my mother and both my sons are hoarders. the sons dont live with me but my garage is filled with their crap. it is so sick imo. all three want everything that they lay eyes on and it literally smothers the life out of me. my brain only focuses on one thing at a time and when i walk into a room with thousands of pointless knick knacks lining every wall i get claustrophobic. someday im going home and theres going to be one warning then a bonfire you can see from outer space. im not being melodramatic here. my mother wont even throw away junk mail. just venting, thanks for listening. this is my pet peeve in this world.
my mother had a mental crash and spent 3 months in AL about 4 years ago. she instructed grandkids to have a yard sale and sell everything, then the house. we didnt realize she was NUTS, we just blindly followed her instructions. well she got better and wanted to come home. home was 4 feet deep in trash that had been picked thru by all the family and the leftover yardsale still occupied the front yard. it was all up to son and i to restore housekeeping. mom being NUTS decided to take advantage of the situation and instructed us to empty out hundreds of pans and bowls from every cabinet, wash them then the cabinets and replace everything. thats when i figured out she was effin NUTS. we instead had one of those bonfires of biblical proportion and we cleaned this crapfest out. had her home in 3 days. ive never heard the end of it and she will never comprehend the horriffic task that we were faced with because shes friggin NUTS. does anyone know how many bibles two devout ( yard saleing ) nazarenes can accumulate in 80 years? the answer is none. there werent any, nobody saw us and you cant prove a thing..
Because of this chaos I can't tolerate clutter. It also prompted my son to adopt the rule, bring one thing in, one thing leaves. I agree with Christina, it is a mental disorder.
The thing that made me laugh my rear end off was when mom died, my sister got the privilege of cleaning out her condo. Yes, the sister who never wanted to get involved in caregiving. I still get a good chuckle when I think about it. Bet she is still cursing me!
All those things she was obsessive about and made me dust as a small child I was able to toss with a snicker. Oh, it was better than therapy. Of course, I asked everyone in shouting distance, first, if they wanted it.
There is very little left, and some things I will keep for posterity.
Cap, you have to sneak out bits of the junk mail. It can be a game for you to enjoy.
Ooh, am I being very bad this afternoon? A few things like this make me loony! :)
So, I called her for help. Her and her daughter came and actually cleaned out my room. I would walk in and could not believe how uncluttered it was. Uhm...my junk is building back up. I think this is an emotional issue. I have never been a hoarder until recently - when father had his stroke and I became both parents' caregivers.
Cap - my suggestion is to tell your sons that you are giving them a set time limit (one or 2 months) to come and take their stuff. Or to go thru it and throw what is not needed. Then YOU will go thru the garage and Throw what YOU think is not needed. They can always rent a storage locker. If they can't afford the cost of the locker, then they will learn to be ruthless and keep what is most valuable to them.