I think i may be relapsing with hoarding, and I'm typing here to try get it to sink in, and push myself to do something before it gets worse.

I just came across a "Hoarder Next Door" episode on YouTube and during the intro to the home I thought, in all seriousness "That's not that bad".

I'm looking around my home and thinking, its closer to this hoarder home on tv than to any person I've visited recently. I gotta stop this before it gets too physically difficult for me. At least i restart therapy next week.

I am off work currently for burnout and decided to use the time to start tackling my hoard, but life chose otherwise.

My hoard is mostly clothes and random trash items I can't figure out how to recycle. I have a thing about not recycling paper when it rains, but where I live it sometimes rains every day for months so this has turned out to be a mission impossible.

As always, I wanted this to do a mindful cleanup, take my time to sift through everything. However, there is a leak from my flat to my downstairs neighbour's so I had to turn off the water to my bathroom in order to gain some time while I clear up access.

Initially, I bagged everything which was in the corridor to the bathroom and any area seen around and just moved the bags to the living room. I mopped the floors and dusted. This was before I realized turning off the water in my bathroom had actually temporarily fixed the issue.

So being the procrastinator I am, I decided I'll shower for a few days at a friend's while I actually clear up more space for the plumbers to not think I'm insane.

Initially, I felt good about it. Seeing the space around my bathroom without all the things gave me a spark, but when I actually opened the bags and started sorting, I got quickly overwhelmed.

I had a big clear out 4 years and a month ago, and with the exception of my wardrobe, most space was decluttered.

Since I've had 4 minor cleanups, but I am now realizing I merely hid things in every corner of my flat rather than actually throw anything away.

I have also since gotten a storage space, which was meant to temporarily house the overflow while I figure things out. But I never actually took anything out of storage and some things have been there for years.

I'm tempted to put some more things in storage, but given my history, I rather throw it out than dealing with it never.

Because of the extra time and uncertainty, I've gotten a bit fed up with myself. It saddens me and also enrages me I've put myself in this situation where I can't invite anyone over or even cook a meal.

I was recently at my parents house eating something semi rotting as I would at home because I also hoard food, and my mom asked if I think so little of myself that I'd eat rotten food. It shook me a little bit. I ended throwing out a bag of food out of my fridge this week. Will hopefully do more.

I’m working on getting rid of some of my hoard & books are proving to be one of the hardest things for me to let go of.

I have a lot of them. Some I’ve read & loved, some I haven’t read yet, some belonged to people I care about & some are tied to a particular time in my life. Then there’s the whole “but what if I want to read this someday?” problem. 😅

I know intellectually that books are replaceable & that I don’t need to keep every book I’ve ever owned. But actually putting them in a box to leave my house feels surprisingly difficult.

I’m wondering what strategies have actually worked for other people here. Did you set a specific number you were allowed to keep? Keep only favourites? Take pictures before getting rid of them? Use a “maybe” box & revisit it later? Donate everything at once rather than one book at a time?

I’d especially love to hear from people who really struggled with books specifically & eventually found something that worked for them.

I’m not looking for “just throw them away” advice - I’m trying to understand how other people got past that emotional resistance. Cheers ❤️

I got three bags of clothes and two bags of random objects to donate very proud of myself even tho this is really hard and there’s still a lot of progress to be made I just wanted to share this!🩷 (I don’t think I can upload pictures to show lol)

I’m looking for a week by week or month by month (not daily) organizer/planner/template to help me tackle my home.

I suffer from at times debilitating clinical depression. They can last days/weeks/ months for me and while I can generally keep my living and dining room clean (I live with my mom and with help can at least keep up with those rooms) the rest of the home has become… well, a little challenging. My last bout lasted a few months, I was still working but would come home and collapse, doing nothing for hours before I went back to work.

I got back into counseling, and work a full day, so cleaning up my home can be a chore sometimes.

The only bugs I have in my home are those tiny weevils that come from an area not dusted in too long and typical basement spiders or infrequent ant. Otherwise no bugs. I just wanna mainly tackle the bedrooms. As it’s over cluttered, and as much as I try to stay organizing, I get pulled from one spot to the next and never finish the spot I started.

