectible junk. I know that I am not some clean freak. I occasionally leave stuff out from time to time, and my room is a bit messy with some dirty clothes, a few small boxes for some technology, and some papers because I filed my taxes recently. However, I can clean my room in about 20 minutes at most. His bedroom alone would take several hours if not more to clean, and I just don't know what to do about it. He tells me and my brother that we're messy, but he will straight-up deny that he has a problem.

It isn't just comic book collectibles that he hoards either, he also hoards old food that he refuses to throw away. When we moved about 8 months ago, I had to pressure him to throw out shrimp cocktail sauce that expired in late 2021, and an already open jar of mayonnaise that expired about a month prior to when we moved. Even as a kid, I remember that he would refuse to throw out expired spices as well. It was around 2010, and we still had spices that we would use regularly that expired in the late 1990s. When we lived in the mobile home, one of the cupboards was filled with expired cereal and Pop Tarts that he refused to throw out. Even still, we have a container of raisins that expired in August of 2022, and in the fridge, we have brown mustard that expired in August of 2022, and a jar of pickles that expired in November of 2022.

By the end of the year, I plan to move out and be on my own, and I know that my brother will follow suit in a few years on his own, and I am seriously worried that his hoarding will be far worse when he is living alone. I know that he won't throw any of that stuff away because he spent thousands on all of it, and if he had to sell that stuff, he wouldn't even come close to breaking even, which will also encourage him to keep that stuff. With how little he actually does around the house, I am worried that more rooms and other spaces will get filled up with more junk to the point where the living room and kitchen are the only habitable rooms in the house.

I’m also worried that his refusal to throw out expired food is going to result in him getting hospitalized because he just refuses to throw out old food. Combine that with a refusal to actually clean the house and care for our cats, which he currently relies on both me and my brother to do, his house is going to fall into disrepair in a matter of a few short years when both me and my brother move away. When trying to get him to throw away an already opened and expired jar of Miracle Whip results in an argument and him saying absurd things like expiration dates being a scam, I know that him living on his own, is going to result in the house becoming a part of the hoard.