COH: Your Stories

At our Online Community you will find the most recent growing up stories/adult experiences sent in, not reflected on this page yet.

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More information for, and online videos by, children of compulsive hoarders. Other Site Pages

5/3/08: Father died, daughters cleaned out
My dad has died now and i had to clear the house with my sisters. it took 9 skips...

5/2/08: Others out there ostracized?
Are there other family members ostracized from the clan out there? How do you deal with the loss of one parent thru death and the other thru her petty grudges...

4/30/08: 214 Stories from "Seen Hoarding First Hand" MSNBC.com

4/30/08: Story from daughter living with hoarding mom
Sometimes I just really miss my mom, I think she’s buried under the mess. Maybe if I can clean it out, I’ll find her again...

4/30/08: Mother hoards houses
Eventually, she even started hoarding houses...

4/29/08: Story from adult daughter
I always wondered if they would report us. A unexpected doorbell ring threw me into extreme anxiousness- who was at the door? Do they need to come in? They will see this mess I am living in and what will they think of me? I was good at holding the door barely open with my body blocking the mess...

4/29/08: Story from a coh who is "the parent"
I'm tired...No, completely exhausted. Our "home" is a mess...My mother is oblivious to the chaos and I'm enabling her. I am 27...

4/29/08: Story from a daughter-"been there,done that"
I still don't understand how the courts didn't order my dad custody, due to the condition of the house. But like dad said, courts always side with the women...

4/28/08: Story from a daughter-"Don't give up!"
Don't give up! It may seem overwhelming at times, but you must move forward and not give up. My folks gave up, but nothing will change if you quit! Now I'm happy to say my Dad and I are very close and we are continuing our plans to have him take back his life in a cleaner environment one step at a time...

4/28/08: Story from a daughter
I have thoughts of moving to another home somewhere way out of state so I don't have to get dragged back in to have to clean up somebody else's psychological messes, as if I haven't already been neglected in life enough that MORE of my breathing, living moments have to be wasted because of another's actions. ..

4/26/08: Story from a daughter living with hoarding mother
My mother is a compulsive hoarder, as I sit here and type this, I am next to a stack of magazines, 3 feet high. This is a clean day for us. We live in a house bigger than we need for living, but...

4/22/08: daughter looking for any ideas
I've tried and we always get in huge fights about it. I've told him I won't talk to him till its clean, that I won't see him and other threats, but it just doesn't seem to work.

4/19/08: Story from daughter-mother has cancer-clean up?
This thought process of doing it on the hoarder’s terms is completely illogical. Would you offer heroin to a heroin addict and say use on your own terms? Who decided this is the best way to handle the situation? I refuse to let my mother in her last months/years of life live this way.
Furthermore, nurses and family are going to need to get into her place for visitations and it is necessary that they have a safe environment to help out...

4/19/08: Story from adult child-always about the "stuff"
All I can ever remember is stuff. People can't come in because the stuff. Dont touch the stuff, you might loose the right stuff trying to get through the wrong stuff. Sorry the grandchildren cant come in, I have to sort this stuff. NO I can not live with you while I recover from my surgery, I have to be with the dog, I need my stuff...

4/15/08: Story from a son
This has made me hate my life, hate my family and become afraid to enter into any long lasting relationship out of fear that they will see how my family chooses to live...

4/14/08: Story sent in from son of a hoarder
My dad had fire at his home last month. He had a little hotplate that caught fire, burning some clothes
that were piled in front of it, and nearly burning out the whole home...

4/11/08: Story from daughter-made calls to social service
I've made some calls to Social Services in her area, for info, but was told that if found to be mentally competent, & I'm sure she is & would be---that there would be nothing their office could do; that she has a right to choose to live that way...

4/9/08: From a daughter-both parents hoarded
The difference between she and I is that I recognize I have a problem, she, at age 72, is still in denial. I remember often trying to clean the house as a child and having her angry at me for trying to help "Do me a favor and don't clean," she would say. I longed for "chores" that the other kids in school said they had to do...