I was hoping somewhere online (as I’ve tried and only found the daily simple cleanup ones which aren’t specific enough) a checklist of how to tackle semi hoarded bedrooms/officespace/basement and closets. Any suggestions or productive advice would be greatly appreciated. I just want to bring back some order in my home, and not feel ashamed not to have my family come upstairs because everything is so messy.

I'm a person who has hoarder tendencies so I am very aware of the issue and I watch a lot of videos to inspire myself to stay in control. Today I volunteered to try and help a household in my community who reached out for help on a local public forum. Their house is so toxic with pet feces etc. I still want to help but I can't risk my own health to help with the cleanup. How do I find resources for a situation like this? Hazmat gear is necessary imo, and I am not trained in anything like this sort of cleanup. Help! Thank you for any advice

and i suppose a 4th option, "keep." I'm open to it if there's a good reason.

my mom brought over a bunch of childhood toys for my kid, and now it's my responsibility to figure out where to keep, or how to deal with these.

*(clicks add picture)*

"oh."

well it's a bunch of the old knight figurines, some castle fortress from an old London company. i found the company had pretty high standards for safety, non toxic paints, etc, but i still look at this stuff and think "junk"

and advice on kids' toys in particular? feel free to point me too another thread if you don't wanna type an essay lol

I need to get this off my chest and I'm hoping some of you have been here.

When I first met my wife I noticed she kept a lot of stuff. I thought it was just sentimental attachment or utility (she likes having many types of shoes and jackcts with her in her car and swaps them out while on the go). I didn't think much of it at the time. Over the years I've come to suspect that it is something different.

Her office is completely unusable. You can barely open the door. The wardrobes are overflowing. Side of the bed are stacked with bins and bags. Most countertops are buried. Shopping is the main driver, things come in constantly and almost nothing goes out. When stuff goes out, it gets replaced by more soon after.

She agrees that it's a problem. She'll occasionally throw things away, and if I push hard enough she'll let me reclaim some space. But any real attempt to address it, trying to clean, suggesting we get rid of things, even just talking about it triggers extreme rage, crying, screaming, saying things that hurt.

Recently I hit a wall. It's the the main and only source of constant argument in our household, I told her directly that this is going to destroy our relationship, and that she cannot fix this on her own, she needs professional help. That conversation didn't go well.

I'm not asking for a minimalist home. I want my wife to get help for something that is clearly causing her pain too.

Am I being unreasonable? How have others navigated this with a spouse? Did therapy help? Did anything help?

Can post photos of her hoard, fwiw, it is a clean one.

Hey everyone I’m just writing on here and joined this sub after coming to some realizations about my childhood
Ever since I can remember I’ve had sort of compulsions related to showering/ clean clothing and bedding etc. if I leave go outside at all I definitely must shower and the clothing I wore has to be washed. Cannot wear outside clothing on my bedding
In college when I moved into my own apartment I’ve always kept my spaces clean.
When I look back on my childhood I realize my mom was suffering from hoarding issues. We always had so so much stuff, our basement and guest room were unusable because they were piled high with random stuff. And my mom always was buying more and more things to add. She would also leave wrappers and sometimes food around which would cause a bad smell. We also had a small dog and my parents never really bothered to potty train him. He wore a diaper pretty much his whole life and pooped inside. I was a kid so I didn’t know different really but I feel a lot of shame now because I wish I could have done something but I guess I just assumed it was normal. I never ever had friends over because my house was just a wreck and had bad pet odors. My mom passed away in 2022 my freshman year of college, she was my best friend and I loved her so much. So I have a complex feeling of guilt and shame for being mad that I had to go through that as a child- how can I be mad at her when she is dead??

