My neighbor's stuff...

[Archae]

This is the flatbed dumpster used to clean out my neighbor's apartment, we had no idea he had this much junk.





To have one of those "hoarders" under our very noses, just floors me.

[phil89]

1. They're still

human beings. It's not like the hoarding behavior is all there was to him.

[Archae]

4. Of course.

In fact, we never knew of his hoarding until after he died.

He'd come outside with his dogs, he was friendly, loved to joke around, (he called me "Casper" since I never get a tan each summer,) but he should have got some help, too bad he didn't.

He was 41, but he smoked heavily.

[Arugula Latte]

28. Wow, 41! How sad.

Do you know what he died of? Lung cancer?

[Archae]

29. Heart attack, we think.

Not 100% sure.

[daleanime]

2. If that's all.....

not much of a 'hoarder'. Kind of sad to look at 'junk' as some ones life.

[uppityperson]

3. Why do you say they were a hoarder? Looks like cheap stuff.

[Archae]

5. Under the furniture (which has lots of dog pee stains,) are many bags of garbage.

He'd fill entire closets full of garbage, fast food wrappers, pizza boxes, the works.

[uppityperson]

7. Ah, thank you. I missed the back story, just see cheap furniture.

Been busy here, cleaning and throwing out stuff after coming to the realization that you don't need to keep everything. Child of a child of the depression here, raised being frugal, saving, reusing.

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. Why would that floor you?

It's common, and it affects people across the spectrum.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/River-Oaks-house-fire-kills-doctor-and-his-wife-1614913.php


He was a human being at his core. I find these pictures sad.

[Archae]

8. We just never knew.

[LiberalElite]

10. I'm heartened to read the comments so far here -

if you look at the comments on the Hoarders TV program website, there are a lot of very cruel judgmental self-righteous ignorant people out there. (But we knew that anyway.) Of course, it also impacts the neighbors and their property values. It can create various problems for them. There are multiple reasons why people get their homes into sometimes unlivable conditions. As for the doctor in the Houston Chronicle story (what a loss!), I recall several fires in the NYC area where it was difficult for firefighters to access apartments because of all the stuff accumulated inside. They sometimes had to chop a hole through an adjoining apartment to gain access and fight the fire. Then of course there was the 1940's hoarding case (involved two brothers last name Collyer) still referred to by the FDNY - a "Collyer mansion" is code for a hoarder's residence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers


Hoarding is a mental disorder, not sloppiness on steroids.

[Exhibit A]

14. Great comment.

I have had people in my life who were hoarders, and I know first-hand how difficult it can be for those around them. But they have an illness, not a character flaw.

[LiberalElite]

15. Thanks!

[Archae]

18. I had read about the Collyer brothers.

Strange story.

Sad too.

[Chellee]

38. On those hoarding shows...

every one of the people they profile had some kind of trauma in their history. Somebody died, somebody left them. It's like a switch gets flipped, and they try to fill up the empty places inside themselves with things.

[LiberalElite]

45. Yes. Sad stories

all around - they don't deserve to be ridiculed. Nobody would willingly let their homes get filled with junk and refuse if they didn't have some serious psychological/emotional issues.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. We've got hoarders on both sides of us.

The guy to the west is awful - his whole back yard is full of car parts and other assorted junk. I keep wanting to call the fire department on him for creating a hazard, but I don't want to piss him off.

[Fumesucker]

11. He's dead, Jim

[KG]

12. scary part is that a hoarder in an apt could conceivably collapse the floor.

[LiberalElite]

13. That's true for a house also. nt

[femmocrat]

16. Sad...

I always find it sad that the personal belongings that people cherish is just junk to their survivors. I have cleaned out enough relatives' house (upon their passing) to see how they hang on to mementos of happier times. Don't we all do that? I have been trying to get rid of stuff just so my kids won't have to sort through my years of accumulation. It is a tedious process.

[uppityperson]

42. Indeed. Cleaning my parent's home made me come back here and start throwing stuff out myself.

And if you keep photographs, label them if you want people in the future to know who they are.

[Brickbat]

17. What would you have done if you had known?

[Archae]

19. I don't know.

Maybe tried to find any relatives of his.

[Brickbat]

20. What are you hoping to do by sharing these pictures?

[Archae]

23. One of many experiences I've had...

And hoping that if anyone knows a hoarder personally, they can get them help.

I was watching that "Hoarders" TV show once, and as this one hoarder's family would bring junk out, he would get angrier and angrier.

I shut it off, I never did find out what happened.

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. It is an illness, and when a hoarder sees this happening, it is like losing control.

It is an OCD behavior.

