So this is kinda of a follow up from one of my older posts, but you can say im a child of a hoarding family but some of its my fault aswell. My mother believes we dont need an external help and that i can do it by myself as if its my problem, which bugs me and demotivated me knowing how lazy and annoying m family is.
Im here to ask what should i do, i would move out but i cant. I want to know the math behind how much clutter one person can get rid by themselfs, and how much time it would take. its not like the stuff you see on tv and theirs no rotting food but still. I also would like to know how to get motivated and stay motivated?
What would you advise i do?
From my experience once you start doing it she will insist obvious garbage should not be thrown away.
My mother believes we dont need an external help and that i can do it by myself as if its my problem
If you throw something out, what happens? Does your mom complain? Does she fill the space with something else?
Also, what kind of stuff is it? Specifically, how close to garbage is it?
Do not look at the mess and think about how much work it will take to clear it all out, that’s just going to overwhelm you and make you frustrated, so focus on your living space, wherever you sleep. Do some massive cleanout of your immediate area. Then the kitchen and bathroom(s) that you use specifically. Focus on yourself first.
As they say, always put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone with theirs.
That’s it, just focus on having a clean room and hygienic bathroom and food-prep areas. You will face constant setbacks and every time you clear a countertop, there will be a new sack of clutter and bullshit placed there the next day. Learn to manage your frustrations and keep to the plan while you work on getting your own life together enough that you can move out and get therapy. You will need therapy.
If having a couple small clean areas inspires your family to do more, great. Just don’t expect it. Hoarding is a mental health problem that needs serious treatment and some level of self-awareness by the hoarder that they have a problem, so don’t expect to fix it, just try to carve yourself a path out.
There’s a YouTube channel Midwest Magic Cleaning that does cleanups for hoarder houses, and generally has a lot of information about hoarding disorder.
Forcing a cleanup without the permission from the hoarder(s) can actually cause the hoarding to get worse, as it spikes the anxiety and lack of a feeling of control from the hoarder. And their response is typically, more hoarding
This is a tricky situation, and typically you need therapy to address the underlying mental illness before cleanup can take place
Yeah as someone who hoarded at a worse stage of her life and struggles with it still, the piles felt like safety and security, but they also felt overwhelming and unassailable. You have to deal with the mental health issues and nonjudgementally get the person to be ok with the cleaning bit by bit. To this day big cleans are mentally and emotionally exhausting for me, it’s just that I find messes to be also extremely stressful.
I used to clean out houses and came across hording situations quite a bit. Depending on the type of clutter it can be done yourself. I did it with a partner but the way we would divide work and figure out how much volume we would be removing from the house would be like this.
-how many bags? -how many pieces of furniture that can’t be broken down? -how many trucks?
Bagging up trash takes the longest but will make the most difference so you can remove any furniture that comes after as well as being able to actually see the space you are in.
For furniture, you’d be surprised how easy it is to break furniture once you decide to get rid of it. This will help with motivation to continue the process with seeing the new space you have acquired as well as not injuring yourself since you mentioned you won’t have help.
Now overall volume is dependent on what you have available to transport waste. Depending on your local laws you may be able to take a rental box truck to a landfill and do a large removal all in one go. Otherwise look into recycling and dumps in your area, preferably a concrete tipping floor or large residential dumpster if you are using a non commercial vehicle.
Hope this helps and if you want specific advice feel free to dm, no judgement from me. I’ve helped a lot of people get a fresh start from hording. Best of luck
If possible, work with a therapist for this kind of support.
You can rent a roll off dumpster from your local waste management company, and remove a lot in a matter of days. But if you are living with a hoarder, then the mess will just accumulate to fill the space you clear out in a couple months.
This is not a logistical problem, but a behavioral one.
Inherited a 3 bedroom house from my mom and it was full (overfull) of her stuff. My house had 4 full bedrooms. Both had full garages. Like you, it’s just stuff- not trash , though some was old mail and magazines.
I have big trash pickup every Wednesday. I usually put things on the curb on Saturday and Sunday and much of it is gone before the trash people come. I like knowing that it’s going to someone instead of a landfill.
Other items were donated to a local organization that runs a thrift store.
About 40 bags of clothing and bedding went to my cleaning lady. She keeps what she can use and the rest goes to her church. They offer it to people here and the rest goes to the border. We tease that in a few months we will turn on the news to see everyone at the border dressed like my mom. ❤️
The ‘mementos’ or items that i feel nostalgic or sentimental about - I’ve learned that it takes me 3 times of interacting with items to decide what i definitely want to keep and what can go. I’ve also learned to be ok with that. I can narrow from 10 boxes to 7, then to 5, and if those sit in a closet for s year before i do more, so be it.