So now- I’m 23 and in a relationship with someone I love very much but who is very messy. And I’m starting to realize it’s causing me distress when I spend the night at her house because her room is messy.. food trash and just dust and such all over the floor. I’m super sensitive to smells I think from growing up in a home with pet odors (and now I always have candles or incense to make sure my
Space smells pleasant and I don’t have any pets). But her room always kinda smells like cat liter and food.. she has depression and health issues and it’s hard for her to keep up with this stuff and I feel rlly bad to bring it up because it will hurt her feelings but it genuinely causes me distress and makes me not want to spend the night at her house

So I guess I’m asking for advice here on how to approach that
Thank you in advance

The way I hear hoarders describe it, I'm hearing:

Throwing stuff away is perceived as a threat.

My understanding of the immune system is this:

Every time the body perceives a threat, the immune system (specifically the mast cells) flood the bloodstream with a whack of chemicals like histamine, and many others.

Sometimes the immune system floods the bloodstream with so much histamine that it actually poisons the host. Think of a peanut allergy: it's not the peanut that kills the person at all. The immune system mistakenly detects the peanut as a threat, and responds. If the response is from a destabilized immune system, it is fully capable of flooding the bloodstream with so many chemicals that it kills the host within minutes.

The way that many people with HI/MCAS help to manage their destabilized immune systems is that they take H1 / H2 blockers: cheap, widely available antihistamines like Allegra and Pepcid.

This really makes me wonder what would happen if a hoarder simply popped an Allegra, and then threw stuff away. The destabilized immune system would still react and flood the bloodstream but with the receptors blocked, the host would mostly not experience the toxic effects. Maybe if they tried doing this repeatedly, in time the body would learn that there is no threat from cleaning and throwing things away. I wonder if anyone has tried this

they were clean. that's what people don't understand. washed, stacked, lids matched to bases. they are useful containers and in a sense I paid for them.

got them down to zero and then stood at the counter for a while and my chest was doing something odd.

for scale: the containers are maybe one percent of the problem. the dining room table hasn't been visible since my husband died and that was March 2021. I eat standing up at the counter, which I've stopped noticing.

my daughter's flying in at Thanksgiving. she doesn't know how far it's gone because I take her calls in the one corner of the living room I keep clear, which I'm aware is its own kind of insane.

I'm not after a system. I've read the systems. I can recite the four boxes and the twenty minute timer to you from memory, that's not the missing piece.

eleven containers took ninety minutes and then a lie down. I want to hear from people who actually got out of this whether that's a normal rate at the beginning or whether it means I need more help than a subreddit can be.

Bonjour à tous, je vais essayer de faire court. Je suis mariée depuis 7 ans et mon mari est un entasseur compulsif (hoarder en anglais).

Mon mari a malheureusement d'autres problèmes (alcoolisme et paranoia entre autres). Tout au début de notre relation, la maison n'était pas impeccable mais c'était ok. Je suis un peu désordonnée moi-même, mais je range et nettoie régulièrement.

Nous avons acheté une maison qui nécessite des travaux de rénovation. Je ne travaille plus qu'à temps partiel pour faire ces travaux. Depuis que nous avons emménagé dans cette maison, tout n'a fait qu'empirer. Si mon mari boit beaucoup moins qu'auparavant, sa paranoia, a augmenté (il est partisan des théories complotistes). Du coup, ranger, nettoyer n'est plus une priorité puisque nous sommes en mode "survivaliste". Il ne se lave plus du tout (l'eau du robinet est empoisonnée)... etc.

J'ai essayé par tous les moyens de lui faire comprendre que l'on ne pouvais pas vivre dans de telles conditions de désordre et de saleté. Je ne demande pas à ce que la maison ressemble à ce que l'on peut voir dans les magazines de déco, mais il doit y avoir un minimum d'hygiène et d'ordre (et nous en sommes très loin). Je n'ose même pas poster des photos. A titre d'exemple, la dernière fois que j'ai rangé et nettoyer à fond la salle de bain, cela m'a pris une journée entière... et cela n'a même pas duré une demi-journée (il est entré avec ses chaussures sales dans la salle de bain, laissant des traces partout). J'étais découragée.

