Hoarding

[TastyReuben]

[Mod.edit: posts copied from another thread as they form an important new topic.]

I have no room to talk. My Sweet George is a hoarder. It pains him to throw anything away. He gets close to a panic attack at the thought of throwing anything away - especially food.

My wife's best friend is a food (and other things) hoarder. I can't even stand to hear about it, because it makes me so frustrated, even though it has nothing to do with me.

She has eggs in the fridge just over a year past the date on the box. Nope, I'm not eating those, but she swears, "They're still good!" if you suggest she throw them out.

And what's a single person need with six 18-egg cartons to begin with?

 

[Morning Glory]

She has eggs in the fridge just over a year past the date on the box.

That is serious & dangerous hoarding.

 

[rascal]

That is serious & dangerous hoarding.

My wife snacks a lot when going upstairs for the night, she has stuff I don't eat like hummus, dips, cheese snacks nut and scroggin etc. I go through the fridge at least once a month to get rid of expired stuff, I usually throw 3 or4 things out.

Russ

 

[ElizabethB]

rascal
I feel your pain. Hoarding of any kind is difficult to deal with. Food hoarding is scary and dangerous. Our WORST arguments have been over food hoarding.
I understand to a degree - hoarding is associated with feelings of loss and insecurity. So is obesity. Understanding does not make it any easier to deal with. With all of the love in my heart I try to discuss these issues with My Love. No result. Resentment on his part. I wish I could do better.
Like you I have to purge. I do it when he is not home. It is easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission.

 

[rascal]

rascal
I feel your pain. Hoarding of any kind is difficult to deal with. Food hoarding is scary and dangerous. Our WORST arguments have been over food hoarding.
I understand to a degree - hoarding is associated with feelings of loss and insecurity. So is obesity. Understanding does not make it any easier to deal with. With all of the love in my heart I try to discuss these issues with My Love. No result. Resentment on his part. I wish I could do better.
Like you I have to purge. I do it when he is not home. It is easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission.

The thing is she hardly goes in the fridge, remember she doesn't cook, just shop and her snacks are her snacks, I'm not big on grazing. So she doesn't look at expiry dates. I however do as I'm always looking for extra space now our daughter is here. Her son and her have taken over a whole shelf, not that it bothers me, but I do need to purge at times. And believe me, chocolate never ever expires around here. I'm not big on chocolate either.

Russ

 

[caseydog]

I used to be somewhat of a hoarder. I was in my mid 20s, and lived in a two bedroom apartment. It wasn't like the TV shows, where there were narrow paths through random crap, but one bedroom was full of "stuff."

I had ten years of car magazines from subscriptions. That alone was probably at least a thousand pounds of paper. Maybe a ton.

At age 26, I bought a house. When I went to move, I had an Epiphany. Am I going to take all of this crap to my new house, or let it go.

I became a man on a mission. I filled the apartment complex trash dumpster. I collapsed on my bed, totally exhausted, after a full day of throwing things away.

Now, at least once a year, I go into that same mode, and if it has been gathering dust too long, I either sell it, give it to charity, or trash it.

Know what? I feel wonderful afterwards.

So, there is hope for hoarders, if they embrace their inner desire to be "free."

CD

 

[TastyReuben]

My wife's friend does have the paths through her house. Magazines. Newspapers. Anything that belonged to her parents. Garage is packed to bursting. Take-out containers that she washes for reuse...thousands of those.

Her thing with food is, she shops sales. She buys things because "it's a good deal," but her kitchen is so overloaded, she can't cook anything. Her stove is buried under boxes of containers.

Canned goods back to the 1990's, magazines back to the 1950's. Every time my wife goes to see her, her friend gets excited and wants my wife to help to clean things out, but every item my wife picks up to toss, it's, "That's still good," or "That was Mom's," or "I'm going to use that," and nothing ever gets thrown out.

 

[Morning Glory]

Now, at least once a year, I go into that same mode, and if it has been gathering dust too long, I either sell it, give it to charity, or trash it.

Know what? I feel wonderful afterwards.

That is admirable. I need to start clearing junk.

 

[Morning Glory]

Canned goods back to the 1990's, magazines back to the 1950's. Every time my wife goes to see her, her friend gets excited and wants my wife to help to clean things out, but every item my wife picks up to toss, it's, "That's still good," or "That was Mom's," or "I'm going to use that," and nothing ever gets thrown out.

Its very sad - hoarding, taken to extremes is a serious illness and needs specialist help.

 

[ElizabethB]

Now, at least once a year, I go into that same mode, and if it has been gathering dust too long, I either sell it, give it to charity, or trash it.

Good for you.

