Thank You!!! Am currently printing out to use as evidence that spouse is on the slippery slope...

I honestly look at thing differently since I've seen a couple episodes of that show Hoarders. I no longer have that pile of magazines I keep meaning to read. I've been cleaning out the closets one by one. I'm down to one junky room, my spare bedroom, and I'll have that one done in a couple of Saturdays. I am much happier for having done this. Junk weighs you down mentally, I swear.

great post. i think more people are on the brink than are aware.

Here's a thing that drives me crazy: Telephone books.

They used to drop them in a great pile in the building lobby - I didn't want them so I could simply not bring them upstairs and eventually the pile goes away for recycling...

So what do they do this week? They delivered them outside the doors of each apartment!

I have sympathy for hoarders, as it often seems to stem from the best of intentions (not wanting to waste perfectly good items) taken to the extreme. That said, I've never agreed with the mantra "if you haven't worn it in a year you should get rid of it." IMO, that's wasteful consumerism - because most people don't just get rid of old clothes; they get rid of them and then replace them with new clothes.

First off, I think it's really important to make a distinction between the kind of hoarding behavior that is actually a symptom of mental illness, and being a plain old pack rat.

I grew up in a house filled with clutter, old electronics, old sports equipment, old everything that my parents couldn't bear to throw away. It was pretty hard for them when they were first married, and they still can't bear to let anything "go to waste." I've been trying to make them realize that keeping all this stuff packed away in the basement for decades IS letting it go to waste!

Moving 9 times in the past 3.5 years definitely motivated me to cut down on material possessions! It's great to let go of the guilt associated with the stuff I'm not using or clothes I'm not wearing, and I can enjoy the things I keep even more.

great post!

I have telephone books delivered to my door as well. It went straight to the recycle bin.

Ever since I watched some episodes on hoarders and even just looked at couple of pictures, I began to be much more conscious about what I hold on to. Whenever I wanted to hold on to somethings that I don't use but hoping that I might one day use again, I just thought of those pictures from hoaders' houses, and I would get much more eager to get rid of the stuff.

It's so much better to live in a clutter free house.

i always take issue with the clothes one. my weight has fluctuated over the years, and it really helps to have clothing that fits me at all my different stages. also, i've held onto great pieces that just didn't fit my work wardrobe or current personal style, only to happily return to them years later.

I didn't think my husband and I were pack rats, but we went through our entryway closets last night for a coat drive, and we found at least 10 coats that we don't wear. Ten coats! Between two people!

At least they're going to a good cause. And, we don't plan to replace them with new ones. We each kept the two or three coats that we actually wear, and that's plenty.

Two of those three are when you are pretty much at hoarder stage. (I am a clothes horse, so I of course consider that at the mild end of the spectrum.) I find it interesting to consider when hoarding begins--paper usually being the culprit in my opinion. That has made me vigilant about bills and magazines.
Watching Clean House and similar shows, as well as from personal experience with family members, there is often an incident of some sort that is the catalyst (a death, a divorce). That was a good lesson for me to have compassion--it is hard when it is so frustrating!

I'm a little confused about storage.
I don't have enough storage in my closet for my clothes so some of it is stored in my storage cubes. I don't have any room in the bathroom for linens etc so they are stored in my closet (yes I could switch this but it makes more sense that the now use stuff is at hand in the closet instead of tucked into cubes).

But then I don't have an issue because I've filled up all the possible space in the garage since I don't have one. This really only makes sense for people with nice big houses.

And yes you can totally be a hoarder in an efficiency, my ex was one. It was scary.

I had to snicker at item #7 Your daily life is impacted - ...you can't sleep comfortably because the bed is covered in clothes that have nowhere to go you may need to take a step back and get help.

I moved from a house with built in everything in the bedrooms to a home with 2 tiny closets, my hubs and I don't own any dressers and all our clothes are in piles on the bed awaiting for that ebay/craigslist perfect find! each night we unload the bed onto the floor only to repeat the action in reverse in the morning.

i do keep clothes that i haven't worn in a year because without fail i go back to them. other than that, having moved 7 times in the last 5 years, i have become an expert at minimalism and getting rid of stuff. the feeling is almost addictive.

some of my family, having lived through world war II or the years immediately following, have a very hard time getting rid of stuff. my mother-in-law is one of the worst. the one way we have been able to pry things from her grasp is by explaining they'll go to someone less fortunate - shelters etc.

my biggest challenge lately, especially in light of reading all these design blogs, is learning to embrace the things i have instead of constantly wanting to upgrade to a newer, better, more stylish item. i'm getting there.