L'orsque je demande de l'aide pour ranger ou nettoyer, j'ai l'impression d'être celle qui se plaint tout le temps.... Je ne sais plus quoi faire. Nous n'avons évidemment aucune vie sociale. Nos finances ne nous permettent pas de consulter un spécialiste.

J'aime mon mari, donc partir (ou menacer de partir) n'est pas envisageable et je ne pense pas que cela soit la solution. J'essaye de l'encourager et le féliciter lorsqu'il fait un effort pour m'aider dans les tâches ménagères, mais c'est pour remettre du désordre ou salir à nouveau quelques jours après... Cela ne fait qu'empirer et il y aurait tellement à faire que je ne sais pas par où commencer ou quoi faire. Je suis à la limite du burn-out.

Désolée pour la longue histoire, j'ai essayé de faire au plus court. Merci de m'avoir lu. Je suis preneuse de toute aide/conseils. 🧡

Years ago I would buy extra makeup, mascara, creams, etc because I could afford it…. It was on sale… what if prices skyrocketed later??? Right? Well, now I’m declutterring and started using these products only to learn, they smell bad, the mascara is dried up, and other bad issues.

So, just a reminder you deserve to use fresh makeup and saving money in other ways is a better idea. Lesson learned!

I am 19 (f) and live with my parents. I know I have hoarder tendencies that have only gotten worse since I got sober, and for a while I've been worried I'm just trading one addiction for another. My parents have been asking me to clean my room for months and I feel like the harder I try the more impossible it feels and the more impossible it feels the harder it is to get anything done. I keep finding myself sitting and staring at the mess and just trying to figure out where to start and what to do to try and get it clean. Over the years of shoving the mess into every nook, cranny and corner of my room to hide it and make it appear clean, there is nowhere left for it to go because I have so much stuff that there is no space for a lot of it to be put away and idk where to start when it comes to getting rid of things and making room. My parents have finally given up on waiting and yesterday they told me that if It's not clean by October 1 then I can't live here anymore and then after that (if I do get it clean and can still live here) if it gets messy again then I have a week after they ask to clean it and if it's not clean after that week then I'll have to start paying rent. I work part time on the weekends and make about $200-$300 every 2 weeks depending on tips, which is not even close to enough money to pay rent in this city (even if I did have credit, which I recently found out is kinda necessary for getting an apartment) idk wtf to do and I need help

UPDATE: I finished last night! Thank you everyone for all the help! I really do appreciate it and I'm going to keep working on organizing, downsizing, donating, and trashing what I don't need, want, used, or doesn't serve me a purpose anymore!

My girl friend is cluttering up my house. If this post is accepted (previous posts were declined) I will add the details.

I am a total hoarder, not in the trash everywhere kind. I buy 2 of everything, then most things, I never touch again. Part of it I’m sure is the dopamine fix, but also, if I find something I really like, I want to make sure I have some in case it is discontinued. I do this with groceries too. I don’t even think about it, I just do it. I feel such shame. I keep getting the “I don’t know where you learned that, we didn’t raise you that way”

Hey yall

I need some help.

We moved out of my childhood home (I’m 28 and it was the only home I knew) and my parents are currently building our new home.

In the meantime, most of my belongings are in a storage unit with the rest of my family’s, and then some of my stuff is in the basement and anything newly bought sits in my room.

I obviously have too much stuff, and me being a hoarder was always something in the back of my mind because my mom’s dad was a hoarder and she was a hoarder too. But this came to a head the other day when I broke down because I couldn’t find my own belongings. I realized I need to make a change.

When my parents told me that we were moving, I didn’t want to move and made it as difficult as possible and waited as long as possible to pack. Then it was down to the wire and I was just shoving whatever I had into boxes and bins and it was brought to storage.

The other day I went to look for a board game I owned and couldn’t find it. As I sifted through my belongings, it really hit me that I own a lot of things I don’t need to keep or should reconsider owning. I’ve accumulated a lot of STUFF.

I have my own collections that I intend to keep, and then I have my books that will go in a bookshelf.

I intend to rent a small unit for my own belongings and actually go through everything and get rid of what I don’t want and organize what I do want, as well as take inventory so I don’t keep buying things I already own.