[Brickbat]

26. So how do these photos inspire someone to get themselves or someone else help?

How do they direct that person to help? And how do the photos you've shown look any different than any other dead person's belongings that are unwanted by family, if there is any?

[Sienna86]

33. It's a mental health issue.

Yes. And can threaten physical well-being. I feel badly for those who hoard and hope they can be helped with appropriate mental health professionals and professional organizers.

[tammywammy]

22. I find this OP very distasteful.

Are we supposed to be passing judgment on a dead person. I don't understand the need to follow up a previous thread with pictures to reinforce that this neighbor was a horder.

[Sherman A1]

27. Agreed

I too find it sad.

[bhikkhu]

24. Everyone's stuff winds up a big sad pile after they're gone

"one of those hoarders" isn't really fair, and its very far from the whole story of anyone's life.

One of my neighbors died a few years back, a wonderful lady in her 90's who'd lived there since 1937, the original owner of the house. She had a great memory and told us all sorts of tales of things that had gone on in our house, the people who built it, various events and so forth. Her living room was spotless, a place you could sit and have tea and chat.

She'd grown up in poverty, however, and hated to throw things away - she had a lot of her kid's things from growing up, a lot of her late husbands things, nic nacs from everywhere she travelled, treasures from garage sales. There was great deal of stuff, and everything had a story and meant something to her, or was being saved because it had some use and someone might need it someday. After she died her kids rented a huge dumpster and spent two days tossing everything out, complaining all the while...

[SheilaT]

30. In response to what some others have posted on this thread:

While it is true that for all of us, a lot of what we currently cherish will not be seen as valuable once we are gone, there is a huge difference between that and the kind of hoarding this dumpster represents.

I know I've got lots of stuff my kids won't want, and I'm working on getting rid of the most obvious stuff to get rid of. But there are things that are meaningful to me that I won't get rid of, even though I know that down the road my kids will ask, "What in the world was she hanging on to this for?" So I sort of see it from both sides, although I find it hard to be patient with the true hoarders, the ones who don't even remove the actual garbage from their house or apartment, who live with mountains of stuff that is actually dangerous.

I watch the hoarding shows, and it is sad to what extent the hoarders choose stuff over family. And it's even sadder when the hoarding has caused such damage to the home that it's simply not livable any more.

[HuckleB]

31. Try five of the largest dumpsters worth of stuff...

... and that after several days of estate sales, and allowing scavengers to go through the house.

That's what happened with the house next door in the months after we bought ours in January '99. Now, granted the houses on our street were built in the early 1920s, and the couple had lived there since their house was built, but their kids say they didn't get started on the hoarding until the '60s. Still, it was amazing. I did grab a Mobil USA map from 1934. Yeah, I still have it, but my wife does not allow me to keep much else, so no hoarding for me.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

32. Meh, I would have looked like a hoarder when I was getting ready for my parents to move in

I had to get rid of forty years worth of my crap to make room for eighty years worth of theirs. I had an overflowing dumpster in my driveway.

[MineralMan]

34. Judgmental much?

Frankly, I don't see what's bothering you. Now go through your your place and imagine your stuff stuffed into garbage bags after you die. Would it look any different? I doubt it.

[Archae]

35. The key thing to remember here...

My two neighbors and I liked my one neighbor, a lot.

He was the youngest of the four of us, and the only signs of any trouble he had was trouble with his utility bills.

But we enjoyed being with him, and loved playing with his dogs.

We didn't have any idea he was feeling sick, or that his place was a garbage dump.
It wasn't memoriablia or knick knacks, he just had rooms and closets full of garbage.
Candy wrappers, pizza boxes, DVD wrappers, food wrappers from the grocery, you name it.
Why? I have no idea.

That mattress in the first picture really smelled of dog pee, and was covered with dog hair.

The rest of the furniture was stained, smelled bad and was in bad repair.

And we ask each other, how?
How did a guy we know for over 10 years get like this?

Why do others get like this too?
It's described as an OCD.
It's just awful.

[jwirr]

37. He is pretty young to have Alzheimers but one of the things that happens when you do is that you

begin keeping things that make no sense to others. He may not have had the money for garbage pick up and just stopped taking it out. Who knows but it is sad.

[jwirr]

36. For a while I lived in a highrise and watched families try to clean out the apartment after someone

either died or went into a care facility. Most were so frustrated that it wasn't even funny. A few has a rummage sale, some just loaded it up and took it with them, some had family members come in to divide it up. But the saddest one of all was the family who came in and dumped everything into the dumpster. They filled two dumpsters with very useable items because they did not want to take the time to haul it to the thrift store. Everyone in the building were mad.

