@rnmom wrote:
@just bee - I still like watching Hoarders and wish they had some new episodes. If nothing else, it usually motivates me to get up and clean or organize.
Hubby doesn't like watching it at all because his mom is a hoarder and he grew up in a mess and they still live in a mess.
It's not as bad as most of the ones on TV, the majority of the house if functional, you can use the bathroom, cook in the kitchen, etc. But they don't have a kitchen table to sit and eat at, just a counter, or if that if full, just your lap in the living room. They do have whole rooms that they can't/don't use because they're full. That sort of thing. So I can see why it turns him off.
Needless to say, I very rarely go over there and if we do, we only drop in, we never stay more than a few minutes. Hubby and the kids are there more hunting, gardening, etc.
@rnmom
My mother didn't want to marry my stepfather because he had shared his little California bungalow with his mother who was a collector. They both had considerable collections.
We convinced her to go through with the marriage and move into the house. She hated that house.
When my stepfather died, on her birthday, in my final year of college, she planned to give my sister the down payment on a house until she saw the house.
As soon as she walked into it the realtor knew she had fallen in love.
Why don't you buy it for yourself?
She was almost 60 and had never bought a house. There were so many reasons not to buy this particular house, but love is blind. She bought it.
Lucky for her, she had my favorite sister (the one who died in 2003) and me to help her turn it around. We painted inside and out, cleared the yard of weeds, planted trees and shrubs, and shopped for furniture and art. She finally had her dream home.
It was beautiful inside. She had picked out some wonderful Queen Anne pieces and incorporated some of the antiques from the other house.
Over time, however, things started getting weird. I realize now that the dementia was starting around the time her hoarding started. At first it was too many items of clothing and too much furniture. Then she started watching QVC and was buying jewelry and dolls. The woman never wore jewelry in her life and suddenly she had the fantasy-cut rings in every color.
Books and magazines. We lined the upstairs hallway with book shelves and turned one room into a library and still had more books and magazines stacked on tables and floors.
But then she started saving plastic lids and rubber bands and junk mail and store ads. She couldn't part with cans of food that were starting to bulge. Jars of preserves that were starting to grow fur.
We sent her off to visit relatives back East and we removed a lot of the clutter. She was not happy when she returned and discovered her fuzzy preserves had been tossed.
I can't watch the show. Some of my patients are hoarders and I feel for them. I totally understand assigning value to things and not being able to part with them.
~My philosophy: Dogs are God's most perfect creatures. Angels, here on Earth, who teach us to be better human beings.~
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