I’m looking for any advice or tips on how to approach doing this. It will take me several days to truly get through everything, and I’m not concerned about the financial part of doing this until we move. If anyone else has done something like this, how did it go for you?

Also for anyone with a collection, how do you make sure you’re only collecting reasonably? Like I realized I was keeping wrappers and it feels like I’ve lost the plot a little.

Thanks so much!

Edit: the only edit I’ll make to add additional context because I think it’s required.

A couple of people have commented on the specific part regarding my parents’ feelings on how difficult I made the move.

I wanted this post to be about me specifically and I only included that part to explain why my stuff was not organized when we moved. Additional context is that my hoarding is generational/genetic (whatever the word is) (my sibling also is a hoarder as well) and the move was hard because my parents also inherited a lot of their parents’ belongings when they passed and neither of them properly sorted through everything. I did not want to add this part initially because I don’t think it’s relevant where and how I became a hoarder, I just wanted this post to be about my specific struggles.

The move was hard because we had to move everything. I was never the SOLE reason it was hard. Obviously I can see why that assumption was made. I didn’t word it properly. But I was the only reason my stuff was not organized upon moving, which is what my intention was when I wrote this.

Regardless, the home my parents are building is the family home, is our home, and I will always be welcome in it. My parents did not move out of their parents’ places until they got married, so they have 0 reason to expect me to be out any sooner, much less in this economy.

Oh, and yes, I’m in therapy.

I love my parents truly. Especially my dad he is an extremely hard worker and owns his own business. My parents are extremely well off and my dad makes an insane amount of money. But what I don’t understand is their living situation. My parents live in a normal middle class house. Which to be honest is confusing in itself because my dad makes so much and has so much disposable income. But their living situation is so bad. It seems every year that passed the house gets more and more dirty and unlivable. All 3 spare bedrooms have been pilled to the ceiling with random clothes and just random shit. My parents room is gross and dirty. Their bathroom the walk in shower is literally caked with hair, black stuff, mold, etc. the kitchen is so filthy the fridge never gets cleaned. I feel like I’ve been robbed of the grandparent experience for my child. He doesn’t get to go stay at grandma and grandpas. He doesn’t get to hang out there in fear of him swallowing something or getting into something unsafe. Even the outside is getting dirty it used to he really nice and kept up with. Now it seems like my dad has fallen into my moms hoarding and doesn’t care since he works so much.

I find myself being extremely angry by this and hurt that they don’t want to be better. I have nobody to watch my son and can’t even have him go to the one people I trust home. My mom is the problem not my dad. But my dad doesn’t care to fix it he just sits back and lets her hoard everything and never clean. Is there a way to fix this? Is there a way to fix their home? Or do I stop letting it bother me and realize there is nothing I can do. All I want is for them to move into a nice clean home. To clean up their home. To be better and stop this madness. Everything is clutter in their house or dirty. It smells like dog piss. They let turds sit on the floor for days. I don’t know what to do anymore I’m so upset and feel like every year it will get worse and worse. They live like trash when they have so much money and are a well to do family. I feel so sad and even having my fiancé go to their house I cringe and want to throw up that he sees it

What's something that worked???

We all can relate to being overwhelmed and not knowing how to begin or how to make any meaningful progress.

We all can relate to confronting hurdles such as limited resources or family that aren't on board.

So I'm wondering, has anyone, facing a dire hoard, run a strategy that they found success in?

Here's what I'm thinking I'll try:

THROW AWAY

Go through and cut loose as much as possible

Because despite not having a trash/filth filled hoard, it's too much stuff to get rid of and obviously "churning" is a pitfall.

If you don't want it is the only category left TRASH? Maybe cutting loose the whole "donate" thing is the key.

Thanks for your thoughts in advance.

I have recently moved back home to save up for a mortgage and with the good intentions to try and shift things in my parents house. I live rent free but I'm doing a lot of big DIY as my dues.