4/6/08: Story from a daughter
I am 37 and still affected by my mothers actions in her home. I haven't been inside the house in years and it has affected our entire family...

4/3/08: Story from a daughter...
I have tried talking to my mom about all of this and so have my other siblings. I am angry at my dad, too, for doing nothing to stop this. My mom says she will, "do it herself," but I know this isn't true...

4/2/08: Story from sister and daughter
My mother and now, sister are hoarders. It's a sickness that I, long ago, learned not to fight any more. It's their life, I can't change it nor can I profess to walking a mile in their shoes. I
can only live my life as it is...

3/27/08: Story from Grandson - in - law
We have a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad rat and mouse problem as well. My wife
refuses to see the problem and says " we can clean it all up when she dies". Well, I can't take another friggin day of it. I've had enough...

3/25/08: Story from son-in-law and brother-in-law
It's easy for the world to judge, since they're not the ones who love these people...

3/21/08: Many generations of hoarders in family
I am a child of a pair of compulsive hoarders. Not only are my parents both hoarders, but the generation before them also exhibited this behavior as did the geneneration preceding that one...

3/20/08: Story from son
We tried many times to help her clean out her house, but she would only get defensive and angry. I wanted desperately for my children to be able to sleep over with "Grandma" at the house I grew up in, but there was no place for that. In fact, my mother typically slept on her couch because there was no room on her bed. ..

3/19/08: Letter to a hoarding mother from her daughter
I thought I would post a letter I sent to my hoarder over a year ago. Of course I never got a response... She did comment that she thought I, "must have been drinking and just sent it." I love you too! What would make me drink?? Her response is consistant with what I have read here about there not really being anything we can do.
I have out of my own embarrassment I guess, edited it in italics... to protect the innocent...

3/15/08:Story sent in by a daughter
The wonderment I feel from knowing there are others who know and understand this obsessive disorder is all-consuming right now... so much so, that my "story," one that has been my constant companion these last forty years, has suddenly escaped me...

3/14/08: Story sent in by Son
I hope the future holds better things for kids who put up with this.
It's really NOT right to make them put up with it in some cases. Losing custody might be too much, but there SHOULD be punishments for these parents so they don't think it's their choice to make kids live in misery and lies. It's a very serious mental disorder in my experience, and our tolerance of it as a society is somewhat odd to be honest. We don't tolerate beatings, or sexual abuse, but we tolerate the verbal abuse, and parents who give their kids a future of stress and disorder. Everyone, all the relatives, simply look at that family as eccentric, instead of living in crisis. It's sad no one realizes how horrible this is yet for the innocent kids....

3/13/08: Story from grand-neice
I wish I had found this site five years ago, when I helped my Dad clean my great-uncle's house after the Board of Health threatened to condemn it...

3/13/08: Story from daughter
I come from a family of hoarders. My mother, her siblings and their mother are/were all compulsive hoarders. I grew up buried in stuff...

3/12/08: Story from a daughter
I spent every vacation (summer, spring break, winter break) from college in their house cleaning non-stop...

3/11/08: Story sent in by COH
Therapy is not the answer because they don't see that they are the problem. It's always "someone else's" mess. In the end it just turns out to be another mess I have to clean up. Clean up intervention does not work either, as we have done this at least 10 different times. They get panicky, depressed and angry...

3/6/08: Friend of hoarder looking for advice
There needs to be a serious intervention but how to do this without alienating her? There is more to the hoarding, such as compulsive eating, spending, shopping, lying, but being a guest in their home really limits me to being able to offer any help. I'm overstepping boundaries, I feel, even writing this. But I believe that they're going to be if not already are in, great financial danger. My father feels so helpless as she uses emotionalism, shaking, tears, silence to control. ..

3/4/08: daughter/house condemned
I want everyone to know the seriousness of this stuff. This is real-time first account experience and I am having a breakdown this very moment... but I need to tell you the truth. There is very little
light in my life right now, but I want to help someone else NOT go through this. ...