TastyReuben

G is not as bad as your wife's friend. He is bad enough. Paper - he has the cancelled checks and check book registers from his first checking account in high school. Every income tax return he ever filed. Bills - utility, credit card, vehicle - name it - dating back years. Bank statements, investment account statements - years worth. What really disturbs me is that most of this stuff is not opened. He checks his accounts and pays bills on line.

Ball caps - hundreds. Fishing shirts - 27 and counting. He came home with a new one last week. 40 pairs of underwear. 60 pairs of socks. A sport coat that he wore in the 70's. Shirts, jeans, slacks, shorts that he wore when he was weighing over 360 lbs. He has a 20" x 30" shop that is overflowing with junk. Last fall he purchased an expensive, professional quality vacuum sealer to replace the home model that had died. I thought he tossed the old one. I went to the shop yesterday to get something out of the freezer and spied it hidden in the corner. I should have known better.

Hoarding really is an illness. Last summer G ripped the leg on a pair of slacks. Caught it on something. He wanted me to fix it. I could have but I very gently explained to him that even repaired the slacks would not be fit to wear because the repair would be large and very obvious. He stood in the kitchen wringing the slacks in his hands close to a panic attack. I had to coax him to give me the slacks and not take them out of the trash.

Deep down he knows he has a problem but is not able to dredge that knowledge to the surface and acknowledge it.

Yes he needs help. He will not seek help because he would have to admit to himself and to me that he has a problem.

 

[Mountain Cat]

My wife's best friend is a food (and other things) hoarder. I can't even stand to hear about it, because it makes me so frustrated, even though it has nothing to do with me.

She has eggs in the fridge just over a year past the date on the box. Nope, I'm not eating those, but she swears, "They're still good!" if you suggest she throw them out.

And what's a single person need with six 18-egg cartons to begin with?

I sell my extra eggs (which I don't have many of in winter) to the local community center visitors. I give some away as gifts to friends. I have even made crustless quiches and deviled eggs to bring to local events, to get rid of extras. Well before the "Use By" date.

In the US, the sell by date is 30 days, and the use by date is 45 days. YES, you can use eggs past those dates, but frankly a week/10 days past the "use by" date is as far as I go - and the ones I bring to the community center I put the USDA sell by date on. If they don't go by then, I take them back and use fairly immediately.

That woman needs to throw them out, or at the very least, COMPOST them.

Frankly, the idea of cracking one of her year-old eggs open to make an omelet... I'm rather nauseated at the thought..

 

[Mountain Cat]

caseydog

I have no room to talk. My Sweet George is a hoarder. It pains him to throw anything away. He gets close to a panic attack at the thought of throwing anything away - especially food.

Our worst arguments are over getting rid of things - junk, clothes that do not fit or Jurassic food.

I do have some hoarding tendencies, but not around food. I do have extra freezer space, but this is because I don't want to eat supermarket meats more than absolutely essential to do so, and getting free-range/pastured meat in larger quantities is cheaper this way. So.. it's frozen. And, it takes space.

Did a full fledged pantry freezer cleanout this past January. Truly worthwhile. Food too old was discarded. Did an inventory for the remaining foods. And since that freezer had only got put in place last June, it was very satisfying to know how well I'd maintained it since then.

One good thing about moving from my old digs in Connecticut to up here in western Massachusetts was the amount of stuff I ditched, either to the dump or to donations or to the local library book sale.

"Jurassic food" - great term!

EDIT: I'm a magazine/book/paper such stuff hoarder. Thankfully a bit easier to deal with - and I sent off 11 bags of books to the local library book sale back there, plus at least three or so bags of no-one-ever-wants-old-computer-books-from-the-80s-or-90s, off to recycling.

 

[caseydog]

One of the mindsets of even mild hoarders that needs to change is this. Instead of thinking, "I may need this some day," to "What is the worst thing that can happen if I throw this away." That is what I had to get into my hard head.

CD

 

[caseydog]

My ex wife was not a "hoarder," but a "collector" gone overboard. She collected all kinds of things.

Now, I do collect a few things. I have a couple hundred "ball caps" that I don't wear, but they are all car or racing related, some autographed, and some are very hard to get. If I wear one of my Haggerty Dawn Patrol hats to a car event, other car guys are envious. I also have car event/race/concours Media Passes and lanyards dating back 15 years or more. They hang in my office and are great memmories of some great days at "work."

CD

 

[Morning Glory]

One of the mindsets of even mild hoarders that needs to change is this. Instead of thinking, "I may need this some day," to "What is the worst thing that can happen if I throw this away." That is what I had to get into my hard head.

CD

Maybe I should move the 'hoarding' posts to a new thread... its an interesting topic and many of us suffer from mild to serious versions of this very human illness.