There are different kinds of hoarders. The ones on TV live in garbage dumps. Then, there are collector hoarders. That is my x wife's and sons category. Organized clutter. When I was struggling to become a world famous artist/cartoonist, my work area looked much like this. No, I never did become an artist.
Yes, it is an illness and most of the time, unless they treat the person, after the cleanup the hoarder will start again. I'm slightly OCD but in the opposite direction.
My wife used to be a "pack rat", until she met me. Her and her mom kept most of the apartment they shared clean, but my wife's bedroom wasn't what I would call organized. A person can only get so much into a spare bedroom and she sort of over did it. Before moving in with her mom, she had a house that she sold. Most everything in the house went into a 10' x 10' storage unit and it was packed.........and I do mean packed. She been paying a monthly storage fee for some 5 years! Just never wanted to go over and clean it up, that is, until we decided we were going to move to Colorado the year after we married. Heck, I could barely get the door to slide up/open. But, after a number of months of bringing boxes over to the apartment and repacking, we got it nicely organized. Wife can still (try) to be a "pack rat", but he has really improved. She has come right out and told me, "I have faith that you know what should be kept and taken to the Goodwill, Salvation Army or just thrown out, so get rid of those things when I'm not around. That way we won't argue about it.". I said, "Good enough to me!" And, I've done just that. We were involved with a Community Garage Sale, when we had our house in Colorado, a couple of times. A number of the things we didn't sell, went straight to the Goodwill. Now that we are getting ready to move back to Colorado, we are downsizing again. I already have some things to put on Craigslist and/or Wallapop websites. My 1/2 brother is definitely a hoarder. He has things (cabin cruiser, motorhome and a few other things that need to be fixed or just don't use them anymore, but keeps the stuff. He has a fully-dressed Honda Goldwing that him and his wife use to ride a lot, but now it sits in a trailer. He gets it out at times to start it, but that's it. His wife just doesn't push the issue of him doing something about the stuff he has. I would call her the "passive" type (LOL)
What do they call people who think that have to save every cat/dog they come across. Is that called "hoarding animals". I've seen a show on that, and the house looked absolutely terrible and the smell..........won't even go there on that!
Ike, I wouldn't call that photo "hoarding" but more like not enough room for what he needs. And wow, you do cartoon art? I'm impressed, would love to see some of it.
Cody I saw a few of those animal hoarder shows too. It was nothing short of animal abuse. One lady boo-hooed all through the show when the crew uncovered dead and dying cats all through the home. I was very hard pressed to feel any sympathy for her illness. To be honest, I wanted to punch her. My bad, I know.
Yes, I've seen a few of those shows too but couldn't watch it long. I'm sure they love animals but they aren't doing a good deed by taking in every stray. Just the opposite in my opinion. Most of these people can't afford to feed themselves, caring for an animal is not cheap.
I do like to recycle things that can be used for other things later but I am not a horader. I do throw things out because I don't like dirt or the thought of things growing inside of piles of stuff. My friends brother passed last year and he was a horader, they threw out more than twenty bags of stuff and threw out old worn out furniture when they cleaned after his passing.
I wish I had saved some of it. I gave away all my drawings, art materials and the hundreds of comic books I used for character models. At one time I was experimenting with 3 dimensional cartoon pictures, using clear Plexiglas. Had some success making birthday cards for friends. Even sold a few. But, at that time I was working full time during the week and full time on another job over weekends. Just wasn't enough time for everything.
When I was a paramedic, we had a few patients whose houses were so full of stuff that we had to turn sideways in order to get across a room, including such things as stacks and stacks of newspapers and magazines. One woman had stacked her magazines so as to make couches and chairs out of them. Curiously, most of them also collected cats so the experience was not altogether pleasant. On the other hand, I helped a former employee of mine clean out his father's house and garage after he passed away, and bother were packed with vintage electrical appliances, still in their unopened boxes. I still have an old box-type portable television and radio that he gave me.
Well...... I am not even sure if I want to get into this thread or not, after reading my way through the posts to get to the end. But, here I am; so I guess I need to post . Like @Sandy Wood 's parents(grandparents? ), my mom and dad went through the Great Depression, and they sometimes lived on a few fresh eggs and some bread for the day. They walked to town carrying heavy pails of cow's milk to trade for whatever other people had brought to town to trade. Nobody had much of anything new to live on. They shot deer for meat, and the game warden gave them extra bullets to help get venison for some of the families that had no one to hunt deer. My folks saved everything, and I do mean everything ! Nothing was wasted that could possibly be re-used in some fashion. My mom also helped people, and there seemed to always be needy families, so she stored kids clothing, and all kinds of things that people might need. They had furniture that had been brought out by my grandparents when they moved out west from Iowa to Idaho. We had the same furniture (in the same place, in the same house) all the time I was growing up. As my folks got older, stuff just accumulated, and they were unable to really do anything with it any more; and after they passed away, I spent all of one summer just going through the home and sorting things. I had a large dumpster , and we made three piles. Stuff that went into the dumpster, stuff for the ongoing yard sale that I had out front, and stuff that I wanted to keep. People came by every night on their way home from work to see what new treasures I had unearthed, and some of them even gave me "if you find ----" requests. I found old, old metal Coke 6-pack holders that the collectors went crazy over. Beside those were stacks of old cardboard type cartons that were from Chinese restaurant take-out back in the early 50's. I never knew what would turn up next. Trash and treasures. I am sure that I still also have that "collecting gene" in me; but I do try really hard to keep it under control.
When I lived in Florida, and had my house cleaning service, a lady I knew called me and ask if I could help her clean house. So I went to her house and found a total mess like the picture of the woman cooking with her stove covered in a dirty pile of stuff. This woman's whole kitchen was piled two feet deep. That included dirty dishes and empty food containers and spilled food that of course attracted cockroaches. It made me feel sick to think she lived this way. The first room I cleaned was her living room. it was piled high with boxes of stuff like dirty clothes and junk mail, food containers and trash. She wanted to keep some of the trash and I did my best but it was a waste of time. Whatever I did one week she had completely undone by the next time I came. We worked at a bedroom upstairs and got it all cleaned out. The next week the stuff was back piled to the ceiling. The sad part of this story is not the house it's self, but the woman's husband. He was so sick of the mess in the house that he had set up a metal shed in the backyard and was living and sleeping out there. He said the house was too bug filled and dirty for him and his wife would not stop bring more stuff home. Thank goodness mom's house was not anywhere near that in terms of hoarding. But some of the shows on tv are very much like it. Why anyone would save bags of trash when they are paying for a garbage collector is beyond me. Makes me save less not more. I can not stand loads and loads of useless stuff. Ugh!