3/3/08:Daughter of hoarder/recovering hoarder
but please moms/dads think of your kids-what will they have to contend w/when you get seriously ill/or pass away? please, take a real honest look around-& i've told my kids hey, when i pass away just because i liked something or something meant something to me doesn't mean the same for them.

2/29/08: Story sent in by daughter from line of hoarders
I am compelled to tell this story because I need to pour it out. I cannot as of yet confront my mom and all the hurt she has caused so I will let it rush out here...

2/29/08: COH, now recovering hoarder
we went to a yard sale & he bought a vcr. the box was taped & the seller said it had never been used.well,this is how people lie-we got it home & he tried to play a tape-but couldn't because there was a tape already in it!! but what was on this "homemade" was unbelievable-i'd never seen
anything like it before in my whole life-it was like someone had went in a house & just dumped trash bags all throughout every room of the house !!!...

2/26/08:Story from a daughter with hoarding tendencies too
I was wondering if developing this problem yourself is common or am I the exception? If anyone knows comments would be greatly appreciated. I know what a normal house should look
like, I just don't know how to do it....

2/25/08: Story from Daughter: mom passed in '04, still sorting
It's now 2008 and I am 29 and still dealing with the property and her stuff.
I finally moved into a spacious apartment of my own, and it is crammed full of my stuff and her stuff that I've brought from storage to"sort out." I don't seem to have the energy to tackle it. It's a mix of good stuff and crap (like how we found her diamond engagement ring mixed in with rubber bands and old school papers in her water-damaged desk), so I can't bring myself to just shovel it all into trash bags...

2/21/08:Story from daughter/used cleaning company
I want to let Tracy know that I understand. My mother--a nurse--also died squalor, at the age of 61. Also like Tracy's mother, mine didn't have a working toilet. Her house was full of her own waste
and animal waste and rotten food--especially meat that she had ordered from TV shopping stations. She hadn't let anyone in for 16 years. ..

2/18/08: Story from COH & Former spouse of ...
After trying to fight the battle for and with her for 30 years, all I can say to younger children of hoarders is help yourself, help your children, and da*n-the-niceties in talking to your parents in getting them psychological help. In our case and from what I've read so far, it only gets worse as the years go by...

2/13/08: Story from a spouse of a COH
It angers me because now 'her' problem is spilling over into our life. She can hoard and live in chaos if she wants to, but I don't want her sickness to start affecting us. I want to be able to see what I have in my freezer and have easy access to it, now, because of her, my freezer is almost packed full...

***
I think it's my husbands place to tell his mother 'no' or 'enough' but so far he hasn't. He knows how I feel about it. Anybody else w/this problem?

2/6/08: Story from a daughter moving back home
I'm about to graduate from University and I am mortified at having to return to the home that I moved out of some 7 years ago. I left home with out going to school right away because having a job to support myself to not live in that house was more important than school.

Now after graduating, I will be forced to live at home while I look for a job. The house has only become messier, and my mother more depressed and angry. my father is apathetic. I stayed the night at the house for the fisrt time in 7 years in early December.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was so dirty and dusty that I developed a cough after
one night. My parents have no working shower, no drier, yet my father is a prominent doctor. My mother is in thearpy and on medication, but after being on it for years, no headway has been made. I often wonder if she is completely insane.

1/15/08: Story from a daughter
I am 37 and married with two daughters. My mother is a hoarder and has been since I was a small child. My husband has never been in my parent's house. My children have never had a sleep over at grandmas. My dad becomes more depressed and angry with each passing year.

As they are in their 60's now I am concerned about their health and safety. I just want things to be normal for them and us. How do I get help for my mother? Where do I begin? My dad just gets angry and doesn't pursue anything with my mom because of the arguements that start. Please help me to help my mother. Thanks.

1/13/08 Story sent in by daughter
I grew up always being congested, and I knew that his stacks of newspaper had everything to do with it since they collect dust immensely. My tiny room was cluttered with his information junk, and no matter how much I told him that I didn't want things that would cause my allergies and sinus
problems to break out in my room, he still wouldn't agree to take it out since there was no more room around the house...

