Strangest hoarding situation I’ve ever seen.

[Batesmotel]

I got to consult on a hoarding situation last week. Talking to people I’m hearing about more of this locally. Apparently it went through the roof during lockdown. This one is strange.

Not foul or filthy but somewhat dirty. Like dust and cobwebs everywhere. Highly organized. Just lots of stuff and nothing leaving the house. His kids got involved fairly quickly.

Turns out he was never treated for a head injury a few years ago. Fell out of his Jeep while it was parked on a steep slope. Kids didn’t know about it.

He has now lost any sense of time. He thinks he just took out the garbage. Not done in weeks. He rememberers changing the furnace filter. Not done in a couple years. It has lead to a mess. Light bulb burned out  he buys new ones, forgot to put it in, buys more  

It’s not mental help he needs, it’s neurological help to see if the damage can be treated. One of the kids is going to move in with him to keep things on track.

His mind just no longer recognizes the passage of time. He lives in a constant now. He makes some memories but with no time reference. 

[jfost11]

Dang, that's sad. Hope he is able to be helped.

[Fog]

I can totally relate to the lightbulb thing, but I didn't know it might be a head injury, I'll run that by my wife and see if she buys it. 

[Mrs.Cicero]

Well, at least it's cobwebs and dust and not flies, dead mice, and rodent droppings.  I agreed to care for someone else's animals  this week while he was on vacation... feed/water/let in and out the chickens and dog.  I did it 4-5 years ago for the same person and it was cluttered and dirty then (and the cat was incontinent due to old age, it's dead now).  It was the messiest kitchen I'd ever been in in my entire life at that point.  I don't think it has been cleaned even once since them.  This a grandfather raising a couple of his grandkids, alone for the last 8 years - the first year the grandmother was alive to help).  CPS  had an open case on them for the filth, tried to get them to clean up, tried to teach the kids to clean up (they are both teens now).  They just... don't care.  The case has been closed, because they just don't care. The mice have shredded the late grandmother(she'd be appalled)'s cookbooks, and paper towels, and stuff, all over the kitchen.  And they've pooped everywhere.  There is so much mouse poop on the floor, you can't see the floor in places.  There are mouse traps (with dead mice in them) all over.  There is fly paper covered with flies hanging over the kitchen island (and flies still flying).  It's like they can't even grasp the concept that IF THEY DON'T CLEAN UP EVERYTHING THE MICE ARE EATING FIRST,  THEY'LL NEVER GET THEM GONE.   THE MICE CANNOT BE CAUGHT FAST ENOUGH IN THE TRAPS TO REDUCE THEIR POPULATION.  You can hear them chewing everywhere in the walls.  It's a health hazard.  Hell, at some point, some mouse is going to chew through some wire somewhere and the whole house will go up in flames (it's a hundred+ year old farmhouse).   I came home from there earlier and proceeded to clean everything in sight here at home in some weird psychological state of cleaning frenzy as a reaction.  Ick.  

[Batesmotel]

I understand how you feel. My son is moving back in with us for a couple months until he buys a house. We have been cleaning and sending a lot of stuff to thrift stores. After dealing with a couple hoarding situations and binge watching a few Hoarders episodes my cleaning is in high gear.

There is no reason for a mentally healthy person to live in filth. I have a big house and with just my wife and I here I love the open space. I can’t imagine pace it full of junk.

I really feel bad for hoarders and their families. It’s usually just a symptom of illness. 

[Maser]

My last great-grandparent died a couple years ago from dementia.  She was 91.  After she lost her husband to a stroke back in 1996, she became a compulsive spender and buying anything she saw advertised on TV.  She then had one of her daughters move in with her.  About 10+ years later her daughter died of a massive heart attack during the night in the bathroom.  As the years went on and her living alone the dementia started getting worse and worse and she ended up living with my family for about a year or so and then we put her in a facility to get the 24 hour care that we couldn't provide her living at our house.  She remained there until her death.  The amount of stuff she had stockpiled in her house was insane.  She wasn't dirty or anything like that, but most of the stuff she had hadn't even been opened yet.  After we put her in a facility, we then cleaned out her room at my house and discovered she was hoarding things from the kitchen like flatware, glasses, paper towels, etc.  

Dementia is such an awful thing to watch a loved one go through. 

