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I came out as "messy" not a hoarder. I can get rid of things quite easily, throw away magazines
give to thrift, but what I don't get is how this apartment stays so messy even as I constantly clean
and fill up trashbags of stuff or donate to thrift. It boggles my mind. I think my apartment is just
too small. I can't afford to rent storage space. The sad fact of the matter is most apartments in my community are EVEN smaller. LOL
I found the THREE collections question entertaining too. I believe hoarding is getting worse due to societal break-down. People are getting closer to "their stuff" because there is a void where social connections once stood. Being housebound, I have to be careful because I can get connected to my stuff probably more then many others. Aspies too have this tendency. I had to set up a life that had some entertainment in it, while it was frozen or a blast furnace outside.
See: Are You Fat Because You Don't Do Enough Housework?
I don't know what you can do if your place is too small.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a hoarder-type. I've had goat trails, and trash lying around for several years, and beds or bathtubs rendered unusable for several days because of stuff piled on them. Then a few years ago something in my brain broke and I suddenly became able to throw things away. I don't know what happened.
I spent an energetic several weeks watching "Hoarders" and cleaning up. I looked up hoarding on the internet. I found that another good word besides "hoarding" is "squalor". I don't know what the connection is between hoarding and squalor--clean hoarders exist--but I am definitely the dirty, squalorous type. I liked the idea of rating how badly a place is squalored up and that it is particularly bad when rooms that serve basic house functions are unusable-- when basic objects like beds, bathtubs, toilets, refrigerators, sinks, ovens, stoves can't be used. Since being a hoarder means that I don't want to throw away stuff because I can't bear to lose it, I was really moved by the idea that hoarding ironically completely destroys the things the hoarder wanted to save. The entire time I cleaned my place, every tine I came across something ( usually a book,I love books, I have thousands) that was torn or creased from years of being stepped on and pushed around, or that was warped from being crushed at the bottom of a pile, or had been thrown up on, I would wave it in the air and yell at myself, "See? See what you did to this thing you were supposed to treasure?"
My place was never as bad as the places on "Hoarders", but I would read the snarky TelevisionWithoutPity comments where the posters would disgustedly marvel "How could anyone sink to living in such conditions" and I would think "No, I totally understood how this could happen. Like the guy on the show says, a couple of bad life decisions going the wrong way and it would be me."
Unfortunately the place shown on "Hoarders" kept on getting worse. At first it was absolutely compelling to watch such awfulness, but it just kept on going on. One day I thought, hey, "Hoarders" is coming on, why don't I watch it, it's been a while, and then I thought, well, yeah, but .... Poop, you know...., and, well, dead cats.... and I think maybe I don't want to see it. I think "Hoarders" would have been better if they mostly had milder cases where you could just jeer at the hoarders and feel smug and just occasionally threw in a couple of severe cases to shake viewers up.
I know it's harder if your place is small. Sometimes I feel my apt is basically barely usable just because there is no place for anything. Who ever designed these apts to be free of a mud room, a linen closet and a place to put a broom or dust pan must have been high on crack. The sad thing is, this was the biggest apt I could find in the entire community I could find. Maybe 830 square feet is just too small at this advanced age.
ReplyDeleteTake two people who have a piles of junk--husband with his music stuff and thousands of books and it's a mess in here. I don't want to give up my art hobbies, etc, either. I don't want to rent a storage unit and have more bills, I can't afford it. I am messy myself, as I have written on here. I never had the toilet or sink or bathtub covered by stuff, but trust me I understand. On my bed right now, is my pill case, 3 books, acouple magazines and an inhaler. Being able to throw things away is a good deal. I think the worse Hoarders go OCD and simply can't. I don't care about throwing things away either I can, but then you wonder why an apt is totally cluttered after you have filled up three trash bags and donated 10 boxes full of stuff to thrift in the last three months. You are right hoarding makes the possessions themselves more prone to destruction. I know things in here get more dusty and messed up. I am constantly frustrated from the state of the apt. I'm under pressure to keep it at a certain line because of constant apt repair/inspection people, medical at home therapists and doctors and others, but it's in bad shape here. Understand the book thing totally, we have thousands, and there's no place for them, and even then I give books away constantly and used to sell them and still am buried. I sometimes have dreamed about the happiness that would come my way in a far larger and organized place with NO NASTY CARPETING.
I am glad you never were bad as hoarders. I have clear hallways, clear sink, bathtub, etc, but stuff is piled up to the ceiling in here. There are something like 10 bookshelves in 4-5 rooms. I used to go to TWP and read the comments. There's not much mercy for Hoarders. I preferred that clean up show on BBC, from years ago where the two ladies would go clean the places up. Scary they even had less space sometimes.
I could easily become a full blown hoarder, too sick to clean anything up, I saw the instant demise when I hurt my knee one summer, if I didn't have my husband to at least keep the laundry and trash at bay, etc etc. I feel I am constantly having to clean something or pick something up, and I don't have a job-disabled, and have the time between health related stuff and rest, and it still looks bad in here. Everyday just about I wonder if I should try and get more help via the aging agency, but then they would say you have a husband, he is your caretaker but what if he has some health problems too and is busy all the time from all the freelance writing, wrapping my leg, doing the trash and errands? I do think Hoarders is going for far too much shock value, the places they have been showing are just too disgusting. I can't watch the show when I eat. Too many of the people have problems beyond OCD hoarding such as dementia, or severe mental illness or physical problems in cleaning up. The poop and dried up cat patties is way too much for my stomach a lot of the time. Germphobia and severe asthma attacks from the smallest stench probably keep this place from totally tipping over into hoarderdom. We take out trash CONSTANTLY.