1/9/08: Story from a daughter
But I put on a master farce, spending hours doing my hair and makeup before school. I was as perfectly normal as possible. Not normal at all. All the time covering the fear, what if they came over and saw? When my friends came to pick me up I always waited anxiously at the window, ready to run out to them before they could make it to my door...

1/8/08: Visit this blog by a COH living at hoarded home

1/3/08: Story from a stepson
The hot button for her leaving, was my father had arranged for the school psychologist to recommend some help for his sons depression, who I might add is a tragedy that can’t be told here and I am sure you understand why he has problems. My father has been left with brief contact with him and which always comes with a request to do something for her.

1/2/08:My mom's a hoarder.
I didn't know this was a disorder. Until I read a reader digest article. It set me thinking.

Right now, this is the situation. My family currenly has FOUR HOUSES filled with the things my mom kept. How does my mom get these things? She goes to the rubbish bins and
picks them. Anything. Boxes, plastic bags. now our four houses is costing us alot. And she's still at it.

I don't know what to do. I think I'll just let this continue. Because she can't be helped. Whatever I say, she'll hit me or scold me. Sometimes I wish she was dead and i could throw away all her things. I don't know whats wrong with her. I can't do anything, but it's nice to know I'm not alone.

12/31/07: Story from a daughter
They are both incredibly defensive and I don't know why this is so upsetting to me but it is. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to make the situation better?? It would really be nice to be able to enjoy visiting my parents...

12/29/07:Story from adult daughter, living in hoarded home
I tried to call social services once even. I tried to explain to them about the situation, but I was brushed off and told that my mother was "just a pack rat" like it was some kind of joke. It's no joke to have to get in and out of the house through some tiny little path of clear floor or to be in daily fear that the house will catch fire or to be sick from the dirt, the dust and the mold...

12/28/07: Story sent in by daughter
I'm filled with rage. I grew up hearing about how people who are adults shouldn't "blame their parents" for their mental issues. How they easily blamed their children for theirs.

It was my fault the dishes weren't done. It was my brother's fault the living room was cluttered. I went to school, made straight As, worked my way through college on my own dime, protected them from the prying eyes of strangers, projected a perfect shiny well balanced exterior, have my own home and career, am to all appearances a successful adult, and the thanks I get now? The real damage they inflicted on me with their junk and depression is conveniently not their fault, either...

12/13/07: Cleaning out this weekend
She is miraculously going away for the weekend, I am searching for help, strength, ideas, anything to assist me in getting everything out this weekend. I do not know what to do or where to begin. It is hard,too, because it is not my stuff. My email is ...

12/7/07: Story from daughter, 3 siblings still at home
I don't know if I feel sad or happy to find this website. I read these stories and it is as if I am reading a story of my own family...

12/6/07: Story from a daughter
I have been so depressed and angry that I had to take a leave of absence from work just to summon enough energy to go back up there next week - yet Mom is doing just fine, she has a more positive upbeat attitude than I have ever seen in the past - maybe because I am the Emotional Shock Absorber? ...

12/4/07: Story from one of 3 daughters
I love her, I always will. I try to figure out what God wants out of this relationship. I know to love unconditionally is the greatest gift of all, but every time I am at my mother's house
I feel resentment and pain...

11/24/07: Story from a 16 yr. old
My house used to be a comfortable place to come and relax in. I can't remember when this all started but I think it was around the 3rd Grade. My mother has filled this 4 bedroom, 2 story home into the most embarrasing thing on the street. Even the breezeway is filled with junk! She goes shopping and buys things she already has (in bulk might I add) and she brings them home and lays them around in their bags never to be even looked at again.

I'm 16 and I can't have friends over, andit's really damaging to my social life. It's so embarrasing to see the horrified look on my friend's faces when they pull up to my house. And the bus- that's a completely different story. To hear the kids mumble about why my house "looks so trashy". It's hard to not resent her for all of this. The junk stresses me out. But if i bring it up she gets angry and blames me for it, saying that I should help her clean. Is there anything I can do to make her realise she's tearing our relationship apart and hurting me?...