@annacorriep me too! I just recently got back into pants that hadn't fit in a year and it was a great feeling.

undercover - I'm right there w/you. I grew up in a house just like that (include umpteen unfinished home improvement projects to boot) - so, it drives me crazy to have clutter in my house. My husband's a "piler" and a "sentimental pack rat", so every free corner of the house (or flat surface) has a pile or is jammed w/something his family passed on to him. I'm going insane. He's getting better, though because he sees how freeing a clutter-free room can be. His quote? "Wow - this room is really nice once it's cleaned up!" (no kidding, hon)

Um, sorry, not a great post. Hoarding is mental illness (and so often a warning sign of additional mental illnesses), while being messy, lazy or a collector/pack rat is a different story. Anyone who has dealt with a bonafide hoarder in their family (as I have) can tell you that. Having broken computers in your closet, old phone books in your drawer and a pile of paper on your kitchen table makes you human. Breaking into a sweaty, nervous screaming maniac when someone tries to throw out a perfectly good yogurt container makes you a hoarder.

I love me some clothes and shoes so I try to be diligent in going through my closet at least every six months.

A recommendation I have - if you are iffy about donating/selling certain clothes - put them in a bag and see what you take out of that bag in the next six months - inevitably I don't use any of these items and I donate them to charity.

I also say sell items! I got rid of some nice shoes I never/hardly wore on ebay and made some cash.

I am a ruthless purger. Especially of clothes. When we were teenagers my mother would buy my sisters and me clothes and then get mad and chastise us for not wearing every.single.thing that she bought us (as if no one has ever bought something and then come home and changed their mind). She made such a stink that it was such a relief to become an adult and be in command of my own clothes. If I didn't like a shirt anymore, I could just get rid of it! No guilt! My sister is the opposite. She keeps clothes way too long because she is still afraid our mother will come over and say "where is that sweater I bought you?!" :)

I will say that sometimes I miss clothes I have given away. Just the other day it was a pair of boots I had 10 years ago. But then I realize that I am just missing the time in my life when I was wearing them not the actual boots.

For the telephone book problem, try this:

Take two telephone books.
Interlace them page by page.
Hand them to someone and ask them to tear them apart.
Watch the fun! (esp if they've had one or two)

(On Mythbusters it took 2 sherman tanks to get enough force to tear them apart!)

moving is the best method for a big purge. whether you *really*need it or not. i'm definitely not a hoarder, if anything i get rid of TOO much, but its just the best way to take stock of what you have if you are forced to pack it up and think about carrying it down 3 flights and back up another 1 steep flight... not to mention packing it into the car.

I agree with a few above posters: true hoarding is a mental illness. That takes a professional. Pack rat behavior is the sort of thing nonprofessionals can intervene on.

I was able to go into my parents' basement and clean out their canning for them when they were moving, and my mother accepted the limit we agreed on of 1 dozen jars of each size. She's a pack rat. A true hoarder would have freaked out and disowned me when she discovered that I drove away with a pickup truck full of other jars, straight to the recycle section of the dump. My packrat mother never missed her jars that are gone. A true hoarder would.

I would say in a way that many, if not most, of people living the American lifestyle are consuming too much. It's sort of an addiction; buying the newest items, keeping up with the Joneses, living beyond our means via credit cards, etc... So I think that yes, it's quite possible we're all bordering on mental illness in a way. It's an illness of almost our whole society, just like most of us are now fat, so we don't even notice the less extreme examples (just like a size 2 at Banana Republic would have been a large/extra large in the 50's). For me, the idea that when all of your living areas become "storage", that means you are already a hoarder. I also think it's interesting that some hoarders are the types who grew up without enough, or those who try to be "green". I try not to accumulate, and it is rare that I need something after I've gotten rid of. We can also remind ourselves that if we really do need something, it's likely we can get it at the nearest Goodwill in a pinch!

Lizliterarius, You have too much time on your hands. ;)

I have a problem with shoes. I'll buy them, save them, then wear maybe 4 pair on a regular basis. Last time I moved, I had close to 300 pair. I've reduced this to 150. HEY! That's half! I try not to buy something (clothing wise) without getting rid of something else, but I have to confess; I'm worried I'm going to wish I hadn't. I'm getting better at it though!

I probably wouldn't cry if someone threw something of mine away. I might whimper, but I'll get over it. It's just stuff. I guess when you look at it from this perspective: If there was a fire, what would you save? Your "stuff" or your family and animals? :)

I agree with the comment about hoarding and mental illness. I have had two of those in my family. You can't interfere. It's just too important to their mental health to be surrounded by stuff. They both died with paths through their homes.

I'm the opposite. I just moved, and left over half my stuff. I have half empty closets, and I LOVE it.

