why do people hoard? - is it due to perceived sentimental value? laziness? mental illness? extreme kleptomancy?

[Xarpho]

Having a million dirty dishes and food packets is not hoarding, it's just living in filth. The hoarder in my family has decent stuff, just too many of each item. It can come in handy sometimes.
>Hey Hoarder do you have a spare dishwasher?
>Yes, in fact I have 12

The problem with hoarders is that a lot of the things are kept in poor condition, it doesn't matter if they've kept complete copies of newspapers since the 1980s, if the stuff is half-eaten by insects and moldy/water damaged, it's basically useless. I also think if you keep things in fair condition (things kept reasonably clean) and/or cataloged, it's not really hoarding.

Of course, there's a limit to the latter, if you've turned your house into a fire hazard and also keep meticulous records of when everything was bought ("Item #29491: Painting of sad clown, purchased 03/07/2004 at garage sale at 1251 Petunia Street") then there's an issue beyond hoarding.

 

[Watermelanin]

A friend’s mom is a hoarder, and she doesn’t even know why her mom is like this. The mom buys off QVC, goes to thrift stores, there are paths in the house. She probably wouldn’t be on hoarders because bathrooms and appliances are all functional but it’s sky high in bins (although she does sleep in a tiny chair by the TV) since every space is filled. My friend’s mom wanted it cleaned out once and asked her to help, but she said Mom couldn’t let anything go. She had about 50 mugs (for her and her husband) and just dozens of plastic bowls of all sizes, that when my friend tried to throw away the mom said she would use someday. She saves those packets of sporks and stuff you get from fast food and my friend says she has about a thousand! Mom wants to donate them but doesn’t do it. Everything was a fight so my friend gave up Mom’s bought stuff on QCC that’s never been opened. Some is for her friends but she never does give it to them. We figure she’s just a hoarder because she can’t let anything go. Nobody is allowed in her house but family so I’ve never seen it.

My friend is a neat freak, which is understandable.


Have you considered that you are less of a hoarder and more likely to have ADHD and possibly a drinking problem, and it’s all overwhelmed you? You haven’t said anything about attachment to items. Now it just seems too much to do and you may not know how to start

I don’t know your financial situation, but if you can, call a place like 1-800-gotjunk or look for a clean out specialist. They’ll haul your old crap away, (and save albums and stuff you want) some will clean it or you can hire some after, and you can start fresh and learn better habits. Maybe you’ll drink less if your place is more livable. Also, stuff may be damaging the place, so you need to overcome your inertia and depression and move on it.

If you can’t imagine people taking stuff away, then maybe you are a hoarder and there is therapy you need. But if you just want it gone, that can happen.

If losing your junk doesn’t bother you, and if you can’t afford a clean-out specialist, admit to your friends what’s going on and let them help you. They’ll probably be more understanding than you think.

If you are alone, just decide you are doing it. Period. Break it up into smaller pieces, one at a time. Get rid of the bottles and recyclables. Don’t worry about sorting, but them in a bin and somebody will dig it out! Get the dishes done. Start throwing stuff out room by room, corner by corner if it’s that bad. It may seem like an insurmountable task, but if you make yourself spend an hour a day doing it, if you are determined, as you start to see progress you might be more encouraged and do more. Give yourself a reward when you meet a goal, a movie or something healthy that you enjoy. Booze is helping you avoid what you are doing but it’s not a good crutch to have. So try to think of fun and healthy ideas.

You can do it. We all can do what we put our minds to, including you.

Good luck

Perhaps I'm not a hoarder per se. There's a few things I have attachment to which are probably better off in the garbage. But in my conversations with the many homeless I regularly interact with, it sometimes seems better just to drop everything and live as they do. If I could keep my job doing it, I'd probably be happier. I make enough to have basically any non-extravagant thing I want. And without rent or walls to confine me, it could be a little slice of paradise. But the real world doesn't work that way and I have too much pride to have my bros help me fix this shit. And you can get fucked if you think I'm going to hire someone to do it...
It really just comes down to me. I CAN fix it. But I have mental/emotional problems which cripple me. It is I who is too weak to overcome them (for now, at least).

 

[Ged!]

I'm sure there's a lot of different reasons, but I've seen a lot of hoarders TV programs and YouTubes videos, and it seems to always comes down to two things:
1. Mental illness of the hoarder
2. Friends and family who enable the hoarder, even if the hoarder is independently wealthy.

The first one is a bit more variable, but it tends to spawn from trauma or some event that led to a slight detachment from reality. The second one is bit more consistent. Any hoarder who has friends or family is enabled by them. Some hoarders are financially supported by family, often as a result of hardships caused by their hoard. If the hoarder is financially independent, he'll be enabled by the fact that his friends/family don't put up a strong resistance. They provide emotional support, or are just passive enough that the hoarder never needs to change. There are cases of hoarders who are recluses, such as the Collyer brothers or Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, and these kinds of hoarders are always financially independent.

 

[Pissmaster]

I'm quite a bit of a hoarder and my house certainly is thrashed because of it.
What it comes down to for me is that I set up plans for a thing, life gets in the way, can't make time for said plans, new plans are made, place being thrashed makes getting task done more of a chore, chore gets pushed off more, and I develop of a sort of avoidance to it all.
Not to powerlevel too hard: but it's gotten to the point where I prefer to be at work than at home. I keep my occupational workplace tidy and can get everything I need to get done accomplished quite efficiently. When I'm home, there's all of this shit I WANT to do but because of the absolute state of things, I just get drunk and wallow in filth. This only compounds the issue because one of the things I've taken to hoarding is recyclables. I don't need the CRV money but in the past I've made it a point to give my recyclables to those that do. Now I sit here, surrounded by cans of malt liquor and empty water bottles, because jesus christ it would be a chore to to sort that shit out for the benefit of some bum and I'd rather just drink more and add to the pile of shit that makes all of the other stuff I want to do harder.

Just toss em, man. Late last year, I recycled a shitload of aluminum cans I was collecting over the course of an entire year, I filled my car with bags of them, and I walked out of the recycling center with...

Six dollars.