11/23/07: Story Sent In From a Daughter Living With Mother
I am at the point of no return. It's been twenty years since I've returned home to live with her after my divorce...

11/20/07: Story from daughter who took in brother
Thanks for hearing my story, and I just want you to know getting out of the hoarder's environment can make all the difference in the world. Although it's good to try to stick by someone with a difficult mental disorder to help them out, it's more important to take good care of yourself...

11/19/07: Daughter
I love my mom so much, yet I resent her very much at the same time...

11/18/07: No longer feels alone
I no longer feel alone in trying to deal with the legacy of growing up in a hoarder's home as a child and now trying to work out how to help as an adult when the situation has reached crisis point. Thanks!

11/16/07: Daughter
How do I survive the emotional abuse that goes along with the desparateness of hoarding? How do I know when it is time to walk away? How?...

11/14/07: Daughter
I can't believe there's an actual web-site about this. God bless you. Both my parents hoard. It's all I've known. I am 36 and have a husband and 3 kids. I don't hoard, I just have to deal with...

11/4/07: Story from one of 6 children
My father was a violent alcoholic. There were 6 children in the family. After he died her hoarding became even worse than ever.I never dated a boy more than once till I was a senior in high school because I was afraid to invite him in. When Mom died the house was knee-deep in garbage, no hot water, toilets inoperable. The city condemned the house and seemed to blame me because I was the only one who showed up at the housing hearing! I felt like saying "where were you**holes when 6 of us kids were growing up in this mess?"

11/1/07: Daughter
When I was about twelve my father found out. He requested and received emergency temporary custody and later relinquished it after my mother had cleaned her whole house.

10/28/07: Grandaughter
I have been carrying around years of guilt for not going over everyday to clean up. ..

10/28/07: Daughter
It is just frustrating. I mean they literally bought a whole other house for their junk...

10/28/7: Story Sent in from 17 yr. old daughter
My other sister doesn’t like to recognize the fact that my mother has an illness and so prefers to have a blind eye. My mother also likes to make me feel inadequate, often blaming my lack of help for the situation in which we live in no matter what I do to help. She will also use other lines to make me feel as if it my fault which makes me feel even worse.
Because my eldest sister refuses to except ...

10/22/07-Story sent in from last sibling living at home
Why doesn't she see what she's doing to herself and our family?

10/17/07-From a daughter
I definitely did not realize my mother was a hoarder until after I had gotten married...

10/16/07-Wife of a person that hoards
Hi, I have been married 31 years and I love my husband to bits but.....I love him, he is the most wonderful, kind, generous,loving man I could ever wish to have and I know he loves me in spite of his problem. He has been a good father to our children, a good son to his mother. I try to follow the Dalai Lama's philosophy of transferring my anger and frustration away from him and onto his behaviour. I hate his problem- not him...

10/10/07-Daughter, father hoards
I was shocked to see that my 74 year old father who was separated from my mother (for 7 years) was living as a hoarder in a total mess. My brother and I live thousands of miles away and we no idea things were this bad. ..

10/11/07-Daughter in Richmond, VA
I cannot believe this website actually exists. I didn't think the problem of hoarding was so prevalent. I didn't even know what it was until recently and I'd been living with it all my life.

9/19/07-Daughter, mother deceased
My mother passed away in Aug. She had been hospitalized since the end of May. I hadn't been in her house in years. It was two weeks after her death that I got the nerve to go in and look for a will. The first shock of what I saw will stay with me forever. I'm trying to understand how and why this happened. I was left as my mom's estate and have just wanted to cry over the task before me.

9/24/2007-Daughter, mother fills car...
I've been reading about other people that hoard, and that their homes are a disaster, but has anyone else witnessed a loved one's car in the same shape?...

9/15/2007-Daughter & only child of hoarding father
Story sent in from a daughter, an only child, who cleaned hoarded house alone and now owns & lives there with father.

