my dad has died now and i had to clear the house with my
sisters. it took 9 skips...

Are there
other family members ostracized from the clan out there? How do you deal
with the lose of one parent thru death and the other thru her petty
grudges...

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...

Eventually, she even started hoarding houses...

  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...

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted on Tuesday,
April 29th, 2008 at 08:25 AM.
Relationship : Parent
Source : Dr. Phil
Message :

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, a
grad student, and I've been cleaning up after my mom since I could walk.
Furthermore, she hasn't held a job for more than 6 months--my sister
and I are her only means of support. I know she needs me, but I feel like
I've never really had a chance to be ME.

I've never felt like a kid, or a young adult. It's like I'm raising my
mother. I can't relate to any of my peers, and I don't think I'll ever
connect with anyone. Frankly, I don't want to anymore...I'd just love a
quiet, spare, place to myself.

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...

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...

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. ..

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...

 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.

Does anyone have any
ideas?...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

It's easy for the world to judge, since they're not the ones who love
these people...

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...

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. ..

Message : 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...

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...

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....

I spent every vacation (summer, spring break, winter break) from
college in their house cleaning non-stop...

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...

I come from a family of hoarders.  My mother, her siblings
and their mother are/were all compusive hoarders.  I grew up buried in
stuff...