If you don’t want/can’t move start with a space that is your space. Define some boundaries to the hoard.
Then organize your clutter into things you use and things you would use.
Then use your storage to put away all the stuff that you use.
Then in the clutter pile organize that again into “things i can’t get again” and “stuff that easily available”
Then the hard part: throw out the “stuff that is easily available”
You can’t have organizational boundaries as such so you are not willing to let some stuff go. It is hard.
But if you don’t want to move out make a space as your fight back against the clutter there first. If you can do that you can do another room. And then another.
I understand hoarding is a condition and it’s not so simple but for me what works is being fast and not thinking too much.
I don’t hoard but I have a LOT of stuff for arts and crafts (which does look like hoarding simetimes) and I get new hobbies and more stuff all the time. What I do when things start to not fit is, just look at stuff and, if I haven’t use it for a long time I throw into a box. Close the box and get rid of it. everything in the same day. If it takes too long I’ll get lazy and If I think too much I’ll keep everything.
Wow, lots of asshole saying to throw things away. Don’t throw things away!
Hire an estate sale agent, who will be paid by the sales. They’ll use eBay and marketplace and all the local places to find good homes for anything of value. That’s their job.
Anything you can’t sell, donate.
I don’t think you know what a difficult situation that is. Getting rid of things for money is hard, and believe it or not, even donating things can be difficult. If you hire someone they’re going to pick through everything over several days (depending on the amount of stuff) and probably not take much if they have to store it themselves for sale, or charge you for storage rental if it’s a lot, and things don’t sell quickly or maybe not at all. Places taking donations will only accept certain things any more, we know this from personal experience, they only want stuff they know that will sell. So you’re left carting around a (probably rented) truck-full of stuff trying to find anyone that will take it only to wind up bringing a lot back home.
It’s far easier to rent a haul-away waste bin and do a cleanout in a day.
One last option, depending on the country if they allow it or there’s space to do so, is a “curb alert”. Advertise the cleanout on whatever social media or classified ad and state the kind of items available and just put them on the curb for people to take for free. Whatever’s left at the end of the day goes in the bin to be hauled off.
Fuck that. You didn’t make that mess, and they will set back any progress you make. Focus on cleaning out your own space that you control and that they can’t ruin. Sneak some trash bags into your bedroom. The day before trash day, bag as much stuff as you can, and try to sneak the bags out early in the morning before the trash comes. If you give them any opportunity to intervene, you’re going to get yelled at for throwing things out, or they’ll try to go through the stuff, or they’ll bring it back in the house. Any bit of their involvement is a no, because they’re not going to help you have a clean and healthy space.
Then do it the next week, and the next week.
Be ruthless with throwing things out. The fact that you don’t have a clear walking path means you have way too much stuff. That the stuff is sitting under piles of clothes and you haven’t touched them for months or years means they aren’t important to you.You can get a job. You can buy more things- things you actually choose for yourself and like. But you can also be intentional about it, fewer things but higher quality things that use actually can use and that make your life feel better.
No mercy. In the bins. Hired help would do it.
Sometimes the amount of stuff one has to handle is just too much for one person. Get a quote from one or two professionals to be able to judge the situation.
Is it possible to rent a dumpster? If you dedicate a few hours a day over a week rental, you could probably get a lot out. If you can recruit some friends to give you a hand, even better. Be sure to at least feed them afterwards, or they won’t be around next time you need a hand.
Dumpsters full up faster than you’d expect, if you can, go bigger than you think.
Request additional trash bins from your municipality. Save one for regular refuse, use all the rest each week to fill with things you’re getting rid of.
I think that you’re looking at it from the wrong angle. You’re looking at the forest and in this case it’s the trees that you should focus on. If there’s no rotting food or other health and safety issues then the only time pressure is your own comfort and anxiety. Deal with that kind of pressure by breaking the task down into manageable chunks and prioritize.
How much can you do in a week? Would one room a week would be manageable? More? Less? How much you can do at a time is the lesser of how much time and energy you can put into the work and how much you can take away or have taken away in the given time period. Maybe you just work until the garbage can is full and then start again after trash day. Maybe you don’t fill the garage can but between cleaning, organizing, and selling stuff on eBay/Nextdoor/etc you use up as much time and energy as you can devote to this task in this time period. As long as more is going out than is coming in during any given time period you’re making progress.
Start with the areas that will make the most difference to you. Probably your bedroom, the bathroom that you use most often, kitchen, living room. Looking at it as one task, cleaning and organizing a whole house is an overwhelming task so don’t look at it as one task. Tackle the forest by dealing with one tree at a time.