9/14, 2007-daughter, grandaughter, neice, co-sufferer
I wish so much that it will not happen to me- the eventual "sealing myself in" with my own garbage. Help.

9/9/07: Daughter
Oh how I wish I could help her. I want so badly to break her out of this emotional prison which causes her to do this. This is a disease -and such a mysterious one, where a cure or treatments are just unknown...

9/7/07: Daughter
I actually moved 6 away from my mother because I can't deal with her OCD/hoarding lifestyle. I know I have tendancies but nothing like her...

9/7/07: Daughter
My mother WILL NOT discuss the situation or any of her problems and has refused to get professional help! I feel very guilty because I am the daughter and feel like I should be able to figure-out some way to help the situation. At this time we are not seeing each other at all...

9/7/07: Daughter
It's even more difficult because I am adopted (as is my brother), and I found my birthmom a few years ago. We are very close. I know now what it is like to have a normal relationship, something I can't have with my adopted mom...

9/7/07: Daughter
She took some but I was left to clean the rest up. It took us for ever to go through and get rid of it. She had filled everyroom...

8/31/07: Husband
Fast forward to about 10 years. I met and fell in love with this wonderful women and her wonderful family, but at the time I didn't realize the problem they all seem to share at different levels... hoarding...

8/29/07: From a former husband, now friend
There was not much I could do to help out, since she needed complete control over the process and my interfering ended in fights, however tactfull I would try to be. So I too, had to learn to let go...

8/28/07: Daughter
I've almost come to terms, after losing my dad to a long fight with cancer and a brother to suicide, that there are worse things than her messy, cluttered home. But it is extremely shameful...

8/28/07: Daughter
I am now the problem. I am in my 40s and am bringing up my children in the same squalor...

8/24/07: Daughter
Through our intervention, Mom, Dad, and little sister have been forced to work with Social Workers on top of numerous Counselors and Therapists for the past 13 months...People laugh when I try to explain that Mom is an obsessive compulsive hoarder. Though they forced Mom to clean up part of the clutter-NOT ALL OF IT-they refuse to call her on the carpet in regards to the psychological damage that lingers. They refuse to address what caused the sick secrecy to escalate further carry on for 20 years...

8/20/07: Daughter
i have a life of my own, a family of my own and dreams of my own that will be relagated to the sidelines so i can take care of her. it is not fair and it makes me so angry. then i feel guilty for feeling angry at her...

8/17/07: Daughter
So now I feel I am the one with the problem though I know fully well that I am not. It drives me crazy because I know this is affecting her quality of life...

8/14/07: Daughter
Late one night she was found passed out when the paramedics came they had to carry her out on a board to the ambulance they where not able to bring anything else in to pick her up. I know my story is no different from other children of hoarders. I could go on and on. I just can't understand this and have tried...

8/12/07: Child of hoarding father
My father was a hoarder. Had to save everything as maybe will need it tomorrow. He grew up very poor and I figured that is why he literaly had pathways thru his house in later years.

8/11/07: Daughter
The move was a disaster! My mom couldn't handle the thought of loosing her things. She became depressed and isolated. About 3 weeks ago she tried to kill herself by overdosing on Tylenole. We were so relieved that she was OK, but now we are stuck again, what do we do now?...

8/10/07: Daughter
Finally she kicked me out of the house at sixteen when I refused to clean up some sort of mess. She yelled and screamed and slapped me. My siblings stood and watched in fear. ..

8/10/07: Daughter
She collects, for the most part, very useless junk. I think 99.99% of what she hoards is 100% recyclable. I understand to keep old nice clothes in which you may need 'when you lose weight', but most of her junk is recyclable paper. I really resent the fact that if she dies, I have to clean up all this stored mess...

8/7/07: Daughter
I've been living this life for so long, yet got a chance to get out by going away to school. Now that I've returned, I know she can't fix this alone and its not all her fault...