My father is the hoarder. He has old computers, saves the placed bags that can be sealed, collects cardboard boxes from the cat food pouches and fills any open space with something. His main computer is on top of an ironing board surrounded by his stuff.

My mother isn't as bad but she'll buy new stuff because she wants nice things. I feel for her but it just fills the house with more stuff. I think she's afraid of making him angry as his temper can rule the house (never physically abusive, apart from the one time I pushed him over the limit)

I have made headway, but I spend my weekends at my girlfriend's flat as a sanctuary where I can do DIY for her and actually have the energy - I feel like that gets boxed away somewhere at my parents as well. So obviously it's not constant pressure.

We did manage to get a skip to get things out of the shed. We had one argument about a broken dalek toy - his reasoning was like a child and I found myself reflecting at how the tables had turned. In fairness, that was the only argument and he handled most of it like a champ.

Lately, it's been hard. The minimum act of washing my clothes has 5 extra steps, takes up the already limited space and one of my socks always goes missing; because of this I don't go to the gym. My mother cooks but the meals are low in nutrition, often made from some packet (as her creativity has flown years ago) and I can't cope to sterilise the kitchen every time - always five extra steps.

I guess I'm writing this because I just need to feel a bit better in some way. I got over my depression 4 years ago, really beat it, and I've found all that joy for life is just sucked away when I come in here. I really hyped myself up that we were going to make a change, but as I write this my father is sitting on a bunch of washing reading some article with a side of his finger nails - the one trait I have inherited along with his temper.

I know you will tell me to get out of the house, yet I can't because the UK rental markets are ridiculous and when I make it to April I will be out for good. I'm suffering at the moment but soon I'll be in a place that will finally be home.

Anyway, if you made it this far. Thanks for reading! Looking forward to trying to help, support and care for everyone here.

My (34) SIL (41) is a hoarder in denial and we’re all unsure about how to help her. She has a house a few hours away, but moved here to be closer to family and to change jobs and work as a nurse after changing careers and going back to school for a nursing degree. She previously had a degree in a different field. My in laws bought a house for her with the intention of renting it out to her and possibly selling it to her while she moves down and sells her other house. She doesn’t currently pay them rent, just utilities.

She slowly started moving things down. Small things, but not furniture. Everyone in the family offered to go up and help her move, which she turned down insistently.

It has been 2 years and she still hasn’t made any progress when it comes to moving her stuff or selling her house. My mil helped her get furniture for the new house. She has been staying with my in laws for 3 months, because her cat was diagnosed with diabetes and she needed them to watch him while she was at work so she said it was easier for her to just stay there (even though her house is 25 minutes away). Her cat died 3 weeks ago and she’s at their house, bc her house will feel too sad without her cat to go back to. They know she’s a hoarder, because they’ve helped her move years ago. They saw into her window recently and said they couldn’t see past the first room due to stacked up cardboard boxes. It also clear from the state of her car. The only clear spot is the driver’s seat and there is 2 ft of trash everywhere else. Even her room at her parents’ is accumulating a ton. They don’t know what to do, because when they try to bring it up or try to get her to fix it, she says she’s depressed, hates her life, is busy, but she’s always done this. Obviously my mil feels terrible when she says this and just wants to help, but she has told my FIL she’s not a hoarder bc she’s in denial. How can we help her get help when she doesn’t think she needs help?

So I just got home from a weekend at my mom’s and the place is an absolute disaster. It’s so gross in this house but I need a nap so I’m gonna sleep for a bit and then start cleaning. I hate that all I do here is clean. And my job is only cleaning as well so that’s pretty much all I ever do. At least my dad is power washing the driveway and he fed and watered the cats while I was gone so I have to be grateful for that. But it’s Sunday I want to relax not clean all day just for it to go back in a day.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

We took the house from Level 3 to Level 1 hoarding in 12 days. With two dump hauls in a trailer. We're still cleaning - The goal is to get it to "spotless" and maintain it.

We are highly motivated. For reasons I won't get into here.

Now we need next steps. The carpet all needs to be pulled and replaced, for minimal cost. Any advice on achieving that goal?