[jfost11]

1 hour ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

Well, at least it's cobwebs and dust and not flies, dead mice, and rodent droppings.  I agreed to care for someone else's animals  this week while he was on vacation... feed/water/let in and out the chickens and dog.  I did it 4-5 years ago for the same person and it was cluttered and dirty then (and the cat was incontinent due to old age, it's dead now).  It was the messiest kitchen I'd ever been in in my entire life at that point.  I don't think it has been cleaned even once since them.  This a grandfather raising a couple of his grandkids, alone for the last 8 years - the first year the grandmother was alive to help).  CPS  had an open case on them for the filth, tried to get them to clean up, tried to teach the kids to clean up (they are both teens now).  They just... don't care.  The case has been closed, because they just don't care. The mice have shredded the late grandmother(she'd be appalled)'s cookbooks, and paper towels, and stuff, all over the kitchen.  And they've pooped everywhere.  There is so much mouse poop on the floor, you can't see the floor in places.  There are mouse traps (with dead mice in them) all over.  There is fly paper covered with flies hanging over the kitchen island (and flies still flying).  It's like they can't even grasp the concept that IF THEY DON'T CLEAN UP EVERYTHING THE MICE ARE EATING FIRST,  THEY'LL NEVER GET THEM GONE.   THE MICE CANNOT BE CAUGHT FAST ENOUGH IN THE TRAPS TO REDUCE THEIR POPULATION.  You can hear them chewing everywhere in the walls.  It's a health hazard.  Hell, at some point, some mouse is going to chew through some wire somewhere and the whole house will go up in flames (it's a hundred+ year old farmhouse).   I came home from there earlier and proceeded to clean everything in sight here at home in some weird psychological state of cleaning frenzy as a reaction.  Ick.  

I couldn't even finish reading this post. Christ on a bike...

[Batesmotel]

46 minutes ago, Maser said:

My last great-grandparent died a couple years ago from dementia.  She was 91.  After she lost her husband to a stroke back in 1996, she became a compulsive spender and buying anything she saw advertised on TV.  She then had one of her daughters move in with her.  About 10+ years later her daughter died of a massive heart attack during the night in the bathroom.  As the years went on and her living alone the dementia started getting worse and worse and she ended up living with my family for about a year or so and then we put her in a facility to get the 24 hour care that we couldn't provide her living at our house.  She remained there until her death.  The amount of stuff she had stockpiled in her house was insane.  She wasn't dirty or anything like that, but most of the stuff she had hadn't even been opened yet.  After we put her in a facility, we then cleaned out her room at my house and discovered she was hoarding things from the kitchen like flatware, glasses, paper towels, etc.  

Dementia is such an awful thing to watch a loved one go through. 

My mom started doing that. QVC is awful. Fortunately she moved out of the house I grew up in and into my grandmothers old house which was much smaller and it ended. But she spent thousands and thousands on junk I had to throw out a couple years later. 

[jfost11]

46 minutes ago, Maser said:

My last great-grandparent died a couple years ago from dementia.  She was 91.  After she lost her husband to a stroke back in 1996, she became a compulsive spender and buying anything she saw advertised on TV.  She then had one of her daughters move in with her.  About 10+ years later her daughter died of a massive heart attack during the night in the bathroom.  As the years went on and her living alone the dementia started getting worse and worse and she ended up living with my family for about a year or so and then we put her in a facility to get the 24 hour care that we couldn't provide her living at our house.  She remained there until her death.  The amount of stuff she had stockpiled in her house was insane.  She wasn't dirty or anything like that, but most of the stuff she had hadn't even been opened yet.  After we put her in a facility, we then cleaned out her room at my house and discovered she was hoarding things from the kitchen like flatware, glasses, paper towels, etc.  

Dementia is such an awful thing to watch a loved one go through. 

Yes, it absolutely is. I think the whole family is grateful that my wife's grandfather passed when and how he did last year. He was to the point where her grandmother didn't want to walk to the neighbor's house and leave him alone for 5 minutes because she was afraid he'd forget where she was and go looking for her. But he was clear and at peace when he went and it was fast.

[janice6]

1 hour ago, Maser said:

My last great-grandparent died a couple years ago from dementia.  She was 91.  After she lost her husband to a stroke back in 1996, she became a compulsive spender and buying anything she saw advertised on TV.  She then had one of her daughters move in with her.  About 10+ years later her daughter died of a massive heart attack during the night in the bathroom.  As the years went on and her living alone the dementia started getting worse and worse and she ended up living with my family for about a year or so and then we put her in a facility to get the 24 hour care that we couldn't provide her living at our house.  She remained there until her death.  The amount of stuff she had stockpiled in her house was insane.  She wasn't dirty or anything like that, but most of the stuff she had hadn't even been opened yet.  After we put her in a facility, we then cleaned out her room at my house and discovered she was hoarding things from the kitchen like flatware, glasses, paper towels, etc.  