8/6/07: Daughter
When I was young, my mother would blame the house being such a disaster on my sisters and me. Somehow, no matter how much we tried to keep our shared room clean and tidy, we were faulted for the clutter and mess throughout the house. It wasn't until after we all moved out that the sickness both of my parents are suffering was so evident...

8/4/07: Daughter
And I'll always know that the hoarding connection, between Mom and my sister, played a huge part in my entire family falling apart in one fell swoop...

8/3/07: Daughter
The only way to escape a childhood of hoarders is too provide your children with the stability that you never had, to seek emotional support (even if counseling is needed) and to...

8/1/07: Daughter
The burden of a hoarder parent is so heavy... the guilt tremendous. May it be God's will I die first. It's the only hope I have to be free. (end of submission)

8/1/07: Daughter
People laugh at me and tell me not to worry when I go into my long list of apologies for my house being a "mess". I don't know if I will ever let that worry go and just feel proud to own a home and welcome anyone into it whenever they feel the urge to stop in...

7/27/07: Daughter
He was not convicted because the defense attorney showed pictures of my mothers house and they saw the clutter and they let him off even though he attacked another woman...

7/22/07: Daughter
I want to be able to share my parents amazing personalities with my children, but without having my mother get her stuff in order, I don't know if that will ever be possible...

7/3/07: Daughter
My mother is an attractive, intelligent and talented woman who is well regarded in our town -almost no one has any clue as to the state of her house, she is clean, well groomed and has always presented a glamorous appearance. No one who met her would imagine in a million years why she never invites anyone into her house...

7/16/07: Daughter-in-Law
My nearly 20 year old children have NEVER been to their grandparent's home. I've heard every excuse in the book...this spring, I just "showed up" at the farm with two of my teenagers in two. Grandpa wouldn't let us in. ..

7/16/07: Son
I essentially escaped the mental and emotional problems that my sister didn't escape except for one thing: I became a hoarder myself...

7/18/07: Daughter
I had a great childhood. On the surface.The stuff she owns now owns her....

7/19/07: Daughter
It had been almost 2 weeks to the day that I buried my Mom when I received my August 2007 issue of Marie Claire Magazine. As I browsed through it I came upon some startling photos and A Caption "I Grew UP In This MESS" When I began reading the article, my tears began and...

6/24/07: Child
My husband thinks we should just go try to fix it; he thinks that going over and cleaning up would give her such a lift that she'd suddenly start living like a normal person. He can't understand that this is just the way she is and he can't fix her...

6/24/07: Daughter
Now, like many of the others mentioned here, she sleeps on the couch and every square inch of the house is covered...

6/01/07: Daughter
My mother is a hoarder. She often goes through the trash to make sure my sister or I haven't thrown anything 'valuable' out. She doesn't completely trust me or my middle sister because of past 'incidents' where we 'disrespected' her house...

5/26/07: Child
The MESS the STUFF it makes me tired. I just stare at hoplessness and want to wish it all away...

5/19/07: Daughter
My dad blames the mess on "us kids" even though we have NOTHING in the house, and haven't for 7 years. He has taken over all of our former rooms with his mess...

5/19/07: Son
By the time it was over, we had filled two fifty-eight (yes 58) yard dumpsters, and hauled numerous truckloads to the recycling yard also. In addition we had a roaring bonfire ...

5/18/07: Daughter
Growing up she had massive food control issues ...

4/29/07: Only Child
Another, more complicated reason that I refuse to move out is that I know that if I leave, the ENTIRE house will be filled with wall-to-wall (and perhaps floor-to-ceiling) clutter. Besides being a hoarder (though she swears she isn't one. but she is quite good at noticing and
commenting on the junk and clutter that other hoarders amass), my mom also suffers from Paranoid Personality Disorder...

4/16/07: Son
I finally decided it was a problem when I found out from my brother that dad was stockpiling used toothpaste tubes. Then I read the R. Digest article and said to myself "That is my father". ...

4/14/07: Daughter
My father is a hoarder. His father is what one might call a harmless "packrat", grew up during the Great Depression and doesn't like to throw things out if they can be useful. My father is living in a great depression of his own...