I'm a reformed hoarder. As a child I kept magazines. Just in case I ever needed to know some obsolete fact (we didn't have the net). Then, one day I threw them all out. And it was a big relief.
Though now I am starting to keep hold of craft related items for craft projects. Is this a sign I'm relapsing?

I'd say keeping items for craft projects is not a sign of a relapse...as long as you intend to eventually use them.

I have mixed feelings about this post. While I try not to hold on to (or buy) things I don't need, every time I move, it's a different space and design challenge. I feel it's much better to store and reuse or remake things I already have instead of continuously throwing out and buying new.

That said, I probably do keep too much. But I recently cut up all my old wool sweaters and make a quit, made a floor pillow out old plaid skirts and cafe curtains from table linens that had been sitting a drawer for 2 years. So my living room gets a new look and it didn't cost a dime.

I think if there's utility in an item, it's sometimes worth hanging on to.

Just a thought about hoarding.
In my building, I know one or two ederly people have this problem (I have seen their apartment).
In these cases, it seems to be the lack of energy to clean up, and/or the inability to pay for regular domestic help.

Hoarders have mental issues oftern triggered by a stressful or sad event in their lives.

Terry in Silver Spring - I agree that clutter can weigh us down mentally. Read an article to that effect last year & even though I've never had huge amounts of "stuff" to clean up, I did have piles all over the house (usually papers, articles and half-finished projects) & it was driving me nuts. Purged & organized & now love coming home (& feel much happier). The mess is now confined to my home office & it's very organized.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-clutter-affects-you.html#

I do think the World War II generation had a thing for "stocking up." My grandparents grew up during that time and must have passed it on because my mom was famous for stocking up, especially on food. The house was very clean, but we couldn't open up a kitchen cabinet without it being full to the max, with multiples of everything, especially cake mix. When she died, we threw away at least 12 boxes of expired mix. Her brother is the same way - when he & his wife divorced, they divided "custody" of their Jello stash - and each took over 100 boxes of Jello!

There is a little hoarder in all of us-
Really! Ever said the words, "I can (will, should, could want to, etc) use this someday...."
Scary.....

@robyn & haunted_studio - Thanks for making the distinction.

Hoarding, unlike being a pack rat or simply stocking up, is a mental illness similar too ocd and substance abuse. Hoarders are usually triggered by a trauma and then begin to hold on to everything for comfort. Hoarders also have a tendency to be Agoraphobics.

Years ago, I helped a good friend clean out his mother's apartment and you can't even begin to imagine the way in which she lived: Newspapers piled to the ceiling going back 10 years, broken windows never repaired (which resulted in mold on the walls due to the elements), rooms packed to the ceiling and door with unopened packaged clothes from HSN, computers sealed in their boxes, and who knows what else.

Then there was the dust and the nests of roaches in the wallpaper...and she lived amongst all that! It was shocking.

Hoarding also isn't limited to things purchased: A friend recently had a tenant who hoarded stray cats.

@darcitananda : Uh just FYI, BR size 2 has NEVER been a women's large or extra large, let alone in the 1950's. A large or extra large was a 10/12. I should know, I used to hoard - I mean COLLECT- 1950's clothing!

Yikes - I've been researching hoarding for a few years now, due to my father's out of control home. Seems everyone is doing a piece on it lately!

Both parents are full scale hoarders (although my mother is trying to do something about it). My father's house is worse than any of the episodes I've seen on the TV show... and he refuses help and also refuses to admit that it is "that bad." :(

I'm the first one in my family not to have a junk room (or rooms) and not be embarrassed or make excuses about the condition of my home. I have clutter still, but every room is usable and closets not jammed-packed.

It really does help to look at the junk and ask myself what on earth I was going to do with it. Especially the out of style clothes or the knickknacks received as gifts I'd kept so as to not hurt feelings.

Also, I can attest to the hoarding being an OCD. It runs in my family and my father's was triggered by growing up in the depression and being dirt poor. He collects food, clothing and other "useful" items... and it got MUCH worse once both of his children moved away and he had the house to himself.

I have tried to argue the "it's not useful or saving money" idea if he never uses it, or in the case of food, rotting away in a pile in his kitchen. He still has some slippery way of justifying it, and then gets mad if I continue.

Think about it, if you get rid of your old stuff you don't need, and a lot of the new things you aquire are vintage (fancy word for second hand), you're not only being Thrifty but also green.

I'm a crafter who always keeps an eye out for things, but also needs to watch what she's going to re-use. Freecycle is a great help to keep the clutter moving

I loved #8 - you can't vacuum because you can't see the floor. LOL That should be a wake up call!

When my ex moved out I threw away 7 bags of garbage. Old magazines and catalogs mainly. He "needed" them. He didn't need them once he was gone, so he was not a classic hoarder. Some people just don't see the mess and could use the wake up call.