After watching this and after ending up homeless a couple of times I have been getting rid of my own stuff. But I try to give them where they will do the most good. Today I have one small room of items (bed, computer desk, chair and computer, tv, small dresser, bed table with humidifier on it, a clock, a basket with children's toys and an old bookcase with books, a rocker and chothes) I also have boxes of family pictures under my bed and some little junk I keep because I like it. But my children will not have to spend days getting rid of my things when my time comes.

It is a far cry from all the things I once had. I remember moving one time when my father threatened to leave most of it. He was right I did not need it.

[Chimeradog]

39. ...

That is sad. That show hoarders is really ridiculing some of the chronically depressed or people with other issue, jmo.

My friend used to cut this elderly woman's property,5 acres. She had a house filled with junk and kids who never came to see her. When she passed away the town had to send in a clean up crew. Her neighbors never helped.

[appalachiablue]

41. What you say is true, glad you have some compassion too. I just wrote a post more dealing with

non-elderly home situations. Right about the lady with stuff whose kids never visited and neighbors didn't help her. Loneliness and neglect, also disease can cause the stuff to pile up. My dear, wonderful mother in law didn't have trash, just a lot of lifetime memorabilia and regular household items after that many years in one home. After she passed sure it was work but we loved her. We knew her home was just that; never would we have made her pare down to essentials for our sake. ~ That TV show is maybe more harm than good. The hired assistants are on the clock, it's time and money to them, like the packers, movers and relatives who appear. There's a lot of filming of the horrors, not so much about the root causes and any treatment.

[appalachiablue]

40. I've been shocked far worse by people's stuff that's not tangible or material like the items of this

man who was friendly, an animal lover and one who didn't seem to hurt anyone. Learning that seemingly normal, even likeable people were molesters of their own stepchildren, that they abused and neglected their wives or that they conned people out of their homes and retirement plans fraudulently while working as respectable professionals in investment banking is much more distressing to me than this man's visible problem, post mortem. The individuals were more psychologically sick than your neighbor whose possessions you unfortunately had to deal with.

Medical information and the TV shows indicate that most hoarders are on their own, or sometimes a couple. The majority have experienced a major loss that set off the buying habit- a death, divorce, separation or a loss of health from injury or disease. Going out to buy stuff and collecting it is a huge time filler for loneliness and something to look forward to. The inability to let go (even trash) or organize items relates to OCD and sometimes depression.

Hoarders can't be sent to a rehab hospital or Betty Ford Clinic to shape up. The problem involves the property, always. Usually the home circumstances become crisis level when the hoarder's safety or another's are at risk. Relatives enter the scene repulsed, concerned and on a deadline to resolve the situation and return to their lives. Sometimes the family, especially adult children and their spouses plan to sell the house asap for the money and consider the deterioration as impacting the proceeds which makes them angrier.

The hoarder often has to clear up the problem and the mess in a few weeks, because the prof. assistant is on the clock and the relatives don't want to deal with it anymore. It's pressure and unpleasant for everyone. Like finding a relative who's an undiagnosed diabetic, or very obese and giving them several weeks to completely turn around their condition by behavior adjustment, or else. Radically changing their diet, eliminating and adding foods, starting an intense exercise program, losing weight and measuring their b/p, blood sugar daily- with medical assistance of course. Not easy and not the best example but you get the over-made point, learned from life and work in health and disability areas.

[Chimeradog]

43. yes

I agree with this. It is sad that trash reality tv uses people who may have mental issues and even tragedies, foreclosures etc., imo are ridiculed by these horrible shows.

That woman who is a spsd psychologist on that show just critiques the people, it is sad. Of course we are looking deeper, those who watch this stuff regularly, I think have been brainwashed. Ridicule and hate spewed by network tv.

[appalachiablue]

44. I haven't watched in a few years but am not surprised they show foreclosures. That can

catch anybody off guard, like an accident or sudden death. The TV shows sensationalize the worst mess & chaos, with rough assistants. Goal is to highlight extremes, show as much tension & family drama as possible. Fairly exploitive & sickening.

A friend, well adjusted, very attractive woman in real estate & PR, age 50s, a stylish clothes horse, loved to go antiquing. Her house was filled to the max, lot of stuff. She'd also lost things once in a house fire. During 2009-2012 she lost work as a realtor, became worried, came down with pneumonia.

Died in the hospital, leaving behind a shy, nice husband. He must have got help to deal with it all, esp. since she was the outgoing one & business mgr. Had a tendency for bronchitis but she was overall in very good health. Don't know all except no health insurance & usually tight on funds. Maybe she delayed, couldn't get meds./care which is very sad. Sh*t can happen.