4/14/07: Daughter
when the doorbell rings or someone knocks on the door, my heart jumps. i instinctively look around in a panic to see what i should be ashamed of-- i don't let people inside; i fear them having seen the inside my house. when i go outside or leave the house, i feel inappropriate amounts of shame, as if people know my "secret" and as if i'm hiding something terrible. the irony is, however, that my home is clean, bright and drama free. i'm wrestling with the ghosts of my childhood.

4/10/07: Spouse
Their families love them, just as our family loved our husband and father. We wonder, compensate, enable and try to throw things away when they aren’t looking. We take our trash elsewhere so it can’t be “edited.” We withdraw, quit inviting, quit visiting. But he can’t stop and won’t stop and that’s what a compulsion is. If you stop, you’ll die...

3/07/07: Son
I am 42 now. When I was about in ninth (?) grade it began to dawn on me that something was wrong...

4/06/07: Daughter
When Mom was eventually removed from the house, a hearing was set up and she now has a court appointed guardian and conservator and is living ...

Voices of Sons:
1. "Stuff," by Tyler Gore. Here.
2. One minute online videos by HOardersOn The Hallway / The Nest
3. My sister is still living in it. Here.
4. Progress!!
5. It's horrible that the Hoarder had to live this way. But now who gets to clean it up? From a nephew.

3/31/07: Daughter
6 years ago mother had a heart attack and I brought her home to stay with me while she recovered since she had a plumbing leak and was turning her water on and off at the meter. That and the house was dirty. She's still here. She won't leave. Can't, because her house is not habitable. ...

3/31/07: Daughter
My sister is my mother’s coconspirator in hording, she bought a home across the street from our mother and my mother moved in with her, further abandoning her home and allowing the pipes to burst this past winter. I am digging it out, once again with no help,...

3/28/07: Daughter
I look at the pictures of the hoarding and I can feel the pain and guilt. I did NOT take pictures...it hurt too much the way my parents were living (If you could call it living). Worse than what I've seen posted here. An only child,...

3/28/07: Daughter
I feel panic rise within me at any mess. I feel like I am constantly cleaning the bathroom and sweeping or vaccumming. Im glad for it but hate it at the same time...

3/21/07: Daughter
Another note of hope is that hoarding doesn't necessarily pass to us, the children. My brother and I are anti-hoarders. I LOVE to throw things out, because it makes me feel so... free. I just feel so sad when I think of my child-self, living in that mess and feeling so embarrassed and fearful all the time. Children should NOT have to endure an upbringing like that. I sort of feel like I want to give my children the clean, comfortable home that I never had ...

3/20/07: Daughter
I know she is hurting. I know she is lost and needs help. Since I am the "mouthy difficult one" this was something I tried to talk to her about...

3/7/07: Daughter
Daughter-cleaned out hoarded house, built mother new, currently not speaking with mother...

3/03/07: Daughter
I am 51 years old, and live next door to my mother...At what point does a family intervene? I get upset every time I go inside her house. I don't understand how she can live in all the trash, clothes, food scraps, junk, ect. How is that OK with her? ...

3/02/07: Grandaughter
When I saw the article in Reader's Digest last month, I knew immediately that this is where I belonged. The moment I logged on to the home page, it was like looking back into my own past. You see, I was raised in a home with not just one hoarder, but two. ..

2/23/07: Son
I am not alone!

2/18/07: Only Child
I share a lot of traits with everyone who has posted. It helped me to read the stories...

2/12/07: Daughter
This website is a Godsend! It's encouraging, but so sad, to find out so many others are dealing with these issues. I'm now in my 30s with a husband and home of my own, but my childhood experience is still an integral part of who I am. My mom is a hoarder,...

2/10/07: Daughter
I vow that I will not burden my children with having to deal with this horrible clutter. My parents are ashamed of the state of their home yet will not permit anyone to remove the clutter...

11/30/06: Daughter
But as someone else wrote on this website, she is not just a hoarder. She is my mother. I love her, and I grieve that she has suffered with this condition for years.

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