Dementia is such an awful thing to watch a loved one go through. 

My wife is forgetting things now and then.  Not typical forgetfulness, but indicative of what might be an aging process.  I tell her it's nothing and take care of whatever it is.  I keep reminding her of what she forgets the location of, or what she actually has in jewelry/clothes/purses/cold weather apparel/shoes, etc.

I love her more than ever and it kills me to see her "forgetting", particularly since my memory has been getting better the last few years.  We joke that I used to be the forgetful one, and now she is.  It's not a relative thing, I really have experiencing a significant increase in my memory ability. 

Yesterday for example, she told me that she took out a bag of garbage, but thinks she put it into the wrong container.  I asked for details and she said it was a Black container.  I looked all over the house and property, but no Black container.  I even had her walk with me to see if anything rang a bell in her memory - no luck.  She got frustrated with her "forgetting".  I hate to see her realizing she has a problem.

Then near the end of the day she came to me and said she remembered where the Black container was.  It was when we left the cabin up North a few days ago, and she placed the leftover trash in the Black garbage can at the resort.  I laughed and told her she was good for "remembering".  But it scares me each and every time.

I know what's coming, but I don't know how I will deal with it at the time.  I love her more than life, and I'm so afraid she will forget me.  Old age sometimes is a curse...................

Meanwhile I wine and dine her and treat her like a queen since there is nothing I can really do to stop the inevitable.  I just dread the day.  I posted a song in another thread that sums up the end, and it makes me cry to hear it.

 

[Walt Longmire]

I'm 8 months into cleaning up a hoarding situation ran by my dad and younger brother. 4 bay shop stacked to the rafters with tools both modern and old, building supplies, used stuff, I recycled a couple hundred gallons of various types of oil, hundreds of gallons of paint that was no longer useable. The carport was also stacked to the top. Then my dad had a 2 car garage and a 3 bay shop crammed full at the beautiful home he built25 years ago. Dad couldn't pass up a garage sale. There are literally hundreds of measuring tapes, hundreds of hammers, an untold number of squares, levels, shovels, axes, rakes, and it goes on and on. My brother couldn't pass up a pawn shop. He bought piles of power tools thinking he could sell them later for a profit. He never sold anything and now we have all these corded tools we can't sell. Everyone wants cordless now. Extension cords? Yeah enough to get power all the way from town. If there is one particular tool, there are many just like it. More than a dozen air compressors. Air hoses by the mile. Maybe more than 1000 pounds of screws a nails, many in unopened 50 pound boxes. There is stuff there that I don't even know what it is. It's a depressing job.

[pipedreams]

12 hours ago, janice6 said:

My wife is forgetting things now and then.  Not typical forgetfulness, but indicative of what might be an aging process.  I tell her it's nothing and take care of whatever it is.  I keep reminding her of what she forgets the location of, or what she actually has in jewelry/clothes/purses/cold weather apparel/shoes, etc.

God bless her, I'm beginning to have the same experience here.  Sometimes she realizes what happened and other time never realizes and I just take care of it.  God bless them and hope we stay healthy enough to take care of them.

[jfost11]

10 hours ago, Walt Longmire said:

I'm 8 months into cleaning up a hoarding situation ran by my dad and younger brother. 4 bay shop stacked to the rafters with tools both modern and old, building supplies, used stuff, I recycled a couple hundred gallons of various types of oil, hundreds of gallons of paint that was no longer useable. The carport was also stacked to the top. Then my dad had a 2 car garage and a 3 bay shop crammed full at the beautiful home he built25 years ago. Dad couldn't pass up a garage sale. There are literally hundreds of measuring tapes, hundreds of hammers, an untold number of squares, levels, shovels, axes, rakes, and it goes on and on. My brother couldn't pass up a pawn shop. He bought piles of power tools thinking he could sell them later for a profit. He never sold anything and now we have all these corded tools we can't sell. Everyone wants cordless now. Extension cords? Yeah enough to get power all the way from town. If there is one particular tool, there are many just like it. More than a dozen air compressors. Air hoses by the mile. Maybe more than 1000 pounds of screws a nails, many in unopened 50 pound boxes. There is stuff there that I don't even know what it is. It's a depressing job.

I have a friend who has a sizeable garage, maybe 25x30, filled with tools and stuff he's bought from online auctions. There's a tiny path inside to walk through.  It's also spilled out on all sides of the garage, and filled a shed and two large carports, as well as some of the yard. He'll buy a storage unit because there's an old AMC V8 in it. Then he'll sell the engine online fairly quickly and get his money back, but he has the rest of the junk piled up forever and those trips to the metal yard he talks about never seem to come.