Eventually, she even started hoarding houses...

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted on
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 12:42 AM.


Relationship : Daughter
Source : My sister saw it on Dr. Phil
Message : My mother is a classic genetically inherited hoarder.  My
father is a classic enabler.  He made lots of money which continues to
fuel her illness and has ALWAYS instructed us girls to just appease her.
  Her mother/father (don't know which one, maybe both) hoarded everything
and at least 3 out of her 4 siblings also hoard.  Along with her
hoarding, she is plauged by a need for perfection which (of course) she
never acheives.  THis has lead to severe depression and, at times suicidal
tendencies.  She was verbally and ocassionally physically abusive.  My
father traveled frequently and was usually never home... thus, never
having to deal with any of the issues.

My mother, who was born just barely post-depression and dirt poor
hoards absolutely everything.  Salad trays from fast food restaurants number
in the thousands.  She sorts everthing for recycle, but NEVER
recycles.  For years, she subscribed to the paper, but never once read it...
they all ended up in piles.  Curtains, clothes, knick-knacks, plastic
strawberry trays, butter tubs, stuffed animals, all our old toys, toys
from yard sales, plastic bags (to this day I have issues w/ the sound of
plastic bags) bills, pay stubs, broken crayons, house plants, old
carpet, and even hermit crabs (yeah, I know that's a weird one).  She's also
paranoid that someone will steal her information or is spying on her so
she keeps all her old perscription bottles, address labels, upc codes
from everything and whatever else she deems sensitive information...

Eventually, she even started hoarding houses...

My sister said it started with a room in the first house she remembers.
  It was off-limits and everything always just got piled in there.
  Upon moving, the stuff moved with them into the first house that I
remember... let's call that House #1.  After 7 years of living there and
addind to her "treasure", the garage, basement and one bedroom of House #1
were unusable with clutter.  The attic was also packed... We moved
closer to my dad's job.  The decision was made to keep House #1 as a
vacation home (it was on a lake), so much of the furniture and packed unusable
spaces remained.

House #2 was MUCH larger... I'm estimating it was about 6500 sq. ft.
  Immediately, the unfinished basement became the dumping ground.
  Eventually, it filled up. The clutter moved to the garage, the master bedroom,
the guest bedroom... eventually, it spilled into the general living
areas.  Most of the kitchen was unusable.  12"W pathways meandered
through the house. This was the house where my sister and I spent our
formidable years... we RARELY had friends over.  We each had an approved
friend that kinda knew the family's secret and they occassionally were able
to come over to play.  Once my sister left for college and left me
alone with Mother, my sister's room also was taken over as storage and my
mother fell into deeper depression. Suicide was threatened often and my
biggest fear was to have my father overseas and me come home to find my
mother's brain matter all over all that stuff.  By that point, I
didn't even care if she killed herself... I just cared about the mess I
would have to deal with.  Then her father died and I moved out during
college and the depression and hoarding of course became worse. 

One day, they picked up and moved across town leaving House #2 exactly
the way it was.  Somehow, they extracted important pieces of furniture
from House #2 and bought some new furniture and moved into House #3.
  Oh, moved without telling anyone until we came home for Christmas...
VERY strange!!!  Almost two years later, my dad figured out the tax
implications of having House #2 sitting empty, and "SOLD" it to my sister and
her family.  Somehow, mother and daddy managed to shove all of their
stuff into the basements of House #2 and House #3.  My sister occupied
the house with the intentions of selling in two years.  For 1 year and
10 months, my parents did basically NOTHING about cleaning out the
basement of House #2.  My sister finally got an offer and set a closing date
and everything kicked into overdrive.  My Mother wouldn't allow anyone
to help her.  At this point, she has arthritis and doing any strenuous
activities is taxing.  Multiple anxiety attacks ensue, but still will
not allow anyone to help.  She and Daddy carted truckload by truckload
over to House #3 and piled everything where they could.  Eventually,
the house filled up and they put a storage shed out in the woods.  It
filled up.  Then they rented a storage building, and another, and (I
think) one more.  The night before my sister's closing to sell the house,
she and her husband stayed up the entire night finishing what my parents
had not... they rented the biggest UHAUL they could find and packed it
to the ceiling.  My mother was absolutely FURIOUS that they touched her
stuff.

Despite watching the above paragraph unfold, I decided to buy House #1
from my parents.  I thought I could do a quick renovation and turn a
nice profit.  I have now owned it for 2 years and have told my parents to
get their stuff out from the beginning.  Really, not too much was left
up there.  It would have taken my husband and I the better part of a
day and a 30 yard dumpster, but we could've cleaned it out.  But, my
mother doesn't want her stuff touched by anyone else despite the fact that
she hasn't needed it in 30 years.  We just (last weekend) spent the
weekend pulling out carpet, throwing away old blinds, and taking down
wall paper.  My mother thinks we are wasteful and doesn't understand why
we are throwing away a recliner with broken springs and a rat
infestation.  She thinks that we should've saved the carpet to give to her
sister. We thought the only thing my mother had left up there was a little
bit of stuff in the garage.  But, then we opened that attic.  40 boxes of
canning jars, baby food jars, magazine subscriptions from 1960-1977,
bank stubs from her first job in 1958, rolls of newspapers, textbooks
and notes from college... TONS of rat poop and silverfish.  Despite all
that, she wants it all.  Depite the silverfish that eat paper... she
wants to take it all back to her house.  I can also see her attempting to
pick through the construction dumpster we have onsite...

Meanwhile, House #3 is a total disaster.  It's 7,000 Sq. Ft has
pathways through it.  The dining and the breakfast room, den, kitchen,
sunroom, 4-car garage, basement, workout room, one of the staircases, 4
bedrooms and 3 bathrooms are all unusable.  My father has been diagnosed with
a terminal illness and she's worried about his friends that want to
come visit him seeing the house or paramedics seeing the mess.  Daddy had
a screened in porch built so that he could enjoy outdoors without
being in the heat... she promptly junked that up too.  My husband is not
allowed in their house.  I'm not really allowed in certain areas of their
home.  I've tried to visit, but there's no place to sit comfortably.
  My sister and I are worried about daddy's welfare, but there's nothing
we can do.  She won't let us.  We have tried many times.  We've even
considered calling the county.  She's also started hoarding food and
trash.  She constantly reminds my sister and me that we are wastefull
because we throw stuff away.

We love her, but we absolutely hate her.  We tend to see Daddy as a
victim, but he's just as responsible.  We long for normal parents where we
can pop in for a visit or come over for dinner.  But we see no way of
this ever happening.